Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Absent]

I would mention that the other Predators let Harrigan go after he wins, and give him a trophy.

Yes, they show respect to him. Like a hunter may respect an animal who evaded him (I dream). Still far from "honorable" on a general scale, given all the rest.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yes, they show respect to him. Like a hunter may respect an animal who evaded him (I dream). Still far from "honorable" on a general scale, given all the rest.

In context, though, since the others weren't hunting anyone, for all we know they are just spaceship crew, or safari tour guides and didn't care about any of it. Though I'm guessing that wasn't what they were going for.

 

[Absent]

In context, though, since the others weren't hunting anyone, for all we know they are just spaceship crew, or safari tour guides and didn't care about any of it.

That would have been hilarious. But the fact they give him a "trophy" shows they consider he deserves something according to their values. Though the fact that they then depart without expelling him from the saucer is... well, nonsensical rule-of-cool. That fans will rationalize one way or the other because predatorverse serious business.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So? Give the man credit for being considerate. More considerate than the cops.

They don't? Not unknown for people that age in the US get hold of real guns and kill people. Doesn't hurt to take 2 seconds to double check.

Yeah, but again, this is the Predator. This is the ultimate badass space hunter. By comparison the Pred in the first movie is never shown to size up Anna or check whether or not she's a threat. Now, it probably does otherwise how would it know she isn't worth his time, but through the laser focus it has on the others we (the audience) can infer that he's after the soldiers, after the strong. (Prey kinda plays with this in a smart-ish way.)

It's not like this scene alone breaks the movie, it's just one of many instances where this supposed inhumanly capable space hunter comes across as a bumbling idiot.

 

[Hawki]

The oh-so-honorable varnish comes from fans identifying themselves to the Predator because of power fantasy, like they identify to Tony Montana or Dracula, which gets capitalised on through derivative works.

I'm not sure how that refutes what I said, the yautja honour code came from published works, it didn't come from headcanon.

But the comics have as much interest to me as the blurbs on toylines packaging. And the games and later movies are more inspired by them than by the movies. So of course, these representations seep in.

It's of course up to you what you're interested in, but not being interested in X doesn't stop X from existing. And if we're talking about the honour code, the hints are already there in the first two Predator films.

Generally speaking I don't think on a "franchise" scale ("wider IPs"). Instead of framing movies retroactively, I take them one by one as what they were at the time of production. Leia wasn't Luke's sister at that time, so that one kiss is awkward in Return but not in Empire. Alien eggs come from a queen in Aliens, not necessarily in Alien (especially not in its original script). And globally, I don't like lore creep, which I consider to impoverish worlds more than they enrich them. Especially when the elements that are piled on come from different authors - in, often, more and more commercial or childish mindsets. So I really don't care about extended universes or later "canons". They're never "discoveries" (about an original movie's monster, for instance), they are "additions". Births of separate universes, of often lesser quality.

Okay, sure, that's your prerogative, but I'm completely the opposite. Yes, if one's evaluating a movie, it's usually best to evaluate it on its merits as a movie regardless of whatever else might exist (to use your Star Wars example, Attack of the Clones is a lacklustre movie, that the Clone Wars animated series is pretty decent doesn't retroactively change that), but if you're talking about the lore of an IP, then it's redundant at best and poor form at worst to use headcannon as a basis for anything. You can certainly pretend that Luke and Leia aren't siblings, you can pretend that the xenomorph queen doesn't exist, but those pretensions aren't true. I mean, take Alien: Isolation as an example. It wanted to emulate Alien rather than Aliens so much that it had to twist canon to do it (eggs are around without a queen, the drone is insanely resilient compared to drones as a whole, etc.)

So, P1, P2. Space pricks on a safari. Nothing noble to it. Going blade-to-blade instead of gun-to-gun is still like Anakin slicing the younglings instead of orbital bombing them. Not to mention it happens off screen, and could also be as lame as imaginable.

I've already made it clear that I think yautja are pricks, I don't see how that disproves the honour code existing. You can be a serial killer with an honour code, those aren't mutually exclusive facets

 

[Hawki]

I do look forward to the Hasbro Cinematic Universe. Let's go, Joes!

My Little Pony or bust!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, but again, this is the Predator. This is the ultimate badass space hunter. By comparison the Pred in the first movie is never shown to size up Anna or check whether or not she's a threat. Now, it probably does otherwise how would it know she isn't worth his time, but through the laser focus it has on the others we (the audience) can infer that he's after the soldiers, after the strong.

Hey? Surely it's stated that it kills people that are armed, and doesn't kill people that are not armed. In the first one Arnie outright states this, and then stops Anna from picking up a gun. In the second Harrigan explains the commuters were killed because they were all armed.

So, the Predator checks the kid, finds out he wasn't armed, loses interest. If the kid had a real gun, then we'd have a novel approach to stopping school shootings happen.

 

[BrawlMan]

Yeah, but again, this is the Predator. This is the ultimate badass space hunter. By comparison the Pred in the first movie is never shown to size up Anna or check whether or not she's a threat. Now, it probably does otherwise how would it know she isn't worth his time, but through the laser focus it has on the others we (the audience) can infer that he's after the soldiers, after the strong. (Prey kinda plays with this in a smart-ish way.)

It's not like this scene alone breaks the movie, it's just one of many instances where this supposed inhumanly capable space hunter comes across as a bumbling idiot.

I don't care.

 

[Piscian]

Its funny , I adore Predator 2. I recall sitting down and analyzing its weaknesses, but I couldn't, on command tell you why it's bad. I think if I had to put my finger on it without a rewatch some of gangster stuff ends up being a little silly and gary buseys kill squad is kinda dumb.

I think generally it felt like they weren't quite focused on what the story was they wanted to tell and so its suffers from the sorta 80-90s sequelitis where it's not made with the same love as the original.

At the same time like gremlins 2 the hook and the tones are so good its like "fuck it" it works. good enough. Granted I thoroughly enjoyed Ghostbusters II so maybe my opinion is disputable. For what its worth though Ive seen it at least 5-6 times. Its that much of a staple.

 

[BrawlMan]

gary buseys kill squad is kinda dumb.

There plans were capture him, and takes his weaponry. The killing part they assume would happen, after putting him on ice.

At the same time like gremlins 2 the hook and the tones are so good its like "fuck it" it works. good enough. Granted I thoroughly enjoyed Ghostbusters II so maybe my opinion is disputable. For what its worth though Ive seen it at least 5-6 times. Its that much of a staple.

Gremlins 2 at least gave us interesting and crazy Gremlins designs. Which is why I like it more than the original in certain aspects. Ghostbuster II I have soft spot for, but it's a remake of the first movie, but bigger. Predator 2 at least added some new things, concepts, lore, and weaponry that of the Yajuta that became staples of later entries and spin-offs.

I think generally it felt like they weren't quite focused on what the story was they wanted to tell and so its suffers from the sorta 80-90s sequelitis where it's not made with the same love as the original.

I agree that Jamaican Voodoo stuff is silly and slightly racist and misrepresented (Vodoo is a Hatian practice), but I never felt the movie lost focus. It takes the first movie, set in the LA urban jungle, and have the monster face cops and criminals, instead of roided out 80s action heroes. It works, because while these people are skilled, they're not gladiators nor guerilla soldiers. They're just people.

 

[Absent]

You can certainly pretend that Luke and Leia aren't siblings, you can pretend that the xenomorph queen doesn't exist, but those pretensions aren't true.

They are true. When you watch the first movies. As these elements weren't in the authors' intents. It's truer, more faithful to the work, than the retroactive insert of sequels (or "expanded universes") elements.

A lot of works make more sense, or have higher value, if you separate them from the subsequent grafts. The ending of T2 is idiotic if you take T3 in account. The lines about Ian Malcolm's death in Jurassic Park make no sense if you have the second novel in mind. Yoda's description of Anakin's story is ridiculous is they refer to the prequels. Jaws is grotesque is you treat it as a supernatural malediction on the Brody family. A lot of sequels not only cheapen, dilute, cancel, dumb down the original works, but if you treat them seriously, you lose the ability to even evaluate the original works (and its makers) for their actual worths, intents and inner logics. You allow less talented people to drag craftsmen down.

So nope, better treat a movie (or novel, etc) for what it was, in the mind of its authors, upon release. Else, you legtimize unfair judgements. And end up nerdishly smoothing out incoherences that were absent from the original work.

It's a bit similar to science or history - you can't judge as a plot hole an element due to misconceptions from the author's epoch, or to their ignorance of how our future would unfold. Works should be evaluated for what they were at their time, in abstraction of future events, future discoveries... or future works.

 

[thebobmaster]

It still works in a way, as he doesn't completely trust the Autobots, despite Mirage going out his way to protect Noah. I can see both aspects of this work fine. We don't get his full backstory, nor do we need to see it in flashback. I'm glad personally.

Rise of The Beast is awesome and already my favorite live-actionTransformers movie. If Bumblebee is an A, then RoTB is an S-
Rank. Yes, I am giving it the S! Both movies don't fall into the trap of the Bayverse, makes me care about the few human characters that are there, doesn't waste the audience's time, and make sure the Autobots & Maximals presence and development are just as important! Noah and Chris I do consider the best of the human characters followed by Charlie, because they're just people and not absurd, obnoxious, jack ass, and loud caricatures, unlike the Bayverse. The parts with Noah and his younger brother, and referred to each other as Sonic and Tails warmed my hear. Reminds me of my older and I.

BTW, the last 15 minutes of the movie, someone on set must have been a big Vanquish fan! Noah getting Mirages parts to make that power armor lit me up!

I do look forward to the Hasbro Cinematic Universe. Let's go, Joes!

​

I will say that after a couple of days to think on it a bit, I still don't think Rise of the Beasts as good as Bumblebee, but at the same time, it's grown a fair bit in my estimation. The stuff I was eh on faded quite a bit quicker than all the stuff that worked really well.

 

[gorfias]

Renfield on Peacock +
OK, this is a B+
Poor Renfield is in a toxic relationship with Count Dracula in the modern world. How to use group therapy to escape such an abusive relationship?
Lots of blood shed and violence .
Too much fun.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Hey? Surely it's stated that it kills people that are armed, and doesn't kill people that are not armed. In the first one Arnie outright states this, and then stops Anna from picking up a gun. In the second Harrigan explains the commuters were killed because they were all armed.

So, the Predator checks the kid, finds out he wasn't armed, loses interest. If the kid had a real gun, then we'd have a novel approach to stopping school shootings happen.

Well akshually!!!

No but actually, it's not really about being armed. I know Dutch himself says this, but this is not exactly correct. In the first movie the Predator is already observing Dutch's crew as they move through the jungle while they're armed and does nothing. It also doesn't seem to bother the guerilla's. It's only after it sees Dutch and the gang lay waste to an entire camp of soldiers that it gets the munchies. And by the time Dutch is completely on his own he's not armed at all, and the Predator still wants his ass, even when he's crawling bloody and helpless on the ground. It's pretty much about the Predator marking a target it finds worthy and then going after it.

Hence why the Pred in Predator 2 feels so dumb, since it just kills anyone that comes within arms length. It just bursts through a subway train and starts killing indiscriminately. Now, maybe this Pred is different or inexperienced, but considering this is a sequel it doesn't exactly help in raising the stakes. The Pred in the first movie feels like a ghost, the Pred in the second movie feels like a drunk asshole.

I don't care.

....I care.

 

[Hawki]

They are true. When you watch the first movies.

That's an absolutely assinine way of viewing media. The in-universe reality doesn't shift in accordance with your viewing experience/preference. Your claim doesn't even make sense in the case of Alien because the egg idea is a deleted scene only, that was later solidified in Aliens, then Isolation does its own thing that contradicts the lore up to this point. It's silly to say "queens don't exist in the context of Alien" when, apart from deleted scenes, it has nothing to say on the subject of where the eggs come from.

As these elements weren't in the authors' intents. It's truer, more faithful to the work, than the retroactive insert of sequels (or "expanded universes") elements.

What intent? In the case of the OT, the story (not necessarily the screenplay or directing) was done by Lucas. In the case of Alien, whose intent? Your 'egg basis' is coming from a deleted scene, so are you interpreting that as "intent" in the sense that "it was going to be in there, therefore it's canon?" Because I can just as easily say that "it was deleted, therefore it isn't canon," and that's without getting into the fact that Aliens introduced the queen regardless.

Citing authorial intent doesn't have much basis in universes where multiple creators are involved.

A lot of works make more sense, or have higher value, if you separate them from the subsequent grafts.[/quote]

I agree, but that doesn't shift canon. I've already stated that if you're looking at a movie, it's best to judge the movie on its own terms, but your argument seems to be "canon is what I want it to be until things decline in quality." I agree that IPs tend to have diminishing returns over time, but that's a separate issue from canon.

The ending of T2 is idiotic if you take T3 in account.

I agree, but again, that's beside the point. I've made no secret over the years that I detest T3 (in large part due to how it undermines T2), my personal feelings are irrelevant on the subject of canon. The only recourse you have to say that T3 isn't canon is that the Terminator franchise operates on the principle of time travel, so you depending on how you treat the setting, either T3 exists in its own timeline, or you take Tim Miller's view that there's only one single timeline constantly in flux (I, and most people, go for the former).

Also, I'll point out that at this point, you've cited two sequels that you're apparently fine with in your personal canon (Empire, T2), so later comments of "treating sequels seriously undermines the originals" reeks of hypocrisy. Like I said, it seems that your take on canon is "whatever I want it to be," which is fine for headcanon, but reality doesn't shift in accordance with it.

The lines about Ian Malcolm's death in Jurassic Park make no sense if you have the second novel in mind.

Yes, and? Are you saying that the second novel isn't canonical in its continuity?

Yoda's description of Anakin's story is ridiculous is they refer to the prequels.

Sorry, which lines? I know there's a lot of lines/plot points in the OT that are rendered iffy by the prequels, but I don't recall any from Yoda specifically.

Jaws is grotesque is you treat it as a supernatural malediction on the Brody family.

I can't comment on Jaws, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to the issue of canon. Far as I'm aware, all four forms are canon within their own continuity, regardless of the quality drop-off.

A lot of sequels not only cheapen, dilute, cancel, dumb down the original works, but if you treat them seriously, you lose the ability to even evaluate the original works (and its makers) for their actual worths, intents and inner logics. You allow less talented people to drag craftsmen down.

So nope, better treat a movie (or novel, etc) for what it was, in the mind of its authors, upon release. Else, you legtimize unfair judgements. And end up nerdishly smoothing out incoherences that were absent from the original work.

I agree that's how you should treat a work in of itself, but that's not the question at hand. Your entire post started with a refutation of the claims that Luke and Leia are siblings, and that xenomorph queens lay eggs. This isn't a question of evaluating works, it's a question of what's canon and what isn't, which stems back to your refutation of the idea of the yautja honour code.

Again, if your headcanon means that Luke and Leia aren't siblings, that xenomorph drones create eggs rather than queens, that's your prerogative, but the bulk of your argument seems to rest on the idea that canon is synonymous with quality - that canon remains up to some kind of quality demarcation point, which judging by your examples, seems to be at Empire, Alien, T2, and the first Jurassic Park novel (among others). If that's the case, then we're clearly at a crossroads.

It's a bit similar to science or history - you can't judge as a plot hole an element due to misconceptions from the author's epoch, or to their ignorance of how our future would unfold. Works should be evaluated for what they were at their time, in abstraction of future events, future discoveries... or future works.

You're making two different arguments here.

On the subject of authors not knowing how future events would unfold, I agree. It's silly to write-off 2001: A Space Odyssey on the basis that by the year 2001 in real-life, we didn't have tech approaching that of the film (not to mention that in our world, the USSR had collapsed a decade ago). Same goes for works like Blade Runner and Alien - works that have projections into the future that are invalidated by a real-world timeline don't invalidate the world itself.

But if we're making the history argument, from a real-world perspective, yes, I agree, but throughout this thread, you've thrown aside the history of the in-universe perspective. To use the example of the Luke/Leia thing in Empire vs. Return, that's an irrelevant discussion to the canon. If we can't agree on even these basic facts, then it's pointless to discuss these IPs, or by the looks of things, any fictional setting at all.

 

[Hawki]

Well akshually!!!

No but actually, it's not really about being armed. I know Dutch himself says this, but this is not exactly correct. In the first movie the Predator is already observing Dutch's crew as they move through the jungle while they're armed and does nothing. It also doesn't seem to bother the guerilla's.

Well, we know that the Jungle Hunter had been operating in the jungle for a reasonable amount of time (long enough for a legend to form), and that it skinned the first CIA team. I don't think it never intended to not engage Dutch, it's just that up to the attack, it was observing and gauging them. We, the audience, might see its actions as chutzpah, but in-universe, I doubt it cared.

Hasn't it already starte It's only after it sees Dutch and the gang lay waste to an entire camp of soldiers that it gets the munchies. And by the time Dutch is completely on his own he's not armed at all, and the Predator still wants his ass, even when he's crawling bloody and helpless on the ground. It's pretty much about the Predator marking a target it finds worthy and then going after it.

I figure that if you initiate a fight, the yautja sees it through. Otherwise, it would stop fighting anyone who throws down their weapon.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, we know that the Jungle Hunter had been operating in the jungle for a reasonable amount of time (long enough for a legend to form),

I thought it was other predators that had come previously that had done that, but I've no actual evidence for that now that I think of it.

I agree, but again, that's beside the point. I've made no secret over the years that I detest T3 (in large part due to how it undermines T2), my personal feelings are irrelevant on the subject of canon. The only recourse you have to say that T3 isn't canon is that the Terminator franchise operates on the principle of time travel, so you depending on how you treat the setting, either T3 exists in its own timeline, or you take Tim Miller's view that there's only one single timeline constantly in flux (I, and most people, go for the former).

Also, I'll point out that at this point, you've cited two sequels that you're apparently fine with in your personal canon (Empire, T2), so later comments of "treating sequels seriously undermines the originals" reeks of hypocrisy. Like I said, it seems that your take on canon is "whatever I want it to be," which is fine for headcanon, but reality doesn't shift in accordance with it.

What if you watch the first and the second and then decide not to watch later films? Ok, still a bit headcanony, but I tend to think that's the best way of doing it, just end viewing before things fall apart.

 

[Absent]

You're making two different arguments here.

On the subject of authors not knowing how future events would unfold, I agree. It's silly to write-off 2001: A Space Odyssey on the basis that by the year 2001 in real-life, we didn't have tech approaching that of the film (not to mention that in our world, the USSR had collapsed a decade ago). Same goes for works like Blade Runner and Alien - works that have projections into the future that are invalidated by a real-world timeline don't invalidate the world itself.

But if we're making the history argument, from a real-world perspective, yes, I agree, but throughout this thread, you've thrown aside the history of the in-universe perspective. To use the example of the Luke/Leia thing in Empire vs. Return, that's an irrelevant discussion to the canon. If we can't agree on even these basic facts, then it's pointless to discuss these IPs, or by the looks of things, any fictional setting at all.

It is the same thing. When, for instance, Lucas writes that kiss scene, he has no idea that Luke and Leia will turn out siblings. Exactly like Weir has no idea the USSR will have collapsed by 2010. When Kenobi (sorry, yeah, it was Kenobi, not Yoda, Yoda's line did fit better) is written to say that Anakin was already a great pilot when they met, he (Kenobi, the author of Kenobi's line) has absolutely no idea that he will later be written as having met a toddler who was a great soapbox racer and would then destroy an army by randomly mashing buttons in a spaceship and going oops. And when Ridley Scott's team designed the Alien cycle, its egg was produced by capturing creatures (the Nostromo's crew) and cocooning into transformation : at that point, the Alien had no bossfighty hive queen origin. It was a different universe than the one that gets defined in the sequel. A movie is not responsible for its sequels, it does not include them, it is not rewritten by them. That is not how history works, and that is not how time works. For real.

Geeks love their "canon" because they love treating fiction like history (an easy version of history, with most knowledge at hand and with purely esthetic judgement on speculation), so they love treating it as a whole, cohesive, meaningful, well-bridged. They don't like out-universe explanations that don't get smoothed out by in-universe explanations, they don't like logical discontinuities. But these fictions are random arbitrary products of real life (circumstances, constraints, accidents), and they are made of random, capricious, out-universe decisions. It's a deeper, less "playful" and more "real" reality, that has a better explanation power on a works' contents, and this is a better basis of judgement on that work.

When a franchise's unit is produced, the previous ones exists and are part of the story, and that unit's authors can be blamed for whatever doesn't gel well. They inherit the previous episode and must deal with that, as part of the story. But : the following units aren't part of the story. The author is not responsible for these, they do not factor in the writing, which meaning is only defined by what exists at the time. And if, five episode later, another author adds "and then they woke up and it was all a dream", nope, that former unit was not written as a dream, was not meant to be interpreted as such. It's a standalone (pure standalone if it's a first, standalone-with-its-predecessors if not).

Again, movies are best experienced in historical context and with their author's meaning in mind. "Canon" rewriting is historically imaginary, and it erases what the movie was.

What if you watch the first and the second and then decide not to watch later films?

Technically, each sequel makes a new, different, longer, separate story, that starts a lot like the previous one.

There are many Alien stories, from the movies. One goes "Alien", The End. Another goes "Alien", "Aliens", The End. A third one goes "Alien", "Aliens", "Alien3", The End. Etc.

Usually, these very separate stories are experienced by watching the last movie while "remembering" (with the imposed deviations/updates/corrections) the previous ones.

(And of course one may opt to watch/rewatch an earlier movie from the perspective of a later one, with the fitting interpretations... but that is still "missing", deliberately or accidentally, the movie that the authors did, meant, intended. Which I'd consider, let's say, a more "nerd" than "cinephile" approach.)

 

[Gordon_4]

And when Ridley Scott's team designed the Alien cycle, its egg was produced by capturing creatures (the Nostromo's crew) and cocooning into transformation : at that point, the Alien had no bossfighty hive queen origin. It was a different universe than the one that gets defined in the sequel. A movie is not responsible for its sequels, it does not include them, it is not rewritten by them. That is not how history works, and that is not how time works. For real.

Perhaps not, but it does recontexualise them. Kind of like how we once, and for a very long time, believed that dinosaurs were reptiles. Then there's a breakthrough, and our new understanding is that in fact dinosaurs were much closer to being avian than reptilian. That doesn't change the facts of most dinosaur's existence: Iguanodon doesn't stop being Iguanodon, its just now we know it may have had feathers rather than scales.

I mean even in your example about Alien; sure the story didn't include the Queen but the specifics weren't put on screen so its entirely plausible that she WAS on the ship, just not in the part where Kane, Dallas and Lambert went in. And its not like they stuck around to check: Kane got face hugged and they high-tailed it the hell out of dodge, got on their ship, took off and didn't give the place a backward glance. And indeed why should they: they're truckers, not explorers or a military expeditionary force. So all that the Queen does in Aliens, is answer a single pertinent question. It doesn't remove mystery entirely because we still don't know where that ship came from, whom it belonged to, and why it was carrying all those eggs (and the queen to lay them). Well, there is other fiction that answers that, but none of that changes Alien or Aliens.

 

[Hawki]

I thought it was other predators that had come previously that had done that, but I've no actual evidence for that now that I think of it.

By the dialogue, it's pretty much confirmed that it's the same yautja. Anna calls it the "El Diablo que hace trofeos de los hombres" ("The demon who makes trophies of men"), and it's established that it's been operating in the jungle for awhile. While hypothetically, it could be different yautja each season, even by the film in of itself, the implication is that it's the same beastie. It would lose a lot of intimidation factor if it was just one rando out of lots of randos doing jungle hunting trips.

What if you watch the first and the second and then decide not to watch later films? Ok, still a bit headcanony, but I tend to think that's the best way of doing it, just end viewing before things fall apart.

The thing about Terminator is that it really is a case of a franchise where you not only get to pick and choose what you want to treat as canon, but where the IP itself supports this due to the nature of time travel.

Practically every piece of Terminator media operates as a given that T1 and T2 happen - there's some material that was published between the two films (and it's kinda interesting to see how certain elements were imagined before T2 solidified them), but as a rule, these are the base points. After that, you can go in any direction you wish after T2. End it there? Go for it. Factor in the deleted ending? Go for it. Want to watch a movie after it? Battle Across Time, T3, or Dark Fate. Want a TV show? Sarah Connor Chronicles. Novels? The Infiltrator trilogy and John Connor Chronicles. Comics? Too many to count. While T3 irks me because of how it undercuts T2, it's simply one of countless spinoff points. There's a reason why I generally mix and match timeline elements for Terminator in writing, because by definition, any apparent discrepency can be attributed to timeline shannigans. Heck, my TV Tropes mention actually gives credit to me as having "a great knack for mixing timelines" (aw, shucks).

So, yeah, to me, T3 is canon, because literally everything in the Terminator is canon in the sense that everything takes place in some timeline or another, and is therefore valid. T1 and T2 happen, in the best! (trademark) timeline, the deleted ending to T2 occurs and nothing else, but there's other timelines that exist as well.

When Kenobi (sorry, yeah, it was Kenobi, not Yoda, Yoda's line did fit better) is written to say that Anakin was already a great pilot when they met, he (Kenobi, the author of Kenobi's line) has absolutely no idea that he will later be written as having met a toddler who was a great soapbox racer and would then destroy an army by randomly mashing buttons in a spaceship and going oops.

While a goof, it can work - Anakin is the only human able to podrace, so while it's a stretch (since Obi-Wan doesn't watch the race), it technically works.

And when Ridley Scott's team designed the Alien cycle, its egg was produced by capturing creatures (the Nostromo's crew) and cocooning into transformation : at that point, the Alien had no bossfighty hive queen origin. It was a different universe than the one that gets defined in the sequel.

First, that was only in a deleted scene, so its validity is iffy. Second, it very much is the same universe, there's absolutely no disputing that. Third, to borrow a phrase, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That there's no queen in Alien isn't a mark against Aliens for introducing her.

A movie is not responsible for its sequels, it does not include them, it is not rewritten by them. That is not how history works, and that is not how time works. For real.

You've switched from "universe" to "history," and I'm still left wondering what the issue is.

If we're looking at this from a Watsonian perspective (as most would), again, there's no discrepency. The only basis for a discrepency is a deleted scene. Aliens introduced the queen, practically every piece of Aliens media acknowledges the queen caste, including Alien 3 and Resurrection. Isolation is a notable exception, and in so doing, Isolation's take on things is made all the iffier. I get that Isolation is harkening back to Alien and Alien alone, but a lot of the elements of Isolation really don't fit with the wider Aliens universe.

If you're looking at this from a Doylist perspective, well, sure, Alien was made as a stand-alone film, and there's nothing in said film to suggest the existence of a queen caste. I can watch Alien in isolation (no, that isn't a pun), evaluate it as a piece of sci-fi horror media, and so on. But that's completely academic to what Aliens does. There's nothing in Alien from a storytelling standpoint that's dependent on a queen or the lack of one. It's...I'm sorry, this isn't an EU thing, I just don't get why you're so hung up on elements introduced in Aliens that don't really contradict anything in the first film. There's no shortage of discrepencies in the Aliens canon (even the films aren't that consistent), but this isn't one of them.

Geeks love their "canon" because they love treating fiction like history (an easy version of history, with most knowledge at hand and with purely esthetic judgement on speculation), so they love treating it as a whole, cohesive, meaningful, well-bridged.

That's true of most people.

People aren't stupid. People notice discrepencies, and appreciate storylines that are consistent. There's any number of reasons why issues might arise in storytelling, but it's the writer's job to minimize them.

They don't like out-universe explanations that don't get smoothed out by in-universe explanations, they don't like logical discontinuities. But these fictions are random arbitrary products of real life (circumstances, constraints, accidents), and they are made of random, capricious, out-universe decisions.

In some cases, yes, in some cases, no. For instance, Prometheus really throws a wringer in Aliens lore, but none of the decisions made in the film were random.

It's a deeper, less "playful" and more "real" reality, that has a better explanation power on a works' contents, and this is a better basis of judgement on that work.

Well that really depends on how you're evaluating the work, isn't it?

I'm quite capable of looking at Alien as the story of the destruction of the USCSS Nostromo, destroyed in 2122, as a catalyst for the stories of Ellen and Amanda Ripley, and I'm also capable of looking at it as a masterpiece of sci-fi horror that's had immense influence in the genre to this day. I'd have thought my review of Prey was an example of it when I mentioned the potential retcons the film introduces. Even if those are retcons (and boo! if they are), it doesn't detract from the film's quality as a film.

It seems that the difference is that you're only interested in looking at films in one way, from a Doylist lens. I've made no secret that I'm more of a Watsonian, but I'm quite capable of looking at films in their own right.

When a franchise's unit is produced, the previous ones exists and are part of the story, and that unit's authors can be blamed for whatever doesn't gel well. They inherit the previous episode and must deal with that, as part of the story.

All true.

But : the following units aren't part of the story. The author is not responsible for these, they do not factor in the writing, which meaning is only defined by what exists at the time. And if, five episode later, another author adds "and then they woke up and it was all a dream", nope, that former unit was not written as a dream, was not meant to be interpreted as such. It's a standalone (pure standalone if it's a first, standalone-with-its-predecessors if not).

Except that's completely false.

By your example, if there's a TV show of, say, ten episodes, and Writer A writes the first five, and Writer B writes the next five, it's a very specious claim to say that the two halves are completely different stories. Episodes aren't stand-alone in serialized television. Discrepencies may arise between different writers, but these are discrepencies, they're not the basis for saying episodes/seasons are part of different stories altogether.

Again, movies are best experienced in historical context and with their author's meaning in mind. "Canon" rewriting is historically imaginary, and it erases what the movie was.

You seem intent on insisting there's a conflict when there isn't one.

Yes, technically "canon" (as you describe it) can override a movie's context. An Alien movie could come out tomorrow and say that everything after Alien is just Ripley dreaming in cryo-sleep. That would affect canon, it wouldn't affect the worth/lack of it of Aliens, Alien 3, and Resurrection as films. On that, I agree, it's quite possible (and in many cases, desirable) to look at films on their own terms.

Except canon hasn't rewritten Alien. Nowhere. Yes, canon has used Alien as a basis, canon has retroactively added to Alien (e.g. Isolation establishes that Ripley left a message for Amanda in addition to her final report as seen in the film, while Amanda didn't conceptually exist until its sequel), but none of this has overridden Alien. It seems like your entire hangup is that Alien isn't a stand-alone film, that the mere existence of Aliens and everything else is egregious by its mere existence.

Technically, each sequel makes a new, different, longer, separate story, that starts a lot like the previous one.

Okay, and?

There are many Alien stories, from the movies. One goes "Alien", The End. Another goes "Alien", "Aliens", The End. A third one goes "Alien", "Aliens", "Alien3", The End. Etc.

And?

Usually, these very separate stories are experienced by watching the last movie while "remembering" (with the imposed deviations/updates/corrections) the previous ones.

And?

Sorry, I don't know what your point is. Alien 1-4 each end definitively. That's true. What's your point? That's true of a lot of films. A definitive ending in one film is in no way a mark against a story being continued. Heck, The Hobbit ends definitively for instance, it didn't stop Lord of the Rings being written.

(And of course one may opt to watch/rewatch an earlier movie from the perspective of a later one, with the fitting interpretations... but that is still "missing", deliberately or accidentally, the movie that the authors did, meant, intended. Which I'd consider, let's say, a more "nerd" than "cinephile" approach.)

Okay, sure. If you want to frame it as a "nerd vs. cinephile" paradigm, then yes, those may have different viewing experiences. Your perception of the OT and PT of Star Wars will shift in accordance with which trilogy you view first. It's part of why I'd recommend a newcomer to start with the OT and then the PT as a first time round, but in subsequent rewatches to view them chronologically.

But since this has mainly focused on Alien and Aliens, I'm not sure what elements of Aliens retroactively change Alien. I can understand someone souring on Aliens because of Alien 3, I can understand someone souring on Alien 3 because of Resurrection, I can sure as hell understand someone souring on Alien because of Prometheus, but Aliens and Alien? Really? I'm not seeing the issue from any angle here.