"Aliens" : Some nice effects, but actually kind've a crap film.

that kenan-alex debate is one for the ages

(kenan otm btw)

Roffle.

There's something endearing about that level of SF nerdiness in a director, that he's constructed such a detailed backstory for everything under the sun.

You can't go from Aliens to thinking about buying some packaged cookies, than back to Aliens.

kenan otm seven years ago. in a ghost story control over mood and pace is U&K.

I just watched Alien again last night. As fantastic as the sequel is I just don't see how you can improve on Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton futzing around with the ship like a couple of shade-tree mechanics trying to bash an old Ford into shape.

Also pretty much everything that happens in Aliens is just a slight re-do of what happened in Alien. Newt = the cat; "you bitch" = "you bitch"; etc

Speaking of Jonesy, that cat is a DAMN GOOD ACTOR.

the cat from alien vs. the dog from the thing

The cat makes an appearance in the 8-bit video game of Alien too, you have to bag it before you escape.

you have to WHAT

oh

i feel like aliens is very different in story and tone from alien.

ya i mean it's almost a cliche that they're two totally different kinds of movies

Totally - I mean the great thing is watching four "name" directors take the same generic material and run it through four different mills. Of course they all have Sigourney Weaver, an alien, and things that have to be rescued, but that's like saying "all these covers of 'Hey Jude' include the word 'na' somewhere."

The across-the-board quality of the actors involved in the first one is just o_O

"i can't lie to you about your chances...but...you have my sympathies."

ice cold.

The scene that made me realize that was just after Dallas dies and they're arguing about what to do. Weaver's struggling to assert her authority and Yaphet Kotto is over in the corner, in the background, just out of focus, not. giving. her. an. inch. It's two people struggling with each other, reacting instinctively to each other, undercutting each other, using every ounce of power in the words they have to try to impose their will on the situation. The quality of the acting in that half minute or so is on par with anything you'd see on any stage anywhere.

^ The best and most believable part of Alien (come to think of it, Carpenter's The Thing also does this well) is how tense and irritable everyone one is toward each other. Feels like a real workplace.

btw dudes the entire making-of doc from one of the special editions is in its entirety on youtube and worth a watch if you have a free afternoon

http://www.youtube.com/user/alien1979themaking

the entire aliens making-of doc is too but watching too much james cameron as talking head bums me out

Tracer and latebloomer OTM about the acting. Was it on ILX or somewhere else that someone made the case for the cast based on their age as well? Like, first of all it just feels realer in the sense of looking like a workplace where these people really do this for a living and have been doing it for ages. And it also means that they're more experienced actors with better chops and all that stuff.

yeah the casting and age of the actors and the "workplace realism" of alien seems to be the remnants of 70s genre filmmaking in alien. a few years later it probably would have been full of beautiful quippy young people on loan from john hughes movies.

ya if they made it today they'd all be 22

haven't seen prometheus, but the alien series as a whole hasn't cast a lot of beautiful quippy young people (maybe winona?)

"Will you LISTEN TO ME, PARKER? SHUT UP!"

^^^^

"As long as that means killing it."
"OBVIOUSLY it means killing it."

latebloomer so otm - that's the thing that grabbed me so much about Alien from the first time I saw it. The future is dirty and greasy and broken-down, and the people working on the ship are all irritable mechanics beaten down by the man. It's like belowdecks on a battle cruiser after years at sea. It feels like a real place, in a real time. And for a change, it's not a nice place.

That milieu against the whole rapey sex/reproduction angle makes me wonder why I didn't actually give it a few points on the horror poll. Not that it needed any.

i thought harry dean stanton's hawaiian shirts were pretty festive. the future can't be that bad -- they have hawaiian shirts! presumably hawaii still exists!

Ridley Scott mentioned once that seeing the scuffed-up production design of a lot of Star Wars gave him the internal go-ahead to commit to the vibe of "space truckers". Where you didn't have military or sciencey types in clean, sleek starships, you had working stiffs shuffling about in long-haul freighters

Blue-collar / working-class Sci-fi flicks: List them here

oh here's a neat bit, focusing on the costume design:

http://hellotailor.blogspot.com/2012/03/movie-costumes-i-have-loved-alien-part.html

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DvzIdKKMHwk/T1Kl3FkB0UI/AAAAAAAABIA/ow5wuyVdgjI/s1600/alienbrett.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XXlLOIYx5S0/T1Jpu0Y5rNI/AAAAAAAABGo/056ski5rXJ0/s1600/aliencrew.jpg

I like how there are now multiple places online where you can get Nostomo or Weyland-Yutani crew patches. I kind of want a W-Y logo decal to put on my hardhat, see if anybody notices it amongst the other ones.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-baKobTewysY/T1J3seBPZnI/AAAAAAAABG4/npr5yvsH0aM/s1600/alienlambert.jpg

boots!

Also, between this and the 70s Body Snatchers, Veronica Cartwright could play the terrified screaming blonde with the best of them.

all youse guys otm about the performance quality in & workplace realism of alien, something that's largely absent in aliens, replaced by enjoyable but rather cartoonish miltary action characterizations. from the blade runner vs. alien thread, some three years back:

the corporate stuff in alien is great!! i'd never seen the future look so... privatized

― s1ocki, Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:36 PM (3 years ago)

Slocki OTM. Or so working-class. Alien nails this feeling of lived (and labored) in-ness like no other science fiction movie I've ever seen. You get a sense that you're not seeing the totality of the characters' lives, but just this one, small corner. In part it's the quality of the actors, in part it's the Altman-like approach to dialogue: fragmented, naturalistic, delivered with no regard to cameras or microphones. Especially true during the build-up to the chest-burster gag (perhaps, less so elsewhere in the film). Anyway, it fascinated me as a kid, and it still seems unique and compelling.

― served by boot-face (contenderizer), Tuesday, December 30, 2008 10:31 PM (3 years ago)

next on "discussion generator," contenderizer vs slocki in who can have the last word about how they appreciated the art design, altman-esque dialogue, and which sfx are a bit wack in ridley scott's 1979 space-horra opus Alien

― El Tomboto, Friday, January 2, 2009 12:39 PM (3 years ago)

So many cargo pants. The movie took place in an Old Navy c. 1998.

It's a film out of time; the pants and the high-tops vie for true temporal localization.

Growing up in the 80s, it was always weird to go back and see Tom Skerritt's various pre-moustache experiments in facial hair throughout the years.

The first time I saw MASH and saw Skerritt w/o facial hair I was like WHAAAAAAAA?

It's funny, even in MASH Skerritt never seemed like a "young" dude -- he was always a dude who'd SEEN stuff, ornery and kinda out there. Love him

He was 37 by then.

I think he was 21 when he was born

We need a poll of his changing style

He is Benjamin Button IIRC

He's so fkn funny in Steel Magnolias (I know this not the thread for that)

So many cargo pants in Steel Magnolias.

coulda done with a few more chestbursters imo

I think that one had at least two too many.

are we talking about Dolly Parton y/n

Olympia Dukakis

ok i've started the special edition of aliens (life intervened) and am struck by details that seem lifted right out of "gateway" by frederik pohl.. the family doing "exploring" and getting excited that they've struck it rich by discovering an unknown alien artifact; our hero getting a flunkie job at the spaceport in the cargo bay; the "company" which controls everything; kids running around

it's all scene-setting for the militarized reboot of the main action obv but still

Hm that is a v interesting point of influence, and one that might enhance my liking for Aliens...

ok i've started the special edition of aliens (life intervened) and am struck by details that seem lifted right out of "gateway" by frederik pohl.. the family doing "exploring" and getting excited that they've struck it rich by discovering an unknown alien artifact; our hero getting a flunkie job at the spaceport in the cargo bay; the "company" which controls everything; kids running around

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, May 25, 2012 3:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

super true... which reminds me to reread those books, i really like the just scraping by vibe of them, felt new for scifi

added to (very long) reading list, thanks!