Alien: Covenant

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Fri, 5. May 17, 17:36

Any one else looking forward to this?

Looks like it is going to be good and better than Prometheus, though set around the same theme. I for one liked Prometheus, even though it was not well written and was at times illogical.

I think it is going to be released on May the 12th here in the UK.

Trailer two.

Some backgrond.

Deleted scenes from Prometheus.

There are many more scenes out there too...

Cpt.Jericho · Post by **Cpt.Jericho** » Fri, 5. May 17, 22:48

Won't watch it. The Alien franchise has been milked that bad that the result has become thinner than water.
I doubt that Hollywood has enough substance left to make this worth watching.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Fri, 5. May 17, 22:57

Damn you sir! I was going to delete this thread as it seemed that everyone else agrees with you, except me of course.

If you want to delete your post, I will follow with the thread deletion...

Cpt.Jericho · Post by **Cpt.Jericho** » Fri, 5. May 17, 23:14

You do know, that you cannot delete a post that is not the last one of a thread?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Fri, 5. May 17, 23:16

I was so totally disappointed with prometheus I actually threw away the DvD after I finished watching it.

That's a rare thing for me, the only other time I did that was with Spanglish. and years before in the nineties when I accidentally bought soft core porn pretending to be science fiction.

I breifly hoped the Aliens franchise was going to be saved with that reboot that was going to disregard Alien 3, but that's been abandoned apparently.

So, not looking forward to it too much. But I'm not thinking the Alien franchise is beyond saving. It just might take a while.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Fri, 5. May 17, 23:23

Cpt.Jericho wrote:You do know, that you cannot delete a post that is not the last one of a thread?

Get away! Are you sure?

If you had agreed, I would have deleted my last one first, then you, then thread bye, bye... **** me this forum can be hard work sometimes.

@mrbadger: This latest one is supposed to restart things if you believe the trailers, it allegedly corrects errors in Prometheus. The next one is already in the pipeline it seems. I am trying to be optimistic about this and am really looking forward to it. It is certainly going to be worth the few quid to watch it at the cinema.

There is a new Predator in the offing next year too.

I feel that any science fiction film should be encouraged, because even the worst example is better than the alternative. Or would you prefer a new Rom Com? How about the funny story of Jeremy Corbyn getting it on with Theresa May?

Cpt.Jericho · Post by **Cpt.Jericho** » Fri, 5. May 17, 23:36

greypanther wrote: **** me this forum can be hard work sometimes.

Sometimes, life can be harsh mistress.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:03

Cpt.Jericho wrote:Sometimes, life can be harsh mistress.

Indeed. Hard to argue with that. Though have to say this forum is not the whole of my life. Each to their own I guess.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:05

greypanther wrote:
I feel that any science fiction film should be encouraged, because even the worst example is better than the alternative. Or would you prefer a new Rom Com?

I'm not 100% convinced I agree there....
Also, I like Rom Coms....

Stars_InTheirEyes · Post by **Stars_InTheirEyes** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:07

i also liked prometheus

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:12

Stars_InTheirEyes wrote:i also liked prometheus

Oh my " Deity "! Are you admitting that you agree with me?! This whole thread adventure has been worth it then!

Each to their own mrbadger. Though now of course, I am going to forever assume that your unpublished book, is in fact a Rom Com involving a Jeremy and a Theresa!

Have you considered publishing with Mills and Boon?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:46

It's not, it's science fiction, and since I git some very polite but quite definate 'this is why your story will never sell' advice that I had no right to expect from an agent, I have a lot of work to do, either to turn it into something that will, or to take his other advice, and to put it aside, consider it a learning experience and start again.

So it's Galaxy spanning artificial intelligences that create copies if themselves, or Dyson Swarms being used to power the future home of mankind. I've started both, well one was done but needs a total tear down and re-write from scratch, but I need to pick one to focus on.

After, that is, I've re-written my modules for this year and started filming for my youtube channel...

I do too much I think

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sat, 6. May 17, 00:56

mrbadger wrote:I do too much I think

I can well imagine that mrbadger!

However...

Did you know that Mills and Boon offer around £ 5000 a book?

( You are not filming using actors that resemble Jeremy and Theresa are you?

)

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 6. May 17, 09:14

Yes I do, but I actually have investigated atat style of writing. It's not anywhere as easy as you might think.

I'm not even slightly capable of it, although I have read a lot of Molly Harpers work (Romantic Fantatsy) to study the way she writes characters.

She's not Mills and Boon, but she is hugely succesful, sitting atop her own feild in much the way david Weber sits atop Science Fiction*.

Not perhaps writing the next War and peace, but writing stuff that sells out as soon as it hits the shelves. I envy her character writing.

You can't dismiss those millionairesesses, they're doing something right after all...

*not that he's the finest writer, he has a large following, and his books sell out when they hit the shops.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sat, 6. May 17, 18:49

greypanther wrote: Did you know that Mills and Boon offer around £ 5000 a book?

So you have to write 5 entire novels a year to match the UK average wage, which doesn't sound all that great to me.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 6. May 17, 19:51

There are more millionaires among Mills and Boon authors then in almost any other genre.

Or at least that was true last time I checked. You get paid based on sales, it's not a one off payment thing. They are just a specialist publishing house.

They may have something I don't know about, but 5,000 sounds like a short story payment, not a book.

Most publishers either don't give signing fees for new authors, or give small ones, so it might be that, but that won't be for the book itself.

M&B's bar to entry is set pretty high. However they are far from being the only specialist publishing house with such rules.

Phillip K Dick, Harry Harrison, Heinlein et al all all wrote under strict rules, which is why so many of their early books were so short.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sat, 6. May 17, 22:40

pjknibbs wrote:So you have to write 5 entire novels a year to match the UK average wage, which doesn't sound all that great to me.

My tongue was firmly in my cheek and I was trying, ( failing I am sure, ) to tease mrbadger. It seemed reasonable after a bottle of wine and a little rum.

I in fact have no idea what you can earn as a Mills and Boon writer, the £ 5000 comes from a vague memory from long ago. ( 1980s in fact, probably. ) I would presume the return is variable. I would also add that my experience of Mills and Boons books, comes from the hundreds and hundreds that my sister used to own. Many thousands maybe. I would however describe none of those as a full size novel, all were small, maybe as small as 1/5 a normal book. Though it seems officially they are between 50,000 and 55,000 words.

Now I am probably going to have to find where that £5000 comes from, if I can be bothered.

Edit: According to an old ( 2012. ) Evening Standard article, the average return is between £2000 and £30,000 per book.

Edit2: A 2007 Bournemouth University study showed that average earnings for the profession in 2004 were £16,000 a year. But of course, that’s skewed by blockbuster writers.

Edit3: It seems that just one part of their company, Harlequin is the company behind Mills and Boon, are continually looking for new work and publish over 85 books a month. Thats just one part of the company. Details here.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 6. May 17, 23:05

I have done quite a bit of research on how much writers earn, and the average is tremendously skewed by self publishing, Amazon and the like.

The simple fact is, you cannot write if the only reason you want to do it is to make money, because you just won't.

Some do, the overwhelming majority don't.
But a significant quantity of those who don't still have fun, and that's often their primary goal, as it should be.

I personaly don't care if I make money or not, I just want to get something read by people.

Self publishing isn't the way to do that, in spite of it apearing to be the correct route in my case, given my preference for open source and creative commons licencing my work.

Unfortunatelly Amazon have turned it into a joke, and a rather sad one at that.

So mainstream publishing is the only route, which means I need to get better, and that can hardly be a bad thing can it

silenced · Post by **silenced** » Sun, 7. May 17, 06:52

Another Alien thingie? The series was finished with Aliens (the 2nd movie), there was no need for anything else.

Stop "riding" a dead horse, it's been beaten into nothingness already over the past few DECADES.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 7. May 17, 08:26

With Promethious, they just made me angry.

A man who specialised in map making getting lost:?

Scientists in unknown environments taking off their helmets like they were just kids at a party

Abdominal surgery with zero after effects

And Running away from a massive rolling spaceship in an open space by staying directly in front of it (and I only found out afterwards how widely that was ridiculed).

Honestly I'm astonished I made it to the end of the movie. I've never managed to watch all of the rest of the 'frachise', just Alien and Aliens. Two superb films I have rewatched many times.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant