Rate the Alien Series

[TheKaiser]

With the Quadrilogy allowing the entire series to be seen unedited and in their final form (with the exception of Alien3 which is supposedly still missing some cuts) I'm wondering what peoples general thoughts are on each film. Here are my two cents:

Alien: Ultimately the best of the series, it set the standard of filmmaking for both the sci-fi and horror genre and is easily one of the most frightening films ever made. Its atmosphere is incredible, its sets a work of art and of course the ingenuinty in the design of the creature was state of the art. (Before Alien movie monsters were rarely so..well...scary.) Rating: *****

Aliens: Cameron took the series in a fantastic new direction furthering Scott's original vision into the realm of a war drama. The Alien was given moratlity, but also a strength in numbers. The shot where Hicks opens the vent and sees them crawling towards him is probably one of the best frames in sci-fi movie history. The action was intense, the characters likeable, the FX incredible and the quotes numourous ("Get away from her you bitch!" "Game over, man!"). Awesome pop-corn entertainment! Rating: *****

Alien 3: David Fincher's attempt at the Alien series has never recieved much respect. The production was a mess, going through 3 directors, multiple scripts, a number of cuts and on-set disputes. Upon release fans were furious with the treatment of some characters and the ending left many feeling empty and depressed. They were all missing the point. Fincher saw what needed to be done with a film that already seemed to be cursed. You are not supposed to feel good in this film. You are supposed to feel exactly what Ripley feels: alone, betrayed, ready to die. She begun the series as a victim, then returned as a warrior and in the third installment she comes to terms for her eternal race: she can't win. Its a depressing message, but coupled with the great cinematography, an excellent cast and suburb direction the film defintely warrants a spot in the series. It by no means beats the former two, but like them it took the series in a new direction and deserves respect.
Rating: ****


Alien Resurection: Hoo-boy. They really didn't need to this one. I'll start with the pros I guess. Great art direction, nice FX in some moments, and Ron Perlman. That's about it though...Here come the flaws. First of all bringing back Ripley wasn't smart. She died, it was an important step in her character and its ruined. This film should have had a fresh face, a new warrior to fight the Aliens. About the aliens they arn't scary at all. They die far more easily then ever before and you can always see them in full view(the last three took great care to hide the Alien). The plot meanders here and there and makes little sense (the notion of cloning Ripley with an intact hardly sounds plausible, considering her death). It finally ends with a bizzare climax that takes the series in a totally unneeded direction. Though Ripley finally makes it to Earth, I think fans have been waiting too long for the Aliens to get there. An interesting film to watch, but not a good "Alien" film. Rating: **

[Sontin-JudasFm]

Interesting ideas I grew up on the Alien movies Let's see...(SPOILER WARNING AHEAD)

Alien A great movie, but I thought a little slow to get going. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that the first hour is just them hanging around on the ship and talking (okay, so the part where the facehugger attaches itself to Kane's face breaks up the monotony, but still...) As for the rest of it, it was a good movie for keeping you on the edge of your seat, with the various plot twists (Ash's betrayal is still one of my favourite parts in the whole thing). Like you say, it set the standard for a whole new genre, though for me the most hair-raising part is when the alien kills Lambert...it's one of the few times you actually see it in its entirety, just reaching out towards her Rating: ****

Aliens Oh boy. Did I love this movie or what? I was eleven when I saw it and I was just like "WOW!!!" I still like playing the board game and with some friends am trying to work out a new form of roleplaying based on this movie. What can I say? It rocked! I also liked the fact that it gave the audience a chance to learn a little more about these creatures, and their respective intelligence (remember the queen riding the elevator ) Out of all the movies, it also has the best one liners "Get away from her you bitch!", "Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"--"No. Have you?" and my own personal favourite, "One express elevator to hell, going down!" Lastly the hamster scene (special edition only) cracked me up. Rating: *****

Alien 3 People really slammed this into the ground-there was even an Alien 3 Hate Page at one point-but I could never see why. It's been a while since I saw it, and it was never my favourite, but it was a damn sight better than Alien 4. I loved the ending. Then again, I could never get on with Ripley as a character, for some weird reason; she started to grate on me in Aliens *puzzled look* I just thought that the suicide was brilliantly done; the way she just lets herself fall backwards into the lava. Rating: ****

Alien Resurrection Okay, so maybe it was a mistake for me to read the script before watching the movie, but the fact is, there was nothing in the movie itself that was particularly special. I thought Ripley was brilliantly acted in this one though, maybe better than in the first three. As for the script...well...there's a saying among my friends that the writer is something of a reverse Midas; everything he touches turns to shite Rating: **

(BTW: whatever you think of the individual films...gotta love that packaging! )

[TheMacroprosopus]

I'm not gonna get into a big review of all the movies, i'll just list them in my personal order.

Aliens ("Well, that's just f---in great, man. Now what the f--- are we supposed to do?" Bill Paxton had one of the best characters of all time!!)
Alien
Alien Resurrection
Alien3

Ya, i didn't like the third one as much. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the crappyness of the edit for the SE. I dunno.

And I do agree with JudasFM. Th packaging is awesome. Just a little too big though; it folds out too much.

[TheKaiser]

Woah! You thought the SE of Alien 3 was crappy! The original was far worse and the SE boosted up to the level of the first two. The ideas were profound, the style and visual look were brilliant, the characters fun, the music fantastic (i love the opening and ending music cue, brilliant) and the alien effects were terrefic. Esspecially after watching the documentaries and listening to the commentary I have a huge appreciation for the film. Its very underrated.

My only real complaint is that its existance prevented a lot of other options the story could have gone. I mean even William Gibson (Neuromancer) wrote a draft. But I guess one had to be picked and the reinvented Vincent Ward story was the one.

I can't stand Ressurection at times. Its overtly gross and very, very un-Alien. Too gimicky.

[TheMacroprosopus]

Haha, no, i meant that the sound chops and all that messed up crap in the third se ruined it. You know, how when people would go to talk, they were drowned out by what the subtitles called "hissing"? Ya, that.

[Lightfighter]

Well, there's not much to do here in Iraq when you're not on mission. One of those things, obviously, is watch movies. And get on the web. I just recently watched the Alien marathon (that didn't take long, damn it!) again, and thought I'd put in my two bits.

Alien naturally was the one that started it all. For the time and the technology used in the making of the film, great work. There's a bit there where the actors are using their own CO2 to create the illusion of exhaust from their space suits. I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure that would just suck butt hole.

Aliens. Damn! I mean, 'Game over, man. Game over!' I first saw Aliens when I was about maybe nine or ten. My mother couldn't get me to stop watching that movie. Back when we would still go to video stores (nostalgic moment) to rent movies, before the Internet and Netflicks, I would almost always look for that one first. Unfortunately, Blockbuster only had I think one or two in stock, and they were almost always out. I'm a action junkie, a sci-fi junkie, and a military man. There's not a whole lot about this movie that I don't love. Like I said, DAMN!

Alien 3. When I first heard about this coming out in theaters, I was really excited. Then I went and saw it. Maybe I was expecting something along the lines of Aliens, I don't know. But this move just blew. There were only a few moments that I enjoyed. The one thing that really was cool was the different take on what kind of Alien comes out of what kind of host. That's really interesting. The dog-Alien was REALLY cool.

What can I say about Alien Resurrection that will actually be nice to say? Not a whole lot. Again, I was expecting something more. Sigourney Weaver got in SHAPE for this role, I will definitely say that. Check out her arms, man! Gun Show! The fact that they went to such lengths to recreate her; i.e., splicing her DNA with that of an Alien, giving her many of the attributes of the species itself. Acid blood, super speed, higher strength, quicker instincts, increased intelligence. Cool stuff. There were also some pretty cool guns, like the grease monkey who disassembled a pump-action double barrel shotgun and hid all the parts in his wheel chair. That was neat. Also, his partner who had the high speed pistols in his sleeves, almost a homage to several scenes in Equilibrium. Other than that, the film didn't have a whole lot going for it.

As a fan, though, I still watched all of the movies, read a bunch of the comics, and tried to enjoy all of them.