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MLSM posted:In what way? The two big Weaver scenes are, not coincidentally, what Slavoj Zizek identifies as the only great scenes in Alien 4: the part where 8 burns all the weird failed Ripley clones, and the part where 8 falls and is absorbed into this writhing mass of alien slime and abstracted body parts. The former was the concept that got Weaver on board with the film, while the latter is something she’d personally pushed for. “Again, this scene is one we had to fight for. They did not want Ripley descending into “the sphincter of the alien world” (which is what Alec Gillis used to call it), To me, it was everything Giger, Ridley, everybody would have wanted: this sensuous, sinuous world of parts. God help you if you're there - yet, at the same time, there's that thing of how [Ripley 8] wants to surrender to it. To me it was all about life. It's horrifying and, you know, you're attracted to it. It's fabulous stuff. But we had to fight for that scene, because it was not an action scene; it was all this subliminal, erotic stuff.” -Weaver This “sphincter of the alien world” that envelops Ripley kinda obviously prefigures the black goo in Prometheus - as well as Scott’s shift from ‘straight’ horror. Where nerds have persistently expected every appearance of the xenomorph to instantly induce pure mind-cancelling terror at a glance, Scott has presented it as just another character. Sometimes it’s a figure of pity, sometimes of fascination. Walter, like Charles Mudede, doesn’t experience any overwhelming fear of this man-sized thing that moves fairly slowly and attacks stuff with its fuckin’ teeth. “The animal having the relations that define its individuality consumed by another animal (or microorganisms) is just having a bad encounter. Why should this be scary?” And that’s totally in line with Weaver’s push to shift focus away from horror, and even away from the xenomorph entirely. After being pulled into the slime, Ripley 8 is gently raptured away by the creature. It presents her with the ‘gift’ of a new daughter, and then effectively just disappears because who really cares? The primary failing of Alien 4 is that it retains the stock “we gotta stop the xennymorfs before they TAKE OVER THE WORLD” blockbuster fantasy plotline, which is anathema to what Weaver was up to. You know, the ‘newborn’ at the end doesn’t present any sort of existential threat to the universe. It’s just kinda mercy-killed.
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Mar 30, 2022 05:10
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Alien Resurrection is mostly ruined by Whedon's "every character is a white male teenager" dialogue. It's got great character actors, it succeeds in being hosed up poo poo, but it has a hard time emotionally resonating because it's written by a man-child and like SMG says it ends up corny and pointless. Weaver had wanted Ripley to end up loving an alien since at least Aliens IIRC. It's not exactly waaay out there that you could declare that subtext is for cowards when it comes to the penis monsters.
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Mar 30, 2022 09:46
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It's just the Poseidon Adventure with Aliens and the two scenes SMG mentioned. Even without the Whedonisms there wouldn't be much original or interesting about it.
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Mar 30, 2022 10:27
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Since we're talking about Resurrection I'm going to dig up this six year old inane post about my childhood fever dreams of what Alien Resurrection could've been like, based solely on an AvP 2 map.General Battuta posted:Okay, veering into the intersection between toychat and cinematography: long before I ever saw and felt let down by Alien Resurrection, I played a lot of Aliens vs Predator 2. That game had a multiplayer map called "Auriga", set on the ship from Resurrection. I remember it being far more golden and oddly lit than the other maps, like a strange collusion of clinical brutalist and misty jungle. It really leapt out of the map lineup. Once I saw the movie it was not like this at all, unfortunately.
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Mar 30, 2022 10:49
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I think the worst part of Alien Resurrection is that there really is some good stuff in there hidden amongst the annoying dreck. A lot of the actors are good, but the dialogue is a bit tedious and shouty and the Walmart line should never have ever been filmed. All the snark in Aliens from the Marines kind of fit a bunch of guys who think they are being sent to the rear end end of space to plug in a radio at the behest of weasels like Burke and Gorman. I saw it as a kid. I was a weird kid who actually liked Alien 3, despite its problems, because at least it seemed to fit the universe and it didn't feel like it was just retreading the old ones. I think Alien 4 was my first real experience of seeing a sequel that didn't really need to exist and was unwilling to really go the distance with any new ideas it had. The behavior of the pirate crew in Alien Resurrection is kind of baffling. They are well aware that they are trafficking live humans for medical experiments but then act all weird and uppity about it like they aren't a crucial component of this horror. They seem to think nothing of starting a big fight in a giant military ship in which they are outnumbered like 10 to 1 because they are sassy tough Whedon characters. There is nothing actually interesting about Winona Ryder being a robot - some grunt gets all excited about it but really it's just used for a lame fake death and some plot nonsense where she can plug herself into a ship to open a door. But some parts of it do work. The Ripley abominations are good. Brad Douriff is delightful, as are the scenes in which he is training the aliens. The design of the ship is visually interesting. The movie has weird pacing problems and can't seem to keep its own plot straight. They're stationed WAY OUT from Earth to do Forbidden Science, but no, actually, they can just drive to Earth in 3 hours, which doesn't really matter because it's just a wasteland anyway.
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Mar 30, 2022 12:25
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I've always felt alien 3 (or at least the remastered version) is a good film with a few regrettable scenes, while 4 has a few good scenes in an otherwise regrettable film. And yeah the cocky, quip throwing Marines in 2 are supposed to be interpreted as overconfident. It serves a number of purposes for them to be expressing how easy a job it's going to be. 4 is what happens when you take the pointed sticks speech entirely at face value. Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 13:15
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Alien Resurrection is mostly ruined by Whedon's "every character is a white male teenager" dialogue. It's got great character actors, it succeeds in being hosed up poo poo, but it has a hard time emotionally resonating because it's written by a man-child and like SMG says it ends up corny and pointless. i agree
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Mar 30, 2022 16:35
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whedon sucks
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Mar 30, 2022 16:36
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Mr. Grapes! posted:I think the worst part of Alien Resurrection is that there really is some good stuff in there hidden amongst the annoying dreck. A lot of the actors are good, but the dialogue is a bit tedious and shouty and the Walmart line should never have ever been filmed. All the snark in Aliens from the Marines kind of fit a bunch of guys who think they are being sent to the rear end end of space to plug in a radio at the behest of weasels like Burke and Gorman. A lot of that stuff actually makes more sense in the script. I hate Whedon more than even most people here, but I'll at least defend that his silly script (and trust me, it's peak stupid Whedon dialogue) was filtered through two people's editing it to something else entirely when you see the final movie.
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Mar 30, 2022 16:45
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The oddest part of Alien ressurections to me is that the alternate cut opens with a gag where you think youre seeing the Alien and then the camera pulls back and its just a bug on a windshield thats squashed. Thats the alternate cut mind, so it was wisely scrapped but the fact they even considered it suggests what a weird mash of tones the production must have been. This is reportedly the scene which was described in the initial pitch and secured the directors place in the film to 20th Century Fox. also the end is weird in both cuts, in one earth is revealed to be a wasteland. In another it ends with ripleys "im a stranger here myself" line, which makes earth as a destination the focus but it hasn't really been a narrative focus the whole movie or indeed the series. massive spider fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 18:41
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alien resurrection cant decide on whether its a parody, an action movie like Aliens or a surreal art house piece and thats why it sucks
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Mar 30, 2022 20:44
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I think a good alien movie should be a series of absurd atrocities. Not the kind of absurd where you laugh, the kind that really bother you on a level that makes you want to reject them. That’s why I like Prometheus, it’s just a series of grotesque transfigurations from purpose into chaos. Something Ligotti would write. One thing I think is really important to movies like this is the contrast between clean designed sterile capitalist spaces and the intrusion of gore/infection/transformation. The uhhhhh alienation of place if you will
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Mar 30, 2022 22:42
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Alien movies should make you want to squirm. I refuse to elaborate in what way.
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Mar 30, 2022 23:04
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My favorite thing about Alien Covenant is when it came out people would be arguing about "How hard is it to wear a loving mask?" and now we all know the answer to that question. A bunch of religious settler types ignoring proper infection precautions now seems a lot more realistic to me.
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Mar 31, 2022 08:59
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Seriously. One third of all Americans have outed themselves as "would hide a zombie bite".
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Mar 31, 2022 09:39
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mllaneza posted:Seriously. One third of all Americans have outed themselves as "would
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Mar 31, 2022 09:44
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mllaneza posted:Seriously. One third of all Americans have outed themselves as "would hide a zombie bite". Yep. I always thought the opening to Romeros Dawn of the Dead was stupid until 2 years ago.
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Mar 31, 2022 12:45
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Keeping zombie granny in the basement so you can keep injecting her with invermectin
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Mar 31, 2022 13:04
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:alien resurrection cant decide on whether its a parody, an action movie like Aliens or a surreal art house piece and thats why it sucks It definitely knows that it's all three.
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Mar 31, 2022 16:35
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There’s nothing wrong with the concept of an artsy Aliens parody; that’s almost what Covenant is. Resurrection’s failure is that it doesn’t even have a narrative, outside a thin sketch of Ripley dealing with a vague feeling of loss. It doesn’t do anything whatsoever with the concept of Call as a ‘terrorist’ secret agent, because it’s unclear what she’s even for or against. Her thing is just “I don’t like the aliens because they’re, uh, dangerous.” Whedon goes ‘meta’ and says that obviously the military’s going to train the aliens for “urban pacification”, and obviously they’re going to break out and kill everybody in an attempt to end the world, so why even bother with more detail? As gone over many times earlier in the thread, Whedon’s idea of Alien movie is a product of Kirk Drift: conspiratorial reptilian space-perverts obsessed with nothing but catching this particular bug - each bug capable of killing trillions. Everyone engaged in casual murder. He’s creating/perpetuating the dumbass cliches he’s supposedly commenting on.
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Apr 1, 2022 04:48
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:There’s nothing wrong with the concept of an artsy Aliens parody; that’s almost what Covenant is. What you have written is, unfortunately, hyper-correct.
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Apr 1, 2022 09:30
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Whedon goes ‘meta’ and says that obviously the military’s going to train the aliens for “urban pacification”, and obviously they’re going to break out and kill everybody in an attempt to end the world, so why even bother with more detail? cf. Jurassic World
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Apr 1, 2022 22:27
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These Pod and the Pendulum podcasters not only praise Prometheus, they rank both Prometheus and Alien 3 over Aliens. Unfortunately they didn't say their SA handles during the broadcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prometheus/id1462495693?i=1000479136671
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Apr 21, 2022 17:42
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aliens is a good movie but really overrated imo
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Apr 21, 2022 18:17
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:aliens is a good movie but really overrated imo It's the second best film featuring a xenomorph.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:26
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Aliens and alien are my all time favorites but I love the underrated ones so much that I’m totes cool if someone puts them over it.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:29
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I might be on the "Aliens is overrated" bandwagon if not for the Alien Queen, which is one of the greatest movie monsters of all time and one of the most impressive feats of creature effects work of all time.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:32
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Is Aliens overrated, maybe. But if you're ranking it below any other film in that franchise that isn't the first, you should probably think about installing a CO detector in your house.
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Apr 21, 2022 18:42
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CelticPredator posted:Aliens and alien are my all time favorites but I love the underrated ones so much that I’m totes cool if someone puts them over it. Yeah, Aliens is one of the best of its type of film, but it has a very different vibe that isn't really what I prefer.
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Apr 21, 2022 19:16
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keep punching joe posted:Is Aliens overrated, maybe. But if you're ranking it below any other film in that franchise that isn't the first, you should probably think about installing a CO detector in your house. What that misses is that Aliens is a distinct franchise within that broader IP umbrella (largely made up of videogames). It's a spinoff that, as I've gone over previously, has very little narrative, thematic, or even plot continuity with the previous film. In terms of genre, Aliens is definitely better than many of its peers (e.g. Independence Day), but it's not even quite as good as Cameron's own Terminator 1. And - hot take, perhaps - Terminator 1 isn't quite as good as Prometheus. Outside the limits of the franchise, there are films that are much better at being "Alien" like Outland and Underwater.
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Apr 21, 2022 20:06
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‘Aliens’, a foundational science fiction action/horror masterpiece which has been furiously cribbed from, quoted, and aped since its release, and features incredible performances (including a best actress Oscar nod for the portrayal of a character who became a landmark feminist icon and one of if not the first “action heroine”) and won multiple Oscars for its groundbreaking special effects (and got nominated for 7 Oscars in total), and widely regarded as one of the best sequels ever made, being labeled as “overrated” is such a spicy hot take that I think I might need a glass of milk to wash it down and take the edge off. Some movies are just good, y’all. Edit— Alien Day is in less than a week, I will actually be watching Prometheus for it because I haven’t watched it in 4K yet. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 05:47
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It’s not that spicy. Aliens is the alien film that sticks out tonally along with Resurrection , and you vibe more on the horror side then you go the way of 3 to Prometheus and Covenant.
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Apr 22, 2022 06:02
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That list just cements the "overrated" status Which is not the same thing as "bad"
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Apr 22, 2022 06:20
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Blood Boils posted:That list just cements the "overrated" status Are you saying it doesn’t deserve the accolades? Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 06:38
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Aliens is fantastic, it's also very different from Alien. Both can be true, and good. The xeno between the movies is so very different but I've always gone with the theory that every outbreak and iteration of the alien is different. Different eggs, different hosts, different environment.
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Apr 22, 2022 06:48
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Xenomrph posted:Are you saying it doesn’t deserve the accolades? Even if you're a true believer in the Academy Awards, Alien is significantly better than Aliens and only received one Oscar (out of only two nominations). It wasn't even nominated for the best picture that year, as it ultimately went to fuckin' Kramer Versus Kramer. District 9 is, likewise, a much better film than Aliens, and only got four nominations. But this is bypassing the actual point: "deserving accolades" ultimately just means that you'd recommend this movie to others because you feel it is important or whatever. And, like, I'd actually recommend Piotr Kamler's Chronopolis over Aliens any day of the week. https://vimeo.com/507158467 Aliens has aged the worst out of anything in 'the franchise', while the Engineers in the city of Chronopolis are literally timeless.
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Apr 22, 2022 07:10
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Xenomrph posted:I’m not sure how. Eh, Predator is the superior alien vs human war film of the 1980s. Also, Prometheus is great, an old man seeking eternal life being beaten to death with his son by a god yelling "Your children are your immortality you dickhead!" PeterCat fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 07:41
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PeterCat posted:Eh, Predator is the superior alien vs human war film of the 1980s.
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Apr 22, 2022 14:49
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PeterCat posted:Eh, Predator is the superior alien vs human war film of the 1980s.
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Apr 22, 2022 14:54
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It’s weird seeing Aliens held up as the movie that “everyone copies” when the movie itself is just a link in a long line of remaking older works, just because Aliens was a well executed remake of previous films, it’s still derivative by its very nature. Not saying that’s a bad thing, Alien itself is a link in the same remake chain, but gassing up Aliens as the one that broke the mold is just revisionist talk.
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Apr 23, 2022 00:55
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