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Baronjutter & Stare-Out posted:Clearly you all missed the obvious message in Alien 3, and I'm rather shocked considering how clear the film makers made it. In case I need to spell it out, Alien 3 is a satire of much of the "Western" genre, not so much the classic 60's westerns such as a Fistful of Dollars (which, although many pedestrian critics saw a superficial resemblance to Yojimbo is clearly tied to Disney's original Snow White). The Penal colony in Alien 3 obviously a stand-in for a classic wild west town, and must like in a Fisful of Dollars there are rival factions at odd with each other. Ripely, the disruptive outsider plays both sides off each other resulting in the destruction of all, it follows point by point the plot but the satire comes in at the ending. Rather than "riding off into the sunset" Alien 3 subverts this trope and has Ripley dive into the smelter, a large circular fire unmistakably referencing the Sun. There is no alien in the movie, it's a fabrication of Ripley, this is obviously because there was no Alien in a Fistful of Dollars. This all isn't my interpretation, it's a clearly evident fact no one actually paying attention to the movie could ignore, if you disagree you have factually incorrect emotion-based opinions on Alien 3. Time and again, I am proven to be immune to parody.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:52
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I'm OK with all the messaging of the movie and I understand and agree with the assessments. It's still a bad movie on a technical and storytelling level. "Life is poo poo, here is some Christ imagery" is not a compelling story (talk about trite) and Alien 3 feels like a smaller, less imaginative film than the previous two. There are things in Resurrection that I like more than Alien3, but I definitely prefer Alien3 on the whole.
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Mar 16, 2016 23:01
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Time and again, I am proven to be immune to parody. Oh lighten up, fella. It's just a movie.
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Mar 16, 2016 23:15
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Alien: Resurrection has more memorable characters held down by an A+ set of character actors, a different kind of story to tell than the first three, a creative take on the Ripley character, and a sense of enhanced scale. Someone really hit the nail on the head recently when they remarked that the characters in Alien 3 are all indistinguishable bald white guys. They're boring, they're almost impossible to relate with, they live on a boring world, and I don't particularly care about them. When the film's prevailing message is "nihilism is a thing!" it's even more boring. Alien 3 is careful to kill off or de-emphasize any character that has actually been shaded in, as well. Fundamentally, "nothing matters!" is not compelling. Resurrection, on the other hand, is dragged down by Whedon's trademark flippant teenager dialogue on all of his characters and a really uneven tone. Nothing is treated as consequential or dwelled on, there's just people dying messily. The first two Alien movies work because they're deeply creative and have an emotional grounding. They also have something to say and a unique, interesting way to say it. Essentially, there's soul. The rest are distinctly lesser films.
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Mar 16, 2016 23:23
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Time and again, I am proven to be immune to parody. You're so vain I bet you think this post is about you You're so vain (you're so vain!) I bet you think this post is about you Don't you DON'T YOU? OneThousandMonkeys posted:Someone really hit the nail on the head recently when they remarked that the characters in Alien 3 are all indistinguishable bald white guys. They're boring, they're almost impossible to relate with, they live on a boring world, and I don't particularly care about them. When the film's prevailing message is "nihilism is a thing!" it's even more boring. Alien 3 is careful to kill off or de-emphasize any character that has actually been shaded in, as well. Fundamentally, "nothing matters!" is not compelling. I don't particularly "like" Alien 3, either. It's dull and ugly (the actual dirty locales and ugly bald people and such, not the cinematography), unscary, and just a big ol' bummer. But I do appreciate that they took what probably started as just a convenient plot contrivance to keep from bringing back more castmembers and managed to shape a meaningful story around it. And "nihilism is a thing" is definitely selling the movie short. It's more "even if nihilism is true, it still doesn't mean you should just up and kill yourself!" It's a more positive movie than it gets credit for.
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Mar 16, 2016 23:57
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I knew the day would come were people would argue between alien 3 and alien resurrection.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:38
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I'd have loved to see David Cronenberg direct Alien Resurrection and have the script rewritten to focus more heavily on the body horror aspects.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:55
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David Cronenberg would be perfect for Labyrinth
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Mar 17, 2016 04:06
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Resurrection would have been much better without either Whedon or Jeunet. Their styles completely clash and it led to a situation where Jeunet wasn't able to go full Jeunet like he usually does. An Alien film directed by Jeunet should have been just as whacked out and surreal as City of Lost Children, the material is perfect for it. Instead we got a half-measure.
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Mar 17, 2016 14:42
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Basebf555 posted:Resurrection would have been much better without either Whedon or Jeunet. Their styles completely clash and it led to a situation where Jeunet wasn't able to go full Jeunet like he usually does. Weaver had a lot to do with it as well. That movie was really 3 different visions all clashing simultaneously, which made it at least an interesting mess.
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Mar 17, 2016 15:17
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Also it gave Michael Wincott work, so that's never a bad thing. Michael Wincott once made me give a poo poo about a character played by Chris O'Donnell, that's how great a villain he is.
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Mar 17, 2016 15:27
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The newborn in Ressurection is like the living embodiment of the dynamic between writer, director, and lead actor: an unnatural hybrid of disparate elements. An abomination. I just prefer the visual design of 3 to Ressurection. Although Ressurection was a big effort and there were some good scenes (the xenos in the lab / their escape was a sequence I really enjoyed). Everyone in Ressurection was insane, in a kind of off-the-wall way. It actually seemed to be pretty heavily informed by the Dark Horse Aliens comics. Alien3 was more traditionally cinematic. The prisoners had more veracity to their characterizations, and there are obvious parallels to their situation in reality. The confrontation of the (relatively) mundane with the violent Alien is kind of the key payoff in the first three movies. In Ressurection, it's all The Other. The Other is inside everyone already and it rapidly escalates into a big orgy of Other on Other action, which could have been glorious, but it would have required a Herculean special effects effort and an absolutely sublime visual design. But the Aliens were just a little to buglike and rubbery, the characters a little too trope-y; everything just a little too ~off~ - which is a weird thing to criticize it for, because it's obviously supposed to be dreamlike, but it just doesn't quite come together like it should. And the notion of what could have been is so close to the surface that it just ends up being a disappointment. SMERSH Mouth fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 15:57
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SMERSH Mouth posted:But the Aliens were just a little to buglike and rubbery, the characters a little to trope-y; everything just a little to ~off~ - which is a weird thing to criticize it for, because it's obviously supposed to be dreamlike but it just doesn't quite cone together like it should. And the notion of what could have been is so close to the surface that it just ends up being a disappointment. This is what I'm talking about when I say Jeunet should have been given complete control of the project. The film we saw is what happens when he gets caught in no-man's land. His style is off-putting when its not allowed to run free without restrictions.
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Mar 17, 2016 16:05
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I've only seen Resurrection once a long time ago and that was the main thing I felt, that all the characters seemed like fairly two dimensional tropes that spouted silly dialog. In Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 everyone in the movie feels like a real person. In Resurrection they all mostly feel like the sort of poo poo characters I've now come to expect from Whedon. I could also sense that they gave Weaver a lot more control over the plot and her character and it was conflicting and just not working out. There's a few good scenes and moments in the movie but it can't decide on a tone and is all over the place. I guess some could say Alien 3 is boring, but I found it very consistent and enjoyable.
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Mar 17, 2016 16:07
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I think Resurrection would have benefited tremendously from not having Weaver at all. She's a great actress but bringing her back from the dead was foolish considering how perfectly Alien 3 ended the trilogy. They could have kept the same general plot/cast and worked the story perfectly fine without Weaver, and continued the franchise with new teams encountering the xenomorphs in new situations. Why couldn't the military facility have just found some eggs somewhere else instead of cloning Ripley? The writers assuming that the only aliens in the universe were on LV-426 was a huge waste of potential.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:45
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Corvo posted:I think Resurrection would have benefited tremendously from not having Weaver at all. She's a great actress but bringing her back from the dead was foolish considering how perfectly Alien 3 ended the trilogy. They could have kept the same general plot/cast and worked the story perfectly fine without Weaver, and continued the franchise with new teams encountering the xenomorphs in new situations. Why couldn't the military facility have just found some eggs somewhere else instead of cloning Ripley? The writers assuming that the only aliens in the universe were on LV-426 was a huge waste of potential. For people who aren't alien fanboys like most of us are in this thread, she was probably more important than what the monsters look like.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:01
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david_a posted:Story wise, absolutely, but I'm not sure that movie would get made without Weaver. At the very least, it would probably have a fraction of the budget without her. Budget isn't really all that important to something like Alien, a good director should be able to make a Alien film with a modest budget.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:04
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I definitely agree with that. Alien's budget today would be about $32,000,000, and Aliens' would be about $40,000,000, Scott and Cameron along with their crew's mastery of lighting and editing is just as important as the special effects. Resurrection today would be something like $85,000,000 and yet I think most would agree driving a dump truck of money to Sigourney Weaver's front door didn't make for the best film. I mean Weaver is rad as hell but like everyone else said Alien 3's ending for her character was perfect.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:38
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It's happened so gradually over the last 20 years, but it's important to remember that the whole idea of "the franchise" being the star is a relatively recent one. Even in the 90s you had James Bond and Star Trek and that was about it as far as long running series that could get away with replacing its cast. If you made a sequel without the series' recognizable stars it would come across to many folks as a cheap cash-in or somehow not 'real'. Of course, horror was the one big exception to this, where the 'star' of the movie was often the monster, but as famous as the Alien creature was, its likeness actually wasn't used all that much in the movies' marketing, aside from quick glimpses and close-up shots. The consistent image from film to film was Sigourney Weaver (and just anecdotally I heard a lot of people reference an Alien movie as "a Sigourney Weaver Alien movie").
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Mar 17, 2016 19:31
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lizardman posted:(and just anecdotally I heard a lot of people reference an Alien movie as "a Sigourney Weaver Alien movie"). This is most likely the first and last time I will ever hear Aliens referred to as a Sigourney Weaver Alien Movie.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:39
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oh you mean Galaxy Quest?
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Mar 17, 2016 22:16
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I probably only heard literally the words "a Sigourney Weaver Alien movie" like once or twice, but I mean people would often use her name to specify they are talking about those movies titled "Alien" and not, like, generally talking about any movie that has an extraterrestrial alien in it. Such as "It looked like something out of an Alien movie, you know the ones with Sigourney Weaver." etc. This was before Galaxy Quest.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:58
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I've never head this distinction, it seems like a weird one to make since Alien is so iconic (before Alien came out "alien" meant someone from a different country, not from another world, part of why that anecdote regarding Jeanette Goldstein's casting happened) and Aliens is like, THE aliens movie for so many since its release. It sounds like a distinction from an alien world where Aliens/Alien 3/Resurrection didn't all have Sigourney Weaver in them.
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Mar 17, 2016 23:55
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Neo Rasa posted:(before Alien came out "alien" meant someone from a different country, not from another world, part of why that anecdote regarding Jeanette Goldstein's casting happened) I don't know that I believe that. Science fiction and science fiction movies have had space aliens since the beginning.
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Mar 18, 2016 00:11
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Hey, just recalling my experience in the 80s through the 90s (actually pretty much until Alien Vs Predator). If you wanted a quick way to make sure everyone knew you were talking about the series of movies "Alien", "Aliens", "Alien 3", and "Alien Resurrection" you'd mention Sigourney Weaver. It's also my experience that at least by the late 80s that beings and creatures of extraterrestrial origin were most often referred to as "aliens" (especially among young people), whether it was from Alien or Star Wars or Independence Day or what have you. It would actually be surprising to me (and also pretty cool) if Alien really was responsible for that.
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Mar 18, 2016 00:17
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Schwarzwald posted:I don't know that I believe that. Science fiction and science fiction movies have had space aliens since the beginning. The actress who played Vasquez showed up for her audition dressed as a turn of the century immigrant. Cameron later cast her in Titanic as a gag.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:47
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Say what you will about Alien Resurrection, it gave us Sigourney Weaver's backward dunk.
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Mar 18, 2016 06:11
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MonsieurChoc posted:Say what you will about Alien Resurrection, it gave us Sigourney Weaver's backward dunk. Who does she think she is, Meadowlark Lemon?
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Mar 18, 2016 08:17
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McDowell posted:The actress who played Vasquez showed up for her audition dressed as a turn of the century immigrant. Cameron later cast her in Titanic as a gag. I'd heard she came in dressed like an stereotypical LA-area Latino woman due to thinking that a role of "Vasquez" in a movie called "Aliens" would be about Latino immigrants. Which gave birth to Bill Paxton's "She thought they said 'illegal alien' and signed up" line. I figured she was cast in Titanic because Cameron really likes Jenette Goldstein. Same reason she got her awesome cameo in Terminator 2.
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Mar 18, 2016 10:03
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What do you guys think about that other Sigourney Weaver Alien Movie, Avatar?
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Mar 18, 2016 17:23
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Tenzarin posted:What do you guys think about that other Sigourney Weaver Alien Movie, Avatar? Is poop.
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Mar 18, 2016 18:40
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I still don't really get why it's so reviled. It's not exactly the greatest movie but it was better than e.g. the matrix sequels. Or any of the Transformers movies, or the Star Wars prequels. It had good special effects and a relatable story and the the 3D glasses didn't give me a headache. It was more like a theme park ride than an actual movie, but the immersion worked for me. I think some people just don't like fun, or get hate boners for anything that has 'PC Hollywood values'. It was stupid and patronizing in parts, but Sigourney Weaver smoked and chewed scenery. It was OK.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:31
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SMERSH Mouth posted:I still don't really get why it's so reviled. It's not exactly the greatest movie but it was better than e.g. the matrix sequels. Or any of the Transformers movies, or the Star Wars prequels. It had good special effects and a relatable story and the the 3D glasses didn't give me a headache. It was more like a theme park ride than an actual movie, but the immersion worked for me. I think some people just don't like fun, or get hate boners for anything that has 'PC Hollywood values'. It was stupid and patronizing in parts, but Sigourney Weaver smoked and chewed scenery. It was OK. Its reviled because it wasn't just some movie that came and went and entertained a bunch of people. If you were at all tapped into pop culture, it was like an entire year of non-stop Avatar hype and you couldn't get away from it. That kind of thing tends to breed resentment.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:37
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I never heard of avatar before my dad told me the morning I had dropped acid that we were going to go see if in like 4 hours. It was pretty cool. I came home for the holidays and I was kinda ignoring TV at the time.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:42
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Basebf555 posted:Its reviled because it wasn't just some movie that came and went and entertained a bunch of people. If you were at all tapped into pop culture, it was like an entire year of non-stop Avatar hype and you couldn't get away from it. That kind of thing tends to breed resentment. Yeah, honestly, my biggest issues with Avatar are based around all the hype. And I mean, I'm conscious of that, so I don't generally badmouth the movie because that isn't its fault, but I totally understand why it generated so much ire. Like, people kept talking about how the ecology of the film made total sense, and you could see how it all evolved, it wasn't just some random weird animals and plants like every other scifi film set on another planet, and what we got was..... everything has six legs for some reason? And USB cables?
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Mar 18, 2016 19:52
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Schwarzwald posted:I don't know that I believe that. Science fiction and science fiction movies have had space aliens since the beginning. lizardman posted:Hey, just recalling my experience in the 80s through the 90s (actually pretty much until Alien Vs Predator). If you wanted a quick way to make sure everyone knew you were talking about the series of movies "Alien", "Aliens", "Alien 3", and "Alien Resurrection" you'd mention Sigourney Weaver. It's of course been used to mean "folks from different planets" many times before, but after Alien and Aliens came out it definitely became the primary word for that instead of meaning an outsider or foreigner first. I think it would be way more common in sci-fi literature before then and not necessarily in film and mainstream entertainment. Even in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, V'Ger is called an alien only in the context of it intruding into the Neutral Zone in the film's opening, it's called an unknown/etc. life form/entity otherwise. Then by the time of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home the Alien Probe is literally called the Alien Probe and nothing more from the get go. IIRC it was first used in literature to mean extraterrestrial people in 1953 by John Wood Campbell in an issue of Analog.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:56
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I guess I was pretty tuned out of the hype for Avatar.
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Mar 18, 2016 20:01
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weekly font posted:Is poop. Bullshit, Kevin Costner won an Oscar in 1987 for it.
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Mar 18, 2016 20:11
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Slugworth posted:
Also cat tits.
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Mar 18, 2016 23:16
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Everyone enjoying a good Sigourney Weaver Alien Movie tonight?
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Mar 19, 2016 07:15
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