How Aliens Ruined A Franchise

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

There is also the problem that James Cameron lacks a human soul.

If his smugness (which is on par with George Clooney and Bono) is any indication as to how little humanity he actually has, yeah I agree. Holy crap is Cameron full of himself. Its why I never saw the appeal of Avatar beyond the movie equivalent of "oooh shiny graffix", because deep down the movie had no real substance or narrative that made it a real achievement (even borrowing heavily the story from Oscar winning Dances With Wolves).
Ugh... what a douchestain. And I say this as a fan of Aliens, Terminator 2 and True Lies.

 

[Brockyman]

Sorry, but the only thing that really popped into my head while reading this was "boo-fuckity-hoo

 

[LazyAza]

Aliens remains one of my all time favorite films and its existence began an absolute mountain of science fiction tropes and concepts that became so popular and well received we've grown tired of them yes, but that doesn't lessen the fact that the film had a massive impact on science fiction film and action films and media in general. It was a stunning masterpiece in its own right for the time and I think people who look down upon it simply don't appreciate the things it did first and did incredibly well. We have a very large portion of video games that may not exist today if not for movies like Aliens.

Alien I ironically didn't see until many years after I had already seen Aliens several times over and I honestly just don't like it as much as the sequel. I get that some people just adore slow paced methodical science fiction horror and that stuff is great but generally speaking I find it less compelling and less entertaining than a well crafted action film which is what Aliens is. Just because you prefer one genre of movie over another doesn't mean you can go around acting as if a film in a genre you dislike isn't super important because Aliens was and still is super important and I think science fiction and action media would be worse off had it not been made.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I'm wondering whether Schuyler watched this recently or if he's analyzing the movie from memory.

Character development is first of all overrated(though also underrated, especially in games). A character doesn't need to change over the course of a movie to be believable or interesting, so to imply that there's a lack of it, isn't necessarily a bad thing, it depends on the importance of that development to the plot or flow of the movie.

I wanted to highlight this because it's so applicable to fiction in general. People always whine if character development doesn't occur with characters in fiction, without any consideration if that character development makes any sense whatsoever or whether it's of any benefit to the work. i.e. a jerkass probably isn't going to turn into some selfless hero when they end up in a screwed up situation, most likely they're just going to be an even worse jerkass then they were before. The space of a few hours or days isn't anything close to the time needed for someone to make any actual changes either.

 

[Dirge Eterna]

I prefer Aliens over Alien by far. I can enjoy the tension and the uncertainty of Alien but Aliens is much more up my alley. While the characters aren't as developed the sense of impending doom is greater as is the general horror and notion that no matter what they are doomed, then the ray of hope of escape followed by it being crushed by the queen. I found the movies that focus on just one xenomorph aren't as interesting and end up being boring because its the same thing over and over. I appreciate Alien and I know it spawned the other movies but I prefer Aliens.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Alien was a very good movie, but a large portion of its excellence was in the department of innovation.
The tension is nice, but most of the characters don't even have the level of depth Aliens had. In addition to that, they're all, with the possible exception of Ripley, astoundingly stupid. I was actually rolling my eyes when the captain climbed into a tight vent with a shitty homemade flamethrower, alone, hoping to take out an unknown presence IN THE DARK that had already killed several crew members.

It's weird how fail to see in Alien what you praise about Aliens.

One of the briliant aspects of Alien is that the crew of the Nostromo simply can't comprihend what they are dealing with. This is perfectly demonstrated in the scene where they discuss their next move after Brett gets taken. They are treating the threat this creature poses as similar to a bear or a tiger. "Most animals retrieve from fire, yes?" And whenever anyone actually tries to call it for what it is, "It's like a man; It's big!", it's purposely ignored by the rest of the crew. Their minds can't accept what they know in their heart to be true; that they are dealing with a monster. And they stick their heads in the sand as a result. Dallas especially is guilty of this. This isn't because they're stupid, it's because they're human.

And the subplot Ash brings to the table is worthy of a whole other discussion entirely.

OT: I wouldn't say it ruined it, because as has been said, without Aliens there wouldn't have been a franchise. I will say that Aliens undeservingly stole the thunder from Alien. When it initially came out, and still somewhat to this day, it was seen as an improvement over the original simply because it had action and more Aliens. Even well-respected critics like Siskel and Ebert got blinded by this. It wasn't just seen as a different movie, no it was a "better" movie. And the only reason for this seemed to be because the Alien went from a dark lovecraftian terror from beyond the blackness of space, to a space bug easily disposed of by big guns.

And this is the primary reason I don't like Aliens all that much. Cameron took the Alien and turned it into an insect. Hudson in the Special Edition even flat-out calls it a bee or an ant. And the redesign made it even worse. Bye bye, fear of the unknown.

And apart from that Aliens was a precursor to Cameron's lazy manner as to how he would write villains later on, in the form of Burke.
A man who even in the face of his own death still acts like a greedy corperate slimeball, simply because it is dictated he is the man we hate now and thus can do nothing but hateful things, untill he is rightfully punished by death so the audience can cheer.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

Yay someone like me who liked Alien better than Aliens. Those are rare to come by these days. Kudos!

Oh, you mean like basically everyone?

 

[AdagioBoognish]

Yea I don't agree with this. Sure Aliens was more of an action film than horror, but it was a damn good action film. I feel the characters have more depth than you're giving them credit for, they all had more personality than most modern action casts do.

What ruined the Alien franchise was milking the license as much as possible. That's what spawned the likes of AVP 2 and Colonial Marines, not a movie released over 30 years ago.

My god, thank you for bringing this up. Nothing made xenomorphs seem less threatening than some of the stuff to come out of the AvP series. Even Alien Resurrection had plenty of moments that made me swear off space travel. The scene of waking up restrained and helpless while an egg starts opening next to your face freaks me right the @#$% out.

 

[Squilookle]

There are those who would call Aliens the "opus magnum" of the series, yet it could be argued that the word "opus magnum" is a self-condemnation for furthering a series. In fact, many series in gaming could be seen the same way - Ocarina of Time is seen as the opus magnum of the Zelda series, Super Metroid is the opus magnum of the Metroid series, Persona 4 is the opus magnum of the Persona series, just to name a few. Even worse is when the first game ends up being the opus magnum of the series like what we see with Deus Ex.

In a way, it wasn't Aliens' fault for "ruining" a series, it was the demand for a such a successful series (or product) to continue and to try outdoing itself. Once you achieve "opus magnum" stage, there's no doubt it will affect morale and the quality of later products. Yet it's hard to resist the urging of fans and their money...

I feel awful for being 'that guy', but considering you said it no fewer than seven times in one post, I figure the earlier you know, the better: There is no such phrase as Opus Magnum. You're close, but you've got it the wrong way around.

See, now I'm that guy. And I feel terrible for it. I only hope this helps you.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Alien was a very good movie, but a large portion of its excellence was in the department of innovation.
The tension is nice, but most of the characters don't even have the level of depth Aliens had. In addition to that, they're all, with the possible exception of Ripley, astoundingly stupid. I was actually rolling my eyes when the captain climbed into a tight vent with a shitty homemade flamethrower, alone, hoping to take out an unknown presence IN THE DARK that had already killed several crew members.

It's weird how fail to see in Alien what you praise about Aliens.

One of the briliant aspects of Alien is that the crew of the Nostromo simply can't comprihend what they are dealing with. This is perfectly demonstrated in the scene where they discuss their next move after Brett gets taken. They are treating the threat this creature poses as similar to a bear or a tiger. "Most animals retrieve from fire, yes?" And whenever anyone actually tries to call it for what it is, "It's like a man; It's big!", it's purposely ignored by the rest of the crew. Their minds can't accept what they know in their heart to be true; that they are dealing with a monster. And they stick their heads in the sand as a result. Dallas especially is guilty of this. This isn't because they're stupid, it's because they're human.

And the subplot Ash brings to the table is worthy of a whole other discussion entirely.

I'm not failing to see anything, I just disagree with your reasoning.

I think the idea that they were in denial is a thin justification at best.

If the xenomorph had simply appeared on the ship, or if they had been transporting it in a shipping container or something and it got loose, you might have something, but between discovering it on an alien spaceship and the thing blowing out of a man's chest, then growing to full size in an extremely short time, it makes absolutely no sense that they would have that level of denial that it wasn't a common pest.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

How Aliens Ruined A Franchise

With the release of Alien there was a chance for a truly great sci-fi series, but reality is rarely as good as you want it to be.

Read Full Article

This will be the pettiest gripe you get in this thread since everyone else has pretty much proved your assertion bullshit already but:

The problem with James Cameron taking a turn on Aliens is that the film disregarded character development, just having very apt nicknames for the Marines

Those aren't nicknames genius, it's their surnames.

 

[Jace1709]

Also it was made a big deal about how "indestructible" the creature is, in Aliens they are killed by handguns. In Alien they assumed it was an animal and would be scared of fire, Dallas went to hunt it, we know the result. There was no indication in Alien that it actually was scared by the flames or that it even cared. Since Aliens, though, fire is a apparently an effective weapon against the xenomorph, making it much less of a threat. So much less in fact that apart from Alien³ pretty much every story in the franchise has a major flaw:
Their limited intelligence and single minded nature would make them very easily controllable in a real world scenario, with people of actual intelligence handling the situation. In every story, be it comics, movies or video games, the humans have to be ridiculously dumb to actually make the story happen at all. It just became so contrived. And yes, there probably are exceptions to this, but the word "exception" is key here.

They are easily killed by light armament, making them actually kind of worthless in a sci fi environment as a biological weapon.

Actually the only truly effective weapons against the Xeno's were the Pulse Rifles and Smart Guns (and the Sentry Guns if we're including the Directors Cut), and Gorman described thier ammo as 'Explosive Tip... Light Armor Piercing', the only Xeno that was killed with a Pistol was when Vasquez emptied an entire clip into its head at point blank range, when Gorman tried to kill the Xeno that was blocking him and Vaquez off from getting back to the others, the Xeno was only a few meters away, all the bullets just bounced off its face.



Regarding the article, i disagree with most of it, but the only part i really take issue with is the usual condescending attitude that certain reviewers have about action movies and thier effect on intelligence. I'm not a genius by any means, above average intelligence certainly and i love action movies (Aliens especially). The only time intelligence plays a part in whether someone likes a movie, is when someone pretends to be more intelligent than they are, and looks down on certain movies because they feel its beneath them, everything apart from that is just personal tase.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

It's threads like this that give me faith in the Escapist community. Even the points I disagree with are well made and grounded in good reasoning. It's a shame that the original article was seemingly written in 1 sitting using wikipedia as a research source to try and cash in on the Aliens 'theme' on The Escapist this week.

 

[LostAlone]

Regarding the article, i disagree with most of it, but the only part i really take issue with is the usual condescending attitude that certain reviewers have about action movies and thier effect on intelligence. I'm not a genius by any means, above average intelligence certainly and i love action movies (Aliens especially). The only time intelligence plays a part in whether someone likes a movie, is when someone pretends to be more intelligent than they are, and looks down on certain movies because they feel its beneath them, everything apart from that is just personal tase.

Yeah it's extremely fashionable at the moment to say that if you enjoy any movie based around fighting then you're stupid, even if its a really old movie made in a time way before it could be part of the 'direct-to-dvd with Jason Staythem' style of action film making that has been around for the past few years.

People like to feel clever by calling other people stupid based off of presences that say little if anything about their audience. Since action movies tend to be seen by anti-fans as just people punching each other with nothing else happening, they don't need to watch too hard to have their expectations totally born out. Unless it's a Marvel movie of course. Because comic book movies get a pass, because comic books are special.

Aliens has been cited by many as one of the single best sequels ever, simply because it goes away from the first movie. It is different, it has it's own identity, and even if you've never seen Alien you can still enjoy Aliens with no problems. It's what every sequel should be. Making the same movie over again doesn't make for a good film.

Look at the Friday 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series. These are horror series that did the same thing, the same formula time and time and time again. And again. And the thing is that it didn't even take long for them to totally run out of ideas. When a new director and a new writer gets hold of the universe and all they can do is the exact same thing that came before, well that's the sign of a bad director.

Aliens was distinct and interesting and a damn good film.

What has come since has been less so. Yes, as a result of Aliens all the games and much of the expanded universe stuff has been about the Marines, not being lonely on a spaceship while an alien murders you. That is maybe a bad thing, but then again unless you just want to see the same story rehashed and butchered over and over, you need a wider view of things. The result of that 'wider view' has been patchy at best, but that's not Aliens fault.

If nothing else there are a million more possibilities for telling stories that revolve around Weyland and the Marines and the unstoppable tide of aliens. Some of those stories will be bad, because they were written by unknown people at games studios and comic artists who were... Lets say not at the peak of the profession when it comes to narrative.

When something shows up and is similar to something good, but sucks, then you should be blaming the author of the new one. Yes, the good thing inspired the bad thing. But the good thing also inspired a bunch of good things. The problem isn't with the original stuff. How could it be?

 

[Sarge034]

They are easily killed by light armament, making them actually kind of worthless in a sci fi environment as a biological weapon.

I take issue with this. If you have a queen you can just mass produce the fuckers and overwhelm any defenses you come across. They are zombies but smarter, faster, stronger, stealthier, and more formidable.

As for the actual article I have two points. 1) If Aliens killed the franchise then how did so many movies, games, comics, short stories, and the like get made after it? 2) If Aliens didn't happen we would have ended up with a Prometheus that much quicker.

For the record I have enjoyed all the movies in the franchise to some degree, excluding Prometheus because I didn't see it.

EDIT- It's late and I derped. I called it "Aliens 2" instead of "Aliens". Fixed.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Agreed with the article, except for films "bringing down" the audience's intelligence. I don't believe in that kind of one-way influence thing.

Aliens wasn't a bad movie, it was a good action film in my opinion. The problem is that most other content in the franchise keeps getting based off that one while they forget the original.

Isolation looks interesting in that regard and a much needed change. It's also interesting for the industry, because games that only feature one single monster are exceedingly rare.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Well, if Prometheus was any indication, the series was headed for ruin even if Scott remained at the helm.

 

[VonBrewskie]

Nice. I appreciate your lucid and valid arguments. That article was beautifully written. I can totally see where you're coming from; I think that the first Alien movie was far deeper than Aliens in terms of character development. Alien was just so tense and brutal. There was no hope. There was no fighting back. There was only hiding. The crew of the Nostromo was crawling like primordial mammals in the darkness, hiding from a far superior predator. It was a movie about man trying to outwit nature with his greatest evolutionary advantage but utterly failing. Ripley only succeeded by chance, remember? She got damn lucky. That was the message I got from the end of that film. It was a perfect film in my opinion. It's probably my favorite. I could write for days about Alien. I kind of worship it. (Blade Runner too. I'm so totally with you man.)

(Spoilers) I do not think, however, that it was as mindless as you seem to imply. I think the argument could be made that the same themes from Alien, that man has to use his technology, his mind, to defeat nature and only succeeds by chance, exist in the sequel as well. Take the Colonial Marines for example. Here was a group, "Mother Green and Her Killing Machine" dropped onto a planet where they thought they were just going to be total bad-asses like they always were.

They moved like a seasoned, battle-tested unit. They knew each other. They had brief moments of rest together in the beginning, waking up from cryosleep, eating a meal and preparing for battle. They talked about getting with space hookers and slung insults back and forth about their sexuality and competency. In their minds they were going down to save some idiot colonists; they would swoop in, take care of business, then swoop back out same as always. As many of us know, that didn't happen.

In my opinion what we watched was the psychological disintegration of these highly trained, ultimate human warriors as they threw everything they had at the Xenomorphs and watched everything they threw utterly fail to stop the onslaught of death coming for them. They used all of their training, their battle-seasoned discipline, their most powerful weapons to very little real effect. Even though they were blasting away at the Xenos, they were only trying to escape. They had no hope of victory, just like when the crew of the Nostromo was trying to escape from the creature on their ship. They even blow up the facility on LV-426 at the end, just like in the original. Yeah that was probably just a nod to it's predecessor, but what if it wasn't? What if it was keeping with the theme that there is no way to overcome these creatures. No way to beat them beyond simply vaporizing them from the face of existence?

The tension in Aliens wasn't even in the same league as the original, but the sense of desperation was definitely there I think. You really see it when the Marines loose the center of their unit by the heat exchangers. When they lost Sgt Apone, they lost everything. The one mind holding them together. Keeping them calm. Hicks was a poor substitute for Apone and Hicks never seemed like he wanted Apone's job anyway. (Gorman was the Lt sure, but he was always an asshole. He was the weak link, until his redemption in the air vent with Vasquez.) I think Aliens retains a similar level of hopeless desperation as the original movie, albeit with a much, much different flavor and context. I've read some articles where the authors said James Cameron was trying to make a comparison between the overwhelmed Marines in Aliens and the overwhelmed Marines in Vietnam. I can see that. I agree with your article that the Marines could be boiled down to nicknames and tropes and we could call it a day. But I definitely saw character development in them. They had just enough development to keep the purity of the action whole without compromising the pace of the plot or making them seem like throwaway characters. I cared about those characters when they died.

Also, one person is absent from your article who is worth mentioning, in terms of plot development. The marines might have been a bit shallow, but you didn't mention Burke once in your article. You didn't mention when Ripley finds out the crew is expendable and that the true purpose of the mission is to get an Alien back to Earth for study. The entire reason Ripley agreed to go to LV-426 in the first place was to wipe out the horror she faced on the Nostromo. Then Burke shows his true colors and tries to cover up the truth, all the while touting the "significant dollar value" of the facility over the lives of the people there. There's some great "Corporations are screwing us" themes in Aliens that I think could be very relevant to today's audiences. Then, when Ripley goes to out Burke to the rest of the crew he tries to infect her with a facehugger so it could be frozen in Ripley's body to make it back past quarantine on Earth. Those scenes are really more action based than anything you see in Alien, but those are some scary damn moments, locked in the room with Ripley, Newt and Mr. Crazyknuckles the facehugger.

This is getting waaaaay too long and I have to go to bed. I could seriously write for days on this subject. I love me some Xenomorphs. I want to say that I really enjoyed your article. Your argument is spot on; Aliens (the sequel) is in no way as tense or powerful as the original film. Aliens is a popcorn flick and a beautifully crafted action movie. I do not think that it "ruined the franchise" and I hope you read some of what I've written and maybe give it another shot. (No pun intended.) Thank you for your time, and thank you for the article. Can't wait to see more from you!

-Jarod (VonBrewskie)