Poll: The Aliens Series

Johnny Novgorod

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Wintermute said:
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.
Characters played by Demian Bichir and Nathaniel Dean, as shown in this "prologue".
Which showcases the relationship way more overtly than the movie ever bothers to. There's like a dialogue line and that's it.
 

Wintermute_v1legacy

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Characters played by Demian Bichir and Nathaniel Dean, as shown in this "prologue".

Which showcases the relationship way more overtly than the movie ever bothers to. There's like a dialogue line and that's it.
I saw that video more than once. I guess I missed all the gayness. Meh, who cares, what's bothering me is I was sure the blond guy was Josh from The Blair Witch Project.
 

Hawki

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So, I got back from seeing Covenant today and...yeah. Loved it. Per my original rankings, Covenant would take the no. 3 spot. It doesn't reach the heights of Alien or Aliens, in part because it's piggy-backing on both of them, but it's downright solid in its own right.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Just came back from watching Aliens at the cinema... turns out it was the Special Edition/Director's Cut, which I had never seen. I can't tell each and every scene that's new or different from the original but I suspect many of the things I don't like in the movie are latter additions. Showing life in the LV-426 colony before Ripley and the marines go is a mistake, for one thing. Also the scene that shows Newt, his brother and her mom and dad finding the crashed spaceship from the first movie, which shows a facehugger way too early and in a very silly way (complete with Troll 2 style of zooming in on a screaming Newt).

If I had to compare the original Alien with this Special Edition Aliens, Alien wins every day.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Statistically, the Alien/s series is now worse than Star Wars... which is some achievement.

My order goes like this: Alien, Aliens, and Who The Fuck Cares. Alien 3 was nicely atmospheric (I seem to recall it had a fine score), but after that the whole franchise has been garbage.

Prometheus seems to have pushed the extended franchise into thought-experiment levels of idiocy and pointlessness, and going from a couple of trustworthy (Mr Sunday Movies [https://youtu.be/a0McqvN-njU]) sources (Mark Kermode [https://youtu.be/b79aw9dZLfE]), Covenant is even worse. I hope Ridley Scott was watched at all times and never allowed to tamper with Blade Runner 2049 during production, because he's clearly lost the plot (and the apprentice - Denis Villeneuve - is clearly the master in their dynamic in this era).
 

Hawki

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Darth Rosenberg said:
Statistically, the Alien/s series is now worse than Star Wars... which is some achievement.
Hmm, let's see. Confining this to films only...

STAR WARS

The Bad

The Clone Wars

The Average

Attack of the Clones

Rogue One

The Phantom Menace

The Force Awakens

The Empire Strikes Back

The Good

Revenge of the Sith

The Excellent

Return of the Jedi

A New Hope

ALIENS

The Bad

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

Prometheus

The Average

Alien: Resurrection

Alien vs. Predator

The Good

Alien 3

Alien: Covenant

The Excellent

Alien

Aliens

So, that's 1 bad, 5 average, 1 good, and 2 excellent (Star Wars), vs. 2 bad, 2 average, 2 good, and 2 excellent (Aliens)

Going by my ranking system, we get the following results:

Star Wars: Average ranking of 3.4/5

Aliens: Average ranking of 3.5/5

So, appologies to Darth Rosenberg (had to edit this post to factor in Force Awakens), but IMO, the Aliens series is slightly above the Star Wars series. If I were able to factor in the Holiday Special or Endor films, the Star Wars aggregate would probably drop even further.

Aliens:
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Hawki said:
Hmm, let's see. Confining this to films only...
I'm only counting the live-action SW films, btw.



STAR WARS

The Bad

The Clone Wars

The Average

Attack of the Clones

Rogue One

The Phantom Menace

The Force Awakens

The Empire Strikes Back

The Good

Revenge of the Sith

The Excellent

Return of the Jedi

A New Hope
Holy crap... you rate Phantom and Clones average?!

For SW mine would be (only going from the Limited Edition theatrical releases):

V.BAD: Phantom, Attack Of The Clones, Revenge
AVERAGE: A New Hope (though at times it certainly teeters across the brink into the lowest bracket. I find the last 10mins or so pretty painful, especially all the weird, awkward staring at the very end... the digitally tampered version would be marked as bad, because that was a real hatchet job by Lucas)
GOOD: Jedi, Rogue One, TFA, Empire
EXCELLENT: ...

As much as I love the franchise [bar the risible prequels], I don't think SW is really that good, all things considered. Empire and TFA would be at the top of the Good pile, though, with Rogue One fairly close behind. Empire would be the only film to maybe sneak into that empty upper tier, at least for sections of it.

The Xeno franchise:

BAD: the AvP's, Resurrection, Prometheus
AVERAGE: Alien 3
GOOD: Aliens
EEEEEXCELLENT: Alien (probably... not seen it for a while, but the last time I saw Aliens I wasn't as enamoured with it as I used to be. I found the end kinda boring, frankly, and prefer most of the lead-up in the first third - maybe half - to the action that eventually unfolds)

Not seen Covenant and I have no intention of doing so any time soon, but given how awful Prometheus was (it's a rare film I end up disliking more each time I see it. quite the feat, Ridley!) I find it hard to believe I'd not shovel it into the box marked BAD.

So for me SW is certainly stacked forwards the very positive, with only three genuinely poor films I'd rather never see again. The Xeno series has one top tier entry that I feel's endured through the decades, one below it, and everything else under that (Alien 3 is more of a mess than any of the non-prequel SW's). Arguably I could maybe just split the lot into Good/Bad, with Alien and Aliens in the former and everything in the latter.

The plundering Lucas did of his own IP was at least--- novel, and cohesive in terms of his own egoistic mind (he had good intentions). The Xenomorph series was immediately mistreated and abused after just the second film, and I feel Scott's Prometheus arc is just brain fryingly idiotic and aimless, almost as if he's incapable of comprehending why the first two - and the Xenomorph itself - became so iconic.
 

FalloutJack

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While I have an open mind about the series as a whole, nobody will deny the power of Sigourney Weaver.
 

Orga777

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This poll isn't a surprise. Alien and Aliens are the only good movies in the franchise, after all. I voted Alien since it is better at showing how dangerous one of them can be and is more of an overall horror movie than Aliens. However, it was a close call. I love them both.
 

Natemans

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1. Alien
2. Aliens
3. Alien 3
4. AvP
5. Prometheus
6. Alien: Resurrection
7. AvP: Requiem

I love both Alien and Aliens, but if I had to pick one on which was better, I felt the original gave more horror than the second one. That's not to insult Aliens because its still an amazing film.
 

Natemans

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Also if I rated Star Wars, here's my list (not including Clone Wars):
1. The Empire Strikes Back - A+
2. The Force Awakens - A
3. A New Hope - A-
4. Return of the Jedi - B
5. Rogue One - B-
6. Revenge of the Sith - C+
7. The Phantom Menace - C
8. Attack of the Clones - F
 

PainInTheAssInternet

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Ogoid said:
I think over the years I've been slowly becoming opposed to the very idea of "franchises" in the first place. In my experience, it almost unfailingly leads down the path of The Simpsons.
There's a reason for that. Franchises stop when they're no longer profitable.
Why do they become no longer profitable? Because the public doesn't care anymore.
Why did that happen? Because the last entries sucked.

In a perfect world. genuine creativity would have the reigns of a project while profitability took a back seat and trusted the creative team to pull it off. In our world, things are focus-tested to an insane degree and anything successful will be driven through the earth before stopping. Looking at you, MCU and Star Wars. That's why the Alien franchise continued past the 3rd and 4th movie, which is notable in that many years would pass between entires.

7 years between the first and second. 6 between the second and third, 5 between the third and fourth. Even AVP was released 7 years after Resurrection. So there's really no excuse in this particular case (as well as asking a question that is never addressed; how it is someone who has been out of stasis for a few months has aged 13/18 years).

Incidentally, Wikipedia informs me that not only did David Giler and Walter Hill produce AVP 1 as they did every other entry, but Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shushett [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_vs._Predator_(film)] wrote the pre-adaptation draft just like they did with Alien. So it looks like there was an attempt, but the creative spirit just wasn't there. Or maybe the real magic was with Giler and Hill who lost it this time around (and the last two times).
 

Kinitawowi

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1. Aliens
2. Alien
3. Alien: Resurrection
4. Alien vs Predator
5. Prometheus
6. Alien 3

I haven't seen AVP2, and I'll probably hit up Covenant tomorrow.

It's clearly not a patch on the first two, but I actually really enjoy Resurrection. Yeah, it's a total mess, with nobody involved having any clue what sort of movie they were making, but somehow its amateurish stupidity works for it. (And it's got a cast who give it absolutely everything, which helps. Sigourney in that scene with the previous seven Ripley attempts is still one of the most horrifying set piece sequences in the franchise.) When the series tries to be Deep and Meaningful and Make Points About The Human Condition, it ends up with the self indulgent wank of Prometheus and the just plain bog awful pointlessness of Alien 3.
 

Ishigami

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I go with Alien 3 because fuck you all.

Alien 3 corrected a lot of the mistakes Aliens made.
It reformed the Alien from a target in a shooting gallery back to a serious threat and redirected the "they lived happily ever after" ending to something befitting a horror movie. You don't get to "win".
I also congratulate the author and director for pissing over the audience that liked Aliens. Thumbs up for killing the kid and solider right off.
Then Alien 3 added a lot to the lore of the universe that at least I came to like in other instalments e.g. games. For example, the alien vision or the ability to take some traits from the host. Without Alien 3 this would not be.
Not to mention I disagree with Camerons base philosophy and tend to go with Heinlein. The solution to a weak or inefficient solder is a better soldier not some mother complex driven women.
I like to believe we tend to have these professions for a reason.
Last but not least Alien and Alien 3 took risks as they aimed for a more specific target audience not shy of alienating the big crowd. Aliens on the other hand is rather formulated and save, it is your typical blockbuster action movie made to be basically universally liked and that's why I dislike it for the heck of it. While still being vastly superior to today's slog of focus group driven action movies in terms of production and content quality it still kind of is one of those none the less.
 

Hawki

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Darth Rosenberg said:
What's ironic is that assuming your designations use the same five point scale as mine (equating "very bad" to "terrible," by my scale), Star Wars actually still gets a lower rating. By your rankings, I'd assign Star Wars an average ranking of 2.8/5, while Aliens gets an average ranking of 2.9/5.

Course, that's just my scale.