The Alien Quadrilogy

[Rogue 3]

Yep, Alien 3 I hated for killing off Hicks and Newt. Surely they could have just left them in space on escape pods, or on a different part of the planet. We all understand the actress had grown up but to kill them off after all the stress and excitement of that ending to Aliens..

Trying to ignore that issue (very tough), the rest of the film is not all that bad when rewatching.

 

Spot on about AVP being a bit of fun, popcorn type film. The worst thing about it is that it spawned that bloody awful sequel.

 

Prometheus was fine for me. I quite liked it. Cast is very good, the plot has a few holes, and I was annoyed we didn't go straight to LV426 but to LV223, forcing an second prequel. The scene with her operating on herself to get the creature out of her was intense and in the cinema everyone in the screening I was in enjoyed that! A good crowd reaction in the cinema can help a lot on the experience sometimes hey.

 

And I feel and atmos of the films are really well captured in the game Alien Isolation. Love it!

[Driver]

Watched Alien 3 tonight...

- First and foremost, let's get it out of the way--no one likes the off-screen killing of Newt and Hicks. It's cheap, and makes the triumphant ending of Aliens totally pointless.

- As I've said, the biggest crime this movie committed as far as an audience was concerned is that it wasn't like Aliens. Its tone, visuals, pacing, style and story as so far from Aliens, (which was amazing). Add these two points together and it's not a surprise that it failed to make many people happy.

 

- This movie is credited with 3 writers and one story by credit (which means a 4th writer who was rewritten into oblivion). There's also a couple drafts online (one by William Gibson) that are completely different from what we've got. David Fincher claims he was hamstrung by constant interference from the studio. So what happened basically, was that after Scott and Cameron both refused to come back, the studio got paranoid. They knew they had a potentially huge franchise moneymaker, but it seems like they over-developed the film out of fear of not getting it right, and the result was a cluster fuck of input from a dozen people, scenes written to match sets already built, half developed ideas and a fraction of practical budget of the previous film.

 

- On the up side-- I love the look of this movie. The setting being this of mash up of a factory/prison/gothic monastary with everything bearing the company stamp is really cool

 

-Poopy screenwriting: Ripley refers to it as a xenomorph canonizing the term. Bug me to death. (see my not on this for Aliens.

 

- I always loved Ripley's line to the Alien about how its been in her life so long, it's all she knows. It's a thesis of the entire franchise in one line. It almost makes the deaths of Hicks and Newt acceptable when you realize the whole point is that this Alien takes everything from her. Her daughter, her surrogate daughter, anyone she cares about, etc.

 

- That said, if you take out the hypersleep time, just how long has Ripley dealt with the alien? Based on her report in Aliens, the events of on the Nostromo took place over roughly 2 days. The first act of Aliens seems to cover a few days as well from her waking up to her hearing. There's a time jump of 2-3 weeks while Newt's parents find the derelict, the Aliens take over the colony and the communications go quiet. So as of this point, Ripley has experienced about a month of living since touching down on LV246, which is plagued by nightmares. Once she and the Marines get to Acheron, the initial sweep and colonist search happens quick. Given the countdown to the powerplant going nuclear, again, the movie covers maybe 24-36 hours. Again-- given communications in Alien 3, we know Ripley is on Fury for about 2 weeks from crash-down to her swan dive. So from Ripley's perspective, this has been a really crappy couple months.

 

- Some pretty big new ideas about the Alien biology were introduced in the movie-- some good, but unfortunately some break rules previously established. The idea that the alien takes on characteristics from whatever life form it is implanted in is cool. This Alien moves on all fours, (in the theatrical version it's implanted in a dog, in the assembly cut an ox). But... how is it everyone else only has a day or so of life once the facehugger comes off, and Ripley is able to go for so long? I GUESS we could say the queen takes longer to incubate? Hrrmmm. But also-- how (and when) did the previous Queen lay an egg on the Sulaco without it's large egg-laying abdomen that it pulled itself off of? We only see one egg in the beginning and yet two implantations happen. (In the assembly cut, Bishop states there were two eggs, but the Ox is implanted off-camera so we have to just assume at least one face hugger was on the escape ship.) In all the story shifting and rewriting, some basic facts about the alien seem to have been looked over.

 

- The music is really bad

 

- I think the finale is pretty cool, with luring the alien into the lead mold

 

- It always bothered me that when the company shows up, they don't have marines with pulse rifles...

 

- The creature FX (and the FX in general) do NOT stand up as well as Aliens. The close ups are a man in suit, and the wide shots are some pretty rough looking optical effects. I think the Alien was a miniature puppet or stop motion that was shot on green screen, then comped into the real footage. The desired effect is so-so, even by then standards. This was 1992, ILM was doing just fine around then, and they certainly didn't work on this movie. The puppetry/practical work of Aliens is not bested.

 

- Oddly, in the assembly cut, the Queen does not burst out of Ripley as she falls. No idea why they changed that

 

At the end of the day, I still feel inclined to defend Alien 3 because I think people hate it for the wrong reason. It IS truer to the original film in that it is a suspenseful gothic horror film in space, and not a scifi action movie. I think somewhere in all the misdirection and overflow of concepts, there is a really cool movie in here. It just didn't come out. Had it been made as well as Aliens, had this been Fincher in his prime-- if there had been a well-written tight script and some of fun that Liens introduced to the series this movie could have been great-- but it didn't do that.

 

The assembly cut certainly feels more solid and less random than the original-- but it is slow. And not in the slow burn horror film like the original, but slow as in lots of scenes full of exposition that don't advance the story or make us like the characters any more.

 

I'll always defend this movie as not being terrible, but now that I've watched them in succession, Alien 3 is the weakest of the series. (though still better than Prometheus or AVP)

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I agree Alien 3 has some bad CGI, but it is a product of the early-mid 90s. In fact, very few 90s CGI stands up, anymore. It's not fair to condemn all CGI from the 90s. It is like condemning Sci Fi films made in the 1960s or before....it's what they had to work with at the time.

 

That said, I am with you on CGI clean up. I don't like altering films, either (As in the way Lucas altered Star Wars multiple times) but I think CGI cleanup and film remastering are certainly allowed, and should be encouraged! When modern CGI can clean up dated CGI, as long as it keeps the spirit of the original work, it should be done wherever possible. For example, how I wish someone would redo the Amiga video toaster CGI from Babylon 5. If Alien 3's CGI was cleaned up with modern techniques, it would help that film a lot.

[ShadowDog]

But like he said ILM and others WERE doing better shit back then.

[Driver]

I don't think Alien 3 used much cgi. The creature was performed as a miniature puppet on green screen that was matted into the film mostly, cgi was used for just a couple shots. (as opposed to Aliens doing full scale puppets shot practically)

[Ryn]

But like he said ILM and others WERE doing better **** back then.

Jurassic Park was only a year after.

[Driver]

Watched Resurrection today...

 

- Joss Whedon is all over this-- but he's also said before that despite being credited, there were writers before and after him, which explains why there seems to be two different movies here. There's a cool hard scifi drama with Ripley coming to grips with being brought back to life, she's great in all her scenes, and her story is a really interesting one-- but this movie seems to be intercut with a really cheesy 90s action movie full of one-liners and comedic performances. Brad Dourif and Dan Hedeya seem to think they are in a scene chomping B-movie and half their reaction seem to be played for laughs.

 

-- As somebody mentioned above, the crew of the Betty is a pretty clear prototype of the Serenity crew.

 

- There's a lot of really bad acting in this movie. This was the height of Winona Ryder being adorably adorable, but she's pretty awful. As are all the French imports from the director's previous movie who are trying to act in a language that's clearly not their own.

 

- I really love Ripley in this movie, and if anything, that's what saves it. Sigourney Weaver looks amazing for her age in this movie (almost 50) and she does a serious acting job. She's Ripley, but she's not. As a clone she has Ripley's mannerisms-- the directness, the bravery, the dry wit, but the memories are scattered. She clearly remembers Newt when she sees an illustration of a girl-- and later mentions a little girl who had bad dreams to Call-- which could have been Newt or her own daughter-- but she can't recall a name. But beyond that, she is NOT Ripley-- the cross-over of the alien DNA gives her an urge to fight, which seems more gleeful than angry. More than anything, this almost pure-reflex drive meshes with Ripley's core trait-- that she's a survivor. She's Ripley, but she's not.

 

- Again, terrible music

 

- Also again, this movie suffers from not being like Aliens. They tried hard to replicate the tropes from Alien-- the military aspect, more action, a motley crew-- but none of it clicks with the same amount of depth or care as Aliens. It's amazing how this movie, made 11 years after Aliens, seems like it is about half the quality. Tonally, again, everything feels cartoony. Compare the mad scientist Ren with his wild expressions, b-movie villain dialog, to the subtle douche-weaselness of Burke from Aliens.

 

- Speaking of, I don't get why they got rid of The Company. The USM was basically doing what Wayland Utani wanted to do-- seems like it would have been a great story point for Ripley to wake up and be in the clutches of the Company despite her best efforts to kill herself. I don't think the story gained anything by being a military outfit. The exact same story could have worked with the Company.

 

- The FX aren't great. It's a combination of model work and early 90s CGI, which don't mesh well. But even the model work seems substandard-- again compared to Aliens, a movie made a decade previous. I'm guessing after Alien 3 tanked Fox wasn't as willing to give it a lot of money.

 

- The Aliens themselves get a more noticeable redesign here-- which has no plot bearing like Alien 3. These are human gestated aliens, so technically, they should look more like they did in Alien/Aliens. Obviously to most people, they are the same old thing, but nerds like me who can tell whose lightsaber is whose, can see they are actually pretty different. These aliens are really gooey, to the point of not feeling very threatening and looking like bad halloween costumes. The creatures has always been drippy from the mouth and slimey-- but these things look like giant sponges. Their hands have been redesigned, and so have their mouths, which is kind of their most defining feature. These are a practical effect for close ups, performed by dudes in suits. For every other type of shot, CG was used, and pretty poorly. Interesting that this movie came out the same year as StarShip Troopers, which also had lots of CGI alien insects-- that looked pretty cool. At the end of the day though, Aliens, with its 100% practical suits and puppetry holds up the best. The aliens in that movie are still creepy.

 

- They've suddenly given the alien the power to spit its own blood as a weapon. That was pointless and dumb.

 

- The one scene where the alien CG worked well, and also was one of the few actually scary scenes in the movie is the underwater sequence. Other than that-- this movie has a few jump scares, but otherwise completely forgets its roots are as a horror film

 

- I watched the special edition, which had a really terrible, cutesy CGI intro with a bug, a bit more of Ripley talking about Newt, and a slightly longer ending after they touch down on Earth. The additional Newt stuff was great, otherwise, the beginning and end were better in the original.

 

Overall feelings on the franchise-- I'm still a fan. While I don't hate 3 and 4, they certainly do not hold up as well as the first two, and after how well the second film was you really have to question some of the decisions made with the franchise. I think that in an alternate universe, the plots/set-ups of 3 and 4 would work fine if they had been better made movies. That said, they aren't complete failures, and as a whole the franchise didn't turn into crap like Star Wars, Star Trek, Jaws, Underworld, The Matrix, Resident Evil, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc etc.

 

The original remains one of the best horror movies ever made, and Aliens is one of, if not THE best scifi-action movies ever made.

[Darth Lohr]

*yawn*

[Jacen123]

[CoLA]

I watched the special edition, which had a really terrible, cutesy CGI intro with a bug, a bit more of Ripley talking about Newt, and a slightly longer ending after they touch down on Earth. The additional Newt stuff was great, otherwise, the beginning and end were better in the original.

When I watched the extended ending, I was expecting either a Terminator or Ash from Evil Dead to show up. At least one of those would have been more entertaining than Ripley and Call chilling out over a ruined Paris. :|

[Ryn]

One plus for Resurrection is the comic book adaptation. Love Eduardo Risso's work.

[Jacen123]

[ShadowDog]

That's messed up. LOL

[Ryn]

Anyone see the "Derelict" cut?

[Pong Messiah]

Anyway-- thoughts. Love to hear what others think/feel...

Alien is not just one of the best horror films ever made, it's one of my all-time favorite films. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley (who initially wasn't even supposed to be the main protagonist) could not have been more perfect. She doesn't have the guilt-driven bravado of Dallas; she doesn't freeze n' freak like Lambert. Of course she is just as terrified as everybody else, but she keeps her focus and her head (literally) while the rest of the crew are picked off. She is one of cinema's all-time survivors -- and lest we forget, she's also the only one willing to make the smart-but-tough decisions: if the crew would have just freaking listened to her, the movie would have been like 30 minutes and only one person would have died.

 

Note: Ridley Scott wanted the Alien to kill Ripley in the final scene, then mimic her voice, making that final log entry we are familiar with (all the better to find new sources of food/eggs, I suppose); this is one of the few times I'm truly thankful a director's, uh, "creative energy," got vetoed by the suits.

-----

 

Aliens is a great, great action flick, and is one of the few times the Special Edition really works as a big net positive to the film. It has an overly 1980s feel at times, I think the "child in peril" angle is overdone to the point of being cheap, and James Cameron is on full display as the most vexing hybrid of hack/genius craftsman to ever make a film, yet all the weak stuff is minimized by the Aliens' sheer brilliance-- the color, the music, the sets and designs, the dialogue, the actors! And all the detail and love that went into making this is so apparent, it's hard not to get wrapped up in it every time it's on.

 

Note: as much as I love Aliens, I think Cameron went down the wrong path by introducing the Queen and using yet more terrestrial examples to fill in the Xenomorph's life cycle gaps.

 

Entomology was a big influence on the original design as well, but Cameron taking it a step further actually weakened the fear factor: the aliens at their core were simply ants or wasps defending their hive, but you couldn't say they were evil. The alien, on the other hand, displayed more humanoid intelligence and was the embodiment of rape (which was deliberate) -- it was undeniably malevelont and horrifying. You can really see this in how the first alien gets off on tormenting/dominating prey that it perceives as being harmless (Brett, Lambert, Ripley), cruelly dragging out their terror, while it takes out the armed Dallas and Parker immediately. Camerons Aliens woulda just taken 'em back to the hive for impregnation (again, still creepy scary, but more part of the "natural life cycle," as opposed to straight up sadistic and evil).

 

That said, Cameron's aliens definitely looked better!

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Alien 3 had a stark, dirty beauty to it, but was a mess, and ultimately too much of a downer to enjoy even if it wasn't a mess. I saw it in the theater, and walking out, my friend turned to me and said, exasperated, "What the **** was that?" I have seen it a few more times because Xenomorph (yes, I know that's not the proper term), but I always feel hopelessly bummed out afterward, so it's kinda like... what's the point?

 

Note: I am not sure if I've seen the Assembly Cut all the way through 'cause of that aforementioned hopeless/bummed feeling, so I can't really say if it "fixes" the movie as much as some people claim. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but again... what's the point?

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Alien Resurrection, to me, is awesome until the final 15 minutes. I know this is considered sacrilege, but up until that horrible tacked-on ending, I enjoyed it about as much as Aliens, and really liked the new setting and characters (especially Vriess and Johner). Was bummed that we didn't get more adventures with Ripley and her colorful new friends after this, and "Get off my foot, bitch!" is still a line that my friends and I exclaim to one another every now and then. Also: people complaining about how the Xenomorphs look more "fleshy" in this movie need to chill, cause it's clear if you're even halfway paying attention that this batch is not genetically pure (i.e. they all got some Ripley in 'em). Like the look or not, it was a conscious choice made cause of the storyline, not a mistake.

 

Note: the most violent scene in Alien Resurrection takes place between two humans. I've always thought that was a subtle, though deliberate commentary.

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OMG can't wait for the next installment!

[Driver]

Curious to hear what you thought of Prometheus!

[Pong Messiah]

Short version: it was crap, mostly because of compromises made and not made.

 

There were two good, but seriously flawed scripts. The first was too on the nose and reeked of prequel, but at least it was fun and made sense! The second, reworked script was more interesting and demanded more from the audience (both good things), but was vague-for-the-sake-of-vague to the point of wtf I don't care anymore. I really had a hard time understanding the motivations of the characters -- if there even were any -- until they were explained to me. Now, I pay attention when I watch a film, and I'm not stupid; if I have to be be told after the fact (especially by the filmmaker) why something did or did not happen, it just doesn't work for me.

 

But man, if Prometheus coulda lifted the good stuff out of script one (essentially, clearer explanations of Weyland and the crew's jobs, goals, and motivations), while avoiding the dumb stuff ("Oh look guys, it's LV 426 wink wink wink durrrr."), it coulda been much, much better, and would have been riddled with way fewer (real and perceived) plot holes.

 

Furthermore, Scott went too far with some ideas and chickened out on others, but this is already longer than the "short version" I promised.

 

So again, here's the short version: it was crap, mostly because of compromises made and not made. But it was also gorgeous and utterly brilliant in fits and starts, and I kind of love it... and I hope the sequel is more coherent.

 

I also think it says a lot that I've discussed/argued about Prometheus with people at least twice in the last month -- how many frustratingly crappy films do you still find yourself talking about 3 years after their release?

[Driver]

You mean other than Phantom Menace? Not many!

 

But yeah,you nailed exactly how I felt. spaiths draft would have been acceptable, but not OMG amazing. Lindelof, not surprisingly, pulled a Lindelof.

[Pong Messiah]

You mean other than Phantom Menace? Not many!

 

But yeah,you nailed exactly how I felt. spaiths draft would have been acceptable, but not OMG amazing. Lindelof, not surprisingly, pulled a Lindelof.

I have long wondered why it is always science fiction/fantasy films that get dissected to death after the fact -- is it the nature of the medium, the people I hang out with, a bit of both?

 

Regarding Lindelof... forgetting that he seems to show zero regard for logic, he also has this magical ability to make me not care about what happens to important characters, which was particularly inexcusable in Prometheus. Vickers was just screaming for a little more shading, depth, humanity... something! It's not like Theron couldn't have pulled it off if she'd been given a bit more meat to work with. It's sadly fitting that a robot ends up being the most compelling character by the end of the movie.

 

Should also say that while I'm absolutely gonna see the sequel, I'm not super enthused with either writer and a bit unnerved that the script took something like 5,000 drafts before a final was agreed upon.

[Stevil]

Could have been worse... Could have been written by the two clowns who wrote the Abrahms-Trekverse.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

 

I have long wondered why it is always science fiction/fantasy films that get dissected to death after the fact -- is it the nature of the medium, the people I hang out with, a bit of both?

OCD?

 

 

 

Could have been worse... Could have been written by the two clowns who wrote the Abrahms-Trekverse.

Ha! Good one! Next thing you'll be saying is Prometheus was written and produced by some clown from Abrams-Trek! Crazy talk!

 

 

But seriously, as flawed as Prometheus was in some ways, I still want to see a sequel.

[Driver]

Could have been worse... Could have been written by the two clowns who wrote the Abrahms-Trekverse.

IT WAS

[Stevil]

And they say Americans don't understand Irony...

 

Orci and Kurtzman aren't credited as writers for Prometheus.

[Driver]

Damon Lindeloff is, he joined the idiot twins on Star Trek: Into Crapness

[Stevil]

It was Orci and Kurtzman responsible for the original offence. Clumsy idiots.