Comments on: A Look Back at the Alien Franchise

By: monstrinho

monstrinho — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:13:58 +0000

I have now watched Prometheus and while it is a decent film, they really needed Giger’s input more. Seeing that picture of the facehugger reminded me that the effects in Alien transcend their medium. It looks like you could examine it under a microscope and it would hold up. Nothing in Prometheus feels like that sadly.

By: Tenacious EJ

Tenacious EJ — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:41:49 +0000

Alien and Aliens are movies that get watched EVERY time I see them on TV. They are both about as close to perfect as a movie can be. Alien, especially, when one considers it was done without the benefits of CGI, is mind-blowing, even more so when you learn how much effort the SFX and set and costume designers put into it. Alien has some faults that really show most when minatures are involved. But by and large, they are, to me, like The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are to others. Different, but great. I liked Alien 3, but the SFX are severely lacking. And at the time it was released the Aliens comics were still being written and Newt and Hicks were alive in them. I don’t deny missing them (Hell! I missed Hudson too. Comic relief cannot be over-looked). Alien: Resurrection was weird, but it felt in line with the series. Now, why Ripley felt any affection for that abortion of a baby alien/human whateverthefuck, I’ll never know. But as a series, I don’t think you can beat them. Even Alien vs Predator made me laugh.

By: [M]Camp

[M]Camp — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:19:00 +0000

The most impressive thing is that Aliens was back in 1986… Man I can watch that film today and still be blown away!

By: Jake Fortner

Jake Fortner — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:53:43 +0000

Nolan’s Batman films are NOT better than the alien series . . . at least not the first two. Nolan’s Batman films are pretty cool, but they don’t hold up under analysis. Or, even if you pay that much attention.

By: E. Lee Zimmerman

E. Lee Zimmerman — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 18:21:07 +0000

Meh. I think the highwater mark for me was always (and will always be) ALIENS. The first one I enjoyed; I just didn’t feel it had all that great re-watch qualities. ALIEN RESURRECTION was a pretty huge mis-fire, but I’ll agree that there were a few elements in it I enjoyed. I never had that much problem with ALIEN3. It was a different take on the whole ALIEN universe, and, on that level, I was okay with it.

By: trashcanman

trashcanman — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:51:27 +0000

Alien 3 was not a bad film. Most of the detractors never get past being butthurt over the deaths of Hicks and Newt to see that other than that bit of piss poor narration, it otherwise works. Resurrection was actually good too until they started getting stupid with the cloning thing. When will writers understand that clones almost never make anything better? If they had let Ripley go and allowed the franchise to move forward to places the novels already had, I think we really would have had one of the greatest franchises of all time on our hands. And hell, if Prometheus lives up and Scott sticks around for a couple more, it still may be.

By: Steve2

Steve2 — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:56:18 +0000

I was watching Resurrection on cable the other day and realized something. The scene where Ripley finds the other clones, gets all flustered, and burns the place to hell is a re-do of the deleted scene from the first film. I’d imagine, with Resurrection being written in 95′ and shot in 96′, since this was before dvds, Whedon probably had access to deleted scenes of the previous films, saw the deleted “Cocoon” scene from Alien, and decided to re-write the scene for the new film. Not saying it’s a bad scene as Weaver gives us a great performance, but it really doesn’t add to the narrative and seems like it was just added in.

However, lest anyone think I’m knocking it, it gave us 2 hilarious nods from South Park. The first episode with towelie parodied the scene, then the episode “Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwhich” with the half human/half duck baby.