N'Al on 5/7/2008 at 20:45
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
I can never understand why people rag on Resurrection so much.
Inline Image:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~jaherne/alienhost/xenomorph/alienchild.jpgThis.
I think the Alien movies make up one of
the most interesting movie series out there, precisely because it has had different directors attached to each one of them - directors who have all brought something different and unique to their movies. Resurrection even starts out interestingly (what with Ripley stumbling across her own clones earlier in the movie, and swimming Aliens, etc.), but that Human-Alien hybrid is just gastly.
Muzman on 5/7/2008 at 21:17
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I am not sure why so many people hate Resurrection so much. Please explain.
I do not have a counterargument to the contrary, I'd simply like to understand why it is so disliked.
It wasn't scary. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't particularly dramatic either. Probably had the most expensive production of all the films and manages to be the ugliest and the most murkily shot (or the most blandly lit) and never looks like anything but an overdressed set. The tone is all over the place. Storyline reeks of retrofitting character motivation to fit already set on events (sure this happens all the time, but do it well and no one notices).
All this is to to say nothing of the fact that it drags an already battered storyline another 250 years into the future for no apparent reason, in an attempt by the company to grab the aliens in about the most circuitous means imaginable. By now even casual viewers are crying "Hello! Big fucking alien spaceship three movies ago! Doesn't that pique your curiosity any? Hello? Writers?"
I thought the cloning and hybrid stuff wasn't that bad in the end. Even the baby was kind of interesting and creepy, but they just used it mostly as an excuse for gore and not a lot else.
Ultimately it's just really really really boring and stupid. I've only seen it twice and each time I do a double take at the reported running time. It seemed so much longer. (I haven't seen it in a long time. It probably does have its charms but they didn't stick)
Tocky on 5/7/2008 at 21:45
It's all just space slasher flick without giving a damn about the characters. All the sets and monsters and plot twists mean zip. You have to have a script where the characters aren't just interchangable fodder for the killer/monster. You have to care whether they live or die. Do all your French fancy pants moebius striptease you want and it wont mean shit without that.
Morte on 5/7/2008 at 22:10
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
mo betta
Well you're wrong and a stinky poo-poo head. >:(
An Alien film should be fucking scary, or at the very least exciting. Le Fabuleux destin d'Ellen Ripley is neither. It is filled with grotesque scientists making faces at aliens and Dominic Pinon mugging at the camera and fuzzy-haired little generals that look like school janitors dealing with rascally kids and oh god I don't care if any character gets their innards ripped out.
Gingerbread Man on 5/7/2008 at 23:05
See, I find the combination of "grotesque scientists making faces at aliens and Dominic Pinon mugging at the camera and fuzzy-haired little generals that look like school janitors dealing with rascally kids" with "skull-crushing, flesh-burning, what's inside me, grenade-launching, WHAT'S IN-FUCKING-SIDE ME?!" actually makes the horror.
It's a different sort of horror, to be sure. It's not the usual action-flick-horror kinda thing, not that American. Not that European anymore, to be honest. But the juxtapositions, the horror of the absurd, the deadpan lunacy in the face of obvious and overwhelming monstrosity... I dunno. That's the sort of thing I get all chubby for.
But then I'm one of those guys who thinks as soon as Ripley got into the loader exoskeleton near the end, the film went to shit. Everything was great up until then.
"Get away from her, you bitch!"
is just as goofy a line / situation as
"I thought you were dead."
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
except that the former glares redly at you like an infected cuticle on an otherwise soft and beautiful hand whereas the latter is a perfectly appropriate cold sore on the lip of a woman so ugly that you can't look away.
Or whatever it is I came in here fifteen minutes ago to say.
Dear god I'm getting stupid
(edit)
plus "Le Fabuleux destin d'Ellen Ripley" would have been a fucking AWESOME name for it :D
Lucky Hand of Glory on 5/7/2008 at 23:10
I loved Alien and Aliens, and can basically recite the entire Alien dialog verbatim
The other Alienzes were also pretty good.
I cried in reserrection cuz I am just a big stoopid girl :p
"walk in the park....walk in the park" -Parker
The_Raven on 6/7/2008 at 00:12
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
But then I'm one of those guys who thinks as soon as Ripley got into the loader exoskeleton near the end, the film went to shit. Everything was great up until then.
Funny, I get that same feeling whenever they're on the Sulaco or in the hive. The movie starts to go downhill after they wake up from cryosleep, starts to pick up again when they get stranded, and they goes to shit again when Ripley enters the hive. The final sequences of the film have all sorts of crazy shit: Ripley taping two submachine guns and a flamethrower together, the queen squeezing into the tiny elevator and pushing the buttons, the queen jumping on the dropship without anyone noticing, and Ripley somehow manages to hold on and crawl up the ladder during explosive decompression. :rolleyes:
I don't mind Alien 3, especially its extended version, but I intensely dislike Resurrection. I know everyone has a giant crush on Josh Weadon, but I can't say I've ever been fond of his work. I watched Firefly when it was originally on television; while it was a decent show that definitely broke away from the mold, I wasn't that taken with it. The only episode I watched in its entirety was the first one that was broadcast, I think it was call "train job," and the whole sci-fi westered thing was a little too anachronistic for me. Serenity wasn't bad, but I can't say I ever really liked or got into Buffy/Angel. It probably doesn't help that I ended up reading an interview with the guy several years ago and he just came off as a whiny bitch whose misses are all someone else's fault.
EDIT: I was talking about the Alien series with a friend of mine a few month ago and he said that the newborn was Sigourney Weaver's idea and not Weadon's or Jean-Pierre Jeunet's. Also, the joke about Weyland-Yutani being bought out by Wal-Mart...lame.
SD on 6/7/2008 at 00:23
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I am not sure why so many people hate Resurrection so much. Please explain.
Actually, one of the funniest filmic phenomena of the past few years has been the frenzied rush to "re-evaluate"
Alien: Resurrection as a rather decent effort after all. What happened?
Amélie turned Jeunet into a darling of the critics, and what had been considered a dumb action movie became, almost overnight, a work of flawed brilliance.
Nah, the hybrid was cool. It ties into that whole "Who's worse: xenomorphs or humans?" thread that's been running right through every movie. If you were ever under the mistaken impression that the xenomorphs were the bad guys of the series, then the sight of the half-human critter evilly clawing its xenomorph mother's jaw off and instead finding, in Ripley, a true affinity, should have disabused you of it pretty sharpish.
Scots Taffer on 6/7/2008 at 01:03
I agree with Morte, Tocky and Muzman. It was horribly shot and pretty weak in overall terms of quality. I only ever saw it once and never even an inkling of watching it again. Never caught the AvP movies either because I tend to avoid trash.
Firefreak on 6/7/2008 at 05:04
For me, the first three films are a well connected storyline about an average (identifiable with) person, fighting a nearly hopeless fight against these aliens. And the story ens perfectly with the sacrifice of said person to finally end this.
Of course I was excited first as well to get a fourth film, but it hasn't the desperate horror I like in the previous three - Ripley isn't the identifiable victim anymore, and her sidekicks aren't desperate, but throwing with witty lines...
Ripley is the main reason why I like I-III, don't like IV so much and never saw these AVPs... (Also, I like the sound design of the first very much)
