Tracy and I saw the re-release of Alien last night (digital cinema, with only one other person in the theater -- it was amazingly cool and I'm tempted to go back before the release is over). Tracy had never seen it in the theater, so this was a nice chance to catch it on the big screen. The director's cut is much better than the original release, by the way. There's a scene where Ripley finds Dallas barely alive and cocooned, and he's begging her to kill him. Which foreshadowed the sequel vey well, I thought. I don't know why they cut that out.
But what got me the most enthused wasn't the movie itself. One of the trailers in the previews had me giggling like a schoolgirl. Go to the movie's website to see what I mean. Now download the trailer and imagine hearing it coming out of the theater's monster sound system. That particular "clicking" sound was immediately recognizable. I had a strong feeling of "this couldn't possibly be what I think it is... they just don't make that kind of movie..." But it's true. Even if it's as bad as Event Horizon it'll still be orders of magnitude better than 95% of the crap Hollywood puts out.
I'm betting that a certain someone I know who claims to not like going to the movies (I know! weird, isn't it?) will be lining up for this one.
Event Horizon- that was the worst movie, ever!
Posted by E at November 10, 2003 12:38 PMI definitely suggest going to see "Alien" on the big screen if you can - it's really worth it.
The Director's Cut really seemed to have better pacing to it, and the couple of added scenes blended into the narrative well - the scene with cocooned Dallas, in particular, helps explain why in "Aliens" Ripley knows that Newt may have been similarly preserved. When you think back on it, without that scene with Dallas, how would she have known about the aliens' cocooning behavior at all?
I think we should go back and see it one more time before it leaves the theater - if only to enjoy the rare and wonderful experience of having the theater to ourselves again... heh
AVP is being directed by the guy that did Event Horizon, therefore I'm guessing that even if it hits the same low level of quality, the subject matter alone will allow it to rise above that dreadful film.
Posted by wee at November 10, 2003 3:02 PMbah, asshat.
nice job btw, linking to a site that requires flash 6...
I may go see it, we'll see. Bearing in mind the fact that I still haven't seen the hobbit part2, either of the matrix sequels, and a plethora of other things (some of which I own). Still, we'll see..
Posted by toddler at November 10, 2003 8:53 PMThe problem with Alien and the Dallas scene, is that if you read the book for Alien, that scene also shows the other crew members slowly morphing into the eggs. Thus there is no Queen alien, and the whole second, thrid, fourth movies, and AvP makes NO sense...
Scott
Posted by Scott C. Kennedy at November 10, 2003 10:23 PMI can see your point, S...
My two cents, however, is that the book's version of the backstory would probably carry a little more weight for me if the movie had been based on the book rather than the other way around, or even if the book had been written by the writer of the original screenplay (I'm sure there was consultation between the two, but also a fair bit of artistic license given to Alan Dean Foster to fill in the blanks). As it stands, since both the novelization and the sequel were written by others, I feel like they have equal rights to interpretation of the backstory. Personally, the queen story seems more plausible to me - why would potential hosts be turned into eggs when there are already loads of unhatched eggs needing hosts? Admittedly, if you accept the queen story then you have to wonder where the queen was in the first one... but maybe the prior queen had died, or else the ship had been sent out with a load of warrior eggs and a queen egg, which only hatched only once a fresh batch of hosts became available for her eggs.
Apparently Ridley Scott has been thinking about doing Alien 5 someday to explore the aliens' backstory - here's a little news item on it from Jan 2002:
"Director Ridley Scott is seriously considering making a new Alien film - explaining where the terrifying creatures came from. Scott directed the first movie, 1979's Alien, from the four film franchise starring Sigourney Weaver, and is now trying to finalize a story for Alien 5 - which he sees as a prequel exploring the creation of the killer alien life forms. He says, 'I'm seriously mulling it over. I think it would be a lot of fun, but the most important thing is to get the story right. We should go back to where the alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created. No one has ever explained why. I always figured a battleship carrying bio-mechanical organisms that could be weapons was sent into space with some space jockey who didn't last.' "
Of course, this wouldn't exactly jibe with the queen/hive theory, unless you could view the queen as the biological "factory" that cranks 'em out.
OK, I've definitely overthought this whole thing at this point. Did I mention that "Aliens" is possibly my all-time favorite movie? heh
As for Aliens 3, I've deliberately never seen the POS - the trailer and the reviews I read were quite enough. I did see Aliens 4 (in the theater, no less), but I regret it. Fuggin' Winona Ryder... that's all I have to say about that.
That was the only site they had, Toddler! :-) I'm dragging to you to the theater regardless, BTW.
I'm with Tess on the egg morphing thing. The movie hinted at what Aliens expounded on: humans (among other organisms, I suppose) get trapped for eggs to hatch next to. The morphing thing doesn't make much sense to me. Too much disbelief needs to the be suspended I think. That doesn't explain why Kane found all those eggs without victims, though. Maybe that ship only had a small crew? Who knows. I'd love to see a prequel however.
Posted by wee at November 11, 2003 9:39 AMRe: AVP... I dunno; having read the synopsis on imdb, I get the feeling that we should brace ourselves for lameness. Two words: "teenage predators". Not to mention that Paul Anderson's movies largely suck. But we'll see - might be enough just to see some good ol' fashioned multi-species ass-kicking, stupid plot be damned.
Posted by Tess at November 11, 2003 10:21 AMHey, I rarely go to the theater anymore either. Been once in the last year, year and a 1/2. I figure for the same price as a ticket, drink and snack I can own the DVD. That lets me watch it as many times as I want (and yes, I watch movies over and over sometimes), plus I can pause when I have to pee (which happens _every_ time).. and with my bigass TV and surround system, it's damn near the same as a theater anyway. Sure, I miss the group dynamic you get in a theater.. but not that much.
Posted by Miguelito at November 11, 2003 12:53 PMha. teenage predators. $5 says a plot element is predator puberty.
Posted by toddler at November 11, 2003 1:04 PM