Aliens Didn't Ruin a Franchise, It Established One

[NSGrendel]

I. Can't. Even.

You know what an Aliens geek is? Someone who was going through the software list at work and noticed that an application was still assigned to "Lee Brimingcombe-Wood" and got nerd chills.

As Jim says, Aliens is a milieu subject to varying interpretations. Think of H.R. Geiger's alien as the modern science fiction equivalent of vodka.

You can mix it with anything. Your opinion will vary based on your tastes, but it still gives you a pleasant buzz, even when it's mixed with ****. Although you might have a nasty taste in your mouth after.

 

[NSGrendel]

Regarding the behaviour of the marines...

Foremost, the scene is a commentary on incompetent leadership. Secondly, it's about our response to the unknown. The marines were portrayed appropriately given the situation, i.e. confusion and panic.

I doubt the USMC has 'Fighting giant bugs in the dark, in close quarters, with flamethrowers and pistols 101' in either basic or advanced training.

"Without my rifle, I am nothing," is a basic part of the marine creed. In the immediate scene previous they are told to sling their pulse rifles and smartguns.

 

[NSGrendel]

In fact, now that I've started up my whambulance...

Give me some examples of good horror franchises?

At best, you're looking at 2 decent films per 5 made in the horror oeuvre as a rule. The Jason, Friday the 13th, Scream and Final Destination series are all hailed as superior horror franchises, but how often do they rise above mediocre?

Aliens did the franchise a massive favour by basically establishing that the property should have lots of money spent on it. Whilst this isn't a requirement for a decent film or even a guarantee of an OK one (sorry Keanu), it stopped the Aliens franchise quickly slipping into rubber tentacled cash-ins although Prometheus is no Hovis advert.

Also, the disappointment when a re-branded 3rd rate Mummy script was used for the AVP movie instead of the plot from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Versus_Predator_(comics) - was physically palpable (in the sense of being rabid flecks of spittle collecting on my friends' foreheads).

If you are a fan of "Aliens" but are intimidated by the vast amount of fluff and collectibles, the above link is to one of the most solid examples of cross-over fiction written.

*Breathes*

Sorry about that.

 

[Something Amyss]

Fight, fight fight!

Editorial Wars: this time, it's personal!

Probably not. It was just amusing to see an editorial against another editorial on the same site.

But it was worth a look, anyway.

While it seems to be that aliens get "dumber" the more there are (perhaps their personal instincts taking a backseat to a sweeping and simplified hive mind)

Perhaps they are ninjas?

I still don't understand why the franchise has been milked so much more than many other, similarly successful properties from the 80's. You don't see one or two video games from the Terminator franchise every year, right? Just seems weird to me. Are people really asking for this much Alien-themed shovelware?

The Alien franchise lends itself well to multiple genres of games, so maybe people are just hoping the next one will get it right. I suppose that could also be said for the Terminator franchise, but I've never seen the same level of fan fervor for it. So maybe that answers the question: one plays more on an active userbase than the others.

Or maybe I'm full of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

I doubt the USMC has 'Fighting giant bugs in the dark, in close quarters, with flamethrowers and pistols 101' in either basic or advanced training.

Well, of course not! They needed to make room in the schedule for zombie apocalypse 101!

 

[DragonWright]

I thought Jim might have something to say.

I just... didn't expect him to put up his own article.

Next the No Right Answer guys're gonna get in on this.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Fight, fight fight!

Definitely yes!

Let's get ready to WRIIIIIIIIIITE!!!

 

[AdagioBoognish]

I thought Jim might have something to say.

I just... didn't expect him to put up his own article.

Yeah, I was expecting a movie defense force or something in response to the original article. As an Alien fan I'm sure Jim has had this conversation before so it probably wasn't a big deal to quickly get a response out. I really like the idea of escapist contributors writing opposing view points and getting to see everyone's perspective.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I still don't understand why the franchise has been milked so much more than many other, similarly successful properties from the 80's. You don't see one or two video games from the Terminator franchise every year, right? Just seems weird to me. Are people really asking for this much Alien-themed shovelware?

I think its more that a Terminator game would either set in future mech-world times, which only one movie has more then tangentially touched upon, and that's largely reviled. Alternatively, it'd be in the present/past, being basically a guy running around shooting other guys, with one slightly stronger guy by virture of being a Terminator. Which is just a generic FPS with very little unique visuals or gameplay spins to make its own.

If they lacked anything resembling imagination yes. However, I would love to see Bethesda pick up the franchise at some point and throw in their signature open world style in. I mean, they've already done post-apocalyptic with the Fallout games, so it's not much of a stretch.

 

[Hazy]

I'm very happy that they chose to focus on the first film for the upcoming Alien: Isolation.

Even back when I first saw Aliens all those years ago, I still didn't walk away from it impressed, and while it's far from a bad film, it pales in comparison to the original.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Part of what I said was that the marines sucked. They lost their confidence when they didn't have their technology backing them up. So yeah, they were clearly incompetent - and their culture of overconfidence would suggest that's a fundamental flaw for the whole force.

They certainly had an incompetent officer and a discipline problem, they didn't really strike me as the elite force they were meant to be.
They charged straight in and it took a civilian to point out that a firefight in a nuclear reactor might be a bad idea. Being Colonial Marines you might have thought they would understand the environments that they would be called on to fight in.
Then when they realised they couldn't use their main weapons, did they stop to think? Frost did. "What are supposed to use man, harsh language?"
At this point they should know that aliens are clearly a threat, that there's probably hundreds of them, they know they are an ambush predator etc etc. But they only seem to start thinking "Ok, what are we actually up against here?" after they get ambushed.

Overconfident and sloppy.

Now, their trap might not have been as good if the marines could shoot, but they had surprise and numbers, and later on, when firepower wasn't an issue, they still had their asses handed to them. Hell, the xenomorphs knew how to effectively cut off their escape by getting aboard the carrier as it was about to lift them off-planet.

Later on they were down to 3 military personnel (ok, 4 if you count Gorman), one tough woman and a little girl. Vs 200+ xenomorphs. Personally I wouldn't fancy their chances if they had been up against 200 unarmed civilians.

Alternatively they just picked off the outlying members of the herd like most predators would.

Jesus, I am a fucking nerd.

Hey, Aliens is cool, my mum said so.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

You know what, I just knew I would see a Jim response to that article. I didn't think it would be an article of his own though...

I agree with you but I still don't like Alien 3.

Jesus, I am a fucking nerd.

And we thank God for that.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I suppose I have to agree with this, even though I agreed with the other article also. I definitely prefer Alien over Aliens but one doesn't ruin the other. Of course, I just don't like franchises in general. If the entire 'franchise' was just Alien and then Aliens, and never ever was brought up again, totally happy with that.
I don't like how everything has to be a franchise.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

The Escapist's very own Schuyler J. Dievendorf suggested that Aliens served to ruin a potential horror franchise, I feel compelled to offer a rebuttal.

Well said. And, once again, I thank the gods for you. That's twice in one way!

I always liked Aliens better than Alien anyway. Never been a huge fan of horror movies, but I love action sci-fi movies.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Now, their trap might not have been as good if the marines could shoot, but they had surprise and numbers, and later on, when firepower wasn't an issue, they still had their asses handed to them. Hell, the xenomorphs knew how to effectively cut off their escape by getting aboard the carrier as it was about to lift them off-planet. I think they deserve a bit more credit.

Jesus, I am a fucking nerd.

I'd argue that their trap still would have worked. They managed to capture Corporal Dietrich right off the bat before anyone knew what was going on. Private Frost got killed thanks to panic fire from Corporal Dietrich which would have happened regardless of her weapon (and honestly, Frost's death probably would have been far quicker and less painful if she'd had her M-41A Pulse Rifle instead of the M240). They also managed to grab Master Sergeant Apone without him putting up any fight.

The only really iffy ones are Private Crowe and Private Wierzbowski. Crowe would have probably survived a bit longer, since there wouldn't have been any bag of ammunition to explode in his face. Wierzbowski, like Dietrich and Apone, also got dragged off without a fight... but it could be because he was distracted by that ammunition bag.

Drake probably would have still died from acid burns. And honestly, if everyone had been firing their Pulse Rifles, there probably would have been more acid wounds (explosive tipped ammunition can do nasty things to organic targets, let alone organic targets full of pressurized acid).

So yeah... Dietrich, Frost, Apone, and Drake most likely still would have been casualties, even if they'd had their service rifles. Crowe and Wierzbowski are the wild cards, and all of the survivors would have been at greater risk to acid wounds.

Oh, and before I forget, from an Alien fan who enjoys all of the movies in the quadrilogy... great rebuttal, Jim! Thank GOD for you!

 

[RJ Dalton]

Jesus, I am a fucking nerd.

It's okay, Jim. We all are.

If it makes you feel better, I'm probably going to watch Aliens again, something I haven't done in years now. For a long time, Aliens has been my least favorite of the three. Alien stands at the top as an excellent horror film and Alien 3 . . . well, I do have to say that I at least liked some of the characters of Alien 3 (even if they weren't as good as in the first one) and I liked that it had the balls to kill off Ripley at the end. But Aliens has rubbed me the wrong way for a long time, because I did see it as just an action movie.
And I really dislike how much of a stereotype Burke was. I mean, Ash was a robot and he couldn't disobey his programming, but Burke was a human being, supposedly. Even if he ended up getting killed at the end, I'd have rated the film higher overall if there'd been something to suggest Burke's humanity, such as him seeming genuinely horrified when he sees what his orders actually resulted in up close and personal instead of insulated from them by a distance of many light-years and and probably many more layers of bureaucracy (but then, it wouldn't be a James Cameron film without a one-dimensional stereotype to be a bad guy, even if there are murderous aliens around to fit the bill).

But I may just watch the film again to reassess my opinion of it. It worked with Majora's Mask, which I find I like a whole lot more now than I did when I was younger.

Oh, and for the record, good show. This response to the previous article made for an engaging little debate on the different perspectives. Far more engaging than the No Right Answer videos, which I can't be persuaded to touch with a twenty foot pole, unless the pole has a cattle prod on the end.
Bravo.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Agreed. Neither exists at the expense of the other. Not only are they completely different genres of film, but while Alien was arguably of higher quality, Aliens was arguably the more memorable and inarguably left a far more lasting and stronger impression on the public consciousness ("Have you ever been mistaken for a man, Vasquez?"/"Game over man, game over!"/"Get away from her, you *****" and iconic and oft-mimicked scenes throughout, like the Aliens drawing nearer on the motion tracker and Ripley fighting the queen in her loader).

(That said, as I mentioned in my comment on the other thread, if Prometheus was any indication Scott himself planned to piss the whole franchise away with the sequel, so nothing Cameron did could have "ruined" the series' future, really.)

 

[venn2011]

I agree with Mr. Sterling completely. You nailed it right on the head, sir. And I've never been so proud of calling myself an Aliens fan till I read your rebuttal.

I give credit to Mr. Schuyler for presenting a decent argument, but it really felt a little far fetched. I think he needs to apologize to the fans of the franchise for causing such an unnecessary stir, IMHO...

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Both movies are fantastic. I even own the Rifftrax for Alien which is hilarious and I recommend. As for Alien: Isolation, it's a ray of sunshine in a tangled web of movie and game development-by-committee garbage. It looks good, it sounds good, and it has the kind of story concept I can get behind. I fucking love the opportunity to learn about Ripley's daughter and rewind the tapes a little. This is a video game that needs to be made not only for the fans, but as a big flaming middle finger to an industry that had the audacity to laugh at us for loving horror games, those executives who have never played a video game in their lives yet tried to force-feed us watery mainstream spunk and call it "Triple-A" gaming.

 

[RJ 17]

Oooooooo I think this is the first time I've ever seen an editorial specifically made to disagree with another editorial on this site! Nothing like a bit of light-hearted confrontation. :3

Do you honestly believe that just having another single alien hunting down a bunch of marines this time would have made for a better sequel? Or would people have felt it was kinda the same as the first movie? You'd basically just be making Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street only replacing Michael, Jason, and Freddy with a Xenomorph. How many sequels did those movies have? How many of them were the exact same movie just with different kill scenes? Personally that's why I've never really been a fan of slasher-flick series. The first installment might be fun to watch, but after that we already know all there is to know.

This was a chunk of what I had posted in response to the other article, pretty much exactly what Jim has to say: changing gears and going straight-up action was a great move because it prevented the franchise from becoming stale and repetitive. I can't help but doubt that the Aliens franchise would have such a rabid fanbase if it just equated to "Halloween, but with an alien." Indeed, just as Jim put it: the action setting of Aliens glorifies the horror setting of Alien all the more by taking the franchise in a new direction rather than just being the same as the first movie.