it's and old one but...

With my Alien Legacy boxed set in my hand, I have set down and watched these movies many times. I love the Alien movies. Well at least, I love two of them. After repeated viewings of the 4 movies I have come to realize that the last 2 movies...well suck. I know that this is an old topic, but how could such great movies go amiss. I mean Alien and Aliens are so good and then you come to the worse one...Aliens 3. Now I know that some people like this one, but It has got to be one of the worse movie sequals ever. In the first few minutes they kill off several leading characters...who would have been able to make a kick ass sequal. Not to mention why would they use this same old storyline. Is'nt this the same old thing. It would have been better to use something new like The Marines finding the Alien Home-World or somethin'. Not the same old "Alien sneaks on a ship"..."Kills everyone". Who cares if he kills everyone on some planet, it is the same old story! What makes the first movies so great is the fact that they are completely different. The first movie deals with an uninitiated conflict with the alien. In the second movie they are going to hunt the thing down. This made these movies really refreshing...because they both had new ideas. The final thought should be...If you only ever watch the first two then you will be happy with the alien frachise and will be blind to the horrible descisions made in the other two...however if you see the others...Then all is lost.

PS: Why oh Why did I buy that boxed set!

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Ma$ter-V

[Filmmaker]

ALIEN 3 is a brave film that deserves much more respect than it gets. Though not on par with the first two, ALIEN 3 comes from the dark mind of David Fincher, who dares to kill off the characters who survived from ALIENS. Yes, this is one hell of a downer, and makes the audience feel like "Man, why did we go through all that in ALIENS if itsjust going to turn out this way?", but at least it's unique, and truthful, and brave. Hollywood films always end happily, but in the hands of David Fincher, we realize that Ripley is cursed by fate. His message that no matter how much we try, how hard we fight, we cannot escape our destiny, our mortality, is diametrically opposed to James Cameron's, but no less valid. The film is a moody, atmospheric piece that returns us to the brand of quiet horror from the first film. It is no more derivative than ALIENS. The prison planet, where Ripley is surrounded but never more alone, is a new facet, and we'd never had a storyline where Ripley and gang had to go up against the creature with no weaponry of any kind (even in ALIEN, they had cattle-prods, flamethrowers, and the ship's airlocks to use as weapons). Add the surrealistic religious overtones, extraordinary photography and lighting, a new twist on the alien's form (canine this time out), Elliot Goldenthal's powerful score, and a superb cast including Brian Glover, Pete Postlethwaite, Charles Dance and Charles S. Dutton and you have a near classic, that misses that mark only due to the extreme cuts made to the film by 20th Century Fox. If the director's cut ever comes out, and we see Fincher's ideas unpolluted, we will have a film that can take its rightful place next to ALIEN and ALIENS as a perfect trilogy.

Now, ALIEN RESURRECTION, on the other hand...

[Sid]

I like them all. Aliens is my favorite, and Alien 3 comes close. I don't understand why people didn't like it?

[Taxi]

Well, I don't know if Alien3 is all that great. Certainly I wouldn't go as far as a "Perfect Trilogy." I did like it more than Ressurection, even though A4 did have Brad Dourif, who I like quite a bit. I just felt the "Let's bring back Ripley again" was just too contrived. If Weaver was so keen on playing the character again, she shouldn't have agreed to kill her off in A3. And the ending of A4.... It just sucked. (Pun intended.)

I think Alien 3 is one of the worst major films ever and certainly the most disappointing. I don't think I've ever seen a film with such gaping plotholes, implausibilities, cliches, contrivations, convienient coincidences, contradictions and that's just in the first ten minutes alone (of course the last hour and fifty minutes or so has more than it's fair share of those too). For instance: just a few drops off acid can set off a ships fire alarm. Instead of either waking the crew to deal with the fire or utilizing some sort of anti-fire device that the ship should have had (don't tell me the whole ship went down just cause someone forgot to install a sprinkler system or something) the ship's computer ejects (they would have been better taking there chances with Hal 9000) our still hibernating crew into a EEV just so the ship can crash uncontrollably (couldn't they have been at least woken up to control the EEV)on a convienintly nearby planet (what are the chances that they would be orbiting a planet that close, at exactly the same time the EEV gets ejected?) and conveiniently kill all of crew except for the film's star and the planet is conviently inhabited by a convieniently small amount of prisoners (all that effort maintaining such a facility just to house 25 or so prisoners???) who have convieniently taken an oath of celibacy so Ripley is convieniently not getting the shit raped out of her every minute and so on and so on and so on. Seriously though, Fincher may have been good at visuals, and now he's much better, but at that time, him and his screenwriters didn't know shit about telling an even remotely plausible story.

[Wesly Moore]

Personally, I love revisiting old topics.

I saw "Alien 3" opening weekend with my best friend, and we are both rabid fan of the first two films. We came out of the theater more than a little disappointed. There's no way around the fact that "Alien 3" suffers from numerous logical flaws and ridiculous plot twists.

However, I've come to like "Alien 3" more and more on each subsequent viewing. David Fincher is a great filmmaker (I think that "Seven" is a brilliant piece of work), and "Alien 3" is at least a virtuoso exercise in style and atmosphere. I could not comment on its positive qualities more eloquently than Filmmaker has already done, so I won't try.

I recall reading around the time of the film's release that the script was a combination of elements from an Alien sequel script and a monastery/prison planet script. This mishmash may be the single most responsible factor for the film's ultimate weaknesses, other than studio meddling.

I think I like "Alien 3" for the obvious care that went into making it and for the film it could have been. At the risk of making a dangerous and unrealistic comparison, it reminds me of "The Magnificent Ambersons" in some ways. (Please keep the flames to a low simmer...I know that David Fincher isn't Orson Welles!)

For an interesting look at the film that could have been, check out William Gibson's script for the third Alien film at http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~n...on/alien3.html

Also, check out the Dark Horse comic/graphic novel series for a look at a continuing storyline that includes Newt's character.

As for "Alien Resurrection," I described it as "a wretched, steaming pile of crap" at the time and I still stand by my evaluation. It's true that there were a number of moments that were fine, intelligent, clever, and creepy, but there were also far too many moments that were jaw-droppingly bad. The entire final sequence, from the moment Ripley is pulled under the flooring to the birth chamber, is an extended exercise in stupidity. I haven't seen this since its theatrical release, and I will watch it again (someday), but I think the best it can hope for is to become one of my guilty pleasures.

All things considered, I'm still looking forward to my purchase of the Alien Legacy boxed set, which I hope will happen this month.

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Wesly Moore
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weslymoore@aol.com


[This message has been edited by Wesly Moore (edited 02-04-2000).]

[Dehrian]

I have mixed emotions on Alien3. On one hand, I think it's visuals are truly striking. It's mood is intense. Good casting and good performances.

But the script was a pile of- well, you know.

It's too depressing. Not in the way that Ordinary People is depressing. In a suck-the-life-out-of-you-and-leave-you-for-dead kind of way.

You really don't care about any of the characters. They're all villians. I rooted for some of them to get killed. Never a good thing.

Ripley is relegated to the roll of passive observer. There's really nothing for her to do in the film. That could have been Newt, or Hicks. Hell, Dave Bowman could have crashed his pod from 2001 on the planet, and it still wouldn't have mattered. Aliens was one of the best sequels ever made, IMO, for the simple fact that the returning character actually had a reason to return. Look at the Scream films; they've become a poor imitation of the films they sought to parody by falling into the same trap: refusal to try something different, to give the returning characters a legitimate and original reason for returning to this situation. The best sequels pull this off: Empire Strikes Back, Godfather Part II, Aliens.

Alien3 does not.

I must say I respect Fincher's work on the film. Picking up any movie in the third installment has got to be tuff. But come on! Killing off Newt and Hicks...has anyone read the refused scripts that are mentioned by Wesley ( There were 3 refused scripts...not just the one he mentions). I have. All three of them kick the shit out of Alien 3. Why bother with all the effort to play up a relationship between Newt, Hicks and ripley and them kill them off (Newt and Hicks). One simple Reason...The guys doing this did'nt know shit. BTW...Killing off Ripley, I think that was Shit! Look...in all the other movies Ripley is the one who can withstand the thing..then to have it beat her in Alien 3...Come On...Obviously they realized that they had made a mistake and had to find a way for her to beat it . This resulted in Alien:Res .

PS: Anyone ever read the Alien vs Predator draft. This Movie Should have been! I really enjoyed it.


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Ma$ter-V http://only.at/MasterV

[This message has been edited by Ma$ter-V (edited 02-04-2000).]

What I can't understand is why Alien was never brought to the more obvious conclusion from where the film started out.
Obviously the government on Earth wanted the Alien brought back to be used as a weapon,which this theme continued with Paul Riser in A2.
So why then didn't we get Aliens Finally on EARTH for A3? That would have been the best completion for a trilogy.
An all out war here on Earth as the Aliens were unleashed on some foreign government only to become the Earths worst nightmare.

It could still happen,but I have given up hope.
Heck,At this point I'd settle for the old ALIEN VS.PREDATOR scenario that was thrown around at one time.

One of the Scripts I read had the Aliens make it back to earth. Hicks, Newt and Bishop all returned. I thought this was the logical choice for the sequal to Aliens. All I can say is that this script was really good. Not sure why it was Rejected. One lame thing...Ripley was in a coma for some time...and we did'nt see her as much!

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Ma$ter-V
http://only.at/MasterV

I wonder if the script Ma$ter-V read was one written when the plan was, back in the late eighties, to make Alien 3 and 4 back to back, and give Ripley only a small role, or cameo in the third one, but have her return for the lead in the fourth one. I wonder, does the script have a cliffhanger or unresolved ending?

Killer...b/c that fits with the script I read...and yes I would call it unresolved...at one point Hicks puts ripley in a capusle and launches her off into space...Bishop asks him something like "Are you sure she was infected"...This was prob a setup for Alien 4 where someone would find her capsule and the story would continue!

Then get this...Newt places a map by ripleys bed while she is in the coma.."saying this is how you can find me"...When Hicks launches her capsule he puts the map in it..Wow is this getting cool or what! Maybe the original Alien 4 would be about Ripley trying to find Newt or somethin'


[This message has been edited by Ma$ter-V (edited 02-05-2000).]