Alien
Watched the original Alien film last night. It reminded me of one of my earlier posts about Halo, where I briefly mention how the game borrows certain ideas. It's awkward to define exactly how the ideas are reused, but the general feeling of the 'Pillar of Autumn' (which is a great name for a space cruiser, by the way) is very similar to the military vessel from Aliens. I also noticed how similar the sergeant from Halo is to the sergeant from Aliens...Coming back to the original Alien, I think this film was the birth of a general 'formula' of sorts. There have been numerous films and even games of the survival horror variety, which involve usually a team investigating an installation (ie. the whole setting), possibly under the rule of a tough but fair team leader, they then discover something terrible, and fight for their lives. In the end, only one or two of the cast survive. The mechanic obviously differs between titles, but the general spirit is the same.
I am really aiming this post at games and films, and games are always going to be slightly different in nature, usually involving a more isolated character, rather than a team working together, but the formula nevertheless holds as supporting characters are ousted one by one.
Of course, all of the above is not necessarily a bad thing and if a formula works, then why change it?
posted by qmchaz64 @ 7:37 pm
3 Comments:
I agree about the formula. But Alien is original in that the monster is only glimpsed. All the fear in the movie is generated by the audience seeing the fear on the faces of successive victims. And in a movie theatre the tension is cranked up by the shared experience. Seemingly in the US there was one showing where the entire audience leapt to its feet and yelled at the Sigourney Weaver character 'For God's sake, leave the cat!!!' Interesting to compare this with the video game experience - and also the way in which the player/protagonist in a game has to see the horrors he/she is fighting. The perspective is different. But so much of the horror in Alien(s) is also inspired by the sets, the claustrophobic atmosphere etc, and I can see how this spawned all kinds of video game copies.
Interesting you should say that in a game the protagonist has to see the horrors he/she is fighting. This is true to an extent, but I feel that this is where computer games can get lazy. Ie. Going back to the common misconception that games are always about killing anything that appears. Some clever games these days don't need to show the player everything in full in order to achieve the desired effect.
Good point.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home