You know, I'm sort of frustrated that all the recent entries in the Alien franchise have been nostalgia bait. At this point I've seen those corridors so often I'm tired of them. A most unwelcome dilution.
I'm a fan of the franchise but the fan service in the last movie was lame, it took me out of the movie a couple of times. And that's the reason why I resist to watch the series, afraid of more of the same stupid winks to the fans.
I always loved how the Nostoromo looked futuristic, yet cramped and dirty. The narrow halls and small rooms reflect the minimalism you would expect from a greedy corporation that considers its crew expendable, while the clutter and disrepair reflect what you would expect from the apathetic, disgruntled employees.
I'd say it's not only the greedy corporations but maybe technical challenges. Compare with clutter on ISS or in earlier spacecrafts - also claustrophobic, narrow and packed with equipment.
With all the back and forth over the props, also with Ridley Scott scrapping loads of spaceship footage in order to reshoot everything after repainting the models, I get the impression that communication was quite bad in the production. I'm sure we've all encountered this in industry to some degree but having months of work tossed because it ain't look right must sting somewhat.
Tangential: Alien(s) brought H.R. Giger to my attention, for which I shall ever be thankful. My parents visited Gruyères in Switzerland a couple of years ago, and whilst they didn't tour the museum[0] (his art isn't their thing) they did take a couple of photos of the sculptures outside for me.
What has always bothered me about this "interstellar mining" plot device (which is not only used in Alien, but also in e.g. Avatar): is it really somehow plausible to find minerals in other solar systems that can't be found much cheaper in our own solar system? Of course, you need some kind of McGuffin to justify your heroes going to other planets, but "to seek out new life and new civilizations" is much better IMHO than "just looking for substance XYZ that for some reason can't be found in our own solar system or synthesized much cheaper than the cost of ferrying it over several light years"...
For those interested Deep Purple apparently originated the term "Space Truckin'" with their identically-titled song [1]. I'd be astounded if there weren't a copy of "Made in Japan" lying around somebody's apartment when they made "Aliens".
I'm happy to see they talk about Chris Foss. I saw an exhibition of him in Guernsey last year. Alhtough it's a bit dated, it's really nice to see his vision for Dune...
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 41.1 ms ] threadhttps://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120199/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDsSDNpS8c&lc=UgyEogAS5P_Hm...
Double coincidence: it was I who posted this ten years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9254748
I'll get there one day.
[0]: https://www.hrgigermuseum.com/en/
Does anyone know why Americans do this regularly, swapping i and e especially in words of German origin?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wv1ij7KxWc
There are a few more out there if you want to thumb-through the deal thing