I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":

"Spaceship people get up from sleeping
coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
who dead then find too many egg.

Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
before spaceship go home but is hard working.

Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
blood robot? Scream not working because
space make deaf."
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On Saturday, 9 July 2022 at 18:36:12 UTC+1, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>
> "Spaceship people get up from sleeping
> coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
> strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
> to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
> who dead then find too many egg.
>
> Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
> egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
> Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
> before spaceship go home but is hard working.
>
> Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
> blood robot? Scream not working because
> space make deaf."

Yes... I don't see why even a bootleg copy of _Alien_
would have to have a plot in /bad/ English. Or would
have noodles, milk, /and/ plot surprises spoiled.

Apparently dated from December 2021 (Google said)
is this listing in Reddit, but a screenshot from elsewhere -
and not the DVD cover.
<https://www.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/rrq4bs/holup_hong_kong_bootleg_synopsis_of_alien_1979/>

On 09/07/2022 14.37, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Saturday, 9 July 2022 at 18:36:12 UTC+1, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
>> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":

> Yes... I don't see why even a bootleg copy of _Alien_
> would have to have a plot in /bad/ English. Or would
> have noodles, milk, /and/ plot surprises spoiled.

Yeah, if they were going to violate IP to copy the
DVD, why not go this much further >< and copy the
description, too?

--
Michael F. Stemper
This post contains greater than 95% post-consumer bytes by weight.

On 7/9/2022 1:44 PM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 09/07/2022 14.37, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> On Saturday, 9 July 2022 at 18:36:12 UTC+1, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
>>> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>
>
>> Yes...  I don't see why even a bootleg copy of _Alien_
>> would have to have a plot in /bad/ English.  Or would
>> have noodles, milk, /and/ plot surprises spoiled.
>
> Yeah, if they were going to violate IP to copy the
> DVD, why not go this much further >< and copy the
> description, too?
>
They probably copied the Mandarin description and then (badly)
translated it to English.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 2022-07-09, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <ted@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>

I vastly prefer:

"Alien is a movie where nobody listens to the smart woman, and then they
all die except for the smart woman and her cat. Four stars."

Author unclear.

-dsr-

On Sunday, 10 July 2022 at 12:08:07 UTC+1, -dsr- wrote:
> On 2022-07-09, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
> > I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
> > from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
> >
> I vastly prefer:
>
> "Alien is a movie where nobody listens to the smart woman, and then they
> all die except for the smart woman and her cat. Four stars."
>
> Author unclear.

I woulda said Dorothy Heydt if she ever watched it, and woulda
considered her "Pyewacket" (not the film) as a response, but
it appears to have been tweeted privately in 2019 by reviewer
<http://www.adamshaftoe.com> as what Mrs. Shaftoe made of it.

Since I'm ignoring the "privately" part, here's a quote with date
<http://www.bryanreesman.com/2019/05/04/the-best-review-of-alien-ever/>
and what may be a screenshot without date.
<https://www.facebook.com/thefemalelead/photos/my-wifes-review-of-alien-puts-everything-i-have-ever-written-to-shame-/2392693370993887/>

And, later that week, the meme.
<https://me.me/i/alien-is-a-movie-where-noone-listens-to-the-smart-851c2a097d4c4867968393901797f263>

<https://www.themarysue.com/alien-blew-me-away/> -
later (October 2019), and, for all that I know, written by
Mr Shaftoe's wife - also says, in title, "Everyone should
have listened to Ripley."

Terry Pratchett's dream-reality alien adventure
_Only You Can Save Mankind_ (1992) has a second lead
English (?) teenager of the alarmingly capable kind who
likes to be known as Sigourney - it's very clear why - but
initially (and somewhat rarely from Terry Pratchett),
she needs to do the listening.

....actually we did remark on it then. I thought it was familiar.
<https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.written/c/MFnlJuyHYws/m/jqQ7pmRsCwAJ>

Evidently we received it misspelled.

And Dorothy put her word in.
Just the one, but well chosen (and spelled).

On 9 Jul 2022 17:36:06 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

>I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
>from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>
>"Spaceship people get up from sleeping
>coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
>strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
>to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
>who dead then find too many egg.
>
>Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
>egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
>Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
>before spaceship go home but is hard working.
>
>Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
>blood robot? Scream not working because
>space make deaf."

That's actually ... not that bad.

It covers the major plot points, if a bit ... oddly.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 10:36:12 AM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>
> "Spaceship people get up from sleeping
> coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
> strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
> to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
> who dead then find too many egg.
>
> Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
> egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
> Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
> before spaceship go home but is hard working.
>
> Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
> blood robot? Scream not working because
> space make deaf."
> --
> columbiaclosings.com
> What's not in Columbia anymore..
My guess would be that this is either made up or exaggerated by overly literal translation. I will admit I have seen material that is about as bad on generic/ bootleg toy packaging, but usually this is much shorter text that still makes sense in context.

On Sun, 10 Jul 2022 17:23:09 -0700 (PDT), David Brown
<davidnbrown80@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 10:36:12 AM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
>> from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
>>
>> "Spaceship people get up from sleeping
>> coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
>> strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
>> to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
>> who dead then find too many egg.
>>
>> Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
>> egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
>> Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
>> before spaceship go home but is hard working.
>>
>> Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
>> blood robot? Scream not working because
>> space make deaf."
>> --
>> columbiaclosings.com
>> What's not in Columbia anymore..
>My guess would be that this is either made up or exaggerated by overly literal translation. I will admit I have seen material that is about as bad on generic/ bootleg toy packaging, but usually this is much shorter text that still makes sense in context.

IIRC, at least one review of what I call "East Asia technotrash" cited
the instructions for an electonic device as making, if anything, even
less sense than the above does.

Maybe I've been watching too many East Asian Movies (many of them
quite good, BTW), but some aspects of the above sound like something I
would read (I watch in the original language, if that can be
determined, with English subtitles), and so may be simply a cultural
artifact of some sort.

Then again, the whole thing /could/ be a satire, like the
"Blinkenlights" thing. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights>
has the text under Etymology.

Of course, either or both could be regarded as stereotyping.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

David Brown wrote:
> On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 10:36:12 AM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> > I'm a bit sceptical, but supposedly the description
> > from a Hong Kong bootleg DVD of "Alien":
> >
> > "Spaceship people get up from sleeping
> > coffin and have eat. Computer woman find
> > strange noisings on planet and astronauts go
> > to seeing. Astronauts find big elephant man
> > who dead then find too many egg.
> >
> > Astronaut is possess by egg demon and new
> > egg demon is come when eat bad noodle.
> > Seven friends and cat all try to find egg demon
> > before spaceship go home but is hard working.
> >
> > Who will life to escaping? Who is bad milk
> > blood robot? Scream not working because
> > space make deaf."

> My guess would be that this is either made up or exaggerated by overly literal translation. I will admit I have seen material that is about as bad on generic/ bootleg toy packaging, but usually this is much shorter text that still makes sense in context.

I get several videos on mistranslated bootleg dinosaur packaging (what a subgenre!) by someone named SpinoDude in my Youtube feed. It seems every time he diverts from his main subject to release one of these, the first thing he gets is requests for another one!

--
-Jack