Let's see if I remember how to do this. Yes, friends and almost lovers, I am making a blog post. My e-heart still beats, somehow, even after months and months of crippling separation anxiety induced by my not having written words at you, all 16 of my semi-loyal readers, since something like July. But rejoice! 'Cause here I am, making up for lost time.My return from the dead, or my lurch, rather, was induced by a recent influx of awesome alien stuff I've been into. As the hopelessly unhip and behind-the-times young man that I am, I only recently was able to watch all of Alien. Someone Netflixed it the other day and I watched it from start to finish for the first time. It was pretty decent, especially for a movie from the '70s that was basically the same exact plot of Event Horizon except with an alien instead of ghosts and Doctor Grant. The only part I thought needed revision was the ending, in which Ripley escapes in her pod, defeats the pesky alien one final time by somehow convincing him to go into the thruster, and lives happily ever after. Here's what I thought should have happened:
RIPLEY: I got you, you bastard. I got you.The exploding ruins of her ship are seen through the window as her pod flies away from it. For some reason, the self-destruction algorithm on the ship caused it to explode three times.ALIEN (coming out from the shadows and adjusting his monocle): Listen, I know we just did this enormous "battle" thing and I killed nearly all of your friends, but now that we're on this escape pod, we're stuck together. You and I. For ten bloody years, or however long it's going to take for this thing to float to the nearest sequel-ripe planet.RIPLEY: No! Nooo!RIPLEY begins to fire wildly at ALIEN, who sighs and dispenses her with a single flick of his tail. RIPLEY dies. ALIEN looks distraught.ALIEN: Well, bollocks. Perhaps I should have simply tried to subdue her. I mean, who am I going to play Risk with now? Oh... oh! What's this?ALIEN moves to the sleep pod that JONESY the cat is sleeping in.ALIEN: Good lord, an adorable little orange thing!ALIEN opens the pod and removes JONESY.JONESY: Reeow?ALIEN: I must teach this creature to speak! To appreciate Mozart, Hemingway, and how to play Risk! He shall be my only respite in the countless hours of meaningless, Kafka-esque drifting that threaten to consume my soul!JONESY: Reeow?ALIEN: Yes, friend, yes! I shall educate you! You and I shall be... roommates!years later...ALIEN (holding up a large card depicting a letter 'B'): Alright, Jonesy, what letter is this?JONESY: ...X?ALIEN (enraged): NO, JONESY, GOD DAMNIT! IT'S B! B! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WHY DO YOU REFUSE TO LISTEN? I'VE TRIED TIME AND AGAIN TO HELP YOU, BUT IT'S ALMOST LIKE YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HELPED!JONESY begins to meow sadly.ALIEN: Jonesy, I'm--I'm sorry. I know I've been difficult lately, but it's just that these are simple concepts. They're so simple! There are only twenty-six letters in the English language! Don't you understand? Why would humans have kept your species as pets if they couldn't even teach them the alphabet?JONESY: Reeow?ALIEN: Alright, let's move on to something else. This is the book I asked you to read for today's session: Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger. Toward the end of the book, Zooey tells Franny that the "Fat Lady" concept their late brother Seymour created was actually Seymour's interpretation of Christ himself. Can you explain to me why this is significant, and why both Franny and Zooey had the same mental image of the Fat Lady?JONESY: Reeow?ALIEN: GOD DAMNIT JONESY, GOD DAMNIT, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'VE DONE THIS--ALIEN begins to move about the cabin, smashing various things with his tail and causing a general ruckus.
Well, you get the idea. Basically I thought it needed a more cerebral twist at the end, instead of just throwing the alien into a big fiery engine. Really, what does that say about creatures that could not only learn to fight like mofos and survive all kinds of hilarious booby traps after only having been alive for a few hours, but are technically related to the awesome Face Sucker species? Totally selling them short, if you ask me. Plus, Jonesy needed a more central role. For one of the few surviving characters in the film, he was pretty much sidelined the majority of the time.
Anyway, I am back, will hopefully be returning to making semi-frequent posts, and am sorry to have been gone for so long. Cheers!
