First thoughts on recently acquired Alien Anthology (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

Alien 3 was just awful. When an audience is invested in a movie the way they were in Aliens (which is what made it a success), the way to go with a sequel is not to summarily get rid of the characters they just went through hell with.

Alien 4 is also bad, for different reasons. It's played as more of a joke, with the characters being caricatures and the violence being so over-the-top and absurd that it degrades the movie.


It's amazing that we admire a series as much as this one when it hasn't produced a good film in 25 years.

 

[Worth]

It's amazing that we admire a series as much as this one when it hasn't produced a good film in 25 years.

You might want to post that in the Star Wars thread.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Well its pretty hard to consider Alien 3 canon because the whole concept of killing Hicks and Newt isn't on solid logical ground.Without her sack (which Ripley of course, blows up), the queen is effectively sterile so there is no real way that egg could have gotten on board the Sulaco in the first place.


And don't say "well they don't need a queen to produce eggs!" That scene from Alien isn't canon.

 

[johnSM]

It's just a bad hyper-sleep dream on Ripley's part - that explains the lack of Canon This is one franchise (I hate that term!) where I really do think that an alt. sequal could really work. Ridley is taking the franchise (!) in a different direction, which leaves the Ripley-verse open to a proper/worthy sequel which honors - rather than tears to shreds - all that went before. It could tie up in some clever way to Prometheus too... I still think Sigourney could do another Alien film - she was great in Avatar! I'd love to see a well written and directed sequel to Aliens...

 

[WinstonCely]

I liked 3 despite it's faults because it got back to a more atmospheric film instead of an action film. As a film, 2 is better than 3, no doubt, but I have always preferred the horror film aspect of 1 and 3. And I loved that they killed off Hicks and Newt. That made it more real to me. Edit: I forgot to add this bit too... I think it would be fine to do Alien without Ripley, but it would totally depend on making the new character just as compelling as she was. That's certainly a missing element from any Alien movie from 4 onward (sorta kinda counting the AVP movies in that, even though I know some people are going to eat me alive for that one). If they were to pull a "Superman Returns" and ignore 3 and 4 (and the AVPs) and they wanted to keep Ripley, why not let it be an old version of Ripley and Hicks (married of course) who have adopted Newt (now fully grow)?

 

[TravisR]

Well its pretty hard to consider Alien 3 canon because the whole concept of killing Hicks and Newt isn't on solid logical ground.Without her sack (which Ripley of course, blows up), the queen is effectively sterile so there is no real way that egg could have gotten on board the Sulaco in the first place.


And don't say "well they don't need a queen to produce eggs!" That scene from Alien isn't canon.

I'm basically playing devil's advocate here but since there is now a version of Alien with the cocoon scene reinstated, I think that someone could argue that the cocoon scene is now canon and that the aliens have two ways of reproducing. Neither way explains how an egg appears on the Sulaco (the queen never got that deep in the ship and there was no one else aboard the ship for an alien to cocoon into an egg) so that element of Alien 3 is still dopey but I don't think you can 'de-canon' a movie just because it sucks or because no one involved really cared about continuity with the previous movies.

 

[Charles Smith]

I liked 3 despite it's faults because it got back to a more atmospheric film instead of an action film. As a film, 2 is better than 3, no doubt, but I have always preferred the horror film aspect of 1 and 3.

Yes!

 

[Lars Larsen]

I don't know if Prometheus is directly linked to Alien. I thought I read it somewhere, but I was too lazy to check the validity of the article. It'll be exciting to see where Fox will take the Alien series next. It's dead in the water as it is now. If for nothing else, hopefully money will motivate them to revive the series in a proper way. I suppose it could continue without Ripley. But for me Alien has always been about powerful likeable characters - one of the short-comings of Alien 3. As Lance Henriksen notes in the documentary, you don't really care for any of them, not even Ripley. I would love to see a "slow" movie, that sort of explores the fabric of society in the future and really builds on the world established in the first two. It could set the stage for the following horror/action installment, so that we have a little more background infomation. Weyland-Yutani and their hidden agenda could obviously play a major role in the plot. Van Leuwen could perhaps be brought back in and become an ally of Ripley and what not. So many ways this could play out...

 

[Ken LB]

I don't know if Prometheus is directly linked to Alien. I thought I read it somewhere, but I was too lazy to check the validity of the article. It'll be exciting to see where Fox will take the Alien series next. It's dead in the water as it is now. If for nothing else, hopefully money will motivate them to revive the series in a proper way. I suppose it could continue without Ripley. But for me Alien has always been about powerful likeable characters - one of the short-comings of Alien 3. As Lance Henriksen notes in the documentary, you don't really care for any of them, not even Ripley. I would love to see a "slow" movie, that sort of explores the fabric of society in the future and really builds on the world established in the first two. It could set the stage for the following horror/action installment, so that we have a little more background infomation. Weyland-Yutani and their hidden agenda could obviously play a major role in the plot. Van Leuwen could perhaps be brought back in and become an ally of Ripley and what not. So many ways this could play out...

Lars, it's a prequel, and sounds damned interesting. A useful and ongoing summary of what's known here:http://www.alienprequelnews.com/ , including location and set photos, etc. etc. I'm not affiliated, just decided to stop lurking. Ken

 

[David Coleman]

Hmm... let me just say I liked ALIEN 3. Is it on the same level of the first two- No! I do feel it added a perfect closing trilogy to the series with Ripley being impregnated by the Alien and her knowing that she had to sacrifice herself in order for the company not to have the specimen. I also liked the idea of the single Alien loose than a whole pack of Aliens. Now Alien Resurrection should have never been made. I purchased ALIENS and ALIEN 3 on the AMAZON sale. I watched both cuts of ALIENS (prefer the director's cut) but so far watched the theatrical version of 3. Will watch the extended version this weekend.