Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Resurrection, Etc

Black Barney wrote: And that's a gutsy movie to make back in the 80s

You gotta be kidding me. It was in the wake of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. That was the safest money any movie house ever spent.

S.

I think it's gutsy of Cameron to take on Ridley in the wake of Blade Runner. I'm sure it's a safe investment money-wise but who the heck cares about that.

Can we go back to thinking of more super awkward moments between James and Kathryn?? I could go all night with this.

I'm with Shellhead on Prometheus. I'm not easily taken out of movies by inconsistencies, or what have you, but that happened in Prometheus repeatedly. Look, if you need a contrived event/behavior to move the plot forward, that's fine, even expected in scifi, but at least "hang a lantern on it". For example: "Our fancy 3D mapping tech just went down -- ionizing radiation. Shit, I think we're lost!" If you can't be bothered to do at least this, I've got to think you are incompetent or you think your audience is. In either case I'm annoyed.

And this is not an internet era issue. Star Trek did this all the time. Countless weird shit was attributed to tachyon particles and so forth. Hanging a lantern on the unexplainable is SOP for scifi. Ignore this, and you will alienate (snicker) your audience.

I guess I'm about the only fellow that liked Alien Resurrection. Something about the juxtaposition of a completely loony plot, and the unrelenting grimness of the characters/setting just tickles me in the right spot. I'm not surprised to find out that Whedon was involved in this. I always seem to like his stuff better than I should. Maybe I should watch those stupid Buffy shows.

I thought Aliens 3 was a misguided attempt to turn what had become an action franchise into a moody art-house flick. If it had succeeded we would have Alien -- one of the best horror movies ever made, Aliens -- one of the best action films ever made, and A3 -- one of the best art-house flicks ever made. What a glorious achievement that would have been. Like Michael, I revisit it every now and then hoping that I missed something compelling about it.

Black Barney wrote: But the director's cut has those robot sentries! I LOVE those things. "B gun's down."

It's the scenes with Newt's family that bug the shit out of me. In the theatrical release when you first see her you're not sure what's up, who she is, if she's an android or an alien or something else entirely. Kids can sometimes ruin films like this but the play her mysterious and it really adds tension to the film. In the directors cut all of that is gone. You know exactly who she is and you've seen her whole family already. You don't question her nearly as much. It really screws up the momentum. There are a couple of cool shots but I think that as a whole it makes it a worse film. Even the cool shots make it last a bit too long for it's own good.

Blade Runner was barely profitable, and marginally received by both the reviewers and the general public. It was not considered a game-changer in any way. It didn't come into its own until long after it was out of the theaters due to a cult following, and due to the director's cut around 1991 or so, ten years later. Scott blew 30 million 1980 dollars on a film that had to crawl its way into the black. As a comparison, Star Wars cost 11 million.

Scott always got credit for his look and feel (for good reason sure -- Thelma and Louise has some of the most beautiful shots you'll see in any film), but damn, that's all Cameron is. I can't imagine he was worried at all. Keep the story super-safe, make it gorgeous. That's what Cameron has done his entire career. I recall a member here describing Avatar's entire storyline prior to its release, and getting it right. Cameron doesn't take chances. He makes very safe movies very well. You can pick out who's going to live and die in his films in the first reel.

As for Prometheus, it's two films. That's the takeaway on it. Let me know when you want to talk about the first one and we'll start a new thread. That's a good film, though we haven't seen the ending of it. So here's my question -- was the first half of Prometheus part of the Alien universe to begin with? Or was it a separate project that they couldn't find an ending for (or couldn't find funding for) that they grafted onto the front of a trite story about an established brand name?

Alien Resurrection is the one where Winona Rider is smoking a cigarette in every goddamned scene including the underwater shots right? Haven't seen that one in years either.

S.

Both of the Hadley's Hope scenes pre-infestation are terrible. Newt's-family-investigating-the-ship because it robs the marine's initial landing of any mystery, and the colonist walk-and-talk because that one guy bitching about the company gives a terrible performance. I can take or leave the scene with Ripley finding out about her daughter, but the scenes with Hudson bragging on the drop ship ("...we got knives, sharp sticks...") and the sentry guns are both great.

Whenever I rewatch Aliens there is no mystery about the girl and I already know what the marines will find, so I enjoy the added scenes. The hallway sentry guns alone are worth the cuts existence. If someone were watching for the first time I'd suggest the theatrical cut though.

Also, since Ridley Scott has done different cuts of his other movies I really hope we see a new cut of Prometheus someday. I bet if it he revisited it the movie would come out awesome.

Mad Dog wrote: Also, since Ridley Scott has done different cuts of his other movies I really hope we see a new cut of Prometheus someday. I bet if it he revisited it the movie would come out awesome.

Like Alien Director's Cut?

Turek wrote:

Mad Dog wrote: Also, since Ridley Scott has done different cuts of his other movies I really hope we see a new cut of Prometheus someday. I bet if it he revisited it the movie would come out awesome.

Like Alien Director's Cut?

Alien DC was just a paycheck for tossing in deleted scnes as was Gladiator EE. I'm thinking more like Blade Runner Final Cut and Kingdom of Heaven DC. Both of which were improvements.

By chance a picked up Alien3 a little while ago, not knowing the copy included a Special edition which appears to be the assembly cut (ie. the alien comes out of a yak, there is no dog, etc.)

I find the assembly cut fairly watchable. It does reintroduce the horror aspects but the mistakes it makes or fails to fix (or can't) are glaring. In general, there are almost no great memorable or stand out moments either (no, not even Ripley's choice) - either dialogue-wise or even much orginal action. it is the ten little indians thing all over again from the original film where the guys get killed off. The monastery/religious vibe with the grub like prisoners is almost out of the name of the rose.

If I get past the deaths of Newt and Hicks... then the mistake of killing off Clemens just basically kills the last interesting personal dynamic in the movie. His growing relationship with Ripley is way more interesting than anything that happens between her and the Dutton character, 85 or any of the other guys. Charles Dance's character has some actual depth, he has something very magnetic as an actor. (I have since given up on GoT but I love his Tywin Lannister in his scene with Arya Stark).

Also, director, could we be even more obvious with Ripley's morning sickness scenes? Ugh.

Which Arya scene was that ? I rewatched alien cubed last night and saw the Charles dance scenes and everything, I didn't realize until today that was tywin lannister

Yeah I had totally forgotten that the directors cut of aliens included the hadleys hope scenes. Those are AWFUL. You're supposed to identify with the Marines when they arrive and there isn't anyone anywhere. "Uh, sarge whatever happened here I think we missed it ". Knowing more than the Marines totally ruins that connection and it certainly ruins newt. When she talks about her parents and especially Timmy, it's super tragic and creepy and sad. Seeing them all wrecks that.

The version of the movie I saw fifty times that played on TV that I had taped as a teenager had the robot sentries but didn't have hadleys hope. I wonder which version that was

I believe there actually is some kind of "intermediary" cut between theatrical and the director's cut...if I'm not mistaken, the network broadcast had some additional footage as a promo thing...when the big, $130 laserdisc set came out, it had the full director's cut on it.

You know, I don't disagree about the Hadley's Hope stuff- it's clearly touched up and finished long after the production ended- but I haven't watched the theatrical cut in like 20 years. There's really a lot of stuff in there that I think is, at this point, iconic. Like the sentry guns- that never should have been cut. Hudson's weapons rap- never should have been cut. The thing about Ripley's daughter- should have been part of the story all along. If you listen to the commentary (any of them that have been done over the years), this is a case where the original, director-intended cut was trimmed...because in 1986, releasing a 2:45 action/SF/horror film was pretty much just not the done thing due to the way distribution and exhibition were run at the time. Back then, it was all VERY much about X screenings selling Y tickets a day. And longer movies...less tickets.

So I do think that it is what Cameron intended, and I don't think it was like way too many "Renegade Versions", "Extended Cuts" or whatever where things should have been cut to begin with.

One of the nice things about the Blu-ray set I have is that you can turn on markers that show what the additional/alternate footage is. It's on like half the movie for 3.

Back to Aliens, I watched it like four times over the past week- usually in the background, not sitting down for a screening. That movie really is something else. I would go so far as to call it the one movie that MOST influenced GAMING, more than any other. Especially video games, the influence is more limited but definitely there on the tabletop.

I remember when it came out- I was a HUGE fan of Alien even though I had just seen it on TV (I was four when it was in theaters). By 11, I already knew all about HR Giger and was already a Ridley Scott fan. I had seen Terminator like 20 times, it was the very first VHS cassette I ever watched. (Second was Nightmare on Elm Street, incidentally). So when Aliens was coming out, I was so excited. Not because of internet hype, but because of articles in Starlog magazine. I remember reading the Eleanor Ringel review on the Friday it came out and was happy that she gave it an A+, calling it "the best horror movie sequel since Bride of Frankenstein". My parents took me to see it that Saturday afternoon and I remember just being completely floored by it, every detail. At the time, I had this hand-written list of my favorite movies on my door and when I got home, I erased Big Trouble in Little China (which I had just seen like two weeks before) and wrote Aliens in the top slot. Then I called my friend David Green and pretty much recounted the entire film to him.

The thing is, I've seen it so many times that I'm almost at the point where I feel like I could never watch it again and it would still feel fresh. So much of that movie is just ingrained into my memory.

You know what I was thinking about yesterday? The OLD Alien/Aliens video games on Commodore 64...there was one Alien game I had from "Load n' Go Software" that was, in retrospect, kind of like Awful Green Things. It was really very boardgamey, you moved the crew members around the ship, collected gear, dealt with their morale...I remember it had this AMAZING music. Then there was the Aliens game, that started with this incredibly hard level where you had to pilot the dropship down ("five by five") through these navigation rings. Then there these on-foot levels where you wandered around with very little ammo, shooting aliens and looking for survivors. Then a kind of proto-lane defense thing. Then Ripley gets caught and you have to find her. Finally, the Power Loader sequence- grab the queen and throw her out. I might have to see about an emulator trip down memory lane.

Aha! I was correct- from Wikipedia:

Most of the Special Edition's footage was first seen when the film made its broadcast television debut on CBS in 1989, but two additional sequences concerning Burke's transmission to the colony about the derelict, and the Jorden family's subsequent discovery of the same, were added to the initial Laserdisc release. According to Cameron, the visual effects for the scene were incomplete, so he went back to the Skotak brothers and had them finish the sequences. All currently available versions of the Special Edition contain these scenes.

what were those sequences? The one where the colonists are walking down the corridor talking? And Newt's family driving out in that MoonBuggy?