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Alien and the imaginary real

example · film: Alien / sci-fi horror · retold in 3 talks

Sci-fi/horror's 'the thing', terrifying creatures in films like Alien, images too strong to be directly confronted, but still images: the imaginary real.

As told 2

“These terrifying creatures, too strong to be directly confronted, but nonetheless it's imaginary because it's an image which is too strong to be confronted.”
“all the time our previous alternate embodiments, what we might have been but are not, these alternate versions of ourselves are haunting us.”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

Its cast and sources

populated by
alongside works

Every retelling 2

Sci-fi/horror's 'the thing', terrifying creatures in films like Alien, images too strong to be directly confronted, but still images: the imaginary real., illustrating imaginary real
Ripley enters a room of previous failed cloning attempts, from tiny fetus-like forms to almost-human-but-monstrous creatures, our previous alternate embodiments haunt us, pointing to an ontology of unfinished reality., illustrating unfinished universe,the Real,modern cinema