Reply With QuoteI have, my wife and I quite enjoyed it. Totally un-Ridley-like, a minor diversion but certainly not a bad movie. Actually the only Scott film I haven't seen is White Squall.Originally Posted by Omniscia
Have you seen A Good Year perchance?
I have, my wife and I quite enjoyed it. Totally un-Ridley-like, a minor diversion but certainly not a bad movie. Actually the only Scott film I haven't seen is White Squall.
Well maybe not that small. It's at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Hereabouts is a different story.
My god did I hate Alien Resurrection. And it was almost awesome. But this is a case where one movie element (the alien hybrid) destroyed my interest in the entire rest of the movie. Kind of like how Schwarzenegger's just "getting over" explosive decompression and lack of oxygen on the surface of Mars ruins the rest of Total Recall for me.
Alien 4 was a piece of shit with a few interesting characters, directed by someone who thought it was supposed to be a joke, and written by someone who's obsessed with snappy-hip dialogue and little else.
It worked for Firefly - but it doesn't work when doing an Alien movie.
Yeah, Alien 3 for all its problems (and it had many) was at least a far more interesting movie. The trouble with Alien 3 is it wasn't a very good Alien movie.
Alien 4 was bizarre, one of those things where I like the director's other work (mostly), love most of the cast, love the writer, and yet it all just failed so completely to be remotely interesting. A classic case of mismatching talent and project.
I liked Alien 3 for how bleak it was and for the final scene.
Every Alien movie is widely different than the others.
I used to work for a guy named "Garth Mader."
I'm surprised Tom hasn't weighed in here. He used to have some pretty colorful things to say about Scott.
I always felt Alien 3 was a retread of the first.
The lastest cut of Alien 3 is decent, if not particularly good.
It IS a retread in some ways - but it's also a typical "old" Fincher movie, in that it's absurdly bleak and depressing. Somehow, it works pretty well with the whole Alien atmosphere.
I could do without the pretentious speeches with orchestral music - because the writing/material just isn't up to the standard required for me to take it seriously.
But otherwise, I think Alien 3 is about 1221 times better than Alien 4.
I *loved* the pretentious speeches with orchestral music. A favorite part of the movie for me, actually. Mass Effect 3 tried very hard to emulate it actually, which was a nice homage.
Alien 4 is fine, the first 2/3 - Then it descends into an abyss no man should ever have to walk.
Oh yes, Elliot Goldenthal hit it out of the park with his Alien 3 score. Mesmerising stuff, still have that on my foobar playlist. The Workprint / Director's Cut of Alien 3 is definitely the best version, explains most of the gaping plotholes in the theatrical version and has some great character moments. And yes, the final scene remains one of the most haunting in the series. As a movie it's fascinating, just as long as I don't dwell too much on what could have been.
Yes I loved that too. Maybe it's because I only watched the dubbed version which may have better dialog and/or voices...
I bought a DVD box set with Alien 3 years ago, but I didn't like the Director's cut at all, I must admit. It overexplained too much and changed some of my favorite scenes around.
I liked that so little was explained in the original cut. Alien and Alien 3 have many things in common but for me Alien 3 has a very distinct 'tone'.
The colors for example: When I think of Alien, I think of blue and green while with Alien 3 I think of orange and red (black is in both).
Alien is coldness, Alien 3 is heat.
Then I think the group dynamics are very differnt in both movies: In the first movie, Ripley is part of a small crew she is partly familiar with, even a bit family-like. In the third, she is the only female among mostly hostile (at first) male prisoners.
etc.
Last edited by Zeitgeist; 03-28-2012 at 09:21 AM.
I must admit that I really liked the bleakness of Alien 3 for some reason. No one gets out of here alive, it told me. Make your moments count.
Hah, I totally think the opposite. Alien 3 was on the UK telly this evening, and it just looked so awful, it just seemed really cheaply and badly made - right down to green screen showing through the alien fx and all. The whole thing felt cobbled together, with no sense of place. It felt to me like a horror film made by some students running around aimlessly in an abandoned factory or something.
Alien Resurrection at least had some bandes dessinées cool about it, with some attempt to escape from some of the tired old Alien tropes.
I don't know what that is, but it sounds French so I completely agree with you - it had too much French in it.
why on earth would someone watch Aliens 4 to escape from the tired old Alien tropes?
And I have no idea what kind of pretentious babble that is, but yeah, the director was French and has made some decent movies before. He just never should have been allowed to touch the Alien franchise.
Its like getting Lady Gaga to sing Metallica - Sure, she can do it, but it won't be Metallica anymore. But hey, its good to get away from the tired old Metallica tropes as well I guess.
"Some decent movies" is a huge understatement.
Jeunet is a great director, like all the Alien directors. Delicatessen, Amelie and City of Lost Children are all essential viewing, I'd say.
Lady Gaga is a good singer. Maybe we only see her into pop, but could do other registers/styles.
In the theatrical print they bolted together from the workprint, they excised some important sub-plots, had to swap scenes around quite a bit, and even took bits of dialogue from one location to use in another - you can see the background changes between takes if you look carefully. The whole thing is full of holes. I can't watch it anymore after the restored version.
But I definitely think Alien 3 is a movie you have to see multiple times to appreciate. It's no wonder it failed really. Depressingly bleak, confusing plot, indistinguishable bald-headed cast, Alien effects that didn't really work, none of the action people expected after Aliens. Not Fincher's best work, but still fascinating.
Arguably, part of being a great director is knowing not to impose the feel of Delicatessen's universe on Alien, and not to transpose the adults of City of The Lost Children into the Alien universe, and not to turn one of said adults in the Alien universe into a much less likable Amalie.
And at least by that argument, Jeunet is kind of abysmal. No, I'm not saying those three films suck or anything like that. I like two of those three films almost as much as I like Alien 1-3. Alien 4, though... It's the very definition of cluster-fuck. How that sad, mutilated mess managed to drag its sorry carcass to the cinema will forever be a mystery to me.
I'm not saying Alien 4 is a good movie. Almost everyone can agree that it was a disaster. It just seems that oftentimes people judge the guy only by Ressurrection. It's as representative of his quality as Alien 3 is of Fincher's.
I haven't seen a single other movie by him - as none of them appeal to me in the slightest.
When I saw Alien 4 - for the first time - I had no idea who he was. I just hated the movie - because I'm a serious fan of the Alien universe.
I don't know how to describe it, but it seemed the director considered the material "beneath him" - and he was just playing around getting a fat paycheck. With Whedon's script - I can't really blame him, but he could have at least TRIED to take it seriously.
If only... I left with no doubt in my mind that he didn't have the faintest idea what to do with it. If you watch some of his earlier films (Amalie was later, I think) you will immediately recognise a kind of amalgamation of the things that made them strong and distinctive. Unfortunately that doesn't just make Alien 4 feel schizophrenic, the whole mess is pretty much the ideal anti-fit for the Alien universe.
I love Alien: Resurrection because it's crazy. (Well, that and the circus performer from Delicatessen building a gun out of his wheelchair.) Alien 3 is dull, and I'll take crazy over dull any day.
I was thrown for the loop for the early part of Alien Resurrection, but at the point when Dan Hedaya reaches to touch the back of his head and brings his hand back around with a piece of his brain I had tuned into the movie's wavelength. I thought I was going to enjoy it.
And I did, until the hybrid thing happened. And really, what the hell did happen? Ripley is reclining in a pile of aliens, everyone's getting along, and then the hybrid goes nuts and kills everyone? And then spews its guts out of a hole in the window? I guess I've got limits on my crazy tolerance.
I don't really like 4, but I love the proto-Firefly crew. I wanted more about them, and less about Ripley and the Aliens, which I got a few years later on TV with different actors.
I really like 3...it has it's flaws but there are some awesome moments in there. I've forgiven it for what I thought it should be back when it came out-killing Newt and Hicks, but it is a good monster movie in it's own right. I do think that the Dark Horse comics that were around at the same time as Alien 3 was being released were better in every way.
I do like that everyone in this thread will not bring up the Predator vs. Alien movies. Well done all, well done.
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