Trying to invest any deeper meaning or political analysis to Alien besides the time period it was made in is ridiculous. The script was a salvage job from a shitty space slasher that was a WW2 flick? it was written by a SF guy who got was mostly interested in the monster and effects, and Ridley Scott is on the record numerous times saying that his first concern with the movie was the designs and photography, and the actor and script were the least of his concerns. Even the feminist angle is a bit iffy, since Ripley was a dude at the first drafts, and just turned into a wom,an later because Weaver was such a great fit for the role.
"Corporations BAD" theme of the movie is a holdover from the era, 60's and 70's sci-fi were all about the all consuming, de-humanizing corporations maaan! It is the most basic bitch plot device, but no one gave a shit because the point was to survive the space bug.
What truly galls me is that Bob has no idea of how dire the situation is for the American comic book industry. Mark Millar (rightly) observed that the publishers are chasing a phantom audience on Twitter and ignoring 95% of their audience who are leaving in droves. We, the true comic fans and not pretenders like Bob, are jaded bastards and savvy enough to recognize that Marvel and DC are recycling stories from 10-20 years ago, if not longer. In the case of the former, we know that the House of Ideas is a shambling shell of itself that takes most of its cues from the MCU rather than the other way around. I suspect the smarter fans will jump ship now that Phase 4 is looking to resemble the disaster that was All-New, All-Different Marvel from 2016.
TL;DR Bob has no idea of what he's talking about, as always.
I think the american comics were fucked way, way before all this "current year topics" nonsense started to be fair.
The American comics marked should have parted ways with the Marvel/DC system a looong time, or at the very least, expanded their market to something beyond capeshit.
Capeshit iconography is great to sell toys and shirts, and it is quite something to have decades old universes shared stories like the capeshit comics do, even if you don't like it, hard to deny that there isn't anything like the scope of the Marvel and DC universes, and a lot of people tried to make their own universes and failed, so that is the unique and fascinating thing about american comics.
However, continuity, reboots, and convoluted storylines spaming diverse titles are brick wall to enjoy any title or get into reading.
Not to mention that since the 80's or so, people like more to wear a captain America shirt than to read the comic. Capshit became too iconic for the sake of their own stories, people who never opened a superman comic know what superman is and what he is about.
And like I said, this ain't a recent problem, Marvel and DC have been struggling to keeps people's attention for since the 80's or so, so you get some gritty takes a la Dark Knight, or big reboot like Crisis on Infinite earth, or big events like Secret wars or the Infinity Gauntlet (91 I know, still), or in the 90's, when they started to kill characters like Superman, or make big changes like Clone Saga, just to walk it back later. Even hyped up stuff like the image comics didn't last much in the popular tastes, and since then, comics were never that big ever again.
And the reason is, American comics didn't manage to grow beyond the capeshit stuff. Look, if you take away Naruto and Dragon Ball from manga, that market wouldn't even blink with the sheer amount of titles and genres. Same goes for the European comics, who not only have a large amount of titles and genres, but has the biggest age diverse readers, old folks LOVE to read comics in Europe, same goes for kids, teens, etc, there is a market for every age group there.
But if you take away Spiderman, next day marvel comics is closing the door (or it would without Diney money). Sure, there are plenty American comics that aren't capeshit, great ones at that, but very few manage to make any sucess, and even less manage to become a brand, and Walking Dead alone can't make a wealthy market.
The overdependence of the American comic market on Marvel and DC is what is going to kill it, and I say it is way past time for it to happen, because no matter how impressive is to see these universes reaching for almost a century of stories, it is hard to deny the stench of rot that comes them either.
There is a reason why in Japan grampa might remember Astroboy with foundness, but he buys Demon Slayer and My hero Academia toys for his grandson
Can you imagine Bobby stoned?
View attachment 2309345
No, because the easiest way to spot someone who never did pot in their lives are the ones who speak of it as being this SUUUPER trippy, psychodelic colors trip, when in reality, smoking pot will only so much relax you or leave you a bit punch drunk, laughing at stupid shit, stuff like that.
This notion that Pot leaves you with some sort of sensory perception alterations, seeing colors or some heavy experience, yeah, that is what people who only know the depiction of Pot on TV thinks what is like. Robert wouldn't even know where to get grass to begin with, let alone know "the good stuff"