Aliens - 1986 movie (was Dog Soldiers)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I think people dismiss the third Alien movie too readily, if Fincher had been allowed to continue the movie without studio execs interfering with it, the story would have been more readily apparent.

The prisoners had essentially adopted a monastic lifestyle and then a woman enters their world and brings the "dragon", evil enters their "paradise" and destroys their harmony. Ripley then nobly sacrifices herself to prevent the evil from spreading.
Again, it's very mythic and Lovecraftian but most of the imagery that would have brought that across was cut from the cinema release.

The Assembly Cut makes some of it more apparent but the original notion of the three movies as a tryptych was screwed up by the studio execs telling the film crew how to make the movie (because all they really wanted was a crowd pleaser to pull more money in).
The idea of integrity/continuity of story was considered less important than making money.

The fourth movie I can live without.

My big concern with this new take is that it's a fan appeaser. Apparently it dismisses anything after the second movie. Some people are obviously going to like that but there was so much more to the story with the addition of Alien 3 in its intended form.

Some of you are probably thinking why I'm against fan appeasement films? They cater to the lowest common denominator so they can pull as big a crowd as possible. Any notion of crafting a movie to tell a story is generally replaced by a formula calculated to get bums on seats. They're movies made by economists, not by storytellers.

Unfortunately these days a lot of the general public don't want to think when they watch a movie, hence the general dislike for Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning - it's a horror story more than a simplistic action movie and I reckon a lot of the audience didn't understand that (I'm mean for goodness sakes, it's another retelling of Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness" but then, nobody bothers to read novels anymore, let alone see the connections... )

I prefer the story, otherwise I might as well just stick my thumb up my arse, my mind in neutral and watch the latest Waste-of-Skin Anderson/Michael Bay Aliens Vs. Predators Vs. Battleship Vs. Transformers explosion-fest and believe that I am entertained.

[Raellus]

Nobody saw this coming.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/alien...184258582.html

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Nobody saw this coming.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/alien...184258582.html

I certainly didn't. It straightens out the info I originally had although I still stand by my rant against fan appeasement movies.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I certainly didn't. It straightens out the info I originally had although I still stand by my rant against fan appeasement movies.

I don't care for them much either, so this article came as a bit of a relief. I am cautiously optimistic now. Also going in the new Alien film's favor is that it seems Mr. Blomkamp is a reflective dude- he recently admitted that he let concept get in the way of story on Elysium, a film that I found a pretty big disappointment (especially since I'd come up with a very similar plot myself, years before the film came out).

[stormlion1]

I just want to know, will it have Colonial Marines?

[Targan]

A lot of the joy of the first two films was lost to me when they snuffed Hicks and Newt before the third film even started. I'll watch any new Alien/Predator/both together film as a matter of course but to date IMO Aliens was the best of the lot. I'm kind of torn. I'd be happy to see a film in which Hicks survived but then again, I don't like canon being broken.

[Webstral]

I agree with Targan. Killing Hicks and Newt was a mistake. A fine line exists between fiction acknowledging that life is hard and bad things happen on the one hand and just crushing the viewer's hopes. I have real life to crush my hopes. I don't need my entertainment to assist.

[Raellus]

WHAT?!?

How am I just finding out about this?!?

I love Aliens (Alien is good too; the rest can bugger off) and I read any articles that I see about anything directly related to the franchise. I'm also a big William Gibson (of Neuromancer fame) fan. Hell, I interviewed the guy! (Well, I asked him one question on BBC radio.) But anyway, I had no idea that he'd written a script for Alien 3. I'd prefer a film of it, but I'll take comics over nothing.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/dark-horse-i...-in-1827548457

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[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'm a big fan of Gibson's stories from the day that I first read Neuromancer as a teenager (I bought it at an airport shop while waiting for some relatives to arrive on a flight).
I do think he has periods of disappearing up his own arsehole at times, particularly when he comments on other people's visions of cyberpunk, however I am very interested in seeing his story for Alien.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Webstral

I agree with Targan. Killing Hicks and Newt was a mistake. A fine line exists between fiction acknowledging that life is hard and bad things happen on the one hand and just crushing the viewer's hopes. I have real life to crush my hopes. I don't need my entertainment to assist.

Pretty much the whole third movie, including the premise, sucked, except for possibly information about the alien and some about Weyland-Yutland. And I'm not happy that Ripley ended up with a queen inside of her -- it was good for the script, but again the premise sucked and smacked of desperation to make the third movie work.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Pretty much the whole third movie, including the premise, sucked, except for possibly information about the alien and some about Weyland-Yutland. And I'm not happy that Ripley ended up with a queen inside of her -- it was good for the script, but again the premise sucked and smacked of desperation to make the third movie work.

Agreed on all points. This is exactly why I'm so stoked about a different script for 3.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'll stick to what I posted earlier - knowing what the director wanted to achieve, I accept the third movie and actually like it in the assembly cut.
As for Ripley being impregnated with an alien, that's an important part of the mythic elements of the story, the "bringing evil into paradise" and her sacrificing herself for the good of humanity concepts that I mentioned before.

The studio is responsible for screwing up the movie, the cinematic release is a bad butcher's job of what it was meant to be.
The novel makes things much more apparent, the alien infects a dog-like creature rather than some bovine and so it's final form is sleeker and faster than the biped form we've seen before and this causes the prisoners to identify it as "the dragon", i.e the devil come to destroy their world and ruin their lives... which is exactly what was going to happen if Weyland-Yutani was ever able to get an example of the alien back to Earth.

Having said all that, it in no way changes my mind that I want to see Gibson's story.
I'll probably buy it as soon as it's released in graphic novel/anthology form.

[Legbreaker]

I heard a rumour just a few weeks ago of James Cameron coming back for Alien 5 and completely tossing the events of the 3rd and 4th movies.
Yes, that means Hicks and Newt would be back and Ripley didn't die on Fiorina (Fury) 161.
Is it true? Damn I hope so!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I myself, think it unlikely.
Besides having ruled out any further involvement with the franchise in 2006, James Cameron is unlikely to throw out some of those films. He follows Ridley Scott's ideas of the story. As far as the studio is concerned, their trust is in Scott and it's his vision of the franchise that they're interested in.

“Alien: Covenant” stumbled at the box office. Is that franchise over?
It was a disappointment, but I trust Ridley [Scott] and Emma [Watts] to know the right story when they find it. When universes are as rich as “Alien,” they can stay in a too familiar groove — in which case you’re in trouble — but they can also find a planet or a storyline or a villain that also lives in that universe that can be groundbreaking.
https://variety.com/2017/film/featur...ar-1202563799/

[Raellus]

AFAIK, Cameron is still busy finishing his Avatar sequels. Last I heard, he had other projects- not Aliens-related- lined up for when the Avatar series wrapped.

A year or two ago, Neil Blonkamp was tapped to helm an Alien 3 RETCON (see earlier in this thread) but that came to naught.

I think the closest we're going to get to a new post Alien-Aliens continuity movie is the comic book I referenced a few posts ago.