What do you think about the Alien film franchise? (spoilers)

Talking specifically about the films here. You may include The AVP films if you want.

I just rewatched the franchise and I can only say that the films didnt aged well. With all the tension gone I'd say the first one is actually pretty boring (Still think it's a classic though). The action saves the 2nd film but it's kind of ironic that this is the film where we see the Aliens the less.

Alien 3 is still as shitty as ever, most boring plot and a lack of likeable characters (I never held much love for Ripley tbh), even the special edition which fixed some things, still seems dumb. Can't get over the fact that the directors decided to kill both Newt and Hicks before the opening credits even end.

Alien resurrection is OK in my book, not the greatest film but it's not bad once you ignore the ridiculous plot. It has the most likeable characters in the franchise after Aliens imo. Though I still cant get over the fact how dumb the death of Christle (the black guy) was. Why did this film got so much hate though?

1 and 2 were good. The second is one of my favorite films of all times. Used to have loads of fun pretending to be a colonial marine when I was a kid. Never enjoyed the AvP films.

Alien and Aliens are downright amazing. Alien 3 (the Assembly Cut) is alright. **** Resurrection. Don't care for the AvP ones.

Alien > Aliens > Prometheus (bad script, good acting) > Alien 3 (even though I'm David Fincher's biggest fan, but this is the studio's fault, not his) > Alien Resurrection > Everything AVP

Only watched the first 2 (and AVP, but still...). I watched the first one when I was 4 years old I think and it was the first movie I felt tense while watching so that was a new experience. Recently I rewatched it and watched the second one...got so bored I didn't even try watching the third one...

I still think the first movie is iconic and it was great to see a female badass, but by today's standards I don't think it's anything special...

Bill Paxton. Man....what acting.

Aljosa has got this right

The knife scene is my favorite.

Alien and Aliens are both terrific.

Alien 3 is mediocre. But the Assembly Cut us decent, if not good.

Alien: Resurrection is the worst of the franchise, although it does have some likable characters and scenery.

EXTRA:

Both AVP movies are pretty bad, yet I find minimal enjoyment with the first movie.

Prometheus is good, but not great. If the deleted scenes were left in the film it would be a LOT better. I'm willing to see it's sequel, Paradise, whenever it's made.

BONUS:

Alien: Isolation is superb. It makes up for all the lackluster games based on the Alien and Predator franchises in recent years

First was the best. Second is great. Third is a giant pile of shit. Fourth was OK, better than the third - mainly because it realized the franchise was done after the second and instead of trying to emulate the first two ( and failing like the third), it decided to just go crazy with the mythology and have fun with it.

I actually liked the third movie, though probably my least favorite of the first three, I think Resurrection is where the series took a nosedive if there were any movie in the entire Alien series that would be the movie I wish never got made. The two shitty AVP movies did both an injustice to both Alien and Predator franchises. Predator at least recovered with an okay Predators movie. Prometheus I'm holding judgement on depending how it ties into the pending sequel.

For the most part, I liked the extended cut of Alien 3, the extra parts added regarding the inmates doomsday'ish religion added a nice dark tone to it, alien coming from a bull instead of the dog was different, I prefer it more, but not much of an improvement, that one inmate who survived the attack taking a interest in the alien and releases it in the extra scenes where they actually trap it. Only thing I didn't like so much was the end scene wasn't as well cut as the originals ending in being tied with the score but whatever, I liked it still.

I really liked the Aliens extended cut with the extra footage they added, like in the colony's discovery of the ship with the eggs, the extra scenes while they're held up and trying to lock down a secure zone with the turrets and the first wave attack they fended off. The Alien Director's Cut re-release was worth a trip to the theater when it released. I thought the cocoon scene was interesting, but my future viewings can do without it.

Anyhow, interesting to bring this discussion up. I've been thinking of giving the Aliens books I used to dabble in as a kid another go. Honestly not sure where to begin. Anybody read these books? Or the comics? Where should I start?

Like Alien Resurrection, taken as a B-movie, it's quite good.

For it's problems, Prometheus was also very enjoyable. Probably one of the best female protagonists i'v seen actually. Better than Ripley? Yea, I'd say so. She doesn't just kill and fight aliens, she actively questions them. Rather than just wanting to go she decides to go to there planet. Which I thought was a really cool ending that helped make that female character a real hero.

I've seen aliens, it has aliens in it. Sort of good.

I think that the extended cuts are...really extended. I almost had to stop with the Alien 3 extended cut because it's freaking 2 hours 30 minutes long, the most boring entry of the franchise and the longest one too.

I found the cocoon scene from Alien to be unnecesary, why is the alien cocooning if there is no queen? and ripley finds the cocoon, yet in aliens she doesn't knows that the aliens build them and one of the big plot points is that everyone thinks the aliens kill indiscriminately, so that scene doesn't really goes well with the franchise.

I found prometheus to be amazing (had forgot about prometheus) but still with a lot of silly questions.

Is that supposed to be a joke? That's like criticizing the first Terminator movie for having a single-timeline temporal paradox when the latter movies clearly established a multiple timeline scenario. Or it's like criticizing Aliens for NOT putting eggs on the Sulaco, when Alien 3 clearly establishes that eggs were put on the Sulaco during Aliens.If there's an inconsistency between movies, then it's the newer movies that screwed up, not the older ones. How the hell was the Alien life cycle supposed to include a queen when the concept of the Alien Queen hadn't been invented yet in that narrative universe? How the hell is Alien supposed to be expected to be consistent with Aliens, when at the time Alien was made Aliens didn't even exist? Why are you criticizing Alien for not being consistent with Aliens, when Aliens didn't even exist at the time? If you want to talk about inconsistencies, then it's James Cameron who fucked up.

Alien and Aliens is amazing
other is mediocre or bad

Alien is superb. Don't care for the others.

I agree with that one and two were the best. I remember taking my two sons to see the first one.

uhm thats exactly what im saying. The cocoon scene was added in the extended cut, which was released several years after Aliens. If the scene made inconsistencies with the second film, then it should have been scrapped.

The cocoon scene was MADE for Alien years before Aliens was ever made. That scene fits the director's vision for the movie, Aliens doesn't. It's not like Ridley Scott brought the cast back for reshoots after Aliens came out, the whole scene was shot back in the 70's for a movie that was intended to be a self-contained movie in the first place. The cocoon scene still came first, even if it wasn't added to the movie until years later.

They got worse as time went on.

I did like "Prometheus" though. Hugely underrated.

The first film is dripping with atmosphere and is gorgeously shot (the lighting and chiaroscuro technique is phenomenal). The second is endlessly rewatchable and one of the greatest action movies ever made. The third isn't bad and is a satisfying enough end to the Ripley character, and the fourth just shits all over that and is just all around pretty bonkers.

I love that additional scene with Dallas and Brett being cocooned and slowly metamorphosing into eggs. I prefer that approach to Cameron's queen, as it just feels more... alien, and less buglike. Obviously being a sequel and with the direction Cameron took, the alien in the first film, which was cleverly shot as to not show too much of it (probably out of necessity as it would have probably just looked like a guy in a suit otherwise, but it works to the film's advantage), would inevitably become less mysterious and individually less threatening, but Alien doesn't need to tie into the sequels as Aliens needs to tie into Alien. I don't have to picture the alien in Alien as just a giant bug if I don't want to. And I don't give a shit what Prometheus showed, that zoomed in shot of that elephant looking alien will always be eerie as ****.

I also never really got why the aliens turned on that alien in the cage if they can just spit acid.

Yeah, but it doesn't show the queen chest burst, which is a far less interesting ending. Knowing that Ripley could have gone with Bishop and potentially saved her life, but at the cost of giving them the queen, is a far better ending than the theatrical ending in which she was dead anyway. Her sacrifice actually meant something.

Interestingly enough I had never seen the first two Alien movies up until shortly before Prometheus came out. Both were pretty darn amazing films, and I was rather startled to learn that the scene they left out of the theatrical version (In Aliens) was so central to Ripley's character, and explained most of her actions throughout the film.

Apparently their blood is a lot more acidic than their spit. That's why the black guy got spit in the face and seemed to be pretty much okay, while the Aliens' blood melts right through metal.

Who cares when they released it? It was filmed during the creation of Alien, like any other cut scene, so they hadn't come up with the concept of the queen yet. It wasn't really clear, but the idea was that Dallas was being turned into an egg by the coccooning process.

Besides that, you are completely missing the point of an extended cut. The extended scenes are not necessarily cannon, but they are there for people who want to see everything they had previously filmed. They aren't there to add to the story, because typically (but not always) the theatrical cuts are the preferred cannon seeing as how those are the versions that millions of people actually saw. Although I haven't seen the extended cut of 3 yet, I have seen it of 1, 2 and 4 and I wouldn't say that -any- of the extended versions of the films were actually better than the theatrical releases but it was damned cool to see them. I loved getting to see new scenes from one of my all time favorite movies, but I actually thought most of the scenes were pretty shitty (except for the hallway autoguns scene that appears in network tv versions of the movie, as well as the bit about Ripley's daughter).

Regarding the movies, 1 and 2 still hold up extremely well for me. @lamprey263 I agree with in that 3 is actually a good movie, but I hate it for the same reasons that everyone else hates it because of the direction it took the story. @uninspiredcup's point I agree with in that 4 is a fun movie if you regard it as the campy, B-movie that it is. I do not agree at all that Noomi Rapace's character is a particularly good character much less as strong a lead as Ripley.

-Byshop

I can rock that. Though I remember Hudson got some blood on his arm in Aliens and was pretty much fine, wasn't he? So it wouldn't be the first time there is inconsistencies.

I'm still waiting for a new "aliens" instead of whatever they brought us in aliens 3 or the horrid 4th installment.

Acid dont always react the same to different materials. It's perfectly possible that the alien's acid easily melts through metal but doesn't reacts so violently against human skin (maybe because the acid is supposed to be their blood, so it doesn't reacts so hard against organic stuff), maybe we're just trying to put much sense into it.

No, Hudson just didn't get that much blood on him. He essentially just got sprayed with a fine mist, so it burned him but it didn't cause any significant damage. By contrast, not even a minute earlier, Drake got splashed right in the face with a large amount of acid, and he was dead within seconds. Same thing with the black guy from Alien Resurrection. He didn't just get a little bit of Alien vomit/saliva on his face, the Alien hit him directly in the face with a full load.

I'm just saying that the easiest explanation here, the one without any inconsistencies, is that the vomit/saliva just isn't as acidic as the Alien's blood. It's not really a stretch, it's just the easiest assumption to make, that doesn't cause any inconsistencies. That even answers the question of "if the Aliens can spit acid saliva, why haven't they done that in any of the previous movies?" Answer: because their saliva isn't that acidic, so in most cases there's not much point spitting on a person. It'd be far more effective in most scenarios to just eat a dude's face.

Ridley Scott is a terribly over rated director and it's his impressive visual team and sound engineers that carry the experience.

HR Gigers impressive artwork practically carried Alien. The direction was mediocre, the sound design at the time was great.

Blade Runner like wise.

These films are highly influential but none of this influence comes from the actual direction.

Pretty much this.. Alien 3 gets a hard knock but it had the balls to throw a curve ball at the viewer and try something different.. AVP shouldn't even be brought up, it's plotline and dialogue for both movies must have been written by a 15 year old.. AVP movies are some of the worse pieces of shit I have ever seen with the amount of money they had behind them.

Prometheus was tolerable until you actually stopped and thought about the fucking stupid plotline and character actions that occurred in the movie.. I usually give the benefit of the doubt of character actions and try to ignore such things, but some of the things that happened in that movie were unforgivable.. I mean wtf was Ridley Scott thinking with this movie?

If I remember correctly, Drake simply went down because of the splash, and aliens could have killed him later. The black guy from resurrection...first of all, guy was an expert shot, and he cant hit the alien that's clinging to his feet?, then he gets hit by the acid, and he goes on for like 5 minutes without doing anything, he even takes his time to search for a knife and calmly cuts his harness, he drops like 5 meters into water and dies for no reason. It's just bad directing.

And spitting is really useful because it can incapacitate from range, there is no reason why aliens wouldn't spit all day long, it's just a poor directing choice. It would have been more plausible with the alien from the third film because we know he was different from the others, but still...

Except that spitting can't incapacitate from range. The black guy from Alien Resurrection was the only guy in an Alien movie to ever get spit on, and he seemed to be okay afterwards (aside from the dude in Alien 3 who fell into the fan, and he probably would have been okay too if he hadn't fallen into the fan). That was actually one of the most stupid deaths in the entire series. Not only did the black guy seem to be pretty much okay after getting splashed with acid spit, but the dead Alien was only hanging on by a single finger.

Anyway, Drake was dead as hell within seconds. Watch the scene again. They only show it for a second, but you get a closeup of his face and it's clear that the acid blood has melted huge holes in his head. You also hear Hicks saying, "forget him, he's gone". Since they were already at the APC anyway, there would've been zero reason to leave him behind if he wasn't dead as hell. Also, just minutes after that, Hudson notices that Apone and Dietrich are still alive. "Their signs are real low, but they ain't dead." The implication being that once they were incapacitated, the Aliens had no reason to kill them outright. At that point, they take them back to the nest to use them as hosts. If Drake had merely been incapacitated by the acid (as opposed to outright killed), then the Aliens would have taken him back to the nest to use as a host.

Also, all this Alien talk makes me say...I started playing Alien Isolation and I like it for the most part, but the shitty save system is really killing it for me. The game scares the hell out of me, but I'm increasingly noticing something noteworthy. While I'm scared, I'm not so much scared of the Alien as I am scared of losing my progress in the game. Every time I have to replay segments because the save system sucks, that just makes me realize that I could have been using that time to do something worthwhile.

Prometheus is the best. Origin stories almost always win for me.

You know when I say "incapacitate" I dont mean "The guy will need a wheelchair for the rest of his life". I mean it in a "will make the guy tumble" or something like that, a guy who's running and gets hit by the acid would most likely fall down to his knees or otherwise advance slower so the aliens would have an easier time catching him. The only reason that guy from Alien 3 fell into the fan was because the alien spit over his face and he was squirming in pain, thats pretty much being "incapacitated" or well, "staggered". Also notice how I've been saying how the black guy's death has been the most pointless one from the entire saga the whole thread.

I've only seen the first two. With the first one, I respect it for what it did back in the day but the fact of the matter is the Xenomorph is so well known and iconic that it's simply not scary anymore, which made the first movie kind of a bore to me. Like I said, I still respect it for what it did, but it's more of a document in film making than an enjoyable movie. Aliens,though, was awesome. I really enjoyed it.

"Game over man...game over! " still one of my all time favorite movie lines. Classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY

Oh, and Alien (the first movie) was fantastic if you are old as me and saw it at the theatre when you were a teenager. Very tense!

1 & 2 were great, especially since they were entirely different types of movies. AVP is a guilty pleasure for me - I know it's not a great movie, but I love it.

The true "Alien" movies (1-4) significantly declined after Aliens.

Crap,all of them.

I never watched any of them. I just a few clips over the years.

Alien is a fascinating film. It is disturbing, yet intriguing possibly how real aliens are.

Yeah I basically only consider the first two as part of my version of canon. I push 3 and 4 into the same category as the AVP movies, glorified fan fiction. I found Prometheus ok, minus the utterly brain dead scientists (Oh look, something new, MUST TOUCH EVERYTHING LOLOLOL).

Also for those of you who had a chance to got to it the AVP house at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios was pretty sick.

That cocoon scene should have stayed in the original cut. Having an alien queen kinda ruined the franchise a bit. If the aliens can't replicate without a queen then they aren't much of a threat. In the first film they blow up an entire ship just to prevent one alien from reaching earth. Yet in the second it shows that aliens on their own are hardly a threat.

I like all four Alien movies for different reasons. There's only four right?

Well, I like Prometheus too if that one counts.