Saturday 27 June 2015

After "Frank"

Leading from


a) In 2014, the movie Frank came out about a music group starring Michael Fassbender (known to us as David in Prometheus) as the paper-maché masked character Frank. I could not be bothered to see the movie but looking at the reviews and one thing that seemed odd about it was that all the band members were replacements. I started to think about my alien story characters as people who were all sudden replacements in place of the people who should have been sent.

b) August 17th, 2016,
In 2016, on August 16th, I watch the film on TV,  It’s actually difficult to reimagine in anyway as an Alien or Prometheus movie, other than a group of indecisive people with identity issues wondering about the mission that they’re on and having to kill aliens, but exactly what the aliens that they were killing were remains another question, naturally we’re dealing with inner aliens all the way through and people who would try to kill you for wrecking the mission, if you didn’t kill yourself, and perhaps these characters identity would begin to change half way through so one wasn't exactly sure who they were in the end or who they're going to be replacing or be replaced by.



c) The Nostromo Crew
Perhaps the lead character Frank played by Michael Fassbender cosplays as the alien or is it the space jockey, and if there should be a distinction here, no one would be that bothered because his mask would look not particularly like either creature from the film, and the rest of the gang are cosplayers as well but dress up as ship crew members or Colonial Marines. Perhaps we should make the assumption that Frank is Kane and then the act of birthing the alien becomes his transformation.  Jon played by Domhnall Gleeson finds that he has to play the android perhaps he can't decide whether it should be one like Ash, Bishop Call or David, should his be named Edmund or should be assume that because an android with a name beginning with E should be in Alien: Covenant, that he should be an android named Gerry or Garry, having said that, he might be so sure that Alien V will be made and so he goes for an H name such as Harry or Herbert shortened to Bert. Jon is taken aboard as a member of the crew of the spaceship named The Soronprfbs but we might as well call it the Nostromo instead and discovers that rather than it being a one night adventure, it's an extended long mission in space and he's not quite sure what he should be doing about it. The real crew of the spaceship turn up to take over the operation of the place (perhaps played by members of the original film or one of the following films or more Cosplayers), but they are sent away.

d) The planetoid
The journey to Texas in America must in this case be the journey to the planetoid, and Jon must be in this case, guilty of manipulating events trying to destroy the band for whatever reason. Clara played by Maggie Gylenhaal must be the Ripley character and all her threats against Jon if he ruins everything must all be valid things to do despite how it makes her seem to be psychotic.  Perhaps this would indicate that in the original Alien, Ash thought himself to be the only rational person, the human crew were all psychotic and irrational while the alien was understandably outside of its own environment so any confusion about its behaviour might be somewhat acceptable, and perhaps if only Ash hadn't been caught out when he tried to brutalise and rape Ripley with a rolled up newspaper, the plan would have ended in a way better for all.

e) The life cycle
The alien's life cycle in this movie perhaps doesn't exist, there are no specific derelict ships or spacejockeys or eggsilos. Looking for signs of containers and things breaking open. One of the band members who's the manager commits suicide and then cremated, and his ashes are put into a plastic container and mixed or replaced with ground nut powder or they brought along the wrong container.  Perhaps the plastic container full of powder is one of the spores from Alien or an urn from Prometheus, and no one is really that bothered to have a clue. Perhaps the broken mask when Frank was hit, was also something to think about, or the chestbursting scene with the chestburster biting its way out or the chestburster casting of its skin. Then the hunt for the alien begins, resulting in not much once again. Once they discover him without his mask, they don't actually know who the person is.

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