CinemaDome: Fury Road vs Aliens

I don't think her behavior is despicable. She is not a soldier and is able to openly criticize the office without fear of reprisal. It is not uncommon for a junior officer to ignore sound advice from NCO's that have been around awhile. I saw it in my unit and thankfully it was just during training when no lives were depending upon said officer's actions. Gorman was not likely advised to read and absorb Frederick the Great's Instructions to his Generals.

More CinemaDomes please. This has been great.

Mad Dog wrote: More CinemaDomes please. This has been great.

Yeah, I'd wager with the high rate of board game releases it's getting harder and harder to have a breadth of discussion on any two titles. Movies, on the other hand, chances are more of us have seen a given two.

Black Barney wrote: I do think Ripley is at fault for not warning the Marines what they were up against. Obviously Burke is most at fault for sending Newts parents to check out the derelict, but Ripley should have warned those Marines more.

To be fair to Ripley, she only saw what one of them could do, not a whole horde of them. She had no idea they were going up against that many . I can't remember, but I think it was during the pre drop orientation, she said something along the lines of " Just ONE of these things wiped out my entire crew ". I'd think that made it clear. Plus, her crew didn't have the weaponry the Marines do so maybe she figured they would be able to handle just a few of them.

Yeah, they had already discovered that the medical center had more than one facehugger, so the possibility of more than one xeno was definitely something for them to consider. Especially given the evidence of the colonists' "last stand." But hundreds? And with each one of them being that dangerous? They had no clue: all they knew was that sixty some-odd years ago a handful of unarmed truckers got wiped out by a dangerous alien. Whoopdie fuckin' doo.

And the poor bastards were there to save lives; they couldn't just leave the reactor area once they were (mostly) disarmed.

I obviously don't object to the pairing, and no one would care if I did, but while it's likely that Aliens has had and will continue to have the bigger cultural impact, we're also putting it up against a film released last year.

True, but Fury Road will win in a landslide against any other sci-fi/action film in the past decade...so I went back.

Plus, they had a few similarities...and I wanted to see how Black Barney would go with these being some of his two favorite films.

The discussion in hte next pairing may or may not have as much traction, but there'll be a reason they're selected.

I've always viewed Ripley as a fully military trained officer who was simply "outside" of Gorman's chain of command, thus, free to comment. Ripley is the equivalent of a highly trained Merchant Marine Officer who, though intending a career in exploration, commerce and, shipping, is still trained as such and sworn into the military chain of command for future activation. Regardless, she was battle and pressure tested in Alien, and the only one with"boots on the ground" tactical experience regarding fighting the xenomorphs. Mistrustful of the corporate intentions of her employer, having been previously been deceived, she no longer placed blind trust in anyone. Hence, she doesn't place any trust in the "greenhorn" Gorman, especially since he makes light of her warnings. I don't fault Gorman in the movie though--he, like most other recently commissioned junior officers, simply hadn't developed the leadership skills needed to make battleground decisions outside of his textbook experiences: "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy..." Later in the movie, he redeems himself when he attempts to save Vasquez.

I have to echo Mad Dog and say how great this has been. The fact that it's close speaks to the quality of White's pairing.

I love hearing others talk about Aliens since I'm seeing things I've never blinked at. Like Ripley questioning Gormans experience on the dropship in front of his men!! Ripley was a flight officer who's dealt with insubordinate crew members, she should know better than lowering the Corps' trust in their green Lt.

I know Ripley doesn't have to obey his orders or trust him, but she should realize what she was doing there

Lots of fun discussions to be had on this movie. Was Vasquez wrong for disobeying orders and deciding to let it rock under the cooling towers ? That decision had major consequences.

WHO'S FIRING GOD DAMMIT ? !

Black Barney wrote: WHO'S FIRING GOD DAMMIT ? !

Aliens has gotta be in the top ten for most quotable movies of all time.

"Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?"

Use that one at work all the time. Yup, real popular guy at work.

I feel the need for another voice in favour of Fury Road, which gets the preference from me for two reasons.

First I think Aliens is the culmination of a series of sci-fi films (Terminator, Alien, Blade Runner) and was just the crowning achievement of a movement. It didn't come out of nowhere like Fury Road, so wasn't as groundbreaking.

Secondly the gender politics in Alien are pretty messed up, particularly compared to Fury Road. At the end of Aliens we have the nice little family unit, mother father and daughter, subjugating Ripley from her more feminist/genderless role in Alien.

I vote Fury Road. Maybe when its been around as long as Aliens I will view it differently, but it still kinda blows me away every time I see it. If it matters... I like Alien better than both.

This thread did however remind me that I found out my wife had not seen any Aliens movies so we like a day later watched Alien. She enjoyed it a lot and for some reason we didn't move on to the sequel. We should correct that soon.

Is this still going?

Aliens have a setting and theme I like, and it was executed brilliantly.

Fury Road have a setting I like, and it was executed brilliantly. I wish it's a little more than vehicle combat though. But I really like that the really narrow scope reveal more world building that I thought it'd be.

I vote Aliens for making the best version of something I really like.

I'm also in the camp of Alien is better than Aliens. And better than Fury Road. And most films, for that matter.
Alien is one of those few films that, in my opinion, hasn't aged a bit. OK, maybe one scene, the Ian Holm's "talking" head. But he's so genially creepy (my wife always says she's not sure who scares her most - Alien or Ash), that I don't mind.