Not in the Alien series, it's always gone for the dark. Newt and Hicks never stood a chance once Cameron was gone and someone who understood dark storytelling got into the series.
ALIEN RESURRECTION is really underrated. On Fan Conservatism...
- Thread starter david g
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Not in the Alien series, it's always gone for the dark. Newt and Hicks never stood a chance once Cameron was gone and someone who understood dark storytelling got into the series.
Nonsense - you can't talk about the "Alien Series" always doing anything in that way. At the end of Aliens the "Alien Series" was two films, that was it. The first one was exceedingly dark, and the second one, also pretty dark but with a more hopeful ending. There was no need for Cameron to "get dark storytelling" because he was just making a sequel to ONE film and there were no trends he needed to follow - he had to be true to the story of Alien, but that was it.
^^^
Exactly right, Bishbot. And Aliens is a far superior film to Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.
Exactly right, Bishbot. And Aliens is a far superior film to Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.
Alien Resurrection was poor. Even as a standalone movie and not comparing to the other Alien films. It's gimicky, starting off with the way they brought Ripely back. Turning her from a normal woman who had some shit to deal with into a half clone mixed with alien DNA to make her super Ripely.
Because audiences (especially AMERICAN audiences) will always go for action flicks with a stereotype cast over actual sci-fi movies with sci-fi themes and social comments, yes. And Cameron just ripped off "Them!" with Aliens anyways, just like Terminator was just a knock-off of Harlan Ellison's work with Outer Limits.
Aliens didn't fit with the Alienverse, not even the first movie's one. It's too sugary sweet.
In "Alien" we saw seven people, one of whom was actually an evil robot. They were out in deep space, with no-one else even in communications range. All we learned about Earth was that The Company was ubiquitous and wanted the alien. "Aliens" merely confirmed that yes, The Company still don't give a crap about people and still want the alien, regarding humans as expendable as it did in the first movie. I really don't get the inconsistency.
Aliens had a more hopeful ending than the other films in the series, but to call it sugary sweet is ridiculous. Also, the Alien series isn't really long on sci-fi concept, at least not in terms of serious hard SF. It does have a lot of social commentary and metaphor in its subtext, but Aliens has as much of that as any of the other films.
After all, all but Ripley, Hicks and Newt were dead and Hicks was in a bad way. Bishop survived, but wasn't a real person. The death toll on the other hand is horrific. What was it, sixty or seventy families? The director's cut adds to this by actually showing the colony full of life before the Xenomophs come. Then of course all the marines that we'd actually gotten to know: Hudson, Vasquez, Apone, Gorman, as well as several more peripheral, but named characters.
So a bunch of nameless faceless people we are told about but hardly see (even in the DC) are killed off, so what?
Hudson was a coward through and through, unsympathetic.
Vasquez was the generic "tough chick", hard to care about there.
Apone, a nobody. Can't care about that.
Gorman, a wannabe soldier. Again no care.
They were all stereotypes anyways, not real characters like Dallas or Clemens or Dillon. Ripley felt the same seeing how she didn't give a sh*t about saving the captured marines but went nuts over some kid she knew for a few hours.
Hudson was a coward through and through, unsympathetic.
Vasquez was the generic "tough chick", hard to care about there.
Apone, a nobody. Can't care about that.
Gorman, a wannabe soldier. Again no care.
They were all stereotypes anyways, not real characters like Dallas or Clemens or Dillon. Ripley felt the same seeing how she didn't give a sh*t about saving the captured marines but went nuts over some kid she knew for a few hours.
I can play that game too:
Brett and Parker: constantly whinging - no sympathy for them
Lambert - coward, unsympathetic
See, that's not how I feel, but I don't really see the difference. I really do feel for the marines, especially Hudson. And they are definitely characterised throughout the film.
Didn't bother me when I was younger and watched it first. it was a cool scene.
But now I can't get over the silliness of it. So there is a small hull breach. and the pressure in the cabin is apparently so high it blows everything toward the leak with as much force as a tornado, including a giant space monster.
Since there is no SUCKING at all involved, how the hell gets the beast pushed through?
The pressure should be stable the minute the hybrid completely covers the hole, so no more blowing should occur.
At the most the monster should suffer some small frost bite.
That aside, I like the movie as a whole. it's quite entertaining.
Yes, but Brett and Parker's whinings were realistic for their characters and as real people. Hudson just came off as the stereotypical coward whiner WITHOUT coming off as a real person at the same time. Lambert was Hudson's superior predecessor and even she came off as a better human.
The Marines are just stereotyped throughout the film, that's not characterization (since they're not characters to begin with).
I like this, because I've always felt like the only person who enjoyed that movie.
Heh.
If I ranked the movies, it would probably come in last, but I still enjoy it whenever I do watch it. It's got a great cast, strong pacing and atmosphere and the kind of dialog (yes, I do think that's important to an Alien film) and and personality that was in the first movie. The only thing that was really lacking in the movie for me was the climax. It was admittedly pretty weak stuff.
Wow.
I am tempted to quote Ripley when she had her meeting with the WY officials in "Aliens".
"Did IQs suddenly drop sharply while I was gone?!?"
NOWHERE in my post did I say I liked the film. I don't.
I was attempting to differentiate between people who actually like SCIENCE(speculative)FICTION(think Contact, Gattaca, Minority Report, AI)and those who like movies with lots of explosions and robots and space ships(think ID4, Armageddon, Transformers and their ilk).
What people think of today as "SF" are actually just action films set in a futuristic or space setting.
The fact that so many people seem to be having a hard time differentiating makes my point so much more relevant and pointed.
Sorry I'm late to the party, just had to throw in my like for this film too. The Whedon influence is all over the place (surprised nobody's mentioned the similarity of the crew to the Firefly crew. Not exact carryovers, but I get the same vibe from them as a whole). The basketball scene is great as someone else mentioned, and the underwater fight is the highlight of the film of course.
After I got my Alien Legacy DVD set (the first boxset from years ago), it ended up being the film I watched the most out of the four.
After I got my Alien Legacy DVD set (the first boxset from years ago), it ended up being the film I watched the most out of the four.
You know... you say "today" but "Minority Report" and "Contact" aren't that old, and you completely fail to give credit to people who enjoy both kinds of films, which is disingenuous, since you obviously do as well. Resurrection's big failing wasn't that it was a wham! bam! space action flick - Aliens already covered that territory magnificently - but that it was a really bad example of one.
My confusion over whether you liked the film was because the OP's post was about why fans didn't like it, and your post suggested a change in fans, which would normally indicate your agreement with him - although I should have realised you wouldn't be deluded enough to think that Resurrection is disliked because it is too cerebral, so I apologise for getting the wrong end of the stick.
There's another box set?
Bishbot - Thank you for your apology and I apologize for coming across so harsh.
I think my anger comes from what I have seen over the last 15-20 years as the highjacking of serious SF with generic braindead action films. Sure a lot of those actual SF films I mentioned came out within that same time period but there were a LOT MORE of the "action films set in a SF setting" that also came out then.
For every "Armageddon", I feel I am missing out on three Gattacas or two Contacts and I kinda begrudge that.
I think my anger comes from what I have seen over the last 15-20 years as the highjacking of serious SF with generic braindead action films. Sure a lot of those actual SF films I mentioned came out within that same time period but there were a LOT MORE of the "action films set in a SF setting" that also came out then.
For every "Armageddon", I feel I am missing out on three Gattacas or two Contacts and I kinda begrudge that.
