Rank the Aliens Films

I keep coming to these threads and finding that Shellhead has already said what I would say. (Road Warrior is THE Mad Max film. Thunderdome is a Hollywood waste of film stock.) But in this case, not quite.

I think Alien is the best film of the five, at least in part because it came from a time when Ridley Scott was still concerned about story, rather than spectacle (i.e. pre-Gladiator.) There's a story here that permeates every aspect of the film, from the plot to the performances to the pacing to the visuals. The same thing would happen a couple years later with Blade Runner. "Jaws in space" is ridiculously simplistic. as the latter film was based solely on the threat of the creature in question and not WHY it had become a threat. As Shellhead noted, this was also one of the few films to represent the industrial and pragmatic side of space travel and that has a lot of appeal. It's that thematic approach that was later one of the selling points to Firefly (in appearance, if not always execution.)

I think Aliens is, by far, Cameron's best film. It continued to carry the subversive elements of the previous film's plot and combined it with some incredibly taut action sequences and a cast that was totally onboard with what was happening. I think it misses the extra touches of atmosphere that makes the first film the best (some of the set design was just a little too slick, etc) but it's easily the second-best.

I love a lot of Fincher's work. Sometimes he does stuff like Seven and Fight Club that simply drip with moodiness and visual messages. And other times he does half-assed shit like The Social Network that make big money (cue the Gladiator references...) But Alien 3 was sabotaged by studio interference from the get-go. It's better than the other two simply because it tried to make a potentially interesting plot work, but that's not saying much.

Like others, I appreciated Whedon's "space pirate" effect of the crew in Resurrection and I will always have a little place in my heart for films with Brad Dourif ("It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning.") But Resurrection is all show and no substance.

Prometheus, like most latter-day Scott productions, was a fucking travesty. Who writes a script that makes Charlize Theron look incompetent, Idris Elba one-dimensional, and Guy Pearce basically invisible? George Lucas? It's worth a mention only for how bad it is.

Alien is the best film of the five, but I'd enjoy watching Aliens more. Both spawned their own subgenres and make remarkable use of practical effects. The original's cast, art design and everything are top notch. After decades of monster flicks, is there any argument that it isn't the best one? The drop off after 3 is considerable.

1) Alien
2) Aliens
3) Alien 3
4) Prometheus
5) Alien Resurrection

1.) Alien - for reasons already articulated better than I can.
2.) Aliens - same. I come back to this one most often.
3.) Prometheus. I see why it gets hate, but jeeze louise the Engineer is a nightmare creature. And the mythos is pretty bad ass.

The others I will not countenance.

RobertB wrote: Aliens
Alien
(a great big drop-off here)
Prometheus
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection

I can't get my wife to watch Alien 3 again; if I try to watch it, she says, "That's that brown movie, isn't it? I'm not watching that." I usually don't want to watch it badly enough to spend Wife Points for it, so it gets passed up for something like the 50th watching of Guardians of the Galaxy.

this is correct. RobertB is the ONLY person to get this right so far. I'm the defacto expert on these movies, they're my favorite and i used to live, eat and breathe these films in the same way that devout Star Wars fans enjoy their canon. I'd get the official movie merchandise, the role-playing game, the graphic novels (so good, and the birth of AvP).

Aliens is the perfect movie. I think it might be best movie of all time, period. Hilarious, terrifying, super exciting. I absolutely love it. It solidifies women in action roles forever.

Alien is probably the scariest movie I've ever seen. i almost went through the roof when Cpt Dallas bites it (not the director's cut death, obv). My dad saw it with his best friend in the 70s and their respective wives chickened out and saw something else. Neither man slept for 2 whole nights. It's groundbreaking and fantastic. I just prefer Aliens since it holds up so well (until they lose Newt).

Prometheus - there is a large drop in quality between the top two and this, but you have to be nuts to say this is a BAD movie. It's not bad, it's just insanely disappointing. I hate that the actions the Marines take in Aliens all make sense, and that the actions the crew of the Nostromo make in Alien all make sense but nothing these scientists do in Prometheus makes sense. There's some QA guy in Hollywood that must have had a credit in movies like KEY GAFFER - COMMON SENSE or something, and this fella died in the 90s I guess cuz movies just don't make sense in this franchise anymore.

Alien 3 - huge disappointment. It's a really hard act to follow and it doesn't pull it off.

Ressurection - ugh, so terrible. but far better than the AvP stuffs

I'm protesting these rankings due to the exclusive of AvP! Bad form I say!

Shellhead wrote: 3. Alien Resurrection - Not a good movie, but the writing of Joss Whedon is interesting in places. The merc crew feels like a dark version of the Firefly crew, and this movie definitely feels like it could have taken place in the Firefly setting. Also, there is some outstanding underwater cinematography.

While Whedons early, quite gritty version if Firefly is great to watch, the reason I like it so much (and we are definitely a minority enjoying this film) is the french director who made the city of lost children, delicatessen, and amelie. The man is a friggin genius.

I think your ranking mirrors mine. But I'm not as hard on prometheus as most. It had a few huge misfires, but I hope one day to see a new cut of it made, because as much as I liked it and thought it was close to good, it is just as far away from good as well.

Colorcrayons wrote:
I think your ranking mirrors mine. But I'm not as hard on prometheus as most. It had a few huge misfires, but I hope one day to see a new cut of it made, because as much as I liked it and thought it was close to good, it is just as far away from good as well.

No amount of editing will erase some of the plot stupidity .

Jaws is one of the greatest movies ever made. Of any genre.
There has been a lot of interesting analysis of its characters and themes (mainly man's relationship with nature).

I'm not aware of any such indepth discussion with Alien.

Alien is a _great_ movie....but it's not Jaws.