Alien Awakening: A Clean Alien

Friedrich 2022-03-24 09:01:35

On the poster, large-scale portraits of Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds hit the eye directly, with a blue space behind and a quiet universe. If it weren't for the four big characters of "Alien Awakening", I would have thought it was a replica of "Gravity". But I didn't expect that this would turn out to be a cleaner and more literary "Alien".
Strictly speaking, the film, like Gravity, has some factual errors. For example: the International Space Station will be decommissioned in 2020. At that time, the Mars exploration plan will not be mature enough to send a large number of samples back to Earth; China has never participated in the construction of the International Space Station, and Western countries will not allow China to participate; The facilities of the International Space Station, especially the sleeping pods, operating stations, laboratories, escape pods, etc., are fictional, and are not and will not be so advanced now. The scene of astronauts burning alien creatures with flamethrowers is simply jaw-dropping: the most feared thing in space stations is fire!
Even so, the plot of "Alien Awakening" is full of dangers, and the grasp of the horror atmosphere is very good. The transition between the plots is well-founded, and the cause and effect are interlinked, showing the rigorous production spirit. For example, whenever the Martian creature Kevin tried to drill in from the thruster, the astronauts started the engine to blow it away. However, the movement of the engine changed the orbit of the space station, which consumed a lot of fuel, not only did not drive Kevin away, but also made the space station about to crash. Another example is that after the astronauts blocked Kevin in the dawn cabin, the Soyuz spacecraft that came to support wanted to dock here, and the Japanese astronaut Shusui, who lost contact with others, ran away, and waited until he found out that the so-called support was actually taking them. When pushed into space to fend for himself, he was dragged out of the vehicle by Kevin. However, the untimely strong propulsion not only destroyed the cabin structure and released Kevin, but the intended effect has not been achieved - the International Space Station is getting closer and closer to the earth under the action of the reaction force. Reasonable deduction and fact-based imaginative play are the guarantees for the success of this film.
It's a "clean Alien" because it's still a space sci-fi horror movie -- a genre that's long since passed. Both the characters and the plot are highly similar to "Alien": astronauts accidentally come into contact with alien life; alien life is surprising when it is harmless; smart and scary when it is harmful, killing people like numbness, and splashing blood; all kinds of defenses one after another Failed, fear turned to despair... Even the topics of discussion are similar: alien life is ferocious, dirty, but pure because it just wants to live. "With creation, first destruction" ("Prometheus"), it must kill. The contrast between the alien life with "inner essence" and the "moral outside, internal strife" is particularly strong in "Alien", and the film even wrote it in the title - Life.
In recent years, the space theme has become very popular, and the birth of "Alien Awakening" is not difficult to understand; extraterrestrial creatures have become a commonplace in Hollywood, and first rituals and then soldiers are also common routines for aliens; the closed mechanical space is simply depressing and terrifying. The best pusher (such as "Terminator", "Ex Machina", "Alien", etc.); the emotional cues of astronauts are also not surprising (the heroine of "Gravity" said that her daughter fell to her death while sliding down the slide, so she returned Earth Time repeatedly described the image of her daughter, "Don't worry, there is an uncle who will accompany you"; in this film, the commander gave a comic book to Xiu's daughter, and finally helped the male protagonist recall his childhood) and so on.
Different from "Alien", the astronauts in "Alien Awakening" are in the same boat, not scheming; at the end of "Alien Awakening", it was Kevin who returned to Earth, and the astronaut was thrown out of space. This anti-happy ending is filled with despair, and it also reflects the film's main creator's negative attitude towards the exploration of alien life, and satirizes the self-proclaimed intelligent human beings. However, the original ending of "Alien" was that Ripley was killed by the Alien, who imitated humans to send a signal to Earth for help. Because the ending was too dark, the director finally gave up. It seems that this kind of pessimism existed 40 years ago.
The film also has shortcomings: the characters are not three-dimensional, unlike Kowalski in "Gravity", who speaks to himself with humor, showing optimism and calmness; although the life of Kevin on Mars is murderous but beautiful like a jellyfish, it is obvious that It is not a typical Hollywood monster image (dirty, ugly, fierce...see Alien), although it is innovative but also weakens the horror atmosphere of the whole film; after all, the International Space Station is not a transport ship far from the earth, so the audience's sense of helplessness is not as good as "Alien" - After all, Zhuyu is in front, and Banmen's axe will inevitably go wrong.
In short, for the film's excellent weightless effect, smooth plot development, thrilling horror atmosphere, and desperate ending of the story, it is definitely worth buying tickets to enjoy. Although it is a "homologous" of "Alien", it can also be regarded as a relatively excellent thriller in recent years.

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