MovieChat Forums > Todge
Todge (23)
Posts
Replies
I'll probably be ridiculed for this, but, for me at least, the Alien series started to go wrong with Aliens.
Alien introduced us to this unique, terrifying creature, that was virtually unstoppable.. It bled acid, it was as vicious as hell, and the life cycle was enough to make your skin crawl.. If it didn't eat you, it would inject an enzyme that metamorphosed you into an Ovomorph, which would give rise to the Face Hugger, Chestburster, then back to the Xenomorph, completing the cycle of life.
Aliens changed all that. It introduced the Queen, destroying the originality of the Alien lifecycle, and meant that they could now be produced en-masse, the Ovomorph became as egg, and in so doing, the Xenomorph was changed from 'the perfect organism' into an insect.. A large, nasty one, admittedly, but an insect nonetheless that could now be dispatched with nothing more than a shotgun.. As good a movie as Aliens is, it took the horror out of the Alien and became an action movie, plain and simple.
Fincher tried to rectify this with Alien 3, and, with the extended cut at least, he pretty much exceeded. He even introduced the fact that the adult Xeno, anatomically, would resemble the host.. It stood on two legs in the original, and was a fast, four legged beast in Alien 3. He even brought back the almost unstoppable nature of the Xeno with the molten lead.
It again tripped up with Resurrection.. That could have been such a good movie, but that hybrid destroyed it, again trying to make the alien something that it wasn't.
Personally I loved Prometheus, with it's explanations of the early Xeno and the 'Creators', and the only real problem I saw with Covenant was the fact that it didn't lead straight on from Prometheus, but that was done to try and keep the fans happy, both are decent movies. If you ever get the chance to see the 'Chaos' fan-edits of either you should, especially Covenant, as cut scenes are re-inserted explaining the events since Prometheus.
King is far from an idiot, he is, in my opinion, one of, if not the, best horror author out there, and although Kubrick's movie is a decent movie, he did pretty much massacre King's original story.
I like the movie, but much prefer the book, I also like (and I know I'll get ridiculed for this) the mini-series, simply because it follows the original story.
I also think that your opinion of the movie largely follows in which order you read/watched them, people [i]usually[/i] prefer the first that they see/read, and from the discussions I've had largely follows that, the fact that 'King fans' prefer Kings book is not so much as them being a King fan, but often because the book is the first version they encounted.
I also don't think that Kubrick's movie ties in so well with Dr Sleep as the book does, but I guess that understandable.
There is no 'director's cut' as such.. There's the 'American' cut and the International cut.
The version of the film released in the Europe was trimmed by around 20 minutes, as Kubrick decided that parts of the movie didn't need to be there as it was explained somewhat by the later events in the movie, and so he removed segments at the beginning explaining Danny's illness and Jack's alcoholism, amongst other things.
The shorter version is often seen as the better version, but personally I prefer the longer of the two.
You can see a rundown of the differences here:-
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=1215
That is very true, and the storyline of Aliens does support that, as it seems to be Ripley's testimony into the destruction of the Nostromo that caused W-Y to send the colonists to investigate the derelict ship.
Though I still find it strange that, with all the possible worlds out there to try and terraform, W-Y chose a 1,200km wide rock 39 light-years from Earth.
My theory is that W-Y were still interested in the Xenomorph, but had lost it's location. Hadley's Hope was created, officially as a terraforming colony, but with the underlying objective of re-acquiring the derelicts' location. Finding Ripley and her testimony pointed them to the location, which set off the events in Alien.
Aliens was the first mistake, while it is a fantastic movie in itself, Cameron's intent on making a Vietnam type movie, and using his sequel to do that, changed what could have been a true out and out horror series by creating little more than an action movie. He changed the 'perfect organism' from being virtually unstoppable to one that can be dispatched using a shotgun.. He ignored the truly disturbing life cycle of the Xenomorph by introducing his Queen, turned it into little more than a giant space insect.
Fincher did his level best to turn it back into an 'Alien' franchise with his movie, and considering what he was left to work with when he took over, did a damned good job. Fox managed to neuter even that, re-editing his movie into what we saw in the theatrical version of Alien 3.. The assembly cut went some way to correcting this, and although it is a much better version than the theatrical cut, I do still wish we got to see Fincher's original cut.
It started to go wrong again with Resurrection. While it started OK, the introduction of that horrific (not in the good way) hybrid destroyed what could have been a decent movie.
Again, it was pulled back somewhat with Prometheus, and while it does have it's flaws, Scott does do a fantastic job of explaining, or starting to explain, where the Alien came from, and how Weyland-Yutani got to know about it before the events of Alien.
Covenant was a decent affair too, but with criticism over Prometheus, Ridley Scott/Fox decided to skip a chunk of the story and jump to the goings on in Covenant, all because there was not enough Alien in Prometheus, which then received criticism as it didn't follow Prometheus directly enough.. Fox shot themselves in the foot again..
As for Prometheus and Covenant, there are a couple of fan edits that do a fantastic job of fixing both movies by re-inserting the cuts, and adding the promo videos, then re-cutting them. Watch the 'Chaos' editions if you can, especially Covenant.
<blockquote>I know that Marines are elite troops and that this great film mimics the failings of the Vietnam War, but wouldn't a real offworld danger involving dangerous alien organisms need a far larger body of soldiers?</blockquote>
And there in lies your answer...
You have to realise that Mr Cameron, in his intent make a Vietnam style movie, used his sequel to that end, and in doing so pretty much ignored most of the facts about the Xenomorph we found out about in the original..
Why were they terraforming LV426 anyway? In the original movie it was made clear that Weyland-Yutani already knew what was on that moon by Ash's 'Crew Expendable' massage, in this movie it seems that they think that they had simply lost contact.. Ripley convinced them it was more than that.
Where did the queen come from? In introducing the Queen Cameron pretty much destroyed the Alien, turning it from 'the perfect' organism into giant space insect... While it was virtually 'unstoppable' in the original to being killed with a shotgunin this sequel.
And introducing the Queen, Cameron also destroyed the unique life cycle of the Alien, From 'egg', to facehugger to chestburster to adult. originally the Alien propagated itself by selecting not to use all of it's victims as food, and instead injecting a few with an enzyme that metamorphosises the unfortunate victim into an Ovomorph (egg), no Queen required.
And, as the alien can only produce one alien using one victim, how come there were so many Xenomorphs on LV426 anyhow? There were only a limited number terraformers to use, of which most were still alive when Ripley and co. arrived.
<blockquote>How did Ash get directly behind Ripley whilst she was typing questions to Mother- the door was closed?</blockquote>
Ripley was more interested in getting the answers than taking any notice of the door, and while the door did make a noise when opening, Muther wasn't exactly the quietest of computers either.
<blockquote>How did the Alien get ahead of Dallas- it was heading horizontally towards him and he climbed down into it? The others had it on radar?</blockquote>
The 'radar' that was being used to track the alien could only see in two dimensions. Kane obviously realised this as he was definitely hesitant about climbing those stairs.
<blockquote>.... the stupidity of the people who took Kane right back into the ship with no quarantine procedures at all.</blockquote>
Ash already new what was on that moon, he had already convinced Ripley not to call back the search party because they were meant to find the Alien... 'Crew expendable'
<blockquote>...how does the alien grow without eating anything.</blockquote>
We don't see the Alien growing without eating, it is just assumed. It has metal teeth for a reason, so methinks it can eat pretty much whatever it needs to. Everything has calories, to an extent.
<blockquote>the Alien having, "molecular acid" for blood as a defense mechanism.
Anyone who has had any chemistry knows that acid does not eat through everything, and yet the Alien's blood seemed to burn through everything, including plastic and glass.
...how is it that it doesn't eat through the Alien itself?</blockquote>
You answered that yourself... 'Seemed' to burn through everything. Obviously it didn't as the xenomorph has some kind of natural defense.. Your stomach doesn't digest itself..
Don't forget that the Nostromo was HUGE, weighing in at over 63,000 tons, add to that the 20millions tons of ore it was towing and you have a catalogue for disaster.. The ability to destroy the ship was common sense in case it was on a collision course with Earth.
Hell no
View all replies >