I keep seeing people say it should have been Alien then into Alien 3 and skipping this one. Aliens is a classic. My favorite Alien movie, favorite extraterrestrial movie, favorite action movie, and next to Terminator 2, favorite science fiction movie. Alien was good but this just took everything to whole new level. And Alien 3 sucked! What is wrong with you people???
shareit's one of the best films of the 80's
is endlessly quotable with great characters, action , one liners, set pieces .
Really? I haven't noticed that. This movie is as popular as the original but Alien 3 didn't suck. It was a very creative and really different intallement in the series. Aliens fans always were rude and disrepectful towards Alien 3, so now A3 fans hit back.
Personally I don't care about it. I love first 3 Alien films equally
You assume they are people.
They are actually trolls.
I agree aliens was a better movie for a long time but it seems Alien3 aged better and passed Aliens in popularity since it kept to the Alien Horror motive. Aliens is movie that hasn't been replayed as much as Alien or Alien3 I guess i should watch it now.
Bizarre. The 1st one is a good movie but Aliens is great. And 3? Don’t remember it, and haven’t seen one since.
shareIt seems like a lot of criticism here about Aliens was that it wasn't a remake of Alien (which itself was derivative of a 50s sci-fi/horror flick where a monster snuck on a spaceship returning from Mars). When they decided on Aliens, they weren't catering to tastes 30+ years in the future. They didn't want to remake the first movie, so they did something completely different, with characters who could (conceivably) fight back. It was a good idea and it sold tickets ... just what it was supposed to do.
As far as personal tastes go, I'm not a horror fan whatsoever. Most horror films are the nothing but the same story with different window dressing and things that pop out to say Boo (and possibly kill someone in a disgusting manner). My only interest was to see who the survivor(s) would be, and that wasn't enough to keep me interested for long.
I did like Alien, but it isn't a movie I find myself drawn to for repeated viewings. Aliens, on the other hand, I've seen a few times over the years. I held nothing but disgust for Aliens 3, and I'm not drawn to a repeat viewing of ANY of the other Alien series, either. I barely mustered the interest to watch Prometheus, and afterward regretted that impulse.
There aren't many series that hold up over a sequence of films, especially since the writers make it up as they go. We see too many films where plotting was obviously "wouldn't this scene be cool" -- instead of actually working on a terrific story. The contributor who posted the "post first weekend" ticket sales underscored this point. Except for a devoted core, the series became tired to most movie fans.
I've been as big a sci-fi fan as you can be since about the age of 8, and that's a long time now. There is too much trash like Prometheus, and not enough thoughtfully plotted sci-fi like Interstellar or The Martian. And that could be the difference in my outlook versus some of the comments previously left in the thread. I'm a sci-fi fan, not a horror fan.
(It seems like a lot of criticism here about Aliens was that it wasn't a remake of Alien (which itself was derivative of a 50s sci-fi/horror flick where a monster snuck on a spaceship returning from Mars). When they decided on Aliens, they weren't catering to tastes 30+ years in the future. They didn't want to remake the first movie, so they did something completely different, with characters who could (conceivably) fight back. It was a good idea and it sold tickets ... just what it was supposed to do.)
Actually Aliens was a rip off of Starship Troopers (the novel). Cameron did take the movie in a brilliant direction without doubt, but I do feel it hasn't aged well. As for A3, that has nothing(or little) to do with people now bashing Aliens. Aliens itself is very 80's and that more than anything is what people are now describing as cheesy even though recent movies like Ready Player One celebrate 80's cheese.
> Actually Aliens was a rip off of Starship Troopers (the novel).
Love Aliens, but don't see that at all. Hated Alien3 ... awful.
Cameron had all the actors who played Marines read the novel Starship Troopers before filming. It influenced the movie no doubt. Another influence was THEM.
shareIf that is true, it is far from making Aliens a rip-off of Starship Troopers .... it is a method acting exercise to get actors in the mindset of their characters. Surely you can tell the difference.
shareI've tried that (ST) till I'm blue in the face. I just don't get the appeal.
shareCameron listed Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers as a major influence that led to the incorporation of various themes and phrases, such as the terms "the drop" and "bug hunt" as well as the cargo-loader exoskeleton.[22]
sharethat does not make it a rip-off, it's not a rip-off. sorry, but you can keep saying it, again, repeating, in differents ways, but it just is not. look up rip-off in the dictionary.
shareWell I never said it was a ripoff, just pointing out that it was more than a method acting exercise.
sharewearsalan said
>> Actually Aliens was a rip off of Starship Troopers (the novel)
which was what I was replying to.
I still say it was a meditation/method acting exercise on the feeling they wanted to convey in the movie, not a framework for the plot, thus not a rip-off.
Well honestly though, just about everything Cameron added to the Alien franchise came directly from Starship Troopers.
-He made them more like bugs, with disposable soldiers on the front lines. This is from ST.
-He gave them a hive structure with a queen. This is from ST.
-He made it more like a full-scale war against the "bugs." This is from ST.
-The "bugs" eradicated a city (colony, in Aliens), which kicks off the retaliatory counter-attack. This is directly from ST.
-Starship Troopers expresses fears of how masculinity may be preserved in an environment of high technology. This fear is exacerbated by the motifs of pregnancy and birth that Heinlein uses when describing how the soldiers in suits are dropped from spaceships, which are always piloted by women
Dropship in Aliens is piloted by a woman, FYI. The "pregnancy/birth vs. masculinity" motif was already done in Alien, so mixing in Starship Troopers influence was a natural thing to do for its sequel.
-"The (Starship Troopers) novel has been cited as the source of the idea of powered armor exoskeletons, which Heinlein describes in great detail. Such suits became a staple of military science fiction."
brux, one thing to keep in mind about me: I'm not the kind of person who complains about influence and uses the term "ripoff" flagrantly. I like to analyze influence in a positive way. All stories are influenced, nothing is invented from a vacuum.
The only reason I'd ever use "ripoff" is in cases when two movies come out at the same time that are basically the same idea, like when A Bug's Life and Antz came out back to back. See, they don't even have to have the same story.
THAT SAID: Can you point out any major concepts in Aliens that are not either A) from Alien, or B) from Starship Troopers?
Actually, Starship Troopers had no (or little) focus on a "queen". It was a brain bug that was focused on.
As a lifelong Heinlein fan who has read Starship Troopers several times, I just don't see Aliens as in ANY way close. Heck, the Starship Troopers movie wasn't even close. LOL
You can make up dicey allusions all you want to (Both SST the novel and Aliens the movie had HUMANS!!!) but that doesn't cut it.
The whole "drop capsule as birth" thing is nonsense. Heinlein wrote plenty of "plot as lesson", but he didn't write symbolism of that nature. If Heinlein had something to tell you, he made it pretty plain.
Cameron took many inspirations from it, that's right from his own words!
Also: http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com/wiki/Queen
inspiration, not rip-offs.
what the F*** are you arguing about anyway, you said yourself you did not use the term rip-off, yet you keep trolling me about the word.
do you even bother to read what I said.
the main point is that aliens is not any kind of rip-off of starship trooper.
the main plot and history of the sequence is difference. and honestly, the things heinlein used were natural evolutions of just thinking about war in space or with extraterrestrials. Like the mouse and graphical use interface were going to come to computers.
the term rip-off has a specific meaning, and it is not correct or fitting to call aliens a rip-off of starship troopers. if you want to argue my point, that is the point you have to argue, which might make it hard since you said above you did not say that.
if you want to discuss the movie, you have some good points. points a lot of people, including myself have contemplated, but this rip-off theme is old and boring. I am not going to change my mind, and if you want to think of it so, it's up to you, but you're wrong.
vranger also makes a good point that what heinlein said did and meant can often be much different from what his fans or analysts made of his work.
i think anyone would have a hard enough time proving the starship troopers the movie was a rip-off of starship troopers the book from how different it was. ( that was meant sarcastically as a joke in case you want to argue that for days as well, no thanks )
See frogaramas repy
sharesee my reply to his reply
if you have nothing to say, don't say anything.
OK, maybe rip off was too strong. But when you tell your cast to read a novel then surely you yourself are influenced by that novel. Furthermore, Frogerama mentions that Cameron himself said he was influenced by that novel. If you don't like the term rip off then my apologies and a friendly suggestion that you keep away from such discussion boards as Avatar and Terminator where the term is used a lot by people who have no love at all for the man.
Personally I love his movies, but I can see where he often gets his 'infuences' from.
I suggest you not defend yourself for days when you are in error.
Typical loser comment board behavior, and then try to tell me what
to do. Rip-off was not too strong, it was not a rip-off of any
magnitude. Words have meanings, stick to them and do not be
afraid to admit you are wrong and learn something.
Days? This started a day ago. Not defending myself at all. i simply apologised for saying a rip off as, yes it was too strong because it isn't a rip off. It is though (Starship Troopers novel) a major influence as admitted by Cameron himself.
Words do have meanings, learn them. i did admit it was too strong a comment. You seem to be a little over perturbed by that comment.
I am not perturbed by the comment ... I like to hear other people's opinion and ideas on movies. I am a bit perturbed by repeated harping back to the disagree with my point about the word rip-off.
I like it when discussions actually go somewhere and when people are stuck reiterating the same thing over and over it doesn't work. you sound like you have more and better ideas about this movie, and you should take the time to express them and think them out.
Don't mean to come on too strong, but internet boards are such that you can read- re-read and think about something before you ( or I ) answer, and yet people fire off stuff from the first line of a post often before they read and think about what the other person is trying to say. especially younger people to whom this is like a new norm of behavior.
the concept of a discussion and even communicate seems to be something sublimated in people's brains these days to the notion of debate and winning.
OK, maybe we got off on the wrong foot here.
My apologies once again for the use of the term rip off. It was wrong and unwarranted. And you're right, this is one of those things that ends up taking away from actual discussion of the movie.
Peace to you.
cool, i think we both like this movie a lot.
share"I did like Alien, but it isn't a movie I find myself drawn to for repeated viewings. Aliens, on the other hand, I've seen a few times over the years."
Likewise for me. I don't share your disgust with Alien 3. I saw it, once, and barely remember it although one or two scenes stand out in my memory.
I've always preferred Aliens, and think it holds up very well.
I have never noticed this, with most people Alien and Aliens run neck and neck. Usually the style of film someone prefers deciding which may be better. They are the best two of the series by a wide margin. Now for Alien 3. The major issue there is the beginning. It soured a lot of people on the rest of the film, also the CGI creature wasn't well done. For me I have always said the film if you get passed those two things is not a bad movie. Alien Resurrection and the AvP films? crap. Prometheus I didn't mind.
shareWhen I first saw the CGI in Alien 3 it blew my mind - it look amazing, like nothing I'd seen before and was the best thing in the film. A decade later when I got the quadriology (or whatever it was called) and watched them all again it looked... fucking awful. Worse than anything in Alien. Strange how the brain works - early CGI was incredible because we knew it couldn't be a model or a puppet and now it looks awful because we 'know' it isn't tangible and now somehow looks worse than a model/puppet.
And you're right about the beginning - it's probably one of the most insane decisions in film history, killing off 2 great characters before the film opens, renders the events of Aliens largely pointless, and has a massive plot hole. Worst of all it was completely unnecessary - there was a million different ways they could have continued the story that didn't ruin what happened up until that point.
there was a million different ways they could have continued the story that didn't ruin what happened up until that point.
They could have put Hicks and Newt in a different EEV for one.
I think the CGI allowed for a lot of great movement, but the quality of it even at the time...at least for me wasn't great. Though you are right, our appreciation of certain effects change alot from when we first see it during its original run to years later. This is mostly because at the time we didn't spend a lot of time nit picking things like that, especially on your first viewing of a film. Nowadays we nitpick more and have better effects to compare it too, that combination leads to a harsher judgement on things like this. Also, the clarity we have now with things like blu ray, even DVD is not kind to questionable effects work.