Poll: The Aliens Series

Casual Shinji

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Nazulu said:
It's also one of the reasons I prefer Resurrection, because some of the visuals in that were horrifying enough to make it a horror again.
It's not what I would call great or even that good, but I do like how it kinda goes for broke with some of the weird horror moments. And yes, that includes the Hybrid, I quite like that goofy spunk monster. I actually wish they pushed it even further and had Ripley slowly turn into an Alien monstrosity.

Also Brad Dourif is in it, so that's always nice.
 
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Aliens is my favourite, I loved that film when I was a kid.

Alien is great, just less my kind of film.

Alien 3 is still decent. It still feels like an alien film.

Alien resurrection was...uh...it felt like it was trying to be cool, or make the characters seem so. Really off base.
 

Frezzato

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*SPOILERS* for a movie that nobody should see (AvP Requeim).

That movie is a train wreck. Back when I first saw it I came up with (or thought I invented) a term, 'gorenography', to describe AvP Requiem. Of course, the entire internet already invented that term by the time I Googled it. That movie just broke all the rules, probably on purpose, and it paid the price. Never mind how a child gets killed in the first 10-20 minutes, representing the first death in the movie. Or close to it. Just...no.

At this point I'm ready to ignore any new movie related to the Alien franchise. Then again, I already ignore the Fast and Furious movies, but I've heard and read that they're all stupidly fun, and I say good for them.

Here's [http://www.scified.com/news/executing-alien-ronald-shusett-interview] a good read about how the first Alien movie was written and thought through.
 

Silvanus

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The original, Alien. So streamlined, simple but beautifully shot, and the perfect combination of sci-fi and horror. Aliens is thrilling, but it lost too much of the horror atmosphere, which is where the xenomorph performs best.

The first three are all good, though. Resurrection was a significant step down, and Prometheus is a narrative mess. Alien vs Predator is just awful. Covenant looks very promising.
 

jklinders

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Loved Aliens, then and now. Alien was the groundbreaker that started it all and objectively is likely the better film but I'm not really into the survival horror thing. Aliens has the whole package, action, a cast of crazy characters, a holdout scene, a run for your life scene, a rescue and a boss fight. And the damn thing holds up marvelously to this day.
 

BloatedGuppy

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You can make a strong argument in favor of Alien or Aliens as being the best in the franchise, depending on your mood or the direction of your particular cinematic tastes.

You can make an even stronger argument for pretending the other films don't exist at all, because they're largely terrible and a blight on the IP.
 

Hawki

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Looks at thread...

Damn it, this is what I was afraid of - everyone voted either Alien or Aliens. I mean, I can't fault either of those choices, but it does mean there's less variety in results. Also, who the heck voted for Requiem? I mean, to each their own, but please anonymous person, I'd love you to explain your choice.

Also, speaking of Alien and Aliens:

Casual Shinji said:
First of all they turned the Alien from a terrifying creature into a space bug that you just blast away. The movie is supposed to show that all these high tech marines are no match against the Aliens, but... they kinda are. All they had was just a couple of unlucky moments resulting in them basically being crippled from then on. Had they not been taken by surprise and been relieved of most of their ammo they would've cleaned that place up. Heck, Ripley is able to gun down a horde of them by her lonesome later on. In this respect Predator is a better Aliens than Aliens.
Drawing a line here, because I absolutely disagree.

Cutting to the point where they reach the atmospheric processor, the marines have already gone from overconfident dude-bros (Sulaco, the dropship), to unease (entering the colony) to dread (the processor). That aside, the scene still has two smartguns and a shotgun, and does show how deadly the xenomorphs are in close quarters. They might have done better with more firepower, but the results would still be the same. After that, the entire film is a series of retreats/delaying actions. Aliens can be called an action film, but it doesn't glorify its action, nor is it militaristic. It undercuts the idea of "superior firepower = victory," and shows how quickly the marines can fall apart when thrust into a situation they're not prepared for. Cameron has stated that the film is commentary on the Vietnam War, and while I feel Predator is a better analogy, I can see the parallels. Just because the marines take out xenomorphs, it doesn't make them any less intimidating. After all, one xenomorph impregnated one colonist, and from there, they overran the entire colony.

Casual Shinji said:
Than we have Burke who is stupidly greedy in the face of almost certain death, because evil captitalism. In the first movie the message of big corporations not giving a shit about who they have to step on to get what they want worked, because the corporation in question was a faceless entity that was lightyears away on Earth. And who's only "loyal" employee was an android with a distain for its own masters. I don't care how much of a corporate shil you are, when faced with countless alien monsters coming to rip you apart/impregnate you with its alien spawn you don't get dollar signs in your eyes and proceed to screw over the only people standing between you and said aliens. Unless ofcourse you're written by James Cameron.
I don't disagree with your assessment on Alien's take on "the Company," but I do disagree that Aliens doesn't do effective commentary as well. Aliens is more a role reversal, in that Weyland-Yutani has a face, but it's Bishop who turns out to be the more humane one, Burke the greedy one (Burke knew they'd either be off the planet in a few hours or dead, so his actions are understandable), and the question of which is the worse species? It's not as eloquent a commentary as Alien, but it's not trying to provide identical commentary.

Casual Shinji said:
It also copies the first movie beat for beat, but then that's seemingly the only way Cameron knows how to make a sequel. He did the same with Terminator 2.
I wouldn't go that far either in either case. Far as Terminator goes, Terminator 3 absolutely copies T2 (which is part of why it's my least favorite Terminator movie), but Terminator 2 well and truly goes down its own path by the aftermath of breaking out Sarah, and prior to that, it still establishes itself with a new identity, especially as far as tone and characters go.

President Bagel said:
I'll factor in the Predator movies as I've always liked the idea of the two franchises sharing the same universe.
Thaluikhain said:
If we count the AVP movies, should not the Predator films be counted as well?
I considered this, but a) there wouldn't be enough spots for every movie in the poll, and b) the keyword is "Alien" movies. If I was doing a Predator list for, say, The Predator, it would include the first three Predator movies and both AvP movies as well.

But as far as ranking the Predator films alongside the Alien ones (haven't seen Predator 2 mind you), they'd go:

9) Requiem

8) Prometheus

7) Resurrection

6) Alien vs. Predator

5) Predators

4) Alien 3

3) Predator

2) Alien

1) Aliens

That's the short version. If I'm still around, I'll save detailed thoughts on Predators and Predator for when Shane Black's project nears completion. But basically, I like both.

Exley97 said:
Two things: first, I don't think you can call it retconning because it's unfair to expect expanded universe content to be honored by the movies, and the Mala'kaks never appeared in any capacity in any movie, only novels and comic books.
Like I said, the Xenopedia universe has always been iffy in regards to consistency, hence why Prometheus overturning established Space Jockey lore is a very minor gripe for me.

Exley97 said:
Second, I hear you about the bone-headed decisions. But I always felt that was part of the point of the movie, for better or worse. In both the Jon Spaihts script (which is good but reads like an Alien reboot, BTW) and more so in Damon Lindelof's rewrite, there's a theme of the major characters (Shaw/Watts, Halloway, Weyland, and even Vickers, etc.) being so hellbent on on finding the Engineers, that they risk everything to obtain the power of knowledge, leading them to make incredibly foolish decisions. Hollaway even says it himself when David asks what he'll do for answers: anything and everything. I mean...the movie is called "Prometheus." They play with fire, and before they realize they're making the same mistakes the Engineers themselves made, they get burned.
That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how well it works as an analogy. The story of Prometheus from Greek mythology is, to put it in short terms, that the titan Prometheus steals fire from the gods to give to mankind. Prometheus himself suffers terribly for this fate (bound to a rock, vulture tears out his liver every day), but his actions do save mankind. Prometheus himself was reckless in that he insulted Zeus, which caused him to hide fire from mankind, and mankind does get punished further via Pandora/Pandora's Box, but humanity itself are the victims in the myth, not the reckless ones. I see the film's title referring to the origins of humanity more than being an analogy on human recklessness. Likewise, there's Weyland's TED talk that was released prior to the film, which shows fire as being a good thing for humanity, kickstarting their development. Said promotional short being excellent, IMO.
 

Necrozius

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What I liked about Prometheus is that now I view the Queen in Aliens as a one-off, unique monstrosity. I'd rather believe that then the less, well, ALIEN concept of termites or bees that Cameron introduced. That just made too much sense: the xenomorphs were less weird.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Was never really that into the Aliens series during its' life-cycle. Watched them all but never felt mind-blown by any at the time. It's only later on as I started to search and realise that (good) sci-fi space horror films were a rare breed indeed, and that Alien had very distinct presence and tight structure that keeps it from aging as badly as a lot of other attempts. But horror, like comedy, loses its' bite when you know what's going to happen. So it would be great if there were more attempts at the genre that could inspire a new generation of cosmic fear/despair and reinvigorate the curiosity in space's darkest secrets.

Anymoo, the AVP films were not at all memorable, aside that they felt like terribly wasted opportunities and AVP 2 was definitely just a crap teen slasher with recognisable cameos.

Aliens 3 and 4...ehm, didn't really care for what was going on in them as they were presented more as obligatory hollywood sequels with contrived plots instead of passionately crafted experiences. Late-night cable bait and such.

The rest are aight though. Need more space horror (that aren't Alien clones), I do not have the means to do so myself, but I am very much incredibly interested in the potential for the genre.

Exley97 said:
Aliens is my favorite film of all time, so I gotta go with that for #1, but Alien is a close second.

And I LOVE Prometheus, so that's #3. I know, I'm basically on an island with my Prometheus love. But it's the movie I wanted Alien 3 to be. Okay, not entirely true -- Neil Blomkamp's Alien 5 treatment is the movie I wanted Alien 3 to be, but I always wanted an Alien film that provided backstory about the creature as well as more questions, because questions are always more fun that answers.

Hawki said:
6) Prometheus

I feel guilty that Prometheus is so low on this list. It's still way, WAY above Requiem, and more ambitious then the next two films on this list. And make no mistake, Prometheus deserves props for its ambition, as well as its visuals. Michael Fassbender also deserves kudos as well for his portrayal of David. However, ambition doesn't quite translate into execution. I'm willing to forgive the film for retconning previous Engineer/Space Jockey/Mala'lak lore up to this point, as the Xenopedia universe has always been iffy when it comes to consistency. What's harder to forgive is the bone-headed decisions the characters make, and how things don't quite...fit, if that makes sense.
Two things: first, I don't think you can call it retconning because it's unfair to expect expanded universe content to be honored by the movies, and the Mala'kaks never appeared in any capacity in any movie, only novels and comic books.

Second, I hear you about the bone-headed decisions. But I always felt that was part of the point of the movie, for better or worse. In both the Jon Spaihts script (which is good but reads like an Alien reboot, BTW) and more so in Damon Lindelof's rewrite, there's a theme of the major characters (Shaw/Watts, Halloway, Weyland, and even Vickers, etc.) being so hellbent on on finding the Engineers, that they risk everything to obtain the power of knowledge, leading them to make incredibly foolish decisions. Hollaway even says it himself when David asks what he'll do for answers: anything and everything. I mean...the movie is called "Prometheus." They play with fire, and before they realize they're making the same mistakes the Engineers themselves made, they get burned. So I never had a problem with the dumb or reckless decisions they made (except for Millburn approaching the worm -- while there's a deleted scene where he finds a harmless native worm/bug earlier in the film, which sort of explains his lack of caution in the film, the finish film has no such scene and doesn't really make a lot of sense that Millburn would be so cavalier about it considering it's already been established that Millburn is scared shitless).

As for the other movies....they're basically garbage. Alien 3's "Assembly Cut" is a HUGE improvement over the theatrical version, but the movie still isn't good and I'll never forgive it for killing the Aliens characters off screen. Fuck them and the ship they flew in on.

Alien Ressurrection is an unintentional comedy.

I don't consider either of the AvP movies to be true ALIEN movies. And I'm not kidding when I say that Requiem might be the single worst major release film I've seen in the last 20 years, maybe ever. It's that bad.
I'd agree as much with this so far.
 

Thaluikhain

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Necrozius said:
What I liked about Prometheus is that now I view the Queen in Aliens as a one-off, unique monstrosity. I'd rather believe that then the less, well, ALIEN concept of termites or bees that Cameron introduced. That just made too much sense: the xenomorphs were less weird.
Huh...not a bad idea, the xenomoprhs just random mutant monsters...though all wiped out forever at the end of Alien3 until resurrected in Resurrection?
 

DocJ

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I liked Aliens but I think I prefer Alien for the opposite reason as in the OP. Alien was a horror film with a good mix of terror in there. It was near impossible to fight this thing and they had no idea what it was to begin with. Aliens just felt a little too overkill and action packed for an Alien movie for me, but it is still awesome. It's kind of why I'm liking the look of Covenant, seems like it's going back to the dark horror side which I'm very happy to see.
 

Exley97_v1legacy

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Hawki said:
That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how well it works as an analogy. The story of Prometheus from Greek mythology is, to put it in short terms, that the titan Prometheus steals fire from the gods to give to mankind. Prometheus himself suffers terribly for this fate (bound to a rock, vulture tears out his liver every day), but his actions do save mankind. Prometheus himself was reckless in that he insulted Zeus, which caused him to hide fire from mankind, and mankind does get punished further via Pandora/Pandora's Box, but humanity itself are the victims in the myth, not the reckless ones. I see the film's title referring to the origins of humanity more than being an analogy on human recklessness. Likewise, there's Weyland's TED talk that was released prior to the film, which shows fire as being a good thing for humanity, kickstarting their development. Said promotional short being excellent, IMO.
True, it's not a perfect analogy, but I think in the movie, Weyland sees himself as Prometheus and not the humans in the Greek myth. He evens says "WE are the gods now" in the TED talk (which I agree is excellent, and it should have probably been in the movie to reinforce this theme). And I think he's willing to pay whatever price to get the next fire, whatever it may be. His ambition is limitless, and at the end of his natural life, he's desperate. I just think that because he and Shaw/Hollaway/etc. thought they were "invited" by the engineers, there would be no risk or danger or penalty. And obviously, that was not the case. Just as the Engineers themselves paid a price for the "fire" in this case, so did the humans.
 

Delicious Anathema

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Alien is the best movie of all time for me. The mystery, the pace, the originality, the ambience, story, acting, etc, it's all perfect.

Aliens is a great film but dramatically changed the alien to be faster and bee-like, whereas the original was slow and there was no Queen. The fact that they're cannon fodder kind of undermines the threat, barely making up for it in sheer numbers.

Alien 3 I like very much. We europeans are more accepting of depressing and dark stories, which was reflected in the reviews over here compared to the USA. The Assembly Cut is a much more compelling experience (though both are good) that delves into the characters, takes its time and lets you soak in the world Fincher created.

Alien Resurrection has an interesting premise, but the french director was a mistake as he basically made a parody by jamming humour every step of the way. It's still a good enough film with curious dynamics and questions centered around Ripley and the aliens, great scenes like the swimming and the clones 1-7, only to then take a deep dive when that ugly stupid looking hybrid appeared. What a waste of potential. That great cast deserved something better.

Prometheus is confusing, makes no sense at times (especially since the original script had alien elements that were ripped out and replaced without much thought), it demystifies the Space Jockey in a horrible way, but in the end it's a good film that just needs more explaining to make more sense, though the holes will forever show that it was once Alien: Engineers.

AvP is a good popcorn film with decent enough action scenes, it's entertaining to see once.

AvP Requiem is the epitome of bad film-making, bad lighting, gore that crosses the line to bad taste and ridiculous fan service nods.

Alien Covenant looks promising, despite the shoehorned female lead and gay couple (it's a colonizing mission!) and the rest of the cardboard crew. When we get to the point where a male lead in an Alien film would be novel, you know it's gone too far in one direction.
 

Exley97_v1legacy

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Delicious Anathema said:
Alien 3 I like very much. We europeans are more accepting of depressing and dark stories, which was reflected in the reviews over here compared to the USA. The Assembly Cut is a much more compelling experience (though both are good) that delves into the characters, takes its time and lets you soak in the world Fincher created.
Well, speaking as an American...I can say I don't have a problem with dark or depressing stories. I went into the theater well aware of the rumors that Ripley would die and the reports that it was Weaver's last film. What bothered me about Alien 3 is the way it played out -- killing two crucial characters off screen for no apparent reason, and then forcing the setup for the movie on the end of Aliens, which makes NO SENSE (the Alien Queen is somehow able to lay eggs without her egg sac, and without anyone knowing? Ripley is impregnated but somehow is able to go DAYS before it's ready to burst?). If you want to kill everybody, then kill everybody. But good lord, do it in a way that makes sense and is somewhat respectful to both the characters and the audience.

But yes, the Assembly Cut is much more compelling. Much deeper themes, and more time to get to know the inmates rather than having them be nameless interchangeable Xenomorph fodder.
 

Ravenbom

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Just like Terminator, or Conan, or The Godfather, or Mad Max (until Fury Road came out), or the X-Men Trilogy (either one), or Spider-Man, or Halloween... people should watch the first two movies in proper order and stop there.

Alien is such a great outer space horror film. Basically a haunted house type film on a space oil rig. And if you didn't know anything about the movie going in, you'd never see Ripley as the hero. She barely has two lines and they're basically background lines until the second half of the movie.
Also... man she's wearing some tiny panties at the end.

Aliens is basically a video game and it's easy to see how it influenced so many games in the last 30 years. It's just pure awesome. Halloween and Halloween II kind of have a similar trajectory where one is a slow burn horror film and the second is just pure fun, a reward for watching the first.
 

Thaluikhain

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Ravenbom said:
Halloween and Halloween II kind of have a similar trajectory where one is a slow burn horror film and the second is just pure fun, a reward for watching the first.
You could add Predator or Resident Evil to that, sorta. In that the first parts of the first of those films are establishing the monster/s and then getting to action later on, the second jumps straight in.

(Also, various other franchises I can;t think of at the moment follow that pattern. You'd have difficulty with slow burn horror once the monster has gone beyond that in a previous film).
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Just saw Alien: Covenant. I don't think it's a spoiler to say this but here it goes:

It's Prometheus all over again. A crew descends into a strange new planet while the mother ship remains floating about.
The crew immediately splits up and starts fucking around with the alien fauna. A couple of them get infected. We find out a bit more about the relationship between the space jockeys and the aliens. And so on.

On the plus side there aren't that many stupid decisions. Just a few, and then a shit-ton of bad luck.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Delicious Anathema said:
Alien Covenant looks promising, despite the shoehorned female lead and gay couple (it's a colonizing mission!) and the rest of the cardboard crew.
For what it's worth "the gay couple" aren't colonists, strictly speaking (those are in hypersleep), but rather part of the security personnel of the Covenant. And yes, Katherine Waterston is insufferable in the lead, and the rest of the crew are indeed cardboard.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Hawki said:
Who knows where Covenant will fall into this list?
It's nowhere near as good as the first three movies but I like it better than the AvP movies and Alien: Resurrection, for sure. Still not sure whether it's better or worse than Prometheus. It doesn't feel as stupid a movie and I think pulls the horror slightly better. But it also feels like an extremely direct sequel to Prometheus, even if it doesn't look like it at first. It just doesn't feel like the movie has a story of its own.
 

Wintermute_v1legacy

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Delicious Anathema said:
Alien Covenant looks promising, despite the shoehorned female lead and gay couple (it's a colonizing mission!) and the rest of the cardboard crew.
For what it's worth "the gay couple" aren't colonists, strictly speaking (those are in hypersleep), but rather part of the security personnel of the Covenant. And yes, Katherine Waterston is insufferable in the lead, and the rest of the crew are indeed cardboard.
Who's the gay couple? I've seen so many trailers/clips/intros/whatever related to this movie and I never noticed it.