Discuss Aliens
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Do you think this is the best?
posted by holdmeSTAFFMOD on April 2, 2017 at 12:43 PM
In the series? If so, why? If not, why not?
Reply by rooprect
on August 31, 2024 at 6:26 AM
Thanks man! I can't understate how important I think Alien was to scifi and cinema in general.
Awesome will do. At first I read Vamp which is another great one if you like 80s cheese. I'd never heard of Vamps til now.
Reply by Knixon
on August 31, 2024 at 1:42 PM
It was new to me also, seems like it popped up on some cable/satellite channel, out of nothing. Maybe because Krysten Ritter was having a bit of a run of "stardom" for a while.
Another that surprised me was "Scorched," basically the same thing: never heard of it before, popped up out of nowhere, found myself really enjoying it. Doesn't hurt to have John Cleese in ANY movie! Plus Alicia Silverstone again, and Rachel Leigh Cook, Woody Harrelson...
This seems to be pretty much the whole movie, except maybe for the complete end credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N_Eb0Kc5XE
The "fire" line might be one of the best pick-up lines ever.
Another surprise for me was "Relative Strangers," with Danny Devito and the lovely Neve Campbell. Couldn't find the complete movie, but here's a "trailer" to get you interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqj4WAKJnf8
Reply by Knixon
on August 31, 2024 at 1:46 PM
And on the more serious side, try the two Postal Inspectors movies, staring Louis Gossett Jr. Both "Free, with ads" on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hW0bV1McNo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iq4UmxIBK8
Reply by loiner
on October 15, 2024 at 4:49 AM
No. Alien is far superior in every way. Aliens has annoying characters, awful dialogue, plot contrivances, no real sense of dread, and it weakened the xenomorphs.
Alien is far more enjoyable and superior filmmaking. Always thought this was one of the most overrated films of all time.
Reply by Knixon
on October 15, 2024 at 9:24 AM
How do you figure it weakened them? They only really dealt with the "acid blood" once in the first movie. Multiple times in the second.
Reply by rooprect
on October 16, 2024 at 8:07 AM
I also felt like the Xenomorphs seemed weaker in Aliens. Maybe not literally but in terms of drama. The first movie had 1 badass xenomorph, and it took the entire 2hr movie to deal with that 1. In the sequel there are armies of xenomorphs which are easily wasted by the good guys' high powered weapons. The xenos' strength is in numbers rather than difficulty to kill.
In terms of drama, movies are so much more terrifying when there's just 1 antagonist. Like in Halloween, Friday the 13th, Exorcist, etc we are terrified because there's just 1 all-powerful bad guy who seems indestructible no matter what the good guys try. But once you start doing legions of anonymous bad guys, like in the Resident Evil zombie apocalypse type stuff, they're not as terrifying on an individual basis. Xenomorph #126 doesn't seem nearly as powerful as the original 1 and only.
Reply by loiner
on October 17, 2024 at 3:12 AM
Exactly. Haven't seen it for a long time but I just remember them walking into gunfire much of the time, whereas the xenomorph in the original seemed to be really intelligent and calculating.
Reply by Knixon
on October 17, 2024 at 11:09 AM
In the first movie, they had no guns. And they were also far more confined in space. Alien motivations in the first movie were pretty different as well, since without a Queen all it could really do was kill them. There was no need to try and capture any of them, to be "converted." (Which would also explain with the one "deleted scene" was deleted. It didn't work, in that context.)
Ultimately the Aliens were a doomed species, although that wasn't really clear until the second movie, because they couldn't reproduce on their own.
Reply by loiner
on October 18, 2024 at 12:20 PM
Wrong. They had guns. You can see their pistols holstered while they're wearing their space suits. Probably had more guns on board too. They chose not to shoot the alien and instead use a flame thrower and a cattle prod because it's obvious what would happen if they started blasting holes into it. We saw what just a tiny cut did to the face hugger. Acid was pouring out and burned through several floors. There's shots in Aliens where the marines are clearly firing at point blank range at them but yet they don't get burned. James Cameron wasn't consistent with his portrayal of it unlike Ridley Scott.
Reply by Lars Wadefalk
on October 18, 2024 at 4:00 PM
Out of all these answers I've seen in this thread. Having the aftermath of Ridleys attempts of the origin and Aliens as a sequel beeing really questioned as well, i really do start figurin if anyone really wanted a sequel or prequel at all. That it was just perfect as it was. I am what i think is more mainstream in my catch of it all, Alien is as just golden, cant complain so much about aliens as it was "war in space", but the rest of the sequels were just shit. Except for the new Romulus which took on to to the original story in a way that explored weyland corp. I know, I do hate the third act too, it was really too much of it all. They had to bring in alien 4 somewhere. But in all, how can you hate aliens? It was a real bad ass story just perfect to continue it all, agree with some holes in it, but man, Cameron did what he had to do. Otherwise, in THIS thread, i can only quote Ripley in aliens "look, i know what this is going".