Alien vs Aliens

NOW THEN!..(new member,tipping my hat at my fello alien fiends), I love Alien, (scenario) 1981,out of school on summer break,9year old nemec balled up in a blanket in from of the tv at 1am,exploring the channels on the newly installed cable box,alone in the livingroom and bedazzled by soo many viewing options he hears,"next on HBO,a crew battles to survive an alien onboard theyre ship.Sigourney Weaver,Tom Skerritt star in ALIEN,next on HBO". i thought to myself,ooh man!"in space no one can hear you scream"..ooh man,looks scary,am i in over my head here?nah its cool,i can handle it.....i laid there and watched the entire movie from credits to credits and Alien scared the shit out of me.not so much it gave me nightmares but more like"um,hey mom?!!you really want me to sleep in that dark room? alone?..all night?"..i wasnt going back after watching that film..forever impressed..every science fiction film i watched after that HAD to meet the bar alien set or it wasnt worth watching..As Ridley had said"the old dark house,everybody gets picked off one by one".Ridley Rocks m/

NOW THEN!..(new member,tipping my hat at my fello alien fiends), I love Alien, (scenario) 1981,out of school on summer break,9year old nemec balled up in a blanket in from of the tv at 1am,exploring the channels on the newly installed cable box,alone in the livingroom and bedazzled by soo many viewing options he hears,"next on HBO,a crew battles to survive an alien onboard theyre ship.Sigourney Weaver,Tom Skerritt star in ALIEN,next on HBO". i thought to myself,ooh man!"in space no one can hear you scream"..ooh man,looks scary,am i in over my head here?nah its cool,i can handle it.....i laid there and watched the entire movie from credits to credits and Alien scared the shit out of me.not so much it gave me nightmares but more like"um,hey mom?!!you really want me to sleep in that dark room? alone?..all night?"..i wasnt going back after watching that film..forever impressed..every science fiction film i watched after that HAD to meet the bar alien set or it wasnt worth watching..As Ridley had said"the old dark house,everybody gets picked off one by one".Ridley Rocks m/

Exactly where I'm coming from nemec....totally agree.

I grew up with both. So, I like them both. Even Alien 3. All three tell Ripley's story in a compelling way. The 4th film was just too gimmicky for my tastes. I love Joss Whedon, and the director. However, they should not have been allowed to put their spin on Alien. Felt like a bad comic to me.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDH_TLpMn0g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDH_TLpMn0g[/url]

I am hoping to become a great director in my time, I have a great passion for film and something is worrying me...... If I do become a great director (probably not), if I didmy math right, when I am in my prime of film making, great movies like star wars and alien will probably be close to the 100 mark and will most likaly be re made by the dumb ass studio, and if they wanted me to direct it...... How would I react to that? On one side I would be like "you can't remake that!!!! You will ruin it!!!!" but on the other hand I will be like "but if you are going to make it and I can't stop you, would I really trust someone else to do it?" so what would you do if this hsppened to you? I know that if I ever to remake alien, I am curios what it would be like with no artificial gravity. Just a thought but I always wondered what the movie would be like if it was like that :)

Not only planet of the vampires, but it the terror from beyond space. And personally, I dislike Aliens. But that is just me and my sorry opinion.

they have different strengths and feel like different films entirely and i love them both

Clearly Aliens beat an Alien due to stength in numbers? Seriously - they are different genres. You may as well compare The Piano and Some Like it Hot.

I was thinking about the airlock dilema you discussed earlyer! 1. The airlock doesent open instantly, so it wouldent go airless in a blink of an eye. 2. I think that in an advanced spaceship, the climat control system would try to compensate the loss of air and start pumping in new air hence the steady flow of air in the whole sceene. 3. The only thing i find odd in said sceene is that riplys arm is intact and fully functional, after having the whole weight of the queen on it. please forgive my bad spelling English isent my native language.

There would be no ''Aliens'' without A L I E N , Thats all i have to say really!

awesome, i was waiting for someone to comment and bring this topic to 70 comments :) lol and yeah i know they are completely different, and despite what the title of the topic is this really wasn't supposed to be about what movie was better, it was mainly to talk about how alien is not as good as people think (still great though)

As much as I love Aliens for some of it's visuals I can't help but regard it as the stupid american cousin of Alien. Everything from it's tag line "This time it's war", to Cameron's moronic one dimensional characters, and annoyingly bad dialogue. The mother vs. mother theme didn't do much for me either. It felt strained at best. Ridley Scott on the other hand really managed to do something interesting and believable with Alien. Ripley survived, not because of good heart (Cameron's sentimental and naivistic take on her), but because she managed to "keep it cool" while the rest of the crew members fell victim to the pressure of the situation. That clever twist along with so many other aspects made Alien the classic it is. I think it's a huge misconception to call it a simple B-movie with an A-movie budget. Nothing about Alien is B. Aliens on the other hand is much more of a B movie. The exploitation of the Aliens, the tacky design (the T-Rex like design of the Queen), the focus on superficial action/effects vs. exploration of the deeper themes of Alien.

As much as I love Aliens for some of it's visuals I can't help but regard it as the stupid american cousin of Alien. Everything from it's tag line "This time it's war", to Cameron's moronic one dimensional characters, and annoyingly bad dialogue. The mother vs. mother theme didn't do much for me either. It felt strained at best. Ridley Scott on the other hand really managed to do something interesting and believable with Alien. Ripley survived, not because of good heart (Cameron's sentimental and naivistic take on her), but because she managed to "keep it cool" while the rest of the crew members fell victim to the pressure of the situation. That clever twist along with so many other aspects made Alien the classic it is. I think it's a huge misconception to call it a simple B-movie with an A-movie budget. Nothing about Alien is B. Aliens on the other hand is much more of a B movie. The exploitation of the Aliens, the tacky design (the T-Rex like design of the Queen), the focus on superficial action/effects vs. exploration of the deeper themes of Alien.

@invaderzim42- you know you really needed to have been around a while before 1979 when alien was made. Apart from a few decent horror films exorcist, and omen, for their day, and there was some interesting sc fi _ (quite a lot of which people have mentioned in earlier posts when talking about favourite sc fi films. There is a good list there... but really good serious sc fi ? .. i mean world class ! classic sc fi, there was only 2001, made in 1968, and star wars 1977, and possibly a couple of good movies like west world, and so on. On the whole nothing that came close to ridleys unique interpretation of a sc fi alien world. No one ever had envisioned a film that way before. Also it was all done on a budget of 4.8 million dollars a remarkable achievement. Add to that a swiss genuis artist who's artwork stunned the world, and disturbed and held us in awe with its beauty, and horror, all in equal measures, and put into a hollywood film. You cant imagine what seeing a film like that and the impact it had on an unsuspecting audience in 1979 when we had no internet, and relied quite a bit on word of mouth. It was just awe inspiring . For people who are under thirty, who have been exposed to films made with recent technology, that we have all become accustomed to over the years preceding alien, I guess its hard to contemplate what the fuss is all about, but believe me it was a big deal back then .

@Unlimited Power um...... need to disagree with you there. you kind of got me on the silly dialog (as much as i love the Cameron, he sucks at writing) but all of your other points fail to prove themselves. first off, i just need to get this out of the way and i am talking to everyone not just you, ok here we go. [i]Stop comparing the aliens from aliens to dinosaurs!!![/i] i am not mad at you Unlimited Power but i am really starting to get pissed off at this comparison in general! look, i am a youngster but even i know that before Jurassic park, most of the average public had a [b]completely[/b] different view on dinosaurs, to the public they were like big slow lumbering things, like Godzilla. no one had ever seen a rapter run in and jump on tables or anything like that at the time, so really we should be saying that dinosaurs in newer movies look like the aliens. just saying. and yeah people say they are too much like bugs and in a way that is true, but really should not be a downside at all, in fact ridley was going for "bio-mechanical insect" so if anything that is just staying true to the original. okay now to your point of the characters, we already kind of talked about this, true today characters like that are generic but back in 86 they were not, and the characters in alien are even MORE one dimensional, so really there is no argument there. "This time its war." dumb action subtitle? yes, yes it is. "In space no one can here you scream." just as dumb horror subtitle? you bet your ass it is. and what do you mean action/effects vs. exploration of the deeper themes of Alien??????? my whole point is that alien is not deep at all, its shallower then a t-spoon. the only deep thing about it is its artistic design from hr giger, and thats not ACTUALLY deep, it just tricks you into thinking it is. @alteredstate. yeah, i knew that, but it was only suck a big thing because it is just that well made (8 million by the way, not 4) and that does not make it any less generic. thats not a bad thing, just like star wars, its a high qualidy remake of old 40s-50s B science fictions.

I do think it is fair to compare them as Aliens is the sequel by Gawd! As for me, I go with Alien; it is better on just about every level: Goldsmith beats Horner, the claustrophobia is more pronounced, the Queen in Aliens just lessens the terror for me, and the actors, while excellent in Aliens, can't compete. But to be fair, no one could have competed with what has to be one of the best group of character actors ever assembled for a movie. That to me is what truly elevates Alien. The actors are just perfect. No leading men, no typical Hollywood damsels, just great actors with characters who could each have his/her own prequel. Scott wrote histories for each and every one and damn if you just can't read it on their faces, in their voices. Obviously Dallas is my favorite, in fact I think I will write a post on him. I will say thism though, Hudson is perhaps my favorite character overall. Otherwise, Aliens was a good action flick, Cameron did it as good as anyone could do it. I just don't go for that direction as much as dystopian horror.

I accept all 4 films

Ripley clone 8 has got a really awesome profile pic(jus have 2 state the fact)

actually,on the alien commentary section with Ridley he states that fox doubled the budget to 8million

I couldn't agree more with gritty. Alien is a masterpiece, and as much as I love Aliens it's just a bit of fun and nothing more, in fact in some ways I even prefer Alien 3 just because it didn't reduce the Aliens to cannon fodder.