Franchise Rants

S.M.-

'Crabbiest of pants' is not an attack on your character, but rather that of your pants. 

Feel free to rant away at us S.M! :)

It's not what you say that I am getting at. We can all agree to disagree, it's the way you say it!

Once again, welcome to the forums, pleased to meet you, and I know you will have valuable insights and information to share, which will be well appreciated!

WARNING: The following expresses my personal opinion relating to the Alien Franchise. Should you disagree with the content, Jonesy says that we may have to revue the Bonus Situation!

At its heart A L I E N is an updated version of many classics of Sci-fi and horror, some of its influences being more obvious than others. It’s a fantastic Sci-fi-Horror hybrid, with some Heavy Metal-MOEBIUS thrown in for good measure. Given the level of interference and control exerted by the producers, it’s a miracle A L I E N is so good.

I say it’s all down to the genius of Ridley Scott! He propelled classic Sci-fi from being seen as merely a genre, to a serious, believable, level. Those who followed, have failed to emulate his all encompassing, world-building.

Dan O'Bannon's story mixed elements of old, with new and shocking ideas. The Chestburster being but one example! The story originally being seen through Space Kat Jonesy’s eyes was very novel, and Ridley shamelessly used Jonesy as a sort of Mini-McGuffin.

Luckily O’Bannon met H.R Giger, and his iconic designs for all that was alien about the story, were groundbreaking. The original alien is the classic monster and remains unique and quite simply outstanding.

Fortunately, Ridley Scott was eventually chosen to fill the director’s chair. Pretty much unproven as a film director, but a man who’s commercial background, knack for economy, vision and artistic ability elevated what would have been a run-of-the-mill horror flick, into something that has arguably never been surpassed! The only other films coming anywhere close being John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The fusion of those three key people, birthed A L I E N. They are my canon. Gradually, their aesthetic has been obliterated, by progressive directors, writers, creature effects techs, and 20th Century FOX.

As far as I am concerned the rot set in with James Cameron. His over-blown, over-budgeted directing ‘style’ lacks finesse and depth. ALIENS, while being a good action movie, veered away from the horror of a terrifying star-beast we could hardly fathom, an organism we had no clue how to kill. He deliberately omitted the Giger-verse and obliterated any sense of other-worldly strangeness, in favour of cheesy dialogue and a hive of giant bugs, who could be easily destroyed, even by one person. Honestly, I would rather watch Gordon Douglas’s THEM!

…and why oh why, do people rave on about the Bishop/Hudson knife scene as if it was something so cool and original? When it's borrowed from DARK STAR!

Then we have QUEENIE, Giger liked the design and was gracious enough to say as much. [Though Cameron was not remotely interested in working with Giger, nor in giving him the credit he was due. I have no problem with Stan Winston, but oh, the irony] I hate that bloody thing for a host of reasons, chiefly being, that it ignored the much preferable, horrendous, scary, unthinkable egg-morph! [and don’t even bother retorting with “the egg-morph wasn’t in the theatrical release” jibe!]

Cameron’s story stripped the MORB of all its mystery and horror, and bumped up the heroism of Ripley. From then onwards the Franchise became her story. Sadly, Cameron’s canon has become de rigour, and been followed by each sequel.

Next, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff. Grrrr, if I ever meet those sons of….well, you get the picture!

Thought they could out-do Giger, thought they improved Giger’s design! They are *uckin* delusional! How does an averagely built man-in-a-suit [Woodruff] look better than the over seven foot tall, painfully thin Bolaji? And have you even seen their ALIEN 3, shitty coloured suit designs up close? Oh my god, and their Newborn, qualifies as one of the worst creature designs in film history!

ALIEN 3? Poor David Fincher, he won’t even go there, which says it all. Interference of the worst kind resulted in an overly depressing sequel, instead of one which had the potential to match A L I E N. Still, the assembly cut has enough of Fincher’s genius left to be pretty palatable.

ALIEN Resurrection, well, if nothing else it proved that you cannot contain the MORB!

Fincher and Jeunet are both very stylish directors. How sad that their talents were so misused!

Hello everybody.

Well I was about to respond, but then The Lone Gunwoman already posted a reply which basically says everything I wanted to say, so bravo there :D !

Like you Lone Gunwoman, I think the decline already started with Aliens.

To me Aliens feels like a textbook example of an adaptation where those in charge simply did not understand the source material and because of that they have no true sense of what made the original movie great.

James Cameron, Walter Hill and David Giler wrote a blatantly simple script which had no real substance to it. The characters are quite bland and simply fit the James Cameron formulaic archetypes. (Think of troubled hero/heroine, a faceless company, an ex enemy now friend type of character and of course some no name people who just behave like obnoxious dicks all the time and basically are only there to be some type of canon fodder. Almost every James Cameron movie has these types of characters, and it gets pretty old once you know the formula. )

The action sequences in this movie are just simple filler to compliment the otherwise very thin storyline.

Production values were very good, I have to give that to the movie. I also believe that because of the simplification and design changes, Aliens probably had more mass appeal, and because of that, it was able to be financially successful.

But where are the original ideas ? Where is the intrigue and the suspense ? Where is the fear ? Where is that sense of a greater unknown ?  What was truly "alien" about this film ?  
Well, it simply isn't there. LV-426 is no longer a hostile planet  with Alien features.
The Morb is no longer truly alien.

It looks very different from the original move and became this sort of space ant with a semi paracitic lifecycle. Who was the spacejockey in the mysterious derilict ship ? Why does the movie never mention this wonderfully intriguing piece of possible story ? 

Aliens in many ways is an unworthy sequel, that to me basically wasted a great deal of potential.
The first Alien movie laid a very solid groundwork, and at the same time it gave the audience somthing to think about. I remember I had a great deal of questions after seeing Alien for the first time, and Aliens never every truly gave any new insights other than that the company was named Weyland-Yutani.

Giger's Alien is the culmination of the nightmare monsters I feared as a child, the one in my closet and the one who hid under my bed! Where has that primal fear gone?

Here we see the tacky looking A3 design, worn by Tom Woodruff

Compare with Giger's unused, progressive 'Runner' design below

Lone-

JC is sort of a hyper-evolved Michael Bay.

Thanks Aorta for putting this post together.

I think as far as making a good movie you also need to see what the fans liked and don’t like. Learning by mistakes is an art in itself.

I like when things fall into place locally but some bizarre shit is fun also (hello Giger :D).

The tone should be dark I believe, not only the look by the landscapes but also as far as what happens. Take the fact that Newt died that is a kind of dark thing and not very happy but still it fits into the mood of the Alien franshise about loss, death, and so on. Another fact is that Ripley lost the guy that she loved in Alien 3 that also fits in with the tone of the Alien/Prometheus series. In a way there is an existential part to the franchise also, it is not only about monsters. More existential questions would be nice but they got to be put in an interesting and intelligent way.

Focus on the characters (I have said this a million times before and I say it again, heh). When I think about it all movies that I really like have interesting characters or ask interesting questions but they make sense in a way or are at least not outright stupid. In a way you can look at the franchise as a way of putting questions about what it is to be human.

What I like? There is a lot: I like the environments all of them this far including those in Alien Resurrection yeah I said it. Many of the characters are interesting not all of them but many. The characters of Prometheus definitely lowered the average point of the characters as far as the whole franchise of the Alien movies is concerned.  Even the marines in Aliens are good even those that are not very important to the story because it seems to me that the characters were well written so they could imagine what it would be like to be in that situation and it worked because of that.

Most of the monsters are interesting, I am not very much a fan of the newborn though. I am not sure why but it could have been better. Prometheus has problems but the monsters are alright. Do we count the Engineer as a monster? It was alright but it could have been better. Since we are not sure if it is a he or she I will write it.

What I am worried about is that it will be another Prometheus as far as the characters, the editing, and the lack of answers are concerned. Take the worst of Prometheus and most of Alien Resurrection and you have a disaster. A disaster is: lack of answers, lack of logic, characters that you don’t care about, dumb dialogues which to me can be found in most of the Alien connected movies if you look close enough, and lousy jokes. By lousy jokes I don’t mean bad as in silly but fun but jokes that are just not good because of bad timing or that are not intelligent or well thought out. Even those of the Alien movies that I like have some things that are just unnecessary but we should all be able to admit that. No movie is perfect, that is just the way it is if you look at it in a sober way.

Alien Resurrection did at least one thing right and that was the underwater scene which felt claustrophobic so that one was good. I got to say that I like the Call character but then I like a lot of movies that Winona Ryder has done (Girl Interrupted and Edward Scissorhands, for example).

Someone mentioned the Alien versus Predator movies. I have only watched one of them so I can just tell a bit about the first one. Unfortunately it is just lame and brings nothing to the story. They should also see what went wrong with the AvP movies and learn from it.

I agree with Necronom 4 that the scientist that pretended to kiss the Xeno acted dumb. Whose idea was it to put that in the movie? To me this is a good example of misdirected comedy that is totally out of place and that has no point. You could say that it is a way for him to show that they have captured the Xeno and views it as its toy but I don’t think that it is a reason enough. They could as well have replaced it with a scene where the scientist takes a shit in front of the Xeno and it would still be dumb as hell. To its defense if you want to find an excuse for it most of Alien 4 is bad but still.

Maybe a bit of topic but is it just me who thinks that the skin of the monster above from Alien 4 looks like they have made it mostly of black garbage bags?

There should be good reasons why things happen and they should make sense to the story as a whole. I don’t say that all things should be extremely obvious, some mystery is alright but it shouldn’t be because of bad writing.

As far as canon goes I really am not sure. I can see the benefits of it but there can also be too many restraints if you look at it in that way.

Lone: I like Alien 3 but I guess that it could have been better if the studio wouldn’t have messed with it as much as they did. Yes I have watched the making of material on Youtube and it is interesting. With the studio interference it is interesting to see that they got a movie at all.

Charza: That got me thinking about a thing. In Alien they had astronaut outfits but in Aliens they had regular to earth clothes but it was supposedly on the same planet. What happened? Maybe this is because of inconsistent writing or that Cameron simply didn’t care but I still find this to be strange.

Well. It is hard to escape the Alien franchise for me. I constantly think about what I have seen, read, played, and what I will see, read, and play. It has a certain appeal. My favorite movie is most definitely Alien. Everything came into place just right (pretty much everything.) It fits right in to the scifi and horror genres, has pretty well written and overall likeable characters, and the design/atmosphere is WONDERFUL. 

Now Aliens I like as well. I can still watch it time and again and have a great couple of hours. Still, like many people I think, this film is when the franchise fell off the rails. The worst aspect is probably the xeno design for me. 

They just are NOT good. I mean, the foundation of a good design is there since it is based on Giger's Alien, but the way Cameron changed them (I think one reason was the dome head kept breaking. They couldn't make an action movie with the design and budget given, so they switched it up.) It doesn't feel like the same species (somewhat.)

Someone here also pointed out that Cameron and company didn't understand or care about the world building that started in Alien. The lack of Ridley really hurt. He had no chance to give input on the story they crafted, where he would have gone, or anything. Or he didn't want to. I cannot remember. I like Aliens, but it is just such a departure from what Alien was

Alien 3 was tough for me for a while. I first saw it and thought it was CRAP. Extremely depressing, design that felt like a weird knock off of Alien, terrible looking effects, and the story felt it had been butchered and put the through the mill several times (which it was.) I have come around since then. I think Alien 3 is a good movie. Sigourney Weaver was GREAT. A woman who has been haunted and hunted by these beasts for longer than she can remember stuck on a desolate planet full of rough characters was running on empty. She fought and fought and fought to survive and in the end, threw herself into the fire to bring down her enemy. She gave everything she had to survive only to be forced to give her life to take the xenomorphs away for good (haha except the countless books and comics (canon or not) that detail xenos on every other planet.). What a character arc! The other guys in the movie were pretty inspired actors and the whoel story of the film pull together just enough creativity, strength, fear, and grittiness to really make SAlien 3 a good movie. Unfortunately, it suffers from a dull environment (with moments of interest), iffy special and creature effects (what they did was unique and never done before I think. It just didn't turn out too well), and a sloppy story due to studio interference. 

Haha I ended up doing more praising than complaining there. Alien 3 was littered with greatness, but the process of getting to the final product was too full of turmoil. 

Now, Resurrection. I like that there were some new kinds of ideas in there. It was creative, I'd say. The problem is, a lot of the humor wasn't actually funny (that is subjective I guess.) Also, the story was a reeeeaaach. Cloned Ripley and the Alien growing inside of her when she died. Cloning isn't that crazy, but having the queen inside her cloned as well and surviving and functioning??? Bleh. The process of making this movie should have stopped there. I have to say I liked the characters mostly. Call, Ripley,  and General Perez all make a good amount of the movie enjoyable. The other members of call's group are almost good enough to make a nice cast. Th rest were either weird, terrible, unimportant, or a combination of the three. 

The overall design wasn't terrible. Set and character design was pretty good. I also enjoyed the creature design up until the Newborn reared its ugly head. Now, seeing a weird human/xeno baby thing isn't my idea of greatness. Still, it is one that could have worked EXTREMELY well. Too bad we got what we got. Ending the movie on Earth wasn't a good idea to me either. The Alien franchise is about being, well Alien. Facing the creature itself, as well as being in a lonely, isolated environment. Aliens had a lot of people running around in it, but it still felt far away from home. I know Earth was a crappy place at that point in the timeline, but still not where an Alien movie needs to or should go. 

I won't go into the AVP movies, I don't really include them. I will make another post about Prometheus probably

@Thoughts_Dreams

According to the movie they started to terraform the planet of LV-426, and established the colony of Hadleys Hope. 

One of the most illogical things about this scenario I think, is that no one ever "knew" that the derelict was there.

How is it that none of the surveys ever turned up any indication of this very large and strange object? It was only after they had found Ripley, and she provided "coordinates" that people decided to investigate the spot. And of course these people were unarmed and not protected in any way. 

Yeah, logic isn't Aliens' strong suit. 

Alan Dean Foster explains the non-detection of the Derelict in the novelisation, and Burke explains why they weren't armed in the film.

@Lone - Thank you.

Are the novelisations canon though? I doubt it.

I don't think you understand the concept of RANTING @S.M

No, actually, when I think back to all the other comments you've posted I think you're actually quite the expert at it.

Not wanting to stop anyone from ranting.  Just putting info out there. Whether people are interested are not, is up to them.

Oh my, how highly you must think of yourself.

You're putting info on here? A place where the members know ALOT about that particular franchise?

Most of the members on here know everything about that particular CANON.

You get all your information from the comics. They're not canon dude.

Someone was angry about some specific story points in Aliens, that had been addressed. Not trying to change opinions - just letting people know who might be interested. Or not.

Which comic was I referencing?

Look, in almost every post you make you reference a comic or book; fire and stone, out of the shadows, the film novelizations. 

They're not canon.

Forget about the comics, watch the films and the documentaries dude, you may learn something.

I've been watching the films for 30 years.

And the things you mentioned are currently regarded as canon.  No one is asking you to like them or accept them and they shouldn't be a barrier for ideas, or indeed ranting, but that doesn't change anything.

"the things you mentioned are currently regarded as canon."

Didn't they say that Aliens colonial marines was canon?

They also said that Avp and Avp 2 were canon to the ALIEN franchise. They do that to promote and sell more of the product, it doesn't mean that they are canon though.

A:CM was touted as canon, but that is no longer the case.

AvP and AvP:R - I don't know if they were ever outright stated to be canon, though they were created to fit with the existing films. Currently their status is uncertain.

The Weyland-Yutani Report (upon which I consulted) was created to be as tight as possible canonically, and that includes references to Fire & Stone, Out Of The Shadows, River of Pain and the Isolation video game.  A version of the WYR itself was then referenced in the Sea of Sorrows novel.

Obviously Alien is the masterpiece.  As much as I loved Aliens, it doesn't really fit does it.  Its a complete departure from the horror of the original and made the Xeno's vulnerable.  At least A3 tried to bring back the unkillable stalker that was in the original.  A4 was unspeakably bad with almost no redeeming qualities. 

AVP- lets all just agree to forget those.

Prometheus was just a mess.  Visually it looked great, but man the story and script was just awful and completely ruined the mystery of the only masterpiece in the bunch, the original.   Makes me cringe to see what Blade Runner 2 is going to become.