Talk:Alien (film)

GA reassessment

Alien (film)

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted Multiple citation needed tags still present. A bit of a shame as these could have been fixed relatively easily. Still it has been open for three months now and more than enough time has passed Aircorn (talk) 18:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

2008 promotion that has seen better days. Although many parts are exquisitely detailed, there are dozens of citation needed tags (including one in the lead) that need to be addressed. I recently made some edits myself regarding extra references in the lead and infobox, but I can't assist anywhere else. I feel the dozens of tags are sufficient enough to nominate for reassessment. – zmbro _(talk) 19:46, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Now there are 14. I am not going to work on this article myself but am curious to know whether if all the remaining uncited sentences were removed it would still rate as "good"?Chidgk1 (talk) 18:08, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• Are you ready to close this zmbro Aircorn (talk) 18:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Aircorn Yep go ahead. – zmbro _(talk) 18:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• Ah I thought it was an individual reassessment. I can close this then. Aircorn (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by CSJJ104 (talk) 22:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the working title of Alien was Star Beast? Source:
  • ALT1: ... that Alien was made into a high school play by students at North Bergen High School? Source:
  • ALT2: ... that Alien has been called a "rape movie with male victims"? Source:
  • ALT3: ... that while filming the 'chestburster scene' in Alien one actor found it so shocking they fell over and went into hysterics? Source:
  • Reviewed:

Improved to Good Article status by Lankyant (talk). Self-nominated at 11:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC).

• Promoted to GA status on 9/2. Long enough and appears policy compliant. My attempt to run an Earwig check was unsuccessful (the results would not load) but my spot-checking didn't detect anything nefarious. (If someone else can get earwig to run, that would be great.) The proposed hooks are interesting/hooky and are short enough. Certain of the sources are books that are not available for my online verification, but they are accepted in good faith. This is the nominator's second DYK and so no QPQ is required. Cbl62 (talk) 13:26, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Earwig flags a potential violation, but they're all direct quotes and presented as such within the article. CSJJ104 (talk) 22:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Error

According to the article:

"Following company policy to investigate any potential distress signal, they land on the moon"

But according to the movie:

"Any systematised transmission indicating intelligent origin must be investigated..."

Doesn't matter if it's a distress call or not. Dornwald (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Article text corrected accordingly. --ToaneeM (talk) 23:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

User:ToaneeM Thanks!

Actually it's ""Any systematised transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin must be investigated."

The transcript i quoted was slightly off, "a possible" should be added. Dornwald (talk) 00:49, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I did try to find that section of the film to get it right. The plot summary should be as succinct as possible while remaining unambiguous and this was quite wordy. But alternative wordings of it are just as lengthy and this article's plot gets toyed with far too much as it is, so the real one's easiest. Thanks.ToaneeM (talk) 12:03, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Greatest film in its genre or all-time?

This has confused me over the years. I'm curious about what makes a film like The Silence of the Lambs (film) mentioned as "one of the greatest and most influential films" (which I don't disagree personally, it's a great movie) vs. a film like Alien listed as just "one of the greatest and most influential science fiction and horror films of all time." It's a nickpick for sure, but I wanted to ask. Cahlin29 (talk) 07:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Grammar Error

When Ripley is using the computer, the computer spits out "...insure the return of the organism...". This should have been "...ensure return of the organism". 70.161.8.90 (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That is what is on screen and despite what you may think it is actually correct. Ensure means to make sure certain or safe. However insure means to actively take measures to make something happen, it stresses the necessity of taking action. Insure carries a lot more weight here and is the word that allows Ash to do whatever he deems necessary, whereas ensure doesn't carry the same meaning. Canterbury Tail talk 12:18, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Revert

This copyedit removed needless elements from the plot summary text. These edits were not based "on preference", the text contains pointless verbage that serves no purpose. See WP:STREAMLINE.

Examples:

• Following company policy to investigate "any systematised transmission indicating intelligent origin," they land on the planet. Dallas, Kane, and Lambert then head out to investigate the signal's origin — if we say they're following a policy to investigate the signal, we don't need to say they they are investigating the signal
• it manages to hang onto the door frame is functionally identical to it hangs onto the door frame; (see "Successful attempts" at WP:STREAMLINE for more examples of this)
• Lambert suggests abandoning the ship and fleeing in the escape shuttle — if they flee in an escape shuttle then obviously they are leaving the ship behind, that's what escape shuttles are for — just "Lambert suggests fleeing in the escape shuttle" is fine
• As the acting senior officer, Ripley refuses to let them aboard, citing quarantine regulations, but Ash overrides her decision and lets them inside If we say Ash overrides her decision, then we know he lets them inside; that's the decision he is overriding. We then immediately describe the crew being inside the ship in the next sentence
• There are also random oscillations between "the creature" vs "the alien" — use the same term (or the appropriate pronoun) each time, see WP:ELEVAR

If I had edited the summary to add rather than remove these elements no one would think they served any point at all. Please reconsider this revert. Popcornfud (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you removal of those items in your edits, the plot was unnecessarily wordy. A plot summary is that, a plot summary. It's not a fully detailed script of the plot, just enough for a reader to get a general idea not every nuance. And you're right, there were a lot of words that served no purpose other than to inflate a word count. Canterbury Tail talk 23:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I reverted the edit and in retrospect, I shouldn't have, I hadn't read it all through properly late yesterday. Like many film summaries, people enjoy retelling the story in their own words. I prefer a short concise summary and I edited this right down years back then watched it inflate and deflate over the years. Please go ahead and reinstate your change. However, I'd have kept Following company policy to investigate "any systematised transmission indicating intelligent origin,". It's quoting the film's justification and is short enough. ToaneeM (talk) 07:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, I'll reinstate, thanks. But I don't really see the need to quote from the movie when we can just paraphrase. If you disagree then put that part back. Popcornfud (talk) 09:41, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a need or reason for the actual quote, but if we are going to make it then make sure it's accurate and not a paraphrased quote masquerading as a direct quote. "any systematized transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin". However this is now far too wordy in my opinion. Canterbury Tail talk 11:58, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

That's fine. By the way, it's much easier to assess your changes if you don't do lots of little changes. Besides that larger one (and its reinstatement), you've done 9 changes in 2 days. Better for others to do some/most of them in one go. Thanks. ToaneeM (talk) 12:22, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's easy enough to select them all and view them as one. Lots of people make minor changes here and there as they see them. I get the point, but it's easily gotten around. Canterbury Tail talk

If you want to see all the changes in a single diff, just go to View history, select the most recent change and compare it against the oldest version you want to compare against. Popcornfud (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's harder then to identify an incorrect edit amongst edits. As I first said, it's better for others to do some/most of them in one go. It's not that it can't be worked with, it's just easier to work with fewer larger changes. Especially when multiple editors are doing them in alternation with each other. Anyway, I'll leave it there. ToaneeM (talk) 17:41, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm continuing to face opposition in trimming the wordiness of this article. Please look again at these edits.

• In 2008, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre -> In 2008, it was named the seventh-best science fiction film by the American Film Institute. Same thing, fewer words.
• The success of Alien spawned a media franchise -> The success created a media franchise Same thing, fewer words (we know we're talking about the movie Alien, that's what this entire article is about)
• The story of her character's encounters with the alien creatures became the thematic and narrative core of the sequels
  • *The story of her character is an WP:EASTEREGG link — we should instead introduce and link Ellen Ripley properly in the text.
  • How can "the story become the sequels" when the sequels are the story? They're not adaptations of a real person's biography (thank God).
  • What does "the thematic and narrative core of the sequels" actually mean? Does the reader benefit from this description? If we say the sequels merely star Ripley but don't add that she is the "thematic and narrative core" will the reader lose out on valuable info?
• It received mixed reviews on release but was a box-office success, winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects ... [and lots of other awards] This sequencing implies the awards are related to the box-office success, when in fact they're separate subjects. The box office success should be described separately (ideally with a concrete figure: how much did it earn?)

In honesty, I think much of the lead should be drastically reworked anyway. Aside from the prose problems, it has little coverage of the production and development of the film, which is covered at length in the article body. Popcornfud (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The statement "I'm continuing to face opposition in trimming the wordiness of this article" is flawed. The article isn't 'wordy' but you're repeatedly trying to use that justification. Trouble is, it means whatever you want it to. Actually, what's happening is you're continuing to have unnecessary edits and over-cutting objected to, rightly so. The goal isn't to have the article fit on the back of a box matches, not to have it terse and unfriendly. You're continually pointing out how meanings can be deduced from fewer words but doing so does not make it a better article, just more hard work and dull to read. It's fine as it is and, if you look through its long history instead, you'll see that a lot of work by a lot of editors got it to its present good form. You're coming across as the article's big fault is just it doesn't fit your preferences. ToaneeM (talk) 18:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Good sentences contain no unnecessary words. If you don't agree with that principle then there isn't much of a discussion to be had here, unfortunately. Popcornfud (talk) 18:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Yet again, that's a very subjective view that you're attempting to pass off as fact. There's a lot more to article writing than that. I'm afraid your view of it all isn't automatically the one that carries the day. This is getting nowhere so I'll leave it there. ToaneeM (talk) 19:24, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

One comment, can we please get rid of the horrific overuse of the pointless term "of all time", as without it the context is still known and we don't know the future. Canterbury Tail talk 19:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Good idea, in fact the best idea of all time :-) ToaneeM (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)