Alien 5: An Open Message About Newt, Hicks, and Bishop

Speaking as someone who loves 'Alien 3' and considers it to be very underrated, flawed gem of a movie: killing off Newt and Hicks *in that way* was a lazy arsed, moronic move of the chronically unimaginative. Indeed, the whole set-up of the movie lacks any imagination and is almost exactly the pattern that Cameron tried to avoid when making 'Aliens' (that she just drifts back to the planet.)

Mind you, Cameron's endorsement of anything has exactly fuck-all weight with me since he gave the thumbs up to the last Terminator movie. Either he's totally lost his mind, or he has no respect for the audience. Either way, I don't trust a word the man says anymore.

 

^ I like to think that was just him trying to do his buddy Arnie, whose last few movies had flopped, a solid.

 

It's a generous thought, but when helping your (millionaire) buddy involves convincing people to part with money on an inferior product under false pretences, it's patently unprofessional to say nothing of unethical.

Bottom line: I don't care why he did it, that he did at all means that so far as I'm concerned, his credibility has been entirely spent when it comes to his recommendations. He violated the trust of his audience and the fanbase at large. You don't get to shrug that off.

 

Invoking Fincher in this context, for this film, specifically, is beyond laughable. Just ask him sometime.

 

@Reverend: Talking up a friend's project is "patently unprofessional"? What kind of Hollywood career have you led?!

Well, I absolutely can and do shrug it off, and I give Genisys an F. To me, not taking celebrities talking up their struggling celebrities' projects at face value is common sense, and anyone who bought a ticket despite its red Metacritic rating based on Big Jim's words deserved to be duped, and I can only hope, for their own sakes, that they learned from the experience.

 

I'm amazed that Alien is still a thing. The 1st 2 were awesome. All of the rest have sucked.

 

Cameron saying Alien 3 sucked is as relevant as the weather man saying the sun is hot. No shit Sherlock. Tell us something we don't know.

And what did Fincher have to do with Ressurection, Alien v. Predator, and AvP 2?

I agree with this.

 

I don't care if people fell for it or not (I didn't) the problem is he put the weight of his word and his reputation behind it by telling people it's a good movie. With his background and talent, I can't believe he was duped, therefore he knowingly lied to his potential customers. Therefore his word now means nothing. That is all.

 

I agree with this, too, but not for your reasons, I always thought Cameron was an expletive meaning sphincter. But that's my opinion, too.

 

Or he actually thought it was a good movie, you know opinions being subjective and all.

 

As shocking as it might be to some sensitive snowflakes out there, there is such a thing as objective facts and that movie had a *lot* of non-subjective technical problems from the script on up.
I can expect a layman may be dazzled by all the pretties and overlook the deeper flaws (which, in this case weren't all that deep at all), but a professional of Cameron's calibre? Yeah, no.

So you're basically left with two possibilities: He's technically inept in a craft he's proven to be be anything but inept at or 2) He was talking his of his arse. Either way, that basically destroys any credibility his recommendations may have had.

 

I never believe recommendations from people with any connection to a piece of entertainment. They're always just going to say what they think will help them or the franchise the most.

 

Or some nerds on the Internet have an inflated sense of self importance that leads them to start spouting stupid shit like how their opinions are objective facts and everyone else is an idiot.

 

Was Genisys as bad in relation to the Terminator series as Prometheus was to the Alien series?

I don't appreciate the dishonest hype, PR and "recommendations from people with any connection to a piece of entertainment," but I also don't think Genisys was so egregious as to lay waste to Cameron's credibility.

 

I'd call that a tie.

Now Genisys vs Alien 3 ? Genisys was nowhere near as bad...

 

'Prometheus' had it's problems though most of which seemed to stem from either an 11th hour re-write that changed it from a direct prequel to 'Alien' to a slightly less direct prequel to 'Alien' and the way it was edited for pacing at the expense of narrative and characterisation. Even with all of that going on the film still has much to recommend it from the world class cinematography, production design and some truly memorable performances. I wouldn't call the final product a good movie exactly, but it's hardly the dumpster fire some make it out to be.

Now 'Terminator Genesys' on the other hand is a malformed patchwork or a movie. A Frankenstein's monster assembled from fan-made trailer mash-ups, mindless nostalgia, studio focus groups and one of those computer programs that can produce light Jazz and incoherent poetry. Nothing about it is good. Not the acting, not the dialogue, not the production design, cinematography, score to say nothing of the total lack of any chemistry between *any* of the cast members. None of it.

As for Cameron's previous track record; I admit my memory is fuzzy since I didn't pay a massive amount of attention to the AvP movies (it was obvious they were going to be mediocre at best), but my recollection was that at the time his "support" was professionally neutral.
Not so with Genesys to which he lent a glowing recommendation. He wasn't on the production crew, he wasn't under contract to promote the movie and the only reason his opinion was sought was because of his ties to the franchise and the weight his word carries with the fans. He exploited his capital in that regard and in doing so lost all credibility. Anyone who take his word on such things from this point on fools who deserve to be ripped off.
I'm not saying this is unprecedented, or that it makes him a terrible person, just that at one's most charitable, his publicly stated opinions are at best extremely suspect and as such I'm inclined to ignore them.

Well this is a thoroughly cogent and productive line of discussion. I'm glad it didn't deteriorate into an ad hominem attack and flailing projection disguised as baiting.

 

Prometheus is kind of a mess, IMHO, but at its worst, it's way better than the best of Genysis. Having said that, I sort of enjoyed G, as a nostalgia trip. But I never want to see it again.

I kinda liked Alien 3 but haven't seen it in years. Always disliked the Hicks/Newt thing, in part because I think we see far too little of Michael Biehn onscreen generally.

 

As I recall, the cinematography is perfectly fine, if uninspired. And the action sequences, while recycled and tedious, are coherent. Otherwise, I agree. It's a fiasco.

Dude, we can read. We get that that's your position. You don't have to repeat it over and over and over and over.