A question of ALIENS.

[J.R. Hudson]

Alright you film freaks. Here a mother of a question for you.

Tonight I came to the conclusion on something after watching ALIENS (Which by the way is one of the best Special Features DVD's I have ever watched)

I think the film should have ended when they escaped the planet and the Nuclear Explosion.

I think the whole LOADER and ALIEN fight sequence was a little too much. Although I love it when she blows the QUEEN out of the Airlock, the whole fight and "Get away from her you bitch!" is just too much in my Cut.

I have to know what you think.

[PurposeDriven]

Where's the question?

[Anartiste]

Of the four episodes, ALIENS is the one I like less. I find it very dated and a bit artificial. But I think what saves the film (not mentionning Sigourney of course — she's always stunning !) is the final fight.

As for the 4th Act, it's in the screenwriting frame of this kind of movies. I guess it's in the producers requirements : we've got it in every film of the series.

My Alien series ranking is :
Alien (forever in my personal Top 10)
Alien 3 (Fincher's great when the theme is ambiguous)
Alien 4 (Vive la France !)
Aliens (Jim Cameron is sometimes too heavy on the seasoning of his sauces, even though he's the best in this style...)

[Neil Rowe]

i liked the one with E.T. was he in #4 or #3?

tossup between alien and aliens i think

[David Jimerson]

John --

I think the reactor exploding was a bona fide anti-climax -- we saw the Queen, but she really hadn't done anything up that point. *We needed the climactic battle, and then it ended quickly after that. *I think it's textbook.

Let me also submit this -- the reactor was going to explode no matter what Ripley did -- she wasn't driving the action. But she herself had to personally defeat the Queen and resolve the conflict. In that, she, the hero, drove the action and solved the problem. That's far more satisfying that just letting the place blow up.

[J.R. Hudson]

Interesting point Jubal.

[David Jimerson]

This might be better in the screenwriting forum, but when you're watching drarmatic action, you're watching, in its base form, a hero in conflict with a villain (obviously, it's usually more complex). *Your hero should be the one driving the action, and it should be something your hero does which puts an end to the conflict. *Otherwise, the hero is just a bystander.

[J.R. Hudson]

I too am familar with structure and these are valid points I had not thought of. :)

[Barry_Green]

Yeah, the reactor blowing up was merely a "clock" device, to drive the tension even higher.

ALIENS is perhaps my favorite movie of all time. It is simply genius, a perfect example of the Hero's Journey. It helps enormously to understand the mother complex Ripley has, by knowing that she had a daughter -- that little VITAL detail was dropped from the theatrical release, but is restored in the DVD version.

ALIENS
then
ALIEN (although, man, this doesn't hold up that well... I remember being TERRIFIED in the theater, but sheesh, you watch it on DVD and it's just a guy in a rubber suit going "boo"...)
then
ALIEN 4
then
ALIEN 3

But the drop between them all is light years. On a scale of 1 to 10, Aliens is a pure 10, Alien is maybe a six and a half, Alien 4 is about a three, and Alien 3 is a 1. (Although I've been hearing more and more people say Alien 3 is vastly underrated, maybe I should take a look at it again.)

[David Jimerson]

Alien 3 took everything that happened in Aliens and made it a moot point in the first thirty seconds. Ripley need not have even bothered.

[J.R. Hudson]

Me to Barry! Ditto!

[Anartiste]

Alien 3 is when Ripley character starts to become unbelievably complex.

Here's a woman who, for the last two centuries or something, has been awake just a few days and whose horizon is nearly exclusively limited to dealing with agressive people and creatures incarnating perfection in the matter of surviving, creatures who — to make things more fun — have managed to make her, their only predator, a member of the happy family.

Sigourney's on her way to mount Everest (reached in episode 4). She's driving the bus and Fincher is a very humble pupil, learning A LOT about what an actor can add to dramaturgy : flesh and blood, a lot of them ;-)

After that, Seven and The Fight Club were possible.

I love the face to face scene with the pastor, very simple, full of dignity. I love the colours and the actors are all great.

As for number one, it will remain number one. Ridley there (and later in Blade Runner) sends Science Fiction in the modern era.

And I don't agree, Alien One doesn't look the slightest like a B movie. The opening scene is History ; the birth of the alien is History ; the death of the androïd is History.

It was a time when achieving this kind of cinema required all the elite of international cinema (like today) but achieved it with three times less money than today. Since the beginning of the blue-screen-era, SCi-Fi on screen has been decaying. These guys — Ridley, Stanley, George, Steven... — made it physical, mechanical, dirty, not virtual.

I have a lot of tenderness for this cinema. It was way more adult than ours.

[Anartiste]

Take Ridley, flip down the d, and you get Ripley.

Do you think guys it's a coincidence ?

[Barry_Green]

And I don't agree, Alien One doesn't look the slightest like a B movie. The opening scene is History ; the birth of the alien is History ; the death of the androïd is History.


Okay, I'm going to modify what I said, because you're right, those scenes are magnificent.

What I specifically remember was when Captain Dallas (?) was in the tube with the flamethrower, and the alien pounced on him. When I first saw it in the theater, yeah, that was phenomenal. Last time I saw it on DVD, it looked like a guy in a rubber suit going "boo."

I'm not dogging the whole film, I think overall it was pretty good, and when I first saw it, I'd give it a 9 or a 9.5. It just hasn't held up as well, for me. Whereas Aliens, on the other hand, I could watch five or six times in a row and still love it just as much.

[Anartiste]

I love these fans' debate, with all their "mauvaise foi" (you're lucky this one is not in French, I could become a real bastard...)

To honor your reverence to Aliens, Barry, I'm gonna watch it one more time (4rth or 5th, I don't remember) with great pleasure. Even if we don't agree, these are lovers arguments, therefore forgiven.

And of course it looks like a rubber-boo thing : that's what it is. But : 1/ I galactically prefer rubber, models and matte paintings to blue sreens, especially on video (I think 3D is more visible on my TV than on a theater screen), and 2/ masterpiece here is in what we DON'T see.

Erotism vs pornography. I'm afraid the western world is going to die from its addiction to the big explosions.

[Anartiste]

Oh ! I forgot :

And 3/ I wish to us all to achieve a rubber-boo film like this one. This would mean we're top directors.

[Barry_Green]

... and John, let me go back to your original question.

No, it would not have been enough to have the planet blow up.

Ripley was a lost character. She did not fit into the world, anywhere. They wouldn't let her fly (she'd blown up the Nostromo, after all) and there was no family left. There was no job, no friends, no family, no identity, nothing for her anywhere. All there was, was a horrible battle against her inner demons, the fear of the aliens.

So when she got the chance to put purpose to her life again, to destroy the aliens entirely ("just tell me one thing... tell me we're going there to wipe them out") she went for it. Even though it meant it would require the most unbelievable courage. She was gone from that planet, she was safe from the aliens, and now she was choosing to go back to them. HUGE moment.

When they got to the planet, the pivotal moment was when she took control of the APC. At that point she was no longer a passive passenger, she became the driving force in a quest to exterminate the aliens. But also, around that same time, she made a very personal promise: she would NEVER leave Newt. Never. And, as restored in the DVD version, we then know that Newt is a substitute for the daughter/family that she lost. In Newt, Ripley has found a "home", what she'd totally lost in the beginning.

So. They go to the planet, they fight aliens, and Ripley loses Newt. Now, in the theater, at a much younger age, I was yelling for Ripley to leave Newt behind and get out of there, you know? But that would have been 100% opposite of her character. So she crossed that last line, where she decided to face the aliens alone. Utterly alone. In the lair of the queen.

So anyway, she rescues Newt and gets on the ship and the planet blows up and we're all done, right?

No. Because Ripley hasn't defeated the aliens. Not her own, not the original. She has to face the queen, one on one. Newt is the pawn in that game, to push Ripley to where she has to go for the ultimate. And she does. And, thanks to the Power Loader, she wins. Ripley herself has defeated the entire alien race, and forever put the nightmare away, for herself and also for Newt.

It was the right ending. And man, when that door first slid open and Ripley stood there in that power loader, I still think that was one of the greatest moments in movie history. It said that she stood a chance against the most unstoppable force in the universe. Awesome.

[David Jimerson]

Let's also not forget that up until that point, the Queen hadn't done much herself except lay a bunch of eggs and hiss and drool. If the hero doesn't have a formidable enemy to defeat -- if it's too easy -- then it's disappointing.

And Barry, I agree with everything you wrote about Ripley, which is why the first few minutes of Alien 3 is so infuriating. And what's more, though I haven't seen it since the early '90s, I don't recall Ripley being all that upset about it.

[J.R. Hudson]

All great points.

I too, as a younger dude didnt care much for going back for Newt and even agreed with Michael Biens character when Newt first gets abducted from the water and RIpley is freaking out "No! She's still Alive!" and Hicks is "Thats fine, but we got to go!"

I was like "uh, duh!"

Now, I have a 4 year old, and a moot point or not, I'm going back for my son!

I agree with Barry in that the orginal Alien, the Alien looks rather, un scary, for lack of words. I think alot of that has to do with the genious design of the ALIENS creatures (2 guys in a mechanical, puppeteer, hydraulic and suspended by a crane suit).

The ALIENS creatures look alive. Of course, ALIENS 3 and 4 turned around and ruined the creature design by doing it in CGI. The problem? It looks CGI!

I can see all of the points in what is needed to complete the story in ALIENS, but I still (First time I saw it and last night) had a hard time swallowing the LOADER/QUEEN fight. Maybe if there was something else?

[J.R. Hudson]

And another thing.

ALIENS is just one of those few films where I ask "What was not to like?!" *??? *>:( *;D

We all talk about the low budget way to go. I am watching the commentary on Aliens.

On the part where the Marines wake up from deep sleep in space, there are only 4 capsules. There is a Mirror behind and at the end of the camera to give the illusion there are 12 capsules!

Genious!