Paul_cz t1_j43cw96 wrote
Reply to comment by stumpcity in FX's ‘Alien’ Series Gearing Up For Production This Year; Noah Hawley Will Start Production After Finishing 'Fargo' Season 5 by SanderSo47
I liked 3 and Resurrection too, as different as they were. And I also ate very well with the AvP games and Isolation.
But yeah the Ridley nustuff was not good and neither were AvP movies.
stumpcity t1_j43djpk wrote
I very much like Alien 3, but the version of it that made it really work as a conclusion to Ripley's story didn't come out until the DVD era. Not a fan of Resurrection, though.
Isolation is flat-out amazing at making you feel like you're in that world, absolutely. Love that game to death. I don't think the STORY in the game is all that notable, but that's not why the game works anyway, so it just needs to be good enough to get you to the next level/setpiece.
VeteranSergeant t1_j483b39 wrote
> Not a fan of Resurrection, though.
Resurrection is just not a good movie. It's too tonally jarring, and took a lot of talented people and put them in a place where they weren't working to their strengths. The took a talented French arthouse film director and tried to have him make a boilerplate sci-fi film. And then they took a comedic writer and tried to have him write a serious science fiction script.
So what you have is basically an Alien film that is bizarre in both its aesthetic and its plot, trying too hard to be clever and funny while still trying to remain horrific. Cast with a bunch of fairly good actors who all seem to think they are in different movies.
Alien 3 is a flawed film from a great visionary director like David Fincher, and as much as Fox screwed with him and the production, sending him into shooting with a film where the sets were already half finished, but the script was still being changed, you can see David Fincher's directorial vision stamped all across it.
Resurrection has this weird mishmash of Jean Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, City of Lost Children, Delicatessen) trying to direct a film written by Joss Whedon (at the time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and rewrites for Speed, Toy Story and Waterworld), as a sequel to a franchise that was dark and horrific body/creature horror set in a bleak corporate future. Whedon's script not only abandoned the bleak corporate future (there's a deleted scene joke about Weyland Yutani, the company from the first three films, having been bought out by Walmart), Jeunet seemed to struggle with the "dark and horrific" part. About the only part of the film that seemed "on brand" is the fairly great scene where she comes across the other Ripley clones. It's the one part of the film where there are no attempts to cram in a joke, a visual gag, or be anything other than horrific, and Jeunet's flair for the bizarre actually helped the film rather than hurt it.
The main reason some Alien fans hate Alien 3 is they never got over Noot and Hix dying in the opening scene. Otherwise, the Assembly Cut (later remastered as the "Special Edition") is a fantastic character piece about sacrifice and redemption. That original ending where she just falls into the molten lead and the Alien isn't born is incredibly powerful, ruined completely in the theatrical release with a chestbursting scene that removes the sacrifice element. The score by Eliot Goldenthal is top notch too, probably the best of the franchise.
Frank_chevelle t1_j43oe4d wrote
I only hated that they killed off Hicks and Newt like they did. Rest of part 3 was ok.
MaterialCarrot t1_j45z1oh wrote
Ditto. Will never forgive Alien 3 for that. I was happy to see everyone die in 3. Fucking nihilist bullshit. Watching that movie is like having the flu for two hours.
OverLurking t1_j45makx wrote
If I remember correctly it had something to do with contracts or some such? There is a back story to that you should look up to that script I know it’s enlightening
Frank_chevelle t1_j45wigz wrote
I remember hearing that some of the writers didn’t like the Newt character so many of the scripts had her dying. Still wish those characters got better endings even if they died in 3.
King_Tamino t1_j46no46 wrote
Well it’s hard to integrate a 12 year old long term. Newts role in 2 was great but what should they do? Copy & paste? Risk of making her an even more badass character which might result in the same criticism that star trek TNG recieved? A kid smarter than everyone, solving every problem etc
VeteranSergeant t1_j484lrk wrote
Mostly just timing. Originally they didn't think they could get Sigourney Weaver back. She was too famous by then and hadn't been interested in making Aliens until they gave her a fat paycheck. Fox assumed she was done with the franchise, which is why early versions of Alien 3 (including the first treatments by Neuromancer author William Gibson) either didn't feature Ripley at all, or in a tiny cameo.
But, eventually Weaver relented and agreed to be in the film, but by then, Michael Biehn (Hicks) was booked solid for 2 years, including in the timeframe where they wanted film Alien 3 with Weaver. Hicks was the central character in the William Gibson Alien III (and does his own voice alongside Lance Henriksen in the fairly-good audio drama adaptation released a few years back). But his character wasn't considered essential to Fox, so they went with a script that didn't utilize Hicks, which was essentially a mashup of ideas from previous iterations, mostly Vincent Ward's version, only moved from a weird wooden planet (yeah, who knows) to a prison, and Ward's monks turned into a religious cult of prisoners. I'm assuming they just decided it was too hard to get from Aliens to an Alien 3 set on a prison planet without just killing off Newt and Hicks.
horseren0ir t1_j45mekv wrote
I like ‘em all
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