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A podcast that holds horror to standards horror never agreed to. Hosts Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, Emily Martin and guests watch, read, listen to, and check out movies, tv shows, comics, books, art and anything else from the horror genre and discuss it through a progressive lens. We'll talk feminism in horror, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in horror, racial and social justice in horror, disability and mental health/illness in horror, and the work of female and POC directors, writers, and creators in horror.
We're the podcast horror never agreed to take part in.
Jeremy: Good evening, and welcome to
Progressively Horrified, the podcast
where we hold horror to progressive
standards it never agreed to.
Tonight, we're talking about the
movie that is the most recent entry
in the Alien franchise at the moment.
There's another one coming, but a
movie that we've praised for its
fast bender on fast bender action.
We could only possibly be
talking about Alien Covenant.
I'm your host tonight, Jeremy
Whitley, and with me, I have a
panel of cinephiles and cenobites.
Whitley, Fierce, they're here to
challenge the sexy werewolf, sexy
vampire, binary, my co host, Ben Kahn.
Ben, how are you tonight?
Ben: what I wouldn't give for a
real Danny McBride alien film.
fuckin Righteous Gemstones, like,
eastbound and down alien movie.
Jeremy: that would be
Ben: Star starring Walton Goggins.
Jeremy: Walton Goggins and
Danny McBride fighting aliens.
I'm here for it.
And the cinnamon roll of Cenobites,
our co host, Emily Martin.
How are you tonight, Emily?
Emily: I was waiting for Masterchef to
show up to fight the Covenant aliens.
But sadly, he's not present, unless
you're counting David Michael Fassbender.
Jeremy: There's so many
levels to this joke,
Emily: yeah, there's a lot of,
Jeremy: The movie is
called Alien Covenant.
The aliens from Halo
are called the Covenant.
They fight Master Chief, which Emily
is mispronouncing as Master Chef,
Ben: Okay,
Jeremy: is a
Ben: where I was getting
Jeremy: where people do intense chef work
Emily: Oh, I didn't know
there was a show name.
Jeremy: in okay.
Ben: I think it was the master I think
it was turning Master Chief into Master
Chef that made it one joke, the level, the
joke one level more than I could follow
Emily: That's me, baby.
Just one level too many.
Just like this movie.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Ben: Did it?
Cause I, I feel like this is another
alien movie that has both too many
themes and also kind of no themes
Jeremy: want to say,
Before we introduce our guest,
Ben: CREATION Yeah,
Jeremy: we introduce, I guess I
had talked about the fact that
this was the alien movie I hadn't
seen before we talked about it.
And I have to say now, having
seen it, that this is the
turbocharged prelude to Too Fast,
Too Furious of the Alien franchise.
Like, completely unnecessary,
connects the other thing and this
thing, and you're just like, at
the end of it you're like, Oh.
Okay.
Is
that it?
Okay,
Emily: Oh, okay.
Cool.
Ben: of how I felt watching it
was like it's a better movie than
Prometheus But it doesn't, it's not
nearly as like dumb fun as Prometheus.
Jeremy: it's an
alien movie, which
like, Prometheus is not.
Prometheus works very hard to not
be a movie that features the title
characters of the series alien,
but builds itself as
an alien movie anyway,
and our guest tonight, writer of the old
world book series and nightshade trilogy,
and the author of the upcoming comic
series, Archaic from Ahoy, Melissa F.
So Olsen, try that again.
Melissa F.
Olson.
Melissa, welcome to the show!
Melissa: Thank you so much for having me.
I've been studying by listening to a
whole bunch of your previous podcasts.
I have some thoughts about
Emily: About our podcast
or about the movie?
Melissa: your podcast,
but it would be a joke.
Emily: sounds good.
Ben: break it down right now.
This is the episode
now.
Emily: yeah.
Melissa: this movie.
I will.
I have to say though,
that your episode on,
uh,
Ben: glutton for self improvement.
Let's do it.
Melissa: Oh wow.
Okay.
Don't give me that kind of power.
The psychiatric hospital.
Go, uh, go.
Jeremy: Oh, Gojjam.
Melissa: Yes, thank you.
Go jump.
I started listening to that in
the car wIth my partner, who's not
really a horror movie guy, and about
20 minutes in he's like, could we
stop this so we can watch the movie
and then we'll listen to the rest.
So you, you actually sold, like somebody
owes you money at Amazon Prime, because we
watched it together and he giggled through
the whole thing, which is what he does
when he's absolutely terrified of a movie.
He giggles.
Ben: I love that.
Melissa: it's so cute.
Ben: Y'all, we're spreading
fears out in the world.
That's so
good.
Melissa: Like
Emily: staying horrified.
Melissa: Yeah.
Jeremy: Love
giving people something
new to be afraid of here.
Emily: Yeah.
Something abstract to be afraid of.
Ha ha ha ha.
Ben: I'm also afraid of YouTube channels.
Jeremy: Melissa, can you tell us
a little bit about, uh, Archaic?
Melissa: Yeah, uh, so Archaic is
a upcoming comic book from Ahoy!
That's the first issue is out in December.
It's actually my very first comic book.
I've been a novelist for a long time
and I'm moving into comics and this
one is about a island that functions
as the game preserve for the gods
and monsters of dead cultures.
So
in the first five issues, we deal with
a lot of like ancient Mesopotamian
monsters and the goddess of death.
So yeah, I got to write like the
feelings of Ereshkigal, goddess of death
in Mesopotamia and a perfectly normal
family that goes and lives on her island.
Emily: Nice.
Jeremy: Well, that sounds
Emily: So, where does chaos
theory come into that?
Melissa: So I'm, I'm a huge
Jurassic Park is my favorite movie.
And this is definitely like the kind
of pitch when I was trying to sell it
was Jurassic Park meets Lock and Key,
because
Ben: I love that.
Now
Melissa: yeah, I'm a sucker for that.
Like, you know, I really grew up on
Spielberg.
Ben: a, now that's a
fucking comp right there.
Emily: Yeah.
Melissa: I really grew up on the,
like, PG 13 action adventure movie.
And there's not a ton of that in comics.
It tends to be either really,
really adult or for all ages.
So when I was pitching this, my
friend Paul Cornell, the comics
writer, was kind of mentoring me
and helping me figure things out.
And I was
Ben: Friend of the show.
Check out our episode
Melissa: yes, I know you
did an episode with Paul.
Yes.
Uh, that's why I dropped his name.
Not because he's so much more interesting
and successful than me or anything.
Uh, no he was like, I was
like, I want it to be PG 13.
And he's like, we don't really do that.
which so, like, as comics, which,
you know, I'd read a bunch of,
like, Hellblazer, which was, like,
a hard
NC
Ben: Oh
Emily: yeah.
yeah.
Melissa: And I just wanted something
that, like, my 11 year old and 13 year
old could read, and also my parents, who
really don't care for my books overall.
Don't worry, they won't listen to this.
We're okay.
Ben: No, that, that's a
fucking mood right there.
Jeremy: Sorry, none of our
parents listen to it either.
So,
Melissa: Oh, they, I mean, they,
Emily: far.
Melissa: my books are a little too,
like, my novels have a few too many
vampires for my parents to stay.
Like, you know, they read the first,
they're readers, but like, you know,
they buy just everything that James
Patterson has ever done, which I shouldn't
say it that way because I don't think
James Patterson does a lot anymore.
I think he like, gives people his
name, and they put it on a book cover,
and then someone else writes it.
But if his name is on something, my
parents will buy it.
So, you know, they wrote a few of mine to
Ben: my, my mom read my novel, but
I think comics is just, the medium
of comics is still a bridge too far,
Melissa: Yeah, I get that.
Ben: okay, I get it.
Not everyone's a comics reader.
Jeremy: yeah,
I, mean, I I grew up on comics
because of my dad, but the idea of
podcasts is a bridge too far for him.
Like,
Melissa: Oh yeah, there's
Jeremy: he has to download onto his
Ben: Oh, I would rather fucking
self immolate than know that
my parents have, like, listened
to every episode of this show.
Melissa: Oh,
Ben, I'm so excited that you
crossed the fuck threshold first,
because I thought it was gonna be
Ben: Oh, no, we, we swear, we
this, we swear on this show.
Emily: Yeah, the most recent episode
that came out last Friday, the one on
um, what was it, Lisa Frankenstein?
I did drop the c word.
in reference to what is served
by one of the dead boy detectives
on the show, on Netflix.
Ben: he does serve, though!
Oh,
Emily: yeah,
Jeremy: so let's, let's talk
about this wild ass movie.
Uh, Ben's got the recap.
I'm going to do the
credits real quick here.
Uh, it is directed by
Ridley Scott, the OG.
It is.
The writing credits are something on
this because you've got Dan O'Bannon and
Ronald Chessett who wrote the original
Alien that this is vaguely based on I am
sure they did not come up with a lot of
the backstory that's in this, the story
is by Jack Pagin and Michael Green, and
then you have screenplay by John Logan
and Dante Harper For those counting,
that's four people credited as writing,
plus I'm sure Ridley Scott had some some,
Melissa: So much!
Jeremy: information injected
into this, because it
feels So late period Ridley Scott.
Emily: yeah.
Ben: boy, does it.
Jeremy: and
Emily: about master chefs,
and too many of them.
Jeremy: this movie stars Catherine
Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny
McBride, wildly Damian Bashir, Carmen
Dejogo, Jesse Smollett, Michael
Fassbender, and Michael Fassbender.
Ben: surprisingly
restrained Danny McBride.
Melissa: I was gonna say, in my small
amount of great things that I love about
this movie, on that very short list, only
time I've ever really liked Danny McBride.
Love him in this.
No, no notes for Danny McBride.
Ben: Oh, he's very good.
Melissa: Yeah, he's great.
Jeremy: there is no room for
him to eat the scenery with
Michael Fassbender around.
Melissa: Oh my god,
no notes for Danny McBride felt
so weird in my mouth just now.
Jeremy: Yeah,
Ben: is why we never really got a scene
of McBride and Fassbender together.
Melissa: That is, you're right!
Oh my gosh, put that on
the list of problems.
Jeremy: I don't think
Ben: Of which this movie has quite a few.
Emily: I Listen.
A Fassbender would have eaten him.
That's the thing,
Melissa: Or made out with him, like,
two other characters, two, three other
characters in this movie for no reason.
Emily: Who
else made
Ben: programmed, he was programmed to kiss
Melissa: He
kisses Walter and he kisses, uh, the main
Ben: Daniels.
Melissa: Daniels.
Yeah.
I mean,
Ben: I really feel like
David is the main character.
Emily: David is the main character that
Ben: Daniels is the woman
who's right, which you have to
always have in an alien movie.
Emily: I know who
Ben: But this is David's fucking story.
Emily: But
Melissa: I actually think David is
simply in a completely different movie.
Emily: Absolutely.
Ben: okay, yeah, that's fair.
Jeremy: I mean, it's Prometheus.
That's the movie he's in.
Ben: Yeah,
Emily: Okay.
Melissa: It is, it is.
Ben: he's definitely in
the Prometheus sequel.
Melissa: just know the studio sat Ridley
Scott down and was like, Look, you
had your little wank film, and no one
liked it, and we definitely missed the
xenomorphs, the actual fuckin aliens.
So we're gonna make you put the
word alien back, and we want you
to make a fuckin alien movie.
And he's like, okay, fine, but I'm
also going to make the sequel to
Prometheus at the same time, and
it won't fit, and it'll be great.
And that's what happened.
Jeremy: I have to admit,
like,
Emily: the way,
God.
Jeremy: I referred to this as the, uh,
turbocharged prequel to too fast, too
furious of this series, because if you
haven't seen it, there's a five minute
prequel to the second fast in the furious
movie that doesn't need to be there.
And just explains how Brian gets
from one coast to the other.
And this
Ben: It's so dumb!
Jeremy: this is just like, Oh
yeah, we left this at Prometheus.
It doesn't make sense to go
straight to alien, we guess.
Because Prometheus doesn't
make any fucking sense, period.
Ben: No, it sure fucking
Jeremy: let's let's make a story that
explains how David goes from having
turned a corner to being kind of a
good guy at the end of the first movie
and, you know, caring for a person to
Emily: Just
Jeremy: I don't know,
however, we get to xenomorph.
Melissa: he's a serial killer.
This is a serial killer movie and
David is the serial killer And
this is just about him being it's
this is seven with like weird sets
Weirder
Emily: kind of, yeah.
Yeah,
Yeah,
Melissa: He's in a different movie
Jeremy: I
Emily: I feel like he's a bit
more Hannibal because he's
got those weird drawings.
Ben: got real Hannibal energy going
Emily: Yeah,
Melissa: big Hannibal energy.
Ben: with his like, art, with his like,
his passion for, you know, cooking,
making weird aliens as his cooking.
Emily: and blowing whistles.
Melissa: The thing is so many of his
lines You know, just from a writing
perspective, just as a writer,
when you write someone's line, a line
for a character, it is normally in
response to a thing that happened,
or a thing that they're thinking,
or the thing that someone else said.
David just says stuff that doesn't
have anything to do with anything
else, and then all the other
characters in the scene just kind of
like nod, and they're like, yes, of
Ben: It's so funny,
so much of this movie is David being
the most red flag motherfucker,
and these people just being
like, well this seems fine.
It's funny.
Emily: David is absolutely
a Gen X cosplayer.
Like, he is, he is there, he
is running his own fucking,
Jeremy: white wolf campaign.
Emily: white wolf campaign with
him at the center, and he's like,
by the way, I made these, I made
these aliens for your father.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, Hideo
Ben: me!
Or he's
Melissa: my favorite David moment in
this movie has gotta be when he is
arranged for Orym, the captain, the
interim captain, to be attacked by a
facehugger because Orym just was like,
yeah, I trust you, guy that's definitely
been creepy for the last two days.
Ben: at his
job!
Melissa: then David squats over him in
his Capri leggings and bare feet and
Orem opens his eyes and goes, Walter?
And David's like, not quite.
And then naturally the very next
thing that the captain says is,
what do you believe in, David?
And David goes, Creation, which is a
super normal exchange for anyone who's
just been attacked and impregnated
by an alien scorpion monster.
Emily: is like, oh yes,
I'm gonna write this
one down.
Ben: Mike, can I tell
you my favorite detail of
Emily: my shit right
Ben: That's what, that's legitimately one
of my Favorite scenes because it sounds
it's one of Fassbender's best performed
scenes and it's just so fucking goddamn
funny So how dumb and weird it is, but
my favorite detail of that is David is
just like casually like throwing pebbles
at Orin trying to make him wake up faster
Melissa: So petulant!
Jeremy: I love it.
I, I
Ben: running this experiment,
but it's also like getting bored
Jeremy: I love that, like, Billy
Crudup's, like, central characteristic
in this movie is man of faith.
And, like, Ridley Scott makes him
say this over and over, and what
he seems to mean by, what he
seems to mean by that is guy who
delivers every sentence as if on shrooms.
Like,
Ben: He quotes the Bible once,
and then bitches about how he's so
persecuted for being a Christian.
Jeremy: which, accurate!
I just, that part not inaccurate.
But,
Ben: Fair.
Melissa: right.
Like, this movie is, full of like,
you know how sometimes the, there's
these threads that you want to
pick, you want somebody to pick up.
This movie loves laying down cool
threads and then cutting away
from them for some creepy serial
killer thing for David to do.
Like there, that scene where
he's like, they don't trust
me because I'm a man of faith.
Like, that doesn't make any sense, but
it reveals this insecurity, which is, to
me, the hallmark of his whole character.
Ben: it also comes right after
the man of faith denies people
the chance to have a grieving
ceremony for their departed captain
Melissa: Yeah, no funerals for you, crew.
yeah,
Emily: yeah.
Ben: We don't have time for
spiritual expressions of community.
Melissa: that
Ben: I'm very pious.
Melissa: have been interesting.
No, that's not what we're doing here.
We're not doing that.
Instead, Orem just gets this,
like, I honestly think the movie
does not know whether or not
Orem is a good guy or a bad guy.
Okay.
or if we are supposed to
like him or not like him.
Because every time we
are just about to hate
him, he does something decent.
Ben: Like, he's not a bad
guy, but he's bad at his job.
Emily: Yeah,
Melissa: He
Emily: well, and he didn't want the
job,
Ben: he's not like a villain.
He's not a terrible person, but he is
kind of a fucking dummy and a loser.
Melissa: Yeah.
These movies
often have the like weakling, right?
Ben: oh, he's the sergeant in Aliens,
but who doesn't get like the, or not the
sergeant, but like the, you know, the guy
in charge who's a coward at first, but
then he goes out with Vasquez in Aliens.
Melissa: Yeah,
Ben: He's that guy, but he doesn't get
the k but he doesn't have a character arc.
He just yes.
Yes, David I will look into
the weird alien flesh egg.
Melissa: remember when the Xenomorph is
creepin up and Dave is about to let him
in to the complex where all the humans
are and he tells Oram, Don't shoot it,
don't shoot it, you have to breathe in
a horse's nostrils to make it trust you,
and he fuckin shoots him, and I'm like,
Wait, I love this guy, like, I just
switched sides, now I love him,
and then it's the, like, petulant
rock throwing scene, and you're
like, wait, do I hate him?
Do I, I don't know how
I'm supposed to feel.
Ben: Speaking of that scene in particular
I'm just gonna go right and say it.
I don't like it when
xenomorphs stand upright
Emily: yeah.
Except when the baby
xenomorph, when he's like,
Roi, it's my baby
Ben: good, but
Melissa: Oh, and then he
does like a puppet.
Ben: Oh, I like the, I did like the baby.
Emily: Yeah, that was
ridiculous.
Melissa: this movie, do
we love xenomorphs now?
Or do we, are we supposed to be teams?
Look, Prometheus came out and it was so
obvious from that movie that all Ridley
Scott cared about was the androids.
Like he wanted to write a movie
about synthetic humans because
that's what interests him.
And I'm like, I get that argument.
If one or the other is more likely
to kill us in the next, say, five
years, it's going to be AI, right?
Emily: right, yeah,
Melissa: Then this movie comes
out and I swear, just let me
do this one rant because I've
been thinking of it in my head
for like
Ben: no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Melissa: just let me have this one.
Emily: Yes,
Ben: just because, just how, just how
hard you hit the nail on the head.
Like, how truly
Emily: multiple rants if
you want, but continue.
Melissa: sometimes in a series, a
long running series, there is an entry
that is so off kilter and weird and
makes a choice that all subsequent
movies, I have to deal with that shit.
Like, my favorite is, uh, Jurassic
World Fallen Kingdom, which, for
some reason, sets the dinosaurs loose
in the world instead of having them
isolated in a park which had been the
defining quality of all previous films.
Sure, whatever.
Then there's the Star Wars thing,
where George Lucas does these
prequels explaining, oh, Jedi aren't
allowed to have feelings, actually.
Feelings are bad.
We just, you Decided that and then all
these goddamn Disney shows have to be
like, yes, feelings are evil from the
studio that brought you inside out
and me, Prometheus is the movie that
like, it just shits on everything.
It invents the, remember
the black goo, friends,
Ben: Oh, boy, do I.
Melissa: I see it on the back of
my eyelids when I close my eyes.
It's not the
Ben: What if the unknowable
alien mystery that represented
the vastness, unknowability of
space was just some black goo?
Melissa: And then,
Ben: Just some goo.
Melissa: so Prometheus comes out, and
this poor movie has to split its time
between being a pretty solid alien
sequel that could have been possible,
or the Prometheus, David's a serial
killer, and he wants to make out with
himself and or everyone else storyline.
That just, we just, great, now we
have to fucking deal with this.
And all the books?
And all the TV shows now have
to have the stupid black goo as
the progenitor of Xenomorphs and
the builders which are stupid.
The
builders are stupid.
As a
professional
Ben: the builders.
Melissa: the builders are a stupid thing.
Jeremy: I gotta say when the, what
are they called, neomorphs, the white,
Melissa: Oh yeah, everything
has a new name now.
Ben: I call them many
Jeremy: movie, when,
Ben: I'm sticking with many
Jeremy: when the big one showed up with
the gooey, fleshy exterior, I was like,
no, not this, and then when the real
xenomorph shows up later, I was like, oh
okay, but I feel like this movie, like,
Like, puts an iteration in there that
I, well I guess it's, that's the other
movie's fault, puts an iteration in there
we don't need, along with the black goo.
But also like, hints at this robot
revolution that we know hasn't
happened several hundred years later.
Because by the time that Alien
rolls around Ridley is shocked
that this AI has turned on them
in this movie, like, and it's not
even really turned on them, it's
just working with the company
rather than with the people.
Melissa: Well, Walter
Emily: knows that he's an
AI or is a synth either.
Like it's not until Aliens that
they're like, this is a synth
and now we know about synths.
Melissa: That's
Ben: Yeah.
It's like, it's a twist that
it seems to even exist though.
What this movie does introduce is this.
Is this idea that like, Sims feel
that between Ash and David there's
like, a kinship that Sims feel?
Towards it that like, for innate
reasons of inner empathy they
side with the Xenomorphs over
humans and feel a connection?
And there's something interesting
there, but it being literally Michael
Fassbender invented Xenomorphs is just,
ugh.
Melissa: He
is the Dr.
Frankenstein.
Because
they're trying to do, they're trying
to do, Okay, the builders create man.
Man creates synths.
Synths create xenomorphs.
Xenomorphs kill us all.
Ben: Like, I think there's something
more interesting to, like, sims
being like, Well, I am a being
programmed to serve a purpose.
These xenomorphs are beings programmed to
serve a purpose that they are flawless at.
Humans are these fucking
confused wandering messes with
no idea what their purpose is.
I, I sim feel natural kinship with
xenomorphs that I do not feel for humans.
And I think that's it, and I,
I think that's interesting.
Emily: Yeah, well, and every
human in this movie, pretty much.
I mean, most humans in the alien universe,
with the exception of Ripley, have this
incredible issue with um, competence.
And,
Ben: Oh my god, ugh, boy do they.
Emily: And so, I mean, I can imagine, as
I wrote in our little chat earlier, I can
see why the gay robots, Wanna take over.
'cause like all of these people are
like, uh, uh, uh, neutrinos and, um,
Melissa: Mitochloridians.
Emily: yeah.
Ben: I can do my little spiel about why
I kind of think this movie doesn't work,
or at least why it, at least, or why,
like, it's satisfying but doesn't work
compared to, like, the first two Aliens.
I think the first two Aliens movie really
had, like, three big pillars of what,
of where horror and dread came from.
There was, these aliens are
really scary monsters who are
gonna violently kill people.
There was The inherent, the unknowability
of space, that it is unknowably
vast and mysterious and dangerous.
And that there, and that it was always
about how systems treat people as
disposable tools, whether that be
an employee, you know, whether that
be labor, laborers or soldiers, that
was always a very prevalent theme.
It's like, is how humans, the system
humans created is almost, is the
disembodied evil while the unknowability
of space is the embodied evil.
You know?
Emily: Right.
Ben: And what this movie does is, A, now
we know the origins of the xenomorphs,
it's like David and his cave lab,
Melissa: And it's a bummer.
Ben: and it's a bummer, so the
unknowability of space and the
cosmic horror of its vastness, that's
gone, out the window, and these are
colonists who completely on their own
were like, yeah, let's be dum dums.
When they could have just kept
following their plan, like, no influence
from any higher power or system.
of human society influence that.
So you lose that societal element.
So two of those pillars are just
gone and you're really just left with
a scary monster, a very well done
scary monster, but it lacks those
really crucial elements that I think
make the first two such classics.
Emily: totally.
And there's another, there's this other
element with this fetishization of lan.
where he
Ben: Well, he is played by Guy Pearce,
so some of it is understandable now.
Emily: I mean that, that adds to
Ben: We're allowed to fetishize
Guy Pearce as a treat.
Emily: But I don't feel, I feel like this
is, we've totally reversed the situation
because the only competent human that
we have here is this fucking, like, Elon
Musk motherfucker who is seen, I mean,
who is seen as competent, who is seen
as like with his shit together, right?
Ben: He does not We saw Prometheus,
this man does not have his shit
Melissa: No, no, no, no.
No, you can tell he does because
he loves opera and classical music
and great works of literature.
that is how you know
Ben: This man went to a dead ass moon
and got beat to death by an albino
giant with a robot's decapitated head.
He did not have his shit together.
Emily: right.
Melissa: But we're
supposed to think he does.
Ben: Right, yeah, I just wanted to
remind people of that fuckin Buck
Wilde ass moment from Prometheus.
Emily: yes, thank you.
And that is the one thing that is
like keeping this horrible Chang'e
tower from falling completely over.
But he is now we have like this erudite
Elon Musk piece of shit who made a David
and he's like, look at my, look upon
my collection of fine art and be, you
know, fucking Lynn Despair, you
Ben: In what I think is the same
compound Oscar Isaac used in Ex Machina?
Emily: Probably.
I love how David, he's like,
Android, describe what you see,
and, and then he's like, room, white
room, chair, and I'm like, there's
a big fucking, there's Iceland.
There's a big Iceland right there.
You can talk about the beauty of,
oh no, you're not, you're gonna
Jeremy: They didn't know what they
were going to CG into that background
Emily: Yeah, okay, there's,
Ben: That's absolutely what it is.
But that does dovetail
nicely into the recap.
Should I start
Jeremy: I I have one
little rant I want to do on
this, which
Emily: Can I, can I
Ben: don't get enough Jeremy rants.
Can I just say that, Jeremy?
We I want more rants.
We don't get enough-
Emily: I want to hear Jeremy's rant,
but like, I just want to say, In this
version of Alien, the Elon Musk is cool,
and then everybody on the ship is stupid.
And I hate that because in
the original alien, these, the
people weren't incompetent.
Like they, they just
made like a bad decision.
Ben: This very much continues
Prometheus like, dumb people dying
because they're fucking stupid.
Emily: Yeah, like,
Melissa: class warfare, right?
It's white collar versus blue collar.
Jeremy: yeah.
Ben: Except this is like the white
collar's weird evil robot son.
Emily: Yeah, who is also a white collar
because he's got a spooky British
Ben: Oh, and he likes
opera, and he likes opera.
Emily: Yeah, Jeremy.
Yeah,
opera.
Jeremy: What I hate about the step
back that these two movies make from
alien, or more specifically aliens,
is I love the faceless, Shit eating
corporate evil of Paul Reiser in Aliens.
He's the perfect villain for this movie.
He is the useless corporate Yes, man,
who is willing to let everybody die
to get a new weapon for his people.
Instead of this, like, beautiful genius
AI character who's, like, Immortal and
super weird and super intelligent I
never wanted to see or know anything
about Weyland or Yutani, like, I
feel like them, that is a name for
a evil corporation is like, perfect.
You don't need to meet the guys.
You don't want to meet the guys.
Like, The fact that it's just like,
people who have never seen this thing
in action, making decisions, that are
getting blue collar mine workers and
military guys murdered by the dozens,
is like, that's what this really is.
Like, that's what capitalism is, and
capitalism is the true evil
of the Alien franchise.
Not not artificial
intelligence beautiful men,
Ben: Actually introducing Weyland and
or Yutani is such a dumb idea that it
should only be done in an Alien vs.
Predator movie.
Emily: which it did.
Ben: Yeah, like, that I'm fine with.
I would have been fine if
there was an entire Alien vs.
Predator movie where Weyland and Yutani
are like a Bill and Ted esque, like, a
series of best friends trying to survive
this crazy crossover, and this gives them
the technology to start their company.
Which at the start of the movie is just
like, I don't know, making homemade
orange soda or some dumb shit like that.
Emily: I have a question for you, Melissa.
Melissa: Yes.
Emily: you have worked
on some alien stuff.
Melissa: Yes.
Emily: And you have delved
into the alien canon.
Melissa: Too far.
Emily: Yeah, okay, cool, because I have
the understanding that Ridley Scouch, but,
Melissa: Official
Emily: uh, yes, that's his name
Ben: If you do the accent right,
that's how it's pronounced.
Emily: Ridley Scouch, anyway, so, is
Blade Runner now part of the Alien canon?
Okay, because I remember
someone said that he said that.
Melissa: here's where you have to
open up a conversation about the
concept of canon and authority.
Because who is actually
the authority on a movie?
It's more complicated than a novel, right?
Because a novel is written by one
person who has complete control
over what goes out into the world.
There are editors, right?
But you can say no to them.
You have that right.
A comic book is created
by a bigger group, right?
It's, it's writer, artist, colorist,
there's a bunch of people, but
it's still, like, you could get
all of them in a room together,
and they could vote on something.
A movie is different, because a movie
isn't just the writer, and even, like,
I went to film school, you could get
into the auteur theory and whether or
not it's valid, but no matter what,
Ridley Scott is not an auteur, he,
movies have way too much money for that.
Is he?
The full authority on alien or has it
become bigger than him and bigger than
one thing he did I don't know, 300 years
ago when the first Alien movie came out.
I think, and this is a personal opinion,
that Ridley Scott no longer gets the
right to be the authority on Alien.
That he gave that up when he
stopped being interested in
making movies with aliens in them.
So,
I don't know if he said that or
not, but I don't really care.
Because
this is
Ben: because if, he is given
interviews about what his plans
were for potential sequels, and it
was all like, yeah, so we're gonna
shift more towards the androids.
More focus on the, all of his
plans, in every interview where
he talked about where he wanted
the series to go, he wanted to
do less aliens and more, and more
robots.
Jeremy: he did, but he just
made Blade Runner instead.
Emily: Yeah, but
Melissa: he never wanted to make
Prometheus an alien movie, and it's not.
It's not an alien movie.
But, the studio would give him,
you know, they would back up that
nice truck of money to his house
if he put the word alien on it, on
interview material, and so he did.
So, yeah, no, he's not the guy.
Emily: that's cool.
I'm glad that because I
know that he said that,
but I'm glad
that's that's great.
Melissa: He also says, I don't
really care about xenomorphs,
I want to write about David,
the serial killer with the red
flags that he likes to hand
Emily: Yeah.
Here's the other one, the movie
soldier with Kurt Russell.
Melissa: Oh my god.
Wow, deep cut, love it.
Go
Ben: That, now that definitely is
part of the Blade Runner universe.
Emily: No, I think it's the,
it's the alien universe.
Melissa: Okay,
oh, you're asking me?
Um,
Ben: I thought it was Blade Runner
that Soldier takes place in.
Melissa: so I'm gonna say no and here's
why, here's why I'm gonna tell you.
So I'm, I'm friends with this
awesome writer named Andrew Gaska.
He wrote the Alien RPG game,
and which, by the way, if you, even if
you aren't an RPG person, and I'm not,
my partner writes RPGs and I consider
it work that I don't get paid for.
But he wrote, literally, Andrew
literally wrote the book on the Alien
RPG, and it's beautiful, it's filled
with art and world building and all
this great stuff, and the reason that
he was hired to do that, I'm assuming,
is because for years, Drew was the
official I don't know what the term is.
He was the story monitor, the canon
expert for 20th Century Fox for three
franchises, the Alien franchise, the
Predator franchise, and the Alien vs.
Predator franchise, because those
are now three separate universes.
So Drew, years ago, wrote this
incredible blog post that I will find.
I think I sent it to Jeremy at one point.
But he, basically, he, everywhere he
went, he was asked to define what's
the alien canon and what's not canon.
Are the novels canon?
Are the comics canon?
Is the Dark Horse comics canon?
Because they've been disavowed.
Like, what's canon?
And so, Drew, like, it's this
incredible post and I used it.
Like, endlessly, when I was working
on an Alien project, he figured
out there's three tiers of canon.
there's tier one, which is like, the
films, and there's tier two, which is
the films and the Titan novels, which are
canon until Ridley Scott says they're not.
And then he, he talks about what
he calls barroom canon, which
is like, is it really canon?
No.
But it's Like, wobbly, canon adjacent.
It's the kind of thing you talk about
in bars with your friends because you
can picture exactly how it would fit in.
I would put the Soldier movie
very solidly in barroom canon.
It's a fun thing to talk about
in a bar, but no, it doesn't have
anything to do with anything else.
Emily: Okay.
Melissa: I trust the guy that
was paid to define canon.
To define Kahn in a lot more
than I trust Ridley Scott, who
doesn't seem to understand what
he made or why people like it.
Ben: I'm not even sure if
Gladiator is canon to Gladiator 2.
Emily: there's a gladiator too.
Ben: There sure fucking is
Melissa: And an upcoming sequel.
Yeah.
So I was actually just talking
Ben: I think Gladiator is
still in the same fictional
universe as Napoleon, though?
Melissa: Oh, I don't, I don't care
about that at all.
Ben: I mean, that can't be rig Hey,
there's no way Ancient Rome and France
can be in the same universe, right?
Melissa: in a lot of ways, I think
that what happened to Alien is
exactly what happened to Star Wars,
which is, it was this young guy who had a
dream, and he made a movie with a decent
script, and he was, you know, smart enough
and talented enough, but he also got
incredible music, and incredible effects,
and incredible performances, and stuff.
So, yeah.
All of that worked together to make this
cocktail that hit the public just right.
Because that's a big
part of it too, right?
The recipients of the work
have to be open to it.
And sometimes this happens in our culture.
Sometimes an okay thing to a
pretty good thing just comes out.
And it's the perfect storm of everything.
in the zeitgeist.
And I think that's what happens to Alien
and the mistake that we all made was later
thinking Ridley Scott is still the be all
and end all of the final word on this.
Like, he was a guy who had a decent
script and a decent plan and then hired
Geiger to make the creature designs?
What are these movies
without those designs?
What is the first movie without it?
You know?
Emily: fun fact, all
Melissa: He struck the vein.
Emily: all those guys knew each
other because of the Hodorowski dune.
Cause that's how they all,
Ben: That's incredible.
Emily: yeah.
cause Hodorowski had put them all together
and then Hodorowski couldn't do it.
And
Ben: Podorowski Dune, the most
important movie never made.
Melissa: More than
Nicolas Cage's Superman?
Emily: I don't
think it's more important
than Nicolas Cage as Superman.
I've seen Hodorowski, we talked about him.
Jeremy: We have talked
about every movie except
Alien Covenant now.
So, uh,
Ben, do you want to, uh,
jump in here and tell us
Ben: Yes, I have the recap, and if
anybody wants to jump in and has a funny
thing to add, or something, or we have a
tangent, or we just need to rant because
this is a pretty ranty, rant inducing
movie sometimes let's dive right into it.
As we've already discussed, our movie
starts with the birth of Fuckin Ridley
Scott's favorite little Gary Stu,
uh, David, the serial killer robot,
Melissa: If you made me, who made you?
Ben: oh, to which guy of yours is like,
That's the great question, instead of
being like, Oh, my mom and dad did that!
Emily: yeah,
Ben: Sexual reproduction!
Evolution!
Jeremy: I really would love
for like ACDC's Who Made Who
to just come in at this point.
I feel like that would be a
much better tone for this movie.
Melissa: Okay, but Ben's about
to do the James Franco death.
I don't want to miss that.
Everybody be quiet.
Ben: Are we having well, we haven't
quite got that because, I mean, I
do love how Guy Pearce is like, old
man, slightly less old man Peter
Weiland is here to just like, deliver
what he thinks is like, super suave
James Bond villain, like, monologues.
But then David like, out
creeps him immediately.
Melissa: Yeah, that's,
Ben: And he's just like, hmm,
better send this thing,
Jeremy: They always out creep you.
Ben: better send this
thing to outer space.
Emily: That's why I don't have
kids, because they would be way too
Ben: Ugh, amazing.
And now we get, you
know, like, Outro 2104.
It's 11 years after Prometheus.
Ridley Scott still definitely
wants to kiss Michael Fassbender
on his beautiful mouth.
He's in this movie.
Jeremy: Just has everybody
else do it instead.
Ben: Yeah, he's on the colonization ship
Covenant, as Walter 1, where he oversees
the colonists, embryos, and way more crew
members than this movie fucking needs.
But when a rogue solar flare fucks the
ship up and requires Walter to wake
the crew up so they can make repairs.
Or he wakes up most of them.
Cause, for some reason, hibernation
pods have a cremation feature?
Melissa: Obviously.
Totally
Ben: You gotta build these cremation pods
and when you're cry Hey, they thought they
were, like, installing the cryo sleep pod
but it was actually the cremation pod.
Same design, same company,
happens all the time.
Melissa: He's a mistake.
Ben: Exactly.
Jeremy: I love that David's, like, evil
meter is set too high, whereas Walter's
contempt meter is set really high, because
Melissa: And his
Jeremy: Credip, Billy Credip will
be like, what the fuck happened?
He'll be like, it was a fucking solar
flare, man, I can't, what do you,
what do you want me to do about it?
And Billy
Credip will be like, well, you
need to run some diagnostics.
It'll be like, okay,
Melissa: Yeah,
Ben: I love that.
I love
Melissa: would really like to speak to his
Ben: Yeah.
Emily: Unfortunately, his manager
was immolated on the, or no,
killed by a
Ben: see the captain get
straight up just burnt to death.
Melissa: Favorite James Franco role.
Ben: yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's,
yes, yes, it's like you're watching
this man burn to death, and it seems
horrifying, but then like, not three
minutes later, you learn that he's James
Franco, and it's objectively hilarious.
Emily: Carry on my wayward son.
Ben: That's the kind of wild, unhinged
shit that we were getting, like, that was
popping off all the time in Prometheus.
Melissa: Just the most beautiful
wasting of James Franco.
Ben: Oh my god, James Franco
burns to death in the first
five minutes of this movie.
Incredible.
No matter how many times I've
said this movie fundamentally
doesn't work, 10 out of 10.
Jeremy: This would be like if Drew
Barrymore wasn't in the trailer for
Scream, and then it started, and you're
like, Drew Barrymore's in this movie.
Oh wait.
Emily: yeah.
Melissa: Oh.
Ben: think what's
great is is not that, it's like,
is that you see him burn to death.
And only then, after knowing he's
burned to death, do you learn that
he was retroactively James Franco?
Jeremy: Oh no, this is horrible.
Oh wait, it was James Franco.
Nevermind.
Melissa: But then you have
to like, mentally reconfigure
your understanding of Daniels.
Because at first we liked her, but also
now we know she has terrible taste in men.
So I gotta, I gotta redo this in my
Emily: yeah,
Jeremy: I mean, the kind of Poochie
James Franco here, he tragically died
on the way back to his home planet.
Um,
Ben: Let's be honest, Hollywood
Emily: lives forever in the stars.
Ben: Are you, are you implying that
James Franco did not, in real life,
die on his way back to his home
planet, as I have been led to believe?
Emily: anyway.
Melissa: yeah.
This is a lot more creativity
than I was expecting from a movie
that named one of their characters
Ledward, instead of Edward.
There's
Ben: is that one of the crew members?
There's so many.
There's so many crew members
who I feel like I see for
the first time when they die.
Emily: Yeah, no, like there's so many,
there's 15 crew members and I, there,
and there's two of them of color
Jeremy: and
exactly one of them has a nickname.
Emily: one of them has a nickname
and a
Jeremy: is the only one
that has a nickname.
Melissa: No, they all have nicknames.
It's just they're only mentioned once
under someone's breath and you're supposed
to learn everything from context clues.
Do you, by the way, I'm
sorry, I have to ask this.
Did you all know that Damien Bashir, that
his character is gay and married to a dude
Jeremy: no
Emily: okay, that is the one thing
that I was like, wait, cause he was
Melissa: Wait, that's the one thing?
You only have one thing
where you were like, wait,
Emily: no, no,
no, no,
Ben: Wait, this movie
I will legitimately say no, because
I did not recall seeing that man
until he was getting a face hugger.
Emily: No,
Melissa: is a ship of couples.
Everyone is coupled up.
Emily: Yes.
And I remember when the guy dies,
Ben: Walter the 15th crew member?
Because no, because there's 15
crew member, which means there's
either a thropple, Oh, it's Walter.
Okay.
Melissa: It's Walter.
Ben: I didn't, I'm like, I'm not counting.
I started counting the cast members
and I'm like, I'm up to six.
I'm not counting more
than that.
Melissa: Damian Beshear's, I don't
know how to pronounce his last name.
Uh, his character is married to the
viking looking dude with the viking beard.
Jeremy: Alet.
Melissa: Hallet.
Yes,
they are married.
And that's why he is devastated when
his husband dies and then recovers
from that apparently 30 seconds later.
Emily: well yeah, because he's
like, oh my angel, my love, and
I'm like, is this like a, is,
Ben: people get over their spouses
dying very quickly in this movie.
Emily: think that's a prerequisite
for being on the Covenant,
Ben: Danny McBride had one scene
to mourn and then was like over it.
Melissa: he, it wasn't even the
full scene, he got a hug, and
that was the span of his grief.
And then, we moved on.
Emily: after all that fighting
for James Franco's funeral,
and now everybody's like, well,
Melissa: They're embarrassed.
They're
like, well shit, we can't
do all that for everybody.
That'd be the whole day.
Emily: Yeah.
I know.
They feel like, ah, fuck that.
Melissa: I'm sorry,
Ben, I interrupted you.
That was
Ben: No, that's what, that's
what this is here for.
Emily: So that's what we're about,
Ben: Hell yeah.
Jeremy: In fairness, when Tennessee
learns that his wife has died, he does
then follow up by attempting to drive
a pallet mover from the sky and carry
two people on it back to a spaceship.
Melissa: yeah, you kind of
got to compartmentalize.
Jeremy: yeah.
I mean,
that's a
Ben: they get
Jeremy: mission, so
Emily: he was doing that
from the beginning though.
Like
he was doing that.
He was trying to fucking
ram the
ship into the planet
Ben: I was mostly thinking after him and
Daniels got back, and they were like, Woo!
Well, this has sure been a day, huh?
Emily: Got it.
Yeah.
Uh, okay.
Ben: I cannot believe Danny McBride
survived an alien movie, holy shit.
Melissa: See, here's,
this is
Emily: do we know?
Melissa: You want to, well,
yeah, that's the thing, right?
They leave it open.
Ben: Well, he definitely wouldn't
have survived to a sequel, but, you
know, he, uh, he Hicks survives.
Emily: Yeah.
Melissa: yeah.
So, the, my understanding is that this
podcast is called Progressively Horrified.
And think the question of whether
any of this is progressive treatment
of women, or people of color, or,
you know, a dude who's married
to a dude, is just a legit one.
Because I think the Alien franchise
gets a lot of credit for being, having a
strong feminist character in Ellen Ripley.
But look at the shit it
does to Ripley, right?
She's killed, like, how many times?
She has to be pregnant with a queen.
She has to jump into burning fire to die.
They shave her head for lice we never see.
Were the lice even real?
But the way that this movie
treats Ellen Ripley Katherine
Watterson is very similar.
Daniels loses her husband, goes
through all this shit, has an
extremely cool fight with a Neomorph
using a crane on a flying ship.
Ben: Oh, yeah, that's badass.
Melissa: was, that was cool.
as shit.
And then, it, and then, the way that
her character ends the film is, awful.
She's sent into hypersleep knowing
that the creature, the android
that killed all of her friends or
contributed to their killing is alive
and well and putting her to sleep.
That is dark,
even for the Alien franchise.
And I haven't even
got into what Noomi Rapace's
character from Prometheus
Ben: knowing what they did
to Noomi Rapace, knowing what
they did to Elizabeth Shaw,
just makes that ending so much bleaker.
Yeah, I hope you weren't too
attached to, uh, Elizabeth Shaw.
Melissa: So I, I don't know if you
all, uh, how much research you did.
This is one of the very strange things of
many strange things about this movie is
that half the plot is contained in short
films that were released on the internet.
Emily: Yes.
Melissa: cause that makes sense.
Yes.
there's four short films that
are really, that were released
in conjuncture with this movie.
It, one of them is the explanation
of the fact that all of the
crew members are couples.
that the company took a risk on sending
couples so that they would be able to
help Repopulate this colony, right?
Could have been an interesting
plot, but they buried it
Ben: They do, They do, nothing with that.
No, that really, that
really should have mattered.
Melissa: the only thing they do
with that is have this weird slasher
movie ending with the shower murder.
Which has some really distressing
imagery
Ben: that fucking craziness
of like, well, almost all of
our crew and friends are dead.
Let's have a quick shower,
Melissa: let's summer camp
serial killer this shit and
jump in a surprisingly exorbitant shower
Ben: You can't do an act three sex
surprise kill, though I will say,
Minnie Mouth going through Jussie
Smollett's mouth, that was pretty great.
That was a dope kill.
Melissa: one of
Emily: better in Alien Resurrection.
Melissa: yeah, one of the short
films is Elizabeth Shaw, like we,
we get to find out more about the
whole vivisection murder of Elizabeth
Shaw, who had to go through her own,
delivering her own abortion in Prometheus
for reasons,
And
Ben: so glad we watched her endure
all of that just so that could
Melissa: what a great use of my time.
No, I'm just kidding,
my time's not valuable.
I watch this crap for fun.
Emily: I also love how Michael Fassbender
buries the lead and he's like, the queen.
And then, Jack shit.
Melissa: Yeah, and then
at the end, he's like,
Ben: It is crazy he then
built a fake grave, right?
Emily: I
Melissa: I think she was really
buried there, what was left of her.
Emily: Yeah, I think that
Ben: Well, didn't they find her still
dissected body, like, in it, or was
that just like a vision y flashback?
Emily: I might've been a visiony
thing or like some, I don't know.
Melissa: I thought it
was the drawings that
Emily: There were,
drawings.
Ben: yeah, you're right, it was the dra
they were
Melissa: In the, in
the short film, there's
more detail about him murdering
the, by the way, the entire plot of
Prometheus, to the degree that it has
a plot is about finding the builders
and then they are wiped out via genocide
in a 30 second flashback in this movie.
And we all just move right on
Emily: I know,
Ben: okay, this species, the builders,
Emily: Were these builders though?
Or were they like, some more
of the, um, panspermia of
Melissa: Prometheus ends with them
Ben: that was their home planet, according
Melissa: to
where it A
Emily: Right.
Okay.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Jeremy: Yeah, I,
Ben: these people gave human started life
on earth, which means they themselves
have not evolved in like 70 million years?
Emily: Real
Ben: million years?
Yeah, billion years?
That doesn't sound right.
Melissa: They don't
live a purpose driven life.
Emily: No,
Ben: No,
Jeremy: yeah,
Ben: like you think evolution would
have done something in a billion years?
Jeremy: they did the same thing with
Prometheus, too, where they put a
bunch of the, like, actual information
story for the movie in short films.
Like, Guy Pearce shows up in that
movie for all of, like, 10 minutes
and he's in old man makeup the
whole time because they shot him
for these like otherwise
distributed short films
Like to hype the
movie which did I'm sure like if I
had watched those movies before seeing
prometheus I would have had less
desire to see prometheus than like if I
had not so
Ben: as he but as we saw nobody again
It's now like well over a decade after
the movie even if you go back and watch
Prometheus Nobody's watching this short
from those short films.
No, so instead you just have this movie
that Inexplicably, he has the very, like,
a young actor in his, the prime of his
life and just put him in extreme old
man makeup for no discernible reason.
Melissa: I mean, it's so that they
could shoot that scene where they like,
where the builders crush them to death
into little pieces for some reason.
I
Emily: Because you should
never meet your heroes.
Ben: Ugh,
Melissa: If you made me who, or
if, yeah, if you made me who made you,
is for some reason a question that we
are being told we should care about.
Ben: Well,
Melissa: Because that's why you
watch an alien movie, for the
Ben: that he doesn't go, that
Waylon doesn't go, My mom and
dad, couple, sexual reproduction.
Cause then that actually would have
connected to a crew, a cast full of
married couples and what they were hoping.
And it's almost like there would have
been themes connecting the movie.
Melissa: How dare you two
try to fix this movie.
Jeremy: instead
Uh, Michael Fassbender.
David does find the people that
created the people of earth and
just murders them between movies
Emily: Yeah, he just, like,
genocides everybody in a fla
Jeremy: It's like, is that the theme?
Did you
kill
Melissa: he was not made to serve people.
That's it.
That's his entire explanation for
Ben: Waylon said his Wagner wasn't
good without the orchestra, so
therefore humanity must die.
Melissa: And the people that made them.
Ben: But yeah, the only
there's like 15 crew members.
You really only need to know about four.
Walter, Daniels, Oram, played by Billy
Crudup, and Tennessee, the pilot played
by Danny McBride, who's giving like 25
percent of a full McBride in this movie.
Jeremy: And most of
Melissa: we call it
Ben: yeah.
again, everyone's married.
You'd sure think it would matter.
It doesn't,
Jeremy: what really ticks me off is,
Ricks and Upworth, Jesse Smollett's
character and his love interest, are on
the ship the whole time, doing nothing
but sort of like, Giving Tennessee advice,
because Tennessee's the only one that
matters there.
And then when he gets back to the ship,
they immediately die, as soon as they have
a chance to, like, be part of the plot.
Ben: from their
Melissa: Oh, it's because
they were about to have sex.
Don't
you know the scream rules?
Ben: from their
perspective the movie
Melissa: by scream rules, apparently.
Emily: Suddenly.
Ben: their plot is
We were in a ship.
There was a storm below.
That was crazy.
All of our friends died off
screen We had shower sex.
Melissa: it's just another day in the
life of a columnist.
Emily: listen, every Near
every cemetery there's a
Ben: this ain't their first go around
This ain't their first time in deep space
travel just because all your friends died
doesn't mean you can't get your fuck on
Melissa: It's the, it's space,
you have to make your own fun.
Emily: Yeah,
because no one can hear you scream.
Jeremy: I've One of the things I really
appreciate about the first two Alien
movies is we know what everybody's job is.
Like, everybody has a reason to be there.
Uh, and in
Ben: even Brometheus did that
Emily: Yeah,
Prometheus,
Ben: I knew who the geologist
and biologist was even though the
Biologist ran away from the alien life.
He was there to study and the geologist
got lost in the cave He was there to
map which is just oh, I I know I keep
bringing it up But I got that now
Emily: It's so good.
It's
Ben: that's that filet
mignon of dog shit Junkie fun
Melissa: I watched Alien vs.
Predator, last night, again.
Again, and everybody has a job, and like,
it's so clear, I have to say, the first
half of that movie is tight as hell, like,
we open by putting a team together, and we
do it concisely, and we do it quickly, and
we know what everyone's job is, and then
we have a very reasonable and logistic
based argument about whether or not it's
safe to fuck around in Antarctica And
then they like go down this giant hole.
You know what everyone is there to do.
And even though it's written very
poorly and acted even just as bad,
like when they get down there, the
archaeologist does archaeology shit.
The security people do security shit.
The linguist looks at the language.
What a concept.
Jeremy: There are
two people in this
movie that do their job.
Corinne, who's the biologist, who
never, uh, gets to really do any
biology because her security guy gets,
uh,
Melissa: doesn't know how to wear a
Ben: No, I do give her credit for trying.
Melissa: He also never covers
his mouth when he coughs.
The moral of this movie is you cover your
fucking mouth or your whole family dies.
Jeremy: that's,
uh,
Emily: of this movie is you
fucking, you fucking mask up.
Like you
Ben: we get to the
Emily: planet, Yeah,
Ben: that I need to talk about.
Because before, because we need
to foreshadow the finale by
visiting the terraforming bay.
And I think this is very emblematic of
it because y'all, it's full of chains.
And if you listen to our episode
about the first Alien movie,
you know how we feel about chain
rooms in this fucking franchise.
Emily: It's a
Ben: And it's the literal embodiment of
why this movie doesn't have the sauce.
Because these chains are bone dry.
Emily: Yeah,
Ben: You go to that first Alien movie,
those chains are damp, they are dripping.
There's not a single, there's
no condensation on these chains.
Emily: there's no reason for
Ben: Ridley Scott has completely
forgotten what makes this franchise work.
Emily: And the chains?
There's a reason.
There's a reason.
that they have drippy chains.
There is a reason for that.
It's because the water
drips down the chains.
And some houses have that.
Ben: What Harry Dean Stan would say
if he could see that chain room?
Emily: Indeed.
Melissa: really am curious
about how just laser focused you
are on these chains, my dude.
Like, this is some pretty in depth
Ben: Well, mostly because it was
mostly because it was a bit mostly
because it was a big joke We
made in our first alien episode.
So I just wanted to play
Emily: Also, the
Jeremy: There's, yeah, there's a, uh,
The room where most of the, where a lot
of the murders happen in Alien, there's
just a room where there's just, like, wet,
drippy chains hanging from the ceiling,
and nobody, nobody explains what that room
is or why there's wet, drippy chains, it's
just, like,
Emily: the condensation is
a reactor and it does the
Jeremy: Yeah,
Emily: and then you get
the condensation in the
Melissa: yeah.
See?
There's science.
Science reason.
Emily: I just made it up.
I did, I have played the Alien RPG though.
So, I, yeah, I was the fucking
company person in our crew.
Ben: I love the idea of facing a
xenomorph, but it's turn based.
Emily: no, it was actually, it was
fun as fuck and like, the whole
time everybody knew, like, everyone
knew that I was the company person.
So
Ben: happens when the xenomorph rolls,
Melissa: Did you call everybody kiddo?
Tell me you called everybody kiddo.
Emily: I didn't, I was just kind of
smarmy and being like, Hey, look, I know
you hate me, but here's some pragmatic
reasons why you shouldn't kill me.
Melissa: That's always a
good way to play an RPG.
Emily: Um, let's get back to the
covenant of
Ben: Daniels mourns James Franco for
30 seconds and talks about a cabin.
Does the cabin matter?
Is the cabin thematic, or is it just
to kind of set up the twist ending?
Melissa: Both.
Emily: Both.
And also, you know, just so
you don't forget that they're
like colonizing things.
Ben: Yes.
Melissa: This movie doesn't do subtlety,
so when she mentions it the third
time, you know it's a little important.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
So while making repairs, they pick up
a weird signal from, oh, just, just
the most habitable planet, y'all.
Like just the most colonizable little
planet you've ever seen orbit in the sun.
And, uh, it also has a totally not
sus, don't worry about it, signal
of new me replacing in John Denver.
Melissa: Yeah,
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: And the crew is like, what it's.
Conveniently close,
Jeremy: What if it did
Ben: environmentally and
already has country music?
Let's go!
Like, oh, and because Daniels is the
one who's like, the one who's right
she's like, Hey this planet is sus as
fuck, and let's not go to country music
planet, and just stick with the plan?
But this is act one of an alien
movie, so we can never listen to
the woman who is always right.
So when they get to the new planet,
yadda, yadda, yadda, Ion Storm keeps
ships from landing, so they send a small
crew, it's got Daniels, Orym, Walter,
and just a bunch of blood piĆĀ±atas.
Emily: You'd think these deep space ships
would have like, I don't know, something
about like, just in case there's an ion
storm, you know, or whatever, what a
neutrino blast or like a Baja blast or
whatever the fuck hit those wind sails.
Like you'd think that, you know,
things that happen in space,
they would anticipate that
because they're going into space.
Ben: Meanwhile, the,
you know, they get down.
And part of the crew starts looking for
like that record store so they can pick
up Cowboy Carter, and the other parts
of the crew is like, Let's huff spores!
Emily: Yeah,
Ben: Let's get all up let's get
all up in these fuckin alien spores
and breathe them the fuck in.
Emily: my beautiful spores.
Leadwood
Melissa: lead word, by the way.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Led, led Edward goes out.
He is the first one to go out.
And honestly, I don't know how moving from
spores did you just have to breathe to
be, to have an alien baby, to having to
have another creature suck on your face in
Ben: I'm not
sure
Jeremy: Is evolution
Ben: especially when it's like, Egg, you
know, proximity triggered launcher eggs?
Melissa: Yeah, I
Ben: Like,
Emily: it sounds pretty cool, David.
Ben: The
Emily: like you figured it
Ben: efficient.
Cause we get the spineburster and
the mouthburster, and holy fuck.
Emily: he's not quite to the chest yet.
He's still kind of dealing with this,
the control of this experiment, right?
He's kind
of doing the scatterplot thing.
Ben: and you don't get xenomorphs
from these, you really uh,
you just get the minimorphs.
Emily: Well,
Jeremy: fleshy white xenomorphs that Yeah.
We saw at the end of
the previous one, which,
uh, kind of really suck design wise.
They're a step back from xenomorphs,
which I guess turns out to be intentional.
Emily: I
Ben: They look like sperm with
teeth that grew arms and legs.
Emily: and you know what, the,
the shitty hybrid from Alien
Resurrection looks better.
There, I said it.
Ben: I like the pre alien from Alien Verse
Melissa: like the predilection
Emily: Red Alien is, is
objectively good, y'all.
Like, we
Ben: I would love it if they
were just doing like a regular
alien movie and then just outta
nowhere for like 20 minutes to go.
Like just pre alien fucking showed up.
No
explanation.
Melissa: spinoff that we didn't know we
always wanted is just a Predalien movie.
That's
it.
not not AVP, not part of any other
franchise, just a new thing, Predalien.
I want to know what he did.
Where'd he go?
Emily: Yeah, does he have a cool outfit?
Melissa: What
Ben: Where did he come from?
Cotton?
Melissa: the family?
Emily: Yeah, maybe he's, maybe he's cool.
Maybe he likes to drink acid.
Melissa: Yeah,
Emily: Maybe he's just, maybe
his blood is actually, like,
LSD.
Melissa: Note to self,
pitch Predalien comic.
Ben: Oh my God.
A xenomorph whose blood is like
acid, but the, the hallucinogen acid.
Yes.
Emily: Yeah.
Okay.
Ben: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
They're like, you can't shoot it.
You'll trip balls.
Melissa: Okay, so then they find
the vehicle from Prometheus.
Ben: They find it and it's like, you
know, but you know, but then David
saves them from the mini morphs.
It's like, hey, come back to my
super creepy temple full of corpses
Melissa: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
We need to dwell for a moment on
that absolutely ridiculous scene of
David saving them in the rain from,
and, and
like the entire movie grinds to a halt.
Ben: oh, like he's fucking Sarah Connor
in fucking like
Melissa: so the camera can worship him.
Also, by the way, they,
there's one throwaway line.
Oh, yeah, it's the Prometheus,
that ship that was lost.
My dude, that was actually interesting.
You
accidentally did and said
something interesting.
You know about the Prometheus?
What do you know about it?
What were people told?
What did the company do afterwards?
No,
none of
Ben: treat David's introduction
like it's like, this is what
you've been waiting for.
They're like,
Melissa: Yeah, yes,
Ben: the franchise is real star is
Melissa: Yeah.
like, like the rock showing up
in Jumanji, and you're like, Yes, finally!
Why, I bought my ticket!
Ben: It's like get ready,
like Aero Go's here now.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: Strider's gonna save the Hobbit
and it's, fucking fast Bender.
The creepy robot.
Melissa: yeah.
Who wants to fuck his, I guess not clone?
He really wants to fuck Walter.
He wants
to fuck Walter from very early.
Ben: fast est.
Emily: we'll get, well, we'll get there.
Ben: Yeah.
First he has to take, first
he has to take them to his.
Fucking creepy temple surrounded
by an army of corpses to which
they're like, this is fine.
Jeremy: They're like,
is this safe?
And he says, yes, you're safe here.
And they're like, cool.
Emily: yeah, they're not
Melissa: further questions!
Ben: No follow up questions.
Emily: Hey David, why are we,
in Pompeii?
Like, why is this a Pompeii thing
Melissa: No,
Ben: we, are we Jake Tapper?
Because I have no follow up questions.
Jeremy: And from his first line, David
is the creepiest motherfucker ever.
He is just throwing red flags.
Like it's a fucking soccer game.
Like it's just.
Ben: creepy!
It's insane!
and
they
just
let it go, and they
Emily: what are you
Melissa: he say, like, very
early on, that he was doing?
experience experiments, but he
ran out of the raw materials?
Emily: Yeah.
Melissa: And he,
like, eyeballs them?
Ben: It's, it's, it's,
Melissa: okay, that's cool.
Ben: They should have pumped this
fucking, they should have shot this
robot the minute they fucking saw him.
Emily: I, it's, I mean, at least
what's his nuts that went to Dracula's
castle was like, this guy's whack.
It's like, if it went to Dracula's
castle, he's like, he seems nice.
Melissa: Yeah, everything's great here.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: What's fucking wild to
me is that the majority of the
movie is spent in this temple, and
there is no plot in this temple.
There is, this is a land of no plot,
everybody's just hanging around
waiting for the ship to come down,
uh, and they, the ship is
not coming down and they're
just getting picked
Ben: what the main location of this
movie was, I, I couldn't really tell you.
Melissa: By the way, speaking of red
flags, I absolutely love when David and
Like he they say it's a colony ship and
right away He just perks the fuck up and
he's like how many colonists and Oram says
like about 2, 000 and his face David's
face gets a hard on and he's like and he
says so many good souls a super normal
thing to say
Ben: ASS MOTHERFUCKER!
Melissa: that there is a ship with two,
oh, there's a ship with 2000 people on it.
So many good souls.
Like, so normal.
Ben: viewer, if you can visualize
the concept of a evil boner,
that's what David has.
Melissa: Yeah, on the face though.
Not the, not the penile region, the face.
Ben: Now we get to the heart
bender The heart bender of the
movie, fast bender on fast bender
Y'all this scene had
blowing, it had fingering
Emily: This, was like out
of a Mel Brooks movie.
Ben: was this movie?
Emily: like, so self parody where
he's like, now blow, and now, now
dance your fingers across the hole.
Ben: know, like 80, at least 80 percent of
the crew on set that day was watching them
film this, just hearing these lines, just
going like, What the fuck are we doing?
Jeremy: is like the opposite of
Nightmare on Elm Street 2, where
they're like, everybody knew this
was gay except the guy doing it.
And this one is like, except for in this
case, it's our like, our director is
like, yes, this is all perfectly normal
dialogue, nothing strange going on here.
And Michael Fassbender is
like, I could fuck myself.
I'd be into that.
Emily: Yeah, yeah,
Ben: Michael Bassbender fills
both sides of the fighter
fuck response in this movie.
Melissa: The moment where they recite
as a English major, I have to call out
the moment where they recite Ozymandias.
as being the
Ben: my god, right?
Melissa: clumsy and ham fisted use of
Ozymandias since fucking Billy Crudup
played Ozymandias in the Watchmen movie.
Emily: yeah, these
people need to calm down.
Melissa: it is so clumsy.
David
recites the really arrogant
pull themselves have.
What?
Ben: Dr.
Manhattan.
It
Melissa: right.
My bad.
Oh, I got excited about the
pun and I made a mistake.
Emily: It's okay.
Melissa: It's okay.
Ben: Yeah, like, they're like, oh, let's
quote Ozymandias, that fuck, it's like,
look, I love, it's a great poem, it's
also fucking like, freshman lit, like,
Melissa: like five poems that get recited
in movies and this is four of them.
Emily: yes,
Ben: I'm like, oh yes, the,
Emily: I, I
do like
Ben: half the people would, there
has to be somebody who's like,
Hey, they quoted that Breaking
Bad commercial in this movie.
Melissa: Somewhere there is a class
advisor who like told Ridley Scott,
look, we had too many highbrow
references in the first scene.
We've got to dumb down the
highbrow references or we're
going to lose our audience.
They're going to be fine with
David wanting to fuck Walter
and doing a genocide, but want
them to not understand the poem.
Let's go with Ozymandias.
Ben: I will give him credit, that Wagner
choice is legitimately very highbrow.
Emily: but also, also, gay robots
talking about Byron, just saying.
Jeremy: yeah, I do have to say,
Ben: through his wife, because married
couples in this
Emily: I know,
Jeremy: this be the verses right there,
and that's the actual theme
of this, of David's whole
Melissa: Oh Yeah.
it's just so ham fisted.
It's applied with the fist ham.
Emily: yes.
Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, David is
basically, the next scene he's
gonna start quoting Who's Woods they
are, I think I know, like, that's
really his level of love of poetry.
Anyway what happened
Ben: I just,
Emily: Sadly, Alter lost his hand fist
Ben: to quote, like to go back to eth
is what's always wild to me is that one
of the very first lines of the movie
is him watching Lawrence of Arabia
and hearing and repeating the line.
The trick is acting like it does,
it is not minding that it hurts.
And you think, and I was waiting though,
and I remember the first time watching it,
waiting the whole fucking movie for that
line to come back in a really dramatic way
with fast bender and it never fucking did
Melissa: That's because
Prometheus at every possible
venue would like to disappoint
Ben: It sure would.
Melissa: Whatever it
can do, however it can go out of its way,
unlike Charlize Theron who can't turn
when a giant thing is rolling towards him.
Whatever it can do to go out of its
way to let you down, it will do that
and double down
Ben: it sure will.
I mean, again, David's being like,
look, I've tamed the alien that killed
your crew member, isn't this wonderful?
And then like, what,
Jeremy: I've tamed it
by looking at it, too.
Melissa: I blew up his nose
and so we're friends now.
Ben: fucking Orm kills the alien, David
loses his goddamn mind, and is then
like, hey so, real quick just got a
place I want to show you, super fast.
Toad's safe, not sus, don't ask any
Jeremy: I fucking hate you!
You wanna see something cool?
Okay.
Melissa: By the way, his
Ben: Want to see a dead body?
Melissa: his room of horrors
was hidden behind a curtain.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah!
Emily: Yeah.
Melissa: people ever thought,
gee, a mysterious curtain
in the middle of this room.
Perhaps there's something
going on there with the guy
that only speaks in red flags.
No.
No questions.
God, they're dumb.
Jeremy: I needed, that's where I
needed the alien versus predator moving
temple shit to come in, like, you know,
if that was the trick, if you had
to, like, move some shit around,
press on some stones, that would
make a lot more sense than, like,
Melissa: yeah,
it should be a Do better, my
Jeremy: I have a whole alien greenhouse in
Ben: I think
Emily: They, they did it better
Ben: if he had to like push the stones,
hit the lever, but then it just like
made the curtain go to one side.
Melissa: It's the basement in the
first season of American Horror
Story, and he's just like, I'll put
a tapestry over it and no one will
know.
Ben: here's where like, again, the
Prometheus of it all works, really
is working against the movie, because
like, the scene of Orm getting
the face hugger, and it's a cool
scene, and I like it as a scene.
But it means that, canonically, this
fucking, shitty, fake, you know, up his
own ass, persecution complex captain is
the first person in all of history to
get a facehugger and create a xenomorph.
Emily: yeah.
Melissa: That's what bothers
you, not the Capri Pants.
Emily: I mean, a lot of things
Ben: Look, I absolutely think
the xenomorph should have, like,
also been wearing Capri Pants.
Emily: It should have come out of
Melissa: Don't be ridiculous, they
don't have the calves for that.
Jeremy: Well, what really wilds
me out is that Aurum doesn't trust
his own robot when he's like Hey,
uh, there was a fucking solar
flare, there's nothing I can do.
But he does trust this strange robot
that's been living on this planet
for a dozen years who he's never met,
who's just like, Oh, that thing that
just opened when you got close to it?
Don't worry, it's safe.
It's fine, just,
just,
Melissa: know, in in the original
cut of this film, in the original
cut, David actually leans his face
over to demonstrate how harmless
it is, because it doesn't go
for him because he's an android.
And they cut that from the film, which
would have actually been like kind of, you
know, a delicious use of his creepiness
Ben: Oh, I can only imagine what
Fassbender's I can only imagine
Fassbender's facial expression
and the smile he would have
been making, like, leaning over
Melissa: you could read a very
fleshed out description of it in the
novelization, should you so choose.
Ben: But yeah, cause as is, it
makes Orm look so fucking dumb!
Melissa: Yeah, it's like a, it's like
a big brother, little brother thing,
you know, like, oh, hey, somebody
wrote the word gullible on the ceiling.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: And then we get that awesome
scene, uh, we talked about of David
just waiting for the chestburster to
Jeremy: Fitching, throwing rocks at
Melissa: throwing rocks at
him like an impatient child.
Come on,
hurry
Ben: Yeah.
So, Walter realizes that, David is mad.
Fuck up, fucked up when he finds
the drawings of the vivisected
experimented on Elizabeth Shaw and
Woo, it's some real like, yeah.
But Walter is more bishop than Ash.
So he is not into killing all
the humans with murder aliens.
So David has to do a kissy
wissy and then a Killy Willie.
And so then he goes to do a quick little
sexual assault on Daniels, cause, why?
Melissa: He's got five minutes.
Emily: yeah, hell
Melissa: And by the way, in this entire
movie, David is 100 percent angling
for Netflix to do a true crime special
Ben: oh yeah.
Well, David, one thing that is
interesting is that he, actually, he
confesses, or he says that he's in love
with, he was in love with Elizabeth.
Um, he
loved her.
And again, we even, to the degree that
like, when we see him, and it's a scene
where, at the time, it doesn't seem like
he'd have reason to be putting on a front
or lying the way he's doing constantly
otherwise, where he's just like, playing
a song he wrote to like, a picture of her.
And, again, I think if this movie
had done something with this,
like, mother and father angle.
Again, the computer's name is
named, the ship is named the mother.
They do nothing with that.
Like, I think there's, I think there
could have been some of the themes that,
like, he wanted to be a father, and
he wanted Elizabeth to be the mother,
and being a robot, like, these aliens,
like, these are their children together.
Emily: was fully expecting her
to come out, like all fucked up,
and like, her be an alien queen.
And I was like, cause they were saying
they were waiting for the queen, and
I'm like, oh, she, cause that was when
I first watched the movie, I'm like, oh
yeah, she's the queen, she's gonna come
out, and she's gonna be Like and then
Melissa: Donald Sutherland
at the end of Virus.
Ben: Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeremy: fucking, it
Ben: Oh!
that would have been good.
Melissa: Oh, I'm so happy you
all came there with me, that
you were able to get that one.
Oh god, I've been hanging
around gamers too much.
I'm
like somebody that's seen Virus.
Ben: I just can't help but think like,
especially again, I know, shame on me for
trying to fix that movie, but if you start
with the beginning where he asks Waylon
and if Waylon says mother and father,
and then that the, and then that seed is
planted in David's head, you then get the
crew with it's, we are married couples
going to make a colony and populate it.
Melissa: Could have been
Ben: then
Emily: Adam and
Ben: thing, yeah.
Maybe then the actual theme of
creation would have meant something.
Emily: even holds up a picture
of, or he holds up a slide of a
bee that has been like fucking
Melissa: But you know, this this
is a movie that opens with that
stupid and useless and pointless
scene with Weyland and David.
If you made me, who made you?
That's the whole problem is that this
is what Scott cares about, Ridley Scott
cares about, and he thinks we do too.
Two
white guys in a big white room
obsessing over who jizzed to make them.
It's just, it's just,
Emily: So he fills the
other one with jizz.
Melissa: who cares?
I don't care who
invented coupling.
Ben: that could have just been
like, I don't know man, evolution?
Evolution seems pretty dope.
I'm fine with that.
Emily: For a movie franchise that, that
started with like a huge feminist angle.
And now talking about creation and
completely like disregarding that
the woman's role in creation because
it's all talking about these dudes
Melissa: Ripley was
originally a male character.
It
was accidentally feminist.
They stumbled into it by mistake.
Emily: well, they stumbled into it.
And then, you know, several
movies after that leaned into it.
And now we're going
backwards, because Riley
Ben: it starts with, it starts, Waylon
says something in that beginning that,
and I wonder to what degree Ridley Scott
also believes in it, and assumes we all
do, and will thus like, Go on this journey
and have this interest with him where it
says, I refuse to believe we are just like
a quirk of just like cosmic coincidence
or like evolutionary coincidence.
And, I don't know, I'm fine
being evolutionary coincidence.
It's like, I accept that.
Melissa: I think
Ben: That makes sense.
I'm good with that.
Melissa: I think this is what Relief
Scott thinks about because he has
a lot, a lot of money and a lot of
privilege and he gets a lot of credit
that he may or may not deserve.
And so this is what he sits
around thinking about and
he believes that we do too.
But
Emily: Yeah.
Melissa: I'm not coming to a movie.
Especially in an Aliens franchise
movie, to think about what
Ridley Scott obsesses over.
I don't care
who invented the white man.
It's not important to me.
Like, I want to see
something
Ben: Bigger, whiter men, it
turns out to be the answer.
But
yeah, so, anyway, back in the fight
David didn't know Walter could heal,
so Walter's able to save Daniels.
But a facehugger gets another crew member
but they totally get it off in time.
Emily: Mm.
Ben: The David vs.
Walter fight ends
Melissa: It's fun.
Ben: ambig ambiguously, but does
Melissa: We know.
Ben: does it, when Walter comes out
of that, when Dave, when Michael
Fassbender comes walking out of that
temple, does anyone have any doubt
about who, which character it is?
Melissa: All I could think about
was how did he change out
of those capris so fast?
Emily: And how'd he grow?
Did he cut off his own arm?
Melissa: Yes.
Ben: Yes.
Emily: Yeah.
Okay.
Melissa: No, don't worry.
You didn't miss anything.
They don't actually
explain that at any point.
Emily: Cool.
I mean, there's a lot of things that I
that I
did
Ben: just from the tell, I mean, that
none of his face scratches heal, even
though one of the things we've now
established is that he can heal from
face wounds very quickly and easily.
Right.
Yep.
Melissa: is that true?
I didn't catch that.
Ben: well, because, so we see, because
David stabs him in the neck and we see,
and we actually see that whole wound like
heal over in just like a few minutes.
Melissa: So healing was the upgrade.
See,
dumb.
It sounds,
Ben: that, he mentions that he
has like regeneration abilities.
Melissa: and in my mind, I thought
that the, cause he says what, there've
been some upgrades since your time.
I thought the upgrades was like,
My vital organs are mixed up now.
They're not where you think they are.
I'm different inside.
That's honest to God what I thought
because it's not like anything
is explained in this movie.
Ben: So if I do recall, he does have a
line when he talks about how he's a more
compliant model because the eyes were
Melissa: you made people nervous.
Ben: Yeah, but even before then, he's
like, I'm here at the colony, like, I was
built with this, we have, like, there's
like, it's hidden in like, Technobabble,
but there's like, cellular regeneration
features, but like, it, we do get to
Melissa: It's in the, it's in a sub menu.
Ben: yeah, honestly, yeah,
Jeremy: If Walter
Ben: It's really deep, it's
really deep, in the skill tree,
Jeremy: if Walter had said the line,
I'm different inside, that would
have been really on par with the
rest of the dialogue of this movie.
Melissa: would have been just as subtle as
all the rest.
Ben: but yeah, but so we see like,
so again, he can't like, regrow a
hand, but when he gets stabbed in the
neck, we see that like, neck wound
heal pretty like, pretty quickly.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: then, like, none of those face
slashes that David then gets heals.
Heal?
Melissa: their mortal combat battle,
just to be clear, that is
the mortal combat scene
that is somehow in this
Ben: Something that
Daniels continues to not
notice while fucking
stapling his face together.
Emily: Yeah,
Ben: Oh, Fassbender on
Fassbender was fucking great.
Emily: That's
Melissa: somebody somebody said in a
studio, some, some boardroom, somebody
said, look, we paid all this money for
Fastbounder, let's make him earn it.
And by God, they do.
Emily: yeah,
Ben: yeah, so yeah, so Tennessee
manages to get down and saves Daniels,
Walter, and a man whose chest integrity
is decidedly temporary right now.
Uh,
Emily: burned off the fucking facehugger
and I'm like, you could do that.
You could just do that.
Like, you could just
have your face burn off.
Right.
Melissa: maybe early phase.
Emily: in the canon of Alien, I'm
like, I remember the whole facehugger
thing was like a real big problem
Melissa: Yeah.
you can't,
cut them off.
you
can't
Emily: up.
And this guy who's like, and then, you
know, it bled acid on him, but, you know,
Ben: that was one of the quirks
that David will now work out
with his 2, 000 colonists.
Melissa: you know, I have to say,
and I should have said this earlier,
Jeremy, please feel free to edit this
and put it like in the opening few
seconds of my appearance here, because
this is one of the things I feel most
strongly about the Alien franchise.
You could, at any time, completely
defeat the facehugger with the
simple application of a ball gag.
Emily: right?
Melissa: Tell me I'm wrong!
They could punch out your teeth,
but they can't get in there.
This move, like,
Emily: It depends if it's
one of those breathable ones,
Ben: that
Melissa: no, no, this is like
the hard rubber ball kind.
Ben: they sent couples.
They should have sent kinky couples.
If
Melissa: telling you.
The facehugger has no moves
if you've got a ball gag.
He's got nothing.
Boom.
Humans win.
Xenomorph zero.
You're welcome.
Ben: that's not in fucking Alien
Romulus, I'm gonna be so disappointed.
Melissa: That's literally
my tweet from earlier today.
Ben: Amazing.
Melissa: It's all I want.
I just wanted acknowledgement.
I just want the one
kink friendly character who is like,
Wait a minute, I know what to,
do.
Runs back to their cabin, comes back
wearing the ball gag, saves the day,
and then we all learn a
lesson about kink shaming.
Ben: people,
Emily: not just the ball
gag, but they're in the
Ben: more downfall in these movies than
refusal to wear a helmet.
Emily: Yeah, if you talk,
okay, they have a helmet.
They have, you know, and maybe
their fucking like space rubber
suit is like basic, you know, so
like the acid doesn't go through it.
Melissa: I also want to see, I
demand to see, the scene of the face
hugger repeatedly trying and failing.
Because I think that would be hilarious.
Jeremy: I'm really excited for what I
feel like is an alien versus Hellraiser
pitch that you're working on here.
Something
that's
Melissa: I'm not
Emily: the, the xenomorphs,
which is like, come on,
where,
Ben: Well,
it reminds me of,
Melissa: in this franchise and it's
Ben: in the Suicide Squad when the Starro
drones start taking over people, but you
can defeat the Starro drones with the
simple act of just putting on like a mask.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
Melissa: Listen, I've personally
hacked Xenomorphs just now.
You're welcome, world.
Listeners, you know what to do.
Keep one under your bed, just in case
of an emergency of one kind or another.
Ben: Yeah, so things are pretty cool
until we get, you know, after they
use the crane to turn the xenomorph
into Xenogoo, things seem good.
Hey, like a couple crew members, you
know, a handful of crew members survived
and they get to have shower sex and take
off, but, you know, man who clearly had
a xenomorph in him got chestbursted.
So now we have, you know, so now we have
to do our slasher, kill the people having
sex, and Tennessee, I thought Tennessee
was gonna make the big heroic sacrifice
at some point, but he actually survives.
They,
Melissa: Kind of am delighted by that.
Ben: I, me too, me too, and
they managed to kill the last
xenomorph using a combination of
airlocks and badass forklifts.
Melissa: Mm hmm.
Ben: So they can take off to their
colony planet in peace, secure in
the knowledge that Oh no, it's David!
The end.
Melissa: What a weird way to end it.
Emily: Yeah, remember the
thing where, like, they had
technology on the Prometheus
to, like, see if someone had a
fucking alien in them, you know?
Melissa: Yes.
It's called an x ray.
We've
Emily: Yeah.
We got them
now.
I mean, they have iPads in this universe.
Ben: So, I have a
Melissa: just pulled this guy
from a planet where they were
running amok and nobody checked.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah, no one did, like, gave
them, like, a pill or anything.
Ben: Do you think Michael
Fassbender will be an alien Romulus?
Melissa: god, no, no.
Emily: Alas.
Melissa: I think everyone, everyone
learned their lesson the way,
the only way Hollywood learns a
lesson, which is this made no money.
I mean, not no money, but it
was considered a big failure,
especially because this was the
movie that was supposed to get,
get everybody back on track,
you know, after the disaster of
Prometheus, a film whose plot depends
on women not being able to turn.
Emily: yes.
She's not an Ambi Turner,
that's the problem.
Melissa: Yeah, she can only turn right.
Jeremy: is being directed
by what is the opposite of a
podcast favorite, Fede Alvarez.
Uh, not a great history with
female characters, so I'm
not really feeling real
optimistic about this one.
Emily: When is Denny Vanilla
gonna save us from Ridley
Melissa: long as they don't
give it to Mike Flanagan.
I
Ben: Well, what we do know is that in
the trailer, there's a scene of them
putting up, like, an x ray gun to a
woman's chest, and we see, like, the
xenomorph swimming around in her chest.
Emily: Okay, so then, do they
mask up though, is the question.
Ben: I don't know, but that scene is
very I will give them credit, that is a
very terri that is a very creepy visual.
Emily: the hands of Fede Alvarez,
I'm imagining more of these
shower scenes with an alien tail
trying to go up someone's cooch.
Like,
that I was unnecessary.
Melissa: yeah, that made me so angry.
Like,
honestly, There's bad movies
and you're like, this is bad.
There's bad movies or scenes or choices.
And you're like, what a dummy.
But like, then there's something
just so vile and it's just.
We don't need this anymore.
It's not Evil Dead 2.
This isn't the 70s.
We've evolved.
Like, we can do better now.
There's other ways to
be scary than, oh, rape.
Look, look, we're gonna imply rape.
Emily: Yeah.
And then in this movie that starts
out with this erudite, like,
overture about how up its own
ass it is about the creation of
destruction.
Yeah, like, I
Melissa: Not in a good way.
Emily: yeah, there's movies
that are up their own ass
that I'm like, yes, let's go.
David Lynch, give me.
Yeah,
Melissa: You, you did the homework.
You know why you're here.
Emily: yeah, this movie,
I, I do love this movie.
I don't love it, love it, like, I don't
love it, like, I like, I love Alien,
or even Alien 3, which is like, a, uh,
Ben: This movie to me is like
a sandwich that has like a few
two slices of like meat on it.
It's satisfying.
It's perfect.
It's still perfectly
satisfying, but unremarkable.
Emily: yeah,
Melissa: Really?
Unremarkable?
David, can I just say David.
Ben: I
Emily: think the,
Melissa: is remarkable.
He's worth
Ben: the, I think the problem is that it
all falls in the shadow of Prometheus.
Which, if this is like a sandwich
without enough meat, Prometheus is
the way, I said this on, I made this
joke on Twitter, but I'm repeating
it here, you know, in our DMs.
Prometheus was a way to drop kicking
your date and then just pouring barbecue
sauce all over your ice cream sundae.
Melissa: I think Prometheus is like the
most masturbatory movie I've ever seen,
and I've seen movies that were adaptations
of the beatnik poets, and that's all they
did, was like sit around in a circle jerk,
masturbating and complimenting themselves
on what a great job they were all doing.
Like,
Ben: There's just an aggressive
stupidness to, like, Prometheus
that never stops amazing me.
Emily: Yeah.
For, again, for a movie that is up its
own ass that like, Red Lee Scouse comes
out from like, this whole Oscar experience
that he had, you know, eight million years
ago, but that was after the alien thing.
So he's like, look at my beautiful spouse.
And then we don't give two fucks.
Melissa: I wish
Ben: You have, like,
Melissa: as much as Red Lee
Ben: goddamn nonsense about Charlize
Theron's character in that movie.
I'M YOUR SECRET DAUGHTER,
OLD MAN GUY PIERCE!
Emily: I guess.
and uh, does
Melissa: and Idris Elba are going to fuck
because, you They realize
that they're both hot.
Ben: yeah,
Melissa: I
Ben: eat yourself a place, and then
eat yourself a place in accordion.
Mwah,
Melissa: Chicago accent
that is all over everywhere.
Emily: Bless.
Melissa: Wouldn't a fun
Ben: tree in that movie.
Melissa: We have to invent a game that's
like, worst accent in the Alien franchise.
Like,
where do you start?
With Walter, or with Idris
Elba's character, or do we
want to go back to Ian Holm?
I may spend the rest of the day on this.
Emily: Yeah, this, this is
gonna take us down a rabbit
Ben: I really think you gotta go
for whatever the fuck Ian Holmwood's
voice was doing in that movie.
Emily: uh, join the Patreon for
our side podcast, Worst Accent,
uh, in the Alien franchise.
Ben: I'm gonna say whatever the fuck
Charles Dance had going on in Alien 3.
Melissa: I always forget about Alien 3
Jeremy: It's best forgotten about.
Melissa: know.
Emily: And I still love
it in all of its flaws.
Jeremy: Is this movie feminist?
Emily: no,
Melissa: What's worse is it thinks it is.
I, I
think too many of
Ben: thinks, it thinks it's
so, it thinks it's so deep.
And it doesn't say fucking anything!
Jeremy: I feel like the answer to every
one of our, is this progressive questions
is the same as like, It's own questions.
Like it doesn't have an
interesting answer.
It
Ben: Acid face man was apparently gay?
Emily: Yeah,
Jeremy: yeah, there's supposedly
queer characters, but not any sort of
meaningful depiction of their relationship
Melissa: well, he says, I hate
space and his husband says,
that's why you need to do yoga.
So, I mean, I guess we all knew, right?
Emily: I,
Ben: we should've known,
we should've known,
Emily: yeah,
Melissa: No, I mean, that's my point.
Like, this
is the kind of stupid signaling that they
want to be, they want to get credit for
being progressive with this bullshit.
Emily: and then of course we have a, an
incredibly gay coded, queer coded villain,
Melissa: Yes.
Yes.
I
will I'm going to be honest.
I'm going to watch Netflix true
crime documentary about David.
Like I'm going to
Ben: I'm
Emily: absolutely, like, no, I
Ben: what's going on with him and his
character is stupid, and I hate his role
in like, the timeline of the universe.
His scenes are legitimately
the best parts of the movie.
Like, Michael Fassbender is fantastic.
He's so over the top.
Like, he is, like, you can't
take your eyes off him.
He is so much fun
Melissa: Ben, you and I disagree on this
because I think this movie is two movies.
One of them is actually an alien movie
that's trying to be an alien movie.
And the other is the sequel to Prometheus
starring David, all about David, the
David channel, the David show, David TV.
And you're interested in that
David crap, and I, honest to God
in my heart, I really like Walter.
Emily: I like Walter and David,
Jeremy: I love, I love that in
order to, like, that they basically
just change his accent, and he
becomes not gay coded and not evil.
Melissa: Well, he
Ben: Well, he reminds me of, like, the
Melissa: with Daniels.
And
he's got this voyeur thing, that
like Walter, the very first scene
is him watching their dreams.
And then he's watching the funeral
that they have on a screen.
He's always the watching one.
But then he's got this scene with
Daniels where he's functioning as her
therapist, talking, you know, letting
her talk to him about, the cabin and
the, memories of her husband, who
we gleefully know is James Franco.
Like,
Walter, not Walt, yeah, Walter
Ben: the pile of ashes
formerly known as James Franco.
Melissa: Sorry we messed
up the cremation pods.
Could happen to anyone.
Easy mistake.
Emily: Event Horizon figured it out
with the fucking amniotic fluid.
Like that shit, Event
Horizon, did it better.
Ben: Like, it would have been so, like,
it needed some extra of it like me.
It's like, it's like, Oh, well, we
sent those people to a xenomorph plant
because they were suing us for workers
comp, and it's way cheaper to just
let them die from xenomorphs than like
pay that out, pay out that lawsuit.
Jeremy: Yeah, also on the general
question of like representation and
people of different races, there
are black people in this movie.
They died the most ridiculous and
horrible deaths of anybody, much
like the women in this movie.
Ben: Oh, when the xenomorph kills
people in this movie, it like, it kills
you, like, it rips you apart, this
xenomorph, like, it just starts, when
it starts just biting into you, it's
like, you're just done so quickly.
Play?
Emily: you know, the xenomorph does not,
it's obviously conservative because it
has no idea of the future or like any plan
other than its immediate gratification.
cause like the xenomorphs in the other
movie, even in Alien, in the original
Alien, that xenomorph was just grabbing
people and putting them on the wall
for, you know, question mark profit.
That's it.
Jeremy: interior
Melissa: the perfect killing
machine.
Emily: yeah, like, it was killing
folk too, but like, it also was
dabbing people for nefarious reasons,
Ben: it was like in the first
movie, it was like discretion shots.
Like we would see someone get grabbed
and then we would just understand they're
fucked, but we don't see the process of
them just getting like bitten into and
just ripped apart and just like ripped
apart by like multiple mouths at a time.
Whereas this movie's like, yep, like
we're gonna watch like the XR jump on
you and then just start biting into
you until it's all the way through.
Yeah.
Melissa: I have a question.
Do xenomorphs eat people?
Emily: no,
Ben: I feel like it's more
about the killing than eating.
Emily: From what I can tell the
xenomorph function is like, the
xenomorph goes, finds person,
needs person to incubate egg, baby.
Melissa: But where does
its energy come from?
Emily: The xenomorph?
Melissa: Yeah, conservation of mass.
You
need to take in something
and make it to fuel.
what how are they
Emily: are on its back.
It's sucking in the chaos energy of the
universe.
Ben: Well, this is why they should, well,
this is why, because once you introduce
this level of explanation, it does
start introducing the, what do they eat?
Well, what's the purpose of this?
Whereas when it's just alien,
it's just, it can all just be
this like unknowable terror.
But once you've introduced that,
once you've introduced like this
level of detail about it, fuck
you, go all the way and release
like David's full bestiary guide.
Melissa: Oh, I would buy that.
Emily: honestly though, the alien could
just not eat because of like certain
Ben: It's solar powered.
Emily: well, no, cause like
there's certain animals like moths.
That once they achieve their imago form,
they don't eat, they just fuck, and
then they lay eggs, and then they die,
Ben: But it also has to grow, like, from
so small to so big, like, where does
that raw energy for growth come from?
It shouldn't matter, and the answer
should be, fuck you, it's a space horror,
but given how much they've now gone
into it, the question is now bagged.
Melissa: Um, speaking
of all the women who die
Emily: yes,
Melissa: I have to give a call out.
You know how sometimes you're watching
a horror movie and you see just one
certain character, maybe a small throwaway
character, and you're like, oh, that's me.
That's what I would be
doing in this situation.
Mine is Ferris.
She is the woman who so Kareen the
doctor who goes out to take the
sample and she comes back in, right?
And she encounters Ferris, and
Ferris, like, locks her up and
quarantines her and won't let her out.
And then I think the way that the
direction is, we're supposed to think
Ferris is, like, gutless, but like, she's
such a boss, she's crying and freaking out
and begging for help while she, like, goes
and gets the gun and shoots the monster.
Jeremy: Yeah, Fairness
Ben: She does end up blowing, she does,
Melissa: Ferris is she she
quarantines the lady just like Ripley did.
Ben: Crucial difference though, Ripley
didn't blow up the ship while still on it.
Melissa: Okay, so she can't
aim, and that's a problem.
But it does make me happy
that the xenomorph doesn't
Ben: Her,
her instincts were correct.
Melissa: she did everything right.
And she was crying and wailing the
whole time, and I'm like, relatable.
Ben: Look, she performed under pressure
Melissa: She did!
She didn't look like she did because
she was crying the whole time,
and like, kind of whimpering, but,
damn, she did the right thing.
Poor Faris.
She does not get, well, she's not
treated well for her smart decisions.
Emily: yeah,
Jeremy: Yeah, she, she does end up
blowing up their only shuttle, which
is a different problem that this that
this thing only had one shuttle on it.
But I don't
Melissa: I think it had more
than one, but they couldn't go
any lower because of the storm.
Ben: Yeah, I think the storm was the
Melissa: 80 feet above the storm.
Ben: they had to rig something up
to be able to get through the storm.
Jeremy: well, but
then when he,
Emily: couldn't send
Jeremy: McBride does, when Danny
McBride does go down, he takes a
fucking, cargo loader platform.
Emily: Yeah, he's, he's
not sending a shuttle down.
He's sending a cargo loader that
is like a low, hovering, like,
Ben: that they then added
like extra engines to
Emily: it's
basically like a drone.
Jeremy: for me, that's the best part
of the movie, the, like, fight on the
cargo loader as they're getting
back up to the,
Emily: Yeah, all of their fighting, but
Melissa: into the claw, oh, it's
like I know what's gonna happen,
but my heart still kind of
Ben: that's something new because
you go back to that first movie,
which I still think is the best, but
what the alien itself can do is very
limited by the technology of the day.
This kind of feels like one of the first
times that like, it really worked where
it's like, Oh, we can see the xenomorph in
full, from a distance, in bright lighting,
and it doesn't look goofy, it still looks
Melissa: And it's scary as
shit,
Ben: yeah.
like I feel like this is the first
movie that really pulled that off
and it was at its best in that scene.
Jeremy: Yeah, I do also like the
through line in the alien movies
of cargo equipment being like the
thing that can kill aliens, like
guns
Ben: Military equipment doesn't do shit.
Construction equipment.
Emily: that's how you do
Melissa: But that, that
ties into this running theme of blue
collar versus white collar, which
was a real theme in most of these
movies until Ridley Scott got too
fascinated by studying his own navel.
Like, it really was a thing.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Melissa: These workers can
figure out how to do this shit.
And Ripley is one of them, even
though she, do you know her job at
warrant officer in the first movie?
She's the warrant officer.
That's the role that is just below
the officers, but just above the crew.
It is a one foot in each world.
That's what a warrant officer is.
And she like embodies that so perfectly.
And then in the second one, You know,
she's more intelligent than the Marines.
She's taking this more seriously, but
she knows how to drive the loader like
this blue collar white collar thing.
It's such a great dynamic that
this franchise is capable of
doing well, just not here.
Ben: That to me, the tragedy
of Alien 3 is always that.
That theme, again, that series wide
or one and two wide theme of the way
systems, states, corporations use people
as disposable means for selfish ends.
And you go to Alien 3 and A prison is
such a natural extension of that theme,
how prison, how people, how prisoners
and how people condemned for a crime,
no matter what that crime may be or
how guilty or how justified that law
actually is, it is a way that society
uses to render people disposable.
And it, it'll always feel like a
tragedy because A prison is such a
natural place to take the series and
its political themes, and they just
whiffed that ball so fucking hard.
Melissa: it was originally
monks on a wooden ship.
That was the script was monks.
And I think you're right,
the prisoner thing.
It fits the theme a lot more, but that
huge, long gap in years in between Aliens
2 and 3, and Sigourney Weaver got a lot
more pull in that time because she was
getting more and more successful, and
so she started making choices for this
franchise that weren't always great,
like choosing a guy that doesn't speak
English to direct Alien Resurrection.
It's just
iffy.
Emily: Listen,
Ben: did nail that
basketball shot, though.
Emily: she nailed the basketball shot.
And also that was fucking Jean
Pierre Jeannet, fucking Amelie
Melissa: Not a bad director!
Great director!
He didn't want this.
He didn't want that part.
Like, he did not want to direct
that movie, and they just kept going
back to him because she wanted him.
And he was not a good fit.
Emily: I mean, I don't think, I agree.
He was there being like, uh, yeah,
Melissa: Yeah, but then that noise
had to be translated from the French.
Emily: yeah.
Melissa: You did have a translator on set.
Emily: That was a whole
conversation in French, that I just
Melissa: All I, the
only French I speak is,
So,
Emily: that's a whole,
there's all sorts of context
Melissa: sorry.
I didn't mean to come off
that strongly just now when I
Emily: No, no, no, no.
I
Ben: whenever I see that, like, I'm
getting, like, A fuckin political call?
I just pick up and be like,
Weh, weh, this is LeBen!
They fuckin hang up every time.
Melissa: They don't want
to talk to Leigh Ben?
Ben: They don't, they take one
look at that and they're like,
nope, not dealing with this
Melissa: Oh my God, if I was a
political caller and I, and Leigh Ben
answered the phone, I would be psyched.
Are you kidding me?
That's going to be a delightful 20
Ben: I would, and I gotta
say, if somebody actually
did, I would, I would, see this bet.
I would stay on the phone for all
20 minutes and do that fucking
poll in my ridiculous right there.
He's like, support giving children
more croissants in school.
That will raise their test scores.
Melissa: I
Emily: No one has guns, they
just have the baguettes.
Jeremy: speaking of scores,
ultimately, do we recommend this film?
Melissa: God, No,
Ben: no,
Jeremy: Same, same,
Ben: no,
Melissa: want us to do a suspense
thing with like a ticking clock
and we all get a closeup going?
Hmm.
Ben: no, yeah.
Emily: Mr.
Horse.
would recommend this
movie as moving wallpaper.
This is one of those things that you
throw in at a party and you're like,
it's not it.
Yeah, you put it on mute.
You're like, you want to see like, no,
nobody here has Eve online anymore.
You know, everyone's played through Mass
Effect, so let's just play the Alien
Covenant, because it doesn't have, like,
the weird bullshit, you know, because the
aliens show up in fucking Alien Covenant,
Melissa: they do.
They
Emily: yeah,
Ben: yeah,
like if somebody was like, hey,
we're continuing our Fassbender movie
marathon and it's down to this Snowman
and Assassin's Creed, I'd recommend
Melissa: a terrible option.
Ben: Of those three
terrible options, I would
Melissa: Okay, you're you're right, Ben.
Jeremy, I have to correct my answer.
If someone came to me and they
said to me, Melissa, listen, I love
Michael Fassbender and I would like
to see a movie that demonstrates
everything he can do in one role.
Or two roles.
What would you suggest?
I'd be like, bam.
I know just what to tell you.
Jeremy: but
I don't want to be
invested in a
Ben: go, go to YouTube and look up Alien
Covenant Michael Fassbender supercut
Melissa: maintain that
the alien, the entire
alien franchise is two great
movies and a lot of YouTube clips.
Emily: Yeah, that's fair.
Melissa: I have to give you this
thought because your, your brains will
feed off of it and it'll be joyous.
My 15 year old she loves the
Godzilla the Monarch movies, the
Godzilla, Kong, and she loves them
Ben: Hell yeah, cause they fuckin rule!
Melissa: She loves them because she
is, she's on the autism spectrum
and she struggles with, like,
subtle cues and non verbal things.
And in those movies, every scene
with humans is just them explaining
exactly what they're doing and why.
And it's like an explanation of
what we're doing and then it cuts to
the kaiju and then back to the expl
Maddie, my daughter, she loves that.
That's so easy for her.
But the other day, er, a couple weeks
ago, we were watching Godzilla King
of the Monsters and she looked at
me and she said, Mom, I want to re
edit this movie and add subtitles.
for everything the monsters are saying.
Ben: So, he,
Melissa: The dialogue.
She wanted to write Godzilla and
Ben: so I can tell you, in those movies,
especially the ones where he teams
up with King Kong, it is very easy
to just put in the subtitle anytime
Godzilla like, appears, is to just
put in, it's practically his unspoken
catchphrase, Heard you were talkin shit!
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah, but there, there is, uh, there are
some Godzilla movies, some of the older
Showa era Godzilla movies, where Godzilla
and his, uh, best buddy, Angidious,
speak to each other, and it is subtitled.
Melissa: that's fantastic.
But see, I wanted to hear what
Maddie thinks they're saying.
Because I feel like it would be
fantastic, because I think in her mind,
like, Godzilla, Mothra, they're all
having a very reasonable conversation
with each other, and the humans
are the ones that are just freaking
out and screaming stuff, right?
And Godzilla is like, hey,
What are you guys doing?
Is everyone okay?
Should we get tacos?
Like that would be how
Maddie would write this.
And I, I want to watch that
movie and I want to think about
it for like the rest of my life.
Emily: I mean, did anyone, what?
Ask Godzilla.
They didn't want to talk to Godzilla and
be like, Hey, you're stepping on my city.
Jeremy: don't try to talk
to Godzilla negative one.
That guy fucking hates you.
Melissa: I made a
note so
Ben: my Godzilla might as well yeah,
I'm telling you, almost any time
Godzilla shows up in one of those
MonsterVerse movies, just imagine
he's saying, I heard you were
talking shit, and it's going to work.
Emily: Yeah.
And then, you know, Mothra's
like, calm down, pickle.
Ben: Literally, there's a scene
where you can, he doesn't say it, but
you can practically hear King Kong
saying like, I don't want this man,
like, I'm not looking to throw down.
Can we just calm down?
Melissa: If I ever like get real,
like, Filled with free time.
I will write the toxic masculinity
article about Godzilla vs.
Kong and how it's just these two
Ben: Oh, please
Melissa: with their, with their
toxic masculinity, just flexing
until they can't back down
Ben: The plot of the movie
Emily: it
Ben: we need to move King Kong, but if
we move King Kong, Godzilla will just
show up and just start throwing hands.
Melissa: And then that's what happened.
Although that, that fight
on the boats is fucking
rad.
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm way off topic,
but please, all of you, like, go
to sleep tonight thinking about My
15 year old writing the subtitle
dialogue of every monarch era kaiju.
It's a warm and fuzzy
Emily: I would love that.
Yeah.
Jeremy: that to me sounds like a
recommendation, which is a good
way to go into asking Melissa.
Do you have any recommendations
for anything people should
check out coming out of this?
I guess as a cure to having
watched Alien Covenant.
Melissa: Oh, I would watch
a better version of this.
The 90s were actually full of this
very specific setup of a small group of
people faced with some sort of alien or
supernatural threat who have to, like,
get to safety while fighting it off.
So there's Deep Rising, there's Deep Star
Six, there's The Relic, there's Mimic or
you could check out, oh, and Leviathan
Ben: I'm gonna continue, I'm gonna
continue even the deep continuation
with my recommendation, Deep Blue Sea,
Melissa: Well, of course,
Ben: where the survivors gotta,
where these survivors in this
underwater base gotta fight off.
Melissa: Yep, yep that's on,
Ben: Are they, did they experiment
on the sharks, or are they
supernatural, like, ghost shark, ghost
Melissa: We increased Their brain mass
Ben: Right, right, we, we made the shark
Melissa: harvest the protein.
As a side effect, the sharks got smarter.
I
Ben: LL Cool J fucking rules.
Melissa: It does.
you're not wrong about any of this.
But yeah, there's better versions of this.
And there's more fun versions of this.
And I hope, springing eternal, that
someday, someone will once again release
an alien movie that's kind of fun.
But for, for real, not by
mistake, because it's so awful.
Emily: That's a good caveat.
Jeremy: Yeah.
The worst thing about this,
about this movie is that it's
not as crazy as Prometheus, but
it's still as bad as Prometheus.
Melissa: Yeah, this is,
it's the bridge movie.
It's
supposed to be the bridge back to
norma, normalcy, but they still
let Ridley Scott have too much say.
I think the biggest mistake that
20th Century Fox ever made was
thinking that Ridley Scott and the
Alien franchise were the same thing.
Emily: Yeah.
No, totally
Jeremy: That,
Melissa: He's
one dude who lucked out with some
alchemy for one movie and then
James Cameron came and made it
so different and so much his own.
Like, Ridley Scott is
not the Alien franchise.
He's one Part of it.
Jeremy: He also didn't write the movie.
Like,
you know, he's a good director.
He's not a great writer or
creator for that matter.
Like Dan O'Bannon, pretty good writer.
He's got a track record.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, Emily, what did you have
that you wanted to recommend?
Emily: I was gonna recommend the
Alien role playing game, actually
and so do that, and Alien Isolation
is the, the video game and then
watch Scavenger's Reign, it's
a better version of this movie,
Melissa: that's on my watch list.
Emily: yeah, Scavenger's Reign is so
fucking cool, and it is not, like, you
up its ass about creation and shit,
but it's a fucking beautiful show.
It's well done, it's well written, it's
character driven, it's so creative.
And uh, yeah, so watch that shit.
It is what these movies should
have been and failed, even
with like, weird space monks.
Jeremy: All right.
I am going to say, since we did, since
we've done extra podcasts this week,
I've recommended everything that I
have watched except for two things.
One of them is Madame Web, and I'm
not recommending that to anybody.
But the other one is my, my
eight year old has asked me to
watch another anime with her.
Uh, and the one that she wanted
to watch was Delicious in Dungeon.
So we
have watched two seasons of
Delicious in Dungeon now.
Ben: So good.
Jeremy: It's fantastic, and it, does
deal a lot with monsters and making
monsters and the, the themes that, uh,
Ridley's got things he wants to deal with.
But weirdly does it better, and
is also, is actually fun to watch.
So, I definitely recommend
Delicious in Dungeon.
It's a little, it's occasionally
a little dependent on the D& D
for me, but it is a great game.
It's a good game.
All right, it's a good, uh, anime.
That, uh, would just
about wrap it up for us.
Melissa, do you want to, uh, remind people
where they can find you online and what
they should be looking out for from you?
Melissa: Yes, I'm very present online,
almost like I was using the internet
to avoid doing something else.
I have a website that's MelissaFOlson.
com.
I'm on all the socials.
I'm preferring Blue Sky right now.
I will also be at Comic Con in San Diego
and Dragon Con this year where I hope that
you come find me and we can high five.
That's, that's for the gen pop.
That's for everyone.
You find me, we high five.
Jeremy: All right, well, I will be
at DragonCon, so hopefully I'll see
Melissa: you will?
Yes.
I'm gonna buy you a drink
for inviting me to this podcast
and listening to several rants
that went on way too long.
Jeremy: That's our whole
game, ranting for way
Emily: we're, we're, all about that.
Jeremy: Emily, do you want to let people
know where they can find you online?
Emily: Megamoth.
net.
That is the, uh, source of the
branching DNA of all of my socials.
That's my card.
And then of course there's Megamoth
on Patreon and Mega underscore
Moth on Instagram because
that's how I'm saying it now.
Jeremy: Totally normal way to say it Uh
and ben, where can people find you online?
Ben: Yeah.
Uh, ben conn comics.com.
Ben Conn comics, find me
on the socials and reorder.
Mr.
Muffins come in January, 2025.
Jeremy: Yay
Emily: The real Promethean hero that we
Ben: Yeah, it's my new, uh, it's
my new middle grade graphic novel
that is just a really fun adventure
for all ages, and it would mean
a lot if you gave it a pre order.
Jeremy: Pre order comics, as for me,
you can find me at JeremyWhitley.
com.
You can find me on BlueSky
and Tumblr at JeremyWhitley.
You can find me at Twitter
and Instagram at jrome58.
And you can go buy The Cold Ever
After and Navigating With You
right now in the comic stores.
They're there.
Go buy them.
Assuming this comes out in September
when it's supposed to, uh, I will be
seeing everybody that comes out at,
uh, Madison Comic Con on September
14th and 15th, and at Baltimore
Comic Con on the 20th, of September.
So, I hope to see you guys there.
Emily: And I hope that we've already
seen you at Rose City Comic Con,
Jeremy: Yes,
Emily: Ben and myself,
Jeremy: we, they were glad
to have already seen you.
Emily: I, let's hope.
Still July.
We'll
see how things go.
Jeremy: And as for the show,
you can find us on Twitter.
at progressivelyhorrified.
transistor.
fm.
You can find us on both Twitter
and BlueSky at ProgHorrorPod.
Uh, you can subscribe to this podcast.
Wherever you subscribe to
podcasts, we're all over the place.
just go look and find us.
Share it with your friends,
share it with your family.
Go support us on Patreon
at aggressivelyhorrified.
patreon.
com.
And, you might get some, some little
extras thrown in there occasionally,
but most of all, you help fund us
doing this so that we can keep doing
this and you can keep listening to us.
Emily: And every subscription,
another Michael Fassbender
gets a kiss from his himself.
Jeremy: It's true.
Melissa, thank you so much for joining us.
This has been a ball, and until next
time, everybody, stay horrified.