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

Henriksen did a "Random Roles" interview on The AV Club last week and apparently once got out of a speeding ticket when the trooper walked up to his car, looked through the window and said "Bishop!"

it's such a simple reversal of the first movie that the android turns out to be an invaluable ally but it's so effective. what a great character, and what a fantastic performance

It is. One of the many ways the further sequels bungle things is with the androids. Like, what do they have to offer, besides sometimes going nuts? Especially in the most recent movies, when the humans just stupidly land on planets and take off their helmets anyway. It's similar to the Terminator twist: first Arnie is a bad guy, then suddenly he's a good guy, which is a cool twist. But in all the other movies the Terminator is just another killer robot from the future.

i'd argue that fassbot and winona ryder as android were the stronger parts of their respective movies

i should probably rewatch resurrection before saying that but oh well

They were, without a doubt, but that's partly because unlike Alien and Aliens the humans are without a doubt the worst, most cartoonishly poorly written and conceived characters in those films.

it's been a long time since i've seen resurrection but i remember thinking winona was awful in it

maybe i should rescreen

i should probably rewatch resurrection

maybe i should rescreen

guys please don't do this to yourselves

funnily enough the making-of doc on the resurrection blu-ray is the best of the ones on the (ahem) 'quadrilogy' box-set iirc, maybe i should just watch that again

the underwater sequence in resurrection is pretty good, maybe i'll just watch it on youtube

Resurrection is so tonally different from the others that people hate it, and it has some narrative problems, but I enjoy it. You lose the somber tone of the previous films and get two competing styles: a goofy French science fiction bit that, more than anything, reminds me of some of the near-slapstick of The Fifth Element (which came out the same year, so they're drawing from some common base and not each other) and the Ripley/Call end-run of idiots trying to manipulate and monetize the alien creatures with genetic experimentation. The mother/daughter theme returns and it's somehow put into the same characters as the human/android theme (wtf), and there's the almost meta-commentary angle of whether we can really have Ripley without the alien, and vice versa. Because Ripley and the alien are the same.

thread title should read "Alien" (singular) or "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

mh otm about resurrection

thread title should read 'kind of' tbrr

mh is right, there is interesting stuff in resurrection but iirc it was an undercooked script when they started shooting and tinkering with it on-set didn't help

I disagree about there being anything interesting about the fourth film, which sets the stage for future "what does it all mean?!" BS. Third movie, had it been done right, would have been a fitting end to the series.

^^^

Alien was a fitting beginning _and_ end but no one really knows when to stop

Henriksen did a "Random Roles" interview on The AV Club last week and apparently once got out of a speeding ticket when the trooper walked up to his car, looked through the window and said "Bishop!"

Pretty certain there's a similar story on the Near Dark DVD extras, expect this time he's wearing his vampire clothes and covered with blood

Going to watch "Aliens" with my daughter tonight (she's already seen "Alien"). So: do I show her the theatrical or director's cut? The DC has some stuff going for it that makes it richer (daughter stuff), weaker (colony stuff, imo) and, well, just longer (robo guns killing aliens). Theatrical ... prolly the way to go, right? At least just because it's shorter?

I think the theatrical, because I don't like the movie playing its hand regarding the colony so early. Having your first glimpse of it be the apparently-abandoned buildings when the Marines arrive is a better way to go.

we had a discussion about the two cuts in the cameron thread but yeah: theatrical

directors, but fast-forward through the colony stuff

Watched the DC recently and it's totally not slow or anything despite being quite long. They colony bits were fine, but unecessary.

i think there's probably a much better version that incorporates about half the added scenes in the Special Edition and loses the rest. my most hated bit of dialogue for some reason is:

Christ ! Some honch in a cushy office on Earth says go look at a grid reference. We look. They don't say why, and I don't ask. I don't ask because it takes two weeks to get an answer out here, and the answer is always "Don't ask."

it's some weak-ass "ha ha you know how office politics are!" crap

i still watch it for the added bits i do like (sentry guns, a bit more of Ripley's return, bonus Reiser)

Colonists hurt the suspense/reveal a bit (despite the movie already being a sequel called "Aliens").

theatrical, but rewind to watch paul reiser bite it twice

theatrical all the way. if she loves the film she can check out the deleted scenes. as I was saying on the other thread, the extra 17 minutes really drag down the pace and either spoil surprises or make the themes way too obvious.

That's my instinct as well.

makes it richer (daughter stuff)

Wait so the stuff about Ripley's daughter growing old and dying is not in the theatrical? Cos that really ties the film together thematically.

Nope, cut then put back in later.

i didn't mind that so much but some podcast or something made the argument that it overloads the substitue/surrogate aspect of her relationship with newt, sapping the integrity of it as its own things. plus she does not need to have an actual lost daughter scene for us to empathize with the more general situation of everyone she ever knew being old/dead, and to grasp what the relationships with hicks and newt might mean to her.

it does expand on the mother vs. mother alien as rival fight.

that's all there anyway, though, because ripley has a nurturing mother-like relationship with newt. i just think it resonates more powerfully as subtext and that cutting the scene reflects a smart show-don't-tell thought process.

Theatrical worked like a charm. I've seen this a million times, the first when I was 12 or 13 in the theaters with my dad - my older daughter is, coincidentally, the same age now - but I still have some fresh thoughts, having watched it with fresh eyes with someone who has never seen it:

1) Sigourney Weaver really is so great in this. As is Carrie Henn. If either of them faltered, this might have fallen apart. (Clearly the whole cast is perfect, particularly Reiser and Paxton and Biehn.)
2) The blue screen (why did the color change to green?) largely holds up, give or take, as do the models, though I never bought the vehicle they crashing around in, which seemed poorly designed for a combat ATV.
3) Was this the first militaristic machine gun sci-fi film? 30 years later it's still the marines 'n' monsters standard. And obviously constantly ripped off and referenced.
4) Speaking of which, the action scenes are just so specularly well storyboarded. Ever notice there are virtually no scenes where the aliens and people actually share a shot? And yet it never feels like people reacting to things that aren't there.
5) Man, I simply can't believe Bill Paxton is dead. I hung with him once, and he was every bit Bill Paxton. Michael Biehn, btw, I want to say has a second career now as a porn producer (!).
6) This is like the least coked up mid-'80s action film imaginable.
7) I do think Ripley learning she had a daughter who lived and died without her wouldn't have hurt. Sets up the maternal rivalry with the queen, particularly when they first meet, and obviously all the stuff with Newt, not to mention the explicit parallels with alien impregnation. Doesn't need it, but it's the only of the extra material that enhances the film rather than simply extends it. (Forgot that Newt actually hugs her and calls her mommy when she finally kills the Queen).
8) How in the world is it that we managed Segweys but we still haven't designed cool-ass exoskeletons? Screw flying cars, this seemed well within reach 30 years ago.

(Should note that my daughter was kind of so-so on it. Liked it, but not blown away, and predicted a couple of the big beats. Kids today ... )

The blue screen (why did the color change to green?)

It didn't.

blue is better for night / dark sequences, where any blue bleed is less noticeable.
green is better for day.
Obviously if any of one or the other color is IN the scene, preference is to use the other.
Also, green works better with digital, blue is better for film.

I just looked all the up btw. JtM would know best probably.

Hmm, I never really thought about it before, but that makes sense. I just could have sworn, anecdotally, that any bts stuff I saw growing up was always blue screen, but when things went digital they went green. Which yeah, green works better with digital, but I didn't know they still did blue.

9) One last observation, the sound design is just incredible. From the guns firing to the almost elephant-like shriek of the aliens to the sound of the nuclear power generator melting down, just so many iconic sounds.

Yeah, I guess I just wasn't paying attention. This is my favorite ever blue/green screen demo, and it's night and uses blue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPQHbexaCo

Bishop's crawl down that tunnel is still damn terrifying, even in its scarcity in terms of screen time.

"I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid" is one of those great throwaway lines delivered just so perfectly.

because lance henriksen is fkn gold

ALIENS is still kind've a crap film though

It definitely has a weird structure, but I don't know how anyone can call it crap, not least because for point of comparison there have been a half-dozen crap Alien films that followed it.

The structure's not that weird? Bit of a slow burn for an action movie I guess, but very three act-y.

Long stretch of no action - 45 minutes till first battle, right? - then long stretch of no action, then long stretch of action. It's just kind of lopsided. Not bad, though.

I'd say that's a pacing issue rather than a structural one.

Works for me though.

Sure, maybe that's more pacing, but that may be just splitting hairs, because that is how the story is built. That's another thing I always liked about it, though. The quiet no action parts are really quiet, for an otherwise loud action movie with machine guns.

Was this the first militaristic machine gun sci-fi film?

The first one that springs to mind is Predator, which was filming when this came out.

Speaking of which, the action scenes are just so specularly well storyboarded. Ever notice there are virtually no scenes where the aliens and people actually share a shot? And yet it never feels like people reacting to things that aren't there.

This is a really good point, and not something I'd noticed.

Michael Biehn, btw, I want to say has a second career now as a porn producer

I'm not sure you should say this - it isn't in any sense true.

How in the world is it that we managed Segweys but we still haven't designed cool-ass exoskeletons?

There's a few, but less than you'd expect alright. One of things that I thought the film shared with Alien is the impression that these were not exactly cutting edge on the industrial or military sides, it wasn't a crack teched-up team, these were just standard grunts either way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V87lSB5XWVs

I think they are meant to be a pretty well-equipped team, maybe not some super-elite unit but the spiels about their gear suggest they think they've got the good toys. It's just a future where the best way to kill people is still bullets and the best way to transmit live footage is still a crappy analog signal. Obviously it all helps secure the Vietnam vibe as well.

Michael Biehn, btw, I want to say has a second career now as a porn producer

I'm not sure you should say this - it isn't in any sense true.

It's the weirdest thing, I could have sworn I used to get press releases touting his involvement in some adult video line. My mistake if not. Sorry Michael Biehn!

Another thing I thought of upon re-viewing, is this movie really set the template for a lot of first person shooters, right? With the helmet cams and vitals and whatnot. I'm not much of a gamer, but that really reminds me of how a lot of games are set up. At the least it set the template for "Contra," or so I assume. "Contra" was 1987.