What Happened to the Alien and Predator Series?

[Dowly]

11 part review of both the Alien and the Predator movies as well as the.. sigh.. AvP movies:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB6B57B21A175F664

[Gerald]

Alien 1,classics

[STEED]

Just watched the Alien ones only and agree most part on what the commentator said.

ALIEN 10/10.....Directors Cut 10/10
ALIENS 8/10..... Directors cut 9/10
ALIEN3 6/10.....Ext Version 7/10
ALIEN RESURRECTION 4/10.....Ext version 4/10

The fourth film was a load of rubbish and a disgrace.

Thanks Dowly.

[STEED]

The AvP films were crap to utter crap.

Predator was a good film as for Predator 2 what a let down no where as good as the first was, as for the third one not seen it yet, may watch it when it comes on TV.

Edit
Just finished watching his views on the Terminator series and have to agree with him on that one as well.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by STEED

ALIEN 10/10.....Directors Cut 10/10
ALIENS 8/10..... Directors cut 9/10
ALIEN3 6/10.....Ext Version 7/10
ALIEN RESURRECTION 4/10.....Ext version 4/10

The fourth film was a load of rubbish and a disgrace.

Yeah, I agree with that. Except for A3, which I've started to like more and more.
Heck, these days I even like them killing off Hicks and Newt in the beginning of
the movie. Somehow makes Ripley's seemingly endless nightmare all the more
sadder, she just can't win.

[AVGWarhawk]

I believe the Alien movies and story lines have gone to this:

Prometheus
http://www.movieinsider.com/m5506/alien-5/

Notes: Originally slated as a two-part prequel to the 1979 Alien movie. Both Ridley Scott and Fox have carefully avoided calling it a prequel, although the similarity of styles is apparent in the movie stills, and with the use of the same sound effects, spaceship structures and title font animation in the teaser.

[Stealhead]

Prometheus look to be very interesting first movie I have wanted to see in a good while.H.R. Giger is helping with the film I see which is great news the Alien creature is his design so was the "Space Jockey" and the derelict ship.I hope that Prometheus is something completely different from the Alien films maybe take some of the concepts the same "universe".

Alien is one of the best films it is so good at hitting primal fear you can watch that movie many times and you still feel it.

I heard that they removed the Space Jockey though but that was from a 2011 interview with Scott things can change.

I think what he said about the xenomorph appearing in Prometheus;

"No. Absolutely not. They squeezed it dry. He (the xenomorph) did very well. (He laughs) He survived, he's now in Disneyland in Orlando, and no way am I going back there. How did he end up in Disneyland? I saw him in Disneyland, Jesus Christ!"

Disneyland is in California the ride he is thinking of is at MGM Studios which is part of Disenyworld in Orlando FL it is part of a ride that features bits from various films using animatronics and it is pretty cheesy.

I think that sums up the Alien and Predator lines well they just went too main stream when the basic story was the best.Aliens was good partly because it had a very skilled and technical director James Cameron and it still ran with the primal fear formula.


http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=85253

interesting website;

http://www.weylandindustries.com/

[Dowly]

^ We have a thread about Prometheus
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//sho...d.php?t=179114

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by STEED

Just watched the Alien ones only and agree most part on what the commentator said.

ALIEN 10/10.....Directors Cut 10/10
ALIENS 8/10..... Directors cut 9/10
ALIEN3 6/10.....Ext Version 7/10
ALIEN RESURRECTION 4/10.....Ext version 4/10

The fourth film was a load of rubbish and a disgrace.

Thanks Dowly.

ALIEN RES was great! I liked how they made Ripley into some nasty kick ass B&tch minus the guns. .

my score:
Alien. yeah 10/10
Aliens. 10/10
Alien 3. 8/10
Alien Res 9.5/10

[Spoon 11th]

Steam sells Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 for amazing three euros.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/37..._7_7_151_150_1

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Dowly

^ We have a thread about Prometheus
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//sho...d.php?t=179114

I know it has been dead for a few weeks.

I have to agree with you though Alien Resurrection was .


I think part of the crapiness problem is caused by there never having been a solid plot from the start I do not think that they ever planned on making beyond the first Alien.Then you had Aliens which added its own ideas to the plot and actually contradicts the original though this was not common knowledge until years after Aliens and Alien 3 and Resurrection came out(unless you read the Alien book).I am referring to the life cycle originally the Alien used the bodies of humans and they become "cocoon eggs" (the cut scene near the end with Ripely,Dallas,and Brett) that contradicts the "hive" idea introduced by James Cameron who may or may not have known about the "cocoon egg" bit.Granted the hive and queen idea was interesting but the originally implied notion is much much creepier and makes the xenomorph seem more like some kind of weapon and either method of reproduction would be effective and they both make some sense.

The youtube guy is wrong about Sigourney Weaver being an A list actor(in 1978/9) Alien was her very first role as a primary and the other actors actually picked on her according the commentary on Alien.

[Ducimus]

Good analysis. Was fun to watch.

[P_Funk]

Its ironic that even though Aliens was good it basically sealed the fate of the Alien franchise by going from pure sci fi horror into more like sci fi terror action. Basically the preponderance of guns and explosions in Aliens meant that every subsequent film would end up being in some way as OTT with gore and guns. Alien 3 wasn't as Space Mariney as Aliens granted, but there was a helluva lot more death, even pointless death, than in Alien or even Aliens.

Why don't I like Alien 3? Because it felt like two movies cut in half and the start of the good was sewed to the ending of the bad one. They spend all this time intellectualizing things, adding characters, yadda yadda. Then they just kill everyone. What was the point of developing that very interesting Doctor character (basically the most compelling character in the whole movie) just to kill him all of 10 seconds after we learn the true nature of who he is? That was to me the biggest error of the film, basically to give us the most character exposition in the entire film and then erase that character an instant later. Wasted story telling. From there its just predictable cat and mouse to destroy the Alien, usual climax about how incredible the alien is and how it needs to be studied, not like that exact crap hasn't been said for 2 movies already.

I wanted to like it. I really did, but Alien 3 just didn't go anywhere that I didn't see coming. When it did go somewhere interesting like with the character development it basically nullified the value of this by killing almost all the good characters for the sake of the gory climax.

Alien Resurrection? Wow, that movie hurts to watch. If Alien was a serious movie you could put on your all time best list, then Resurrection is just... fluff. Kind of like if you try and imagine what Apocalypse Now would have been like if George Lucas had directed it (as he intended to before Coppola rescued the project).

AvP is about as close to one of those trashy computer games as a movie can get. Paper thin story, with no real characters, just an excuse to use CGI and kill people.

Why are the later movies so bad? Because they broke every rule that made Alien great. They showed the monster, made us lose the sense of mystery and fear and horror, they gave us as much as or more than we wanted to see, and the cardinal rule, especially of horror, is to never let us see "it" and always keep you wanting more (basic rule of story telling).

Predator again was awesome just because they did that thing where you didn't get to see it until later. It was dangerous and scary and fascinating because as Humans our survival instinct says that which we cannot see is most dangerous to us. By not showing it that appeals to that sense. Giving it to us like in AvP... who cares. It just becomes popcorn. Some people love popcorn. I hate it.

[Stealhead]

CGI is killing good cinema one film at a time only rarely does it really look good the best that comes to my mind is the T-1000 from Terminator 2 that was very convincing part of this is because they also used real life props at different points but that part where T-1000 walks away from the burning tanker and the part where he is the checker patterned floor and the guard steps on him walking to the coffee machine those are the best CGI scenes ever filmed another good one is the split face from the point blank 12 gauge that was a dual props and CGI effect.

The CGI in Alien 3 was awful CGI when used in conjunction with a real physical set can work very well (the T-1000 is a great example) at some point they went overboard with CGI because its much cheaper than a real set or prop so what be an artist and refuse to show crap.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by STEED

The AvP films were crap to utter crap.

Predator was a good film as for Predator 2 what a let down no where as good as the first was, as for the third one not seen it yet, may watch it when it comes on TV.

Edit
Just finished watching his views on the Terminator series and have to agree with him on that one as well.

Predator 2 was OK, but of course not nearly as good as the first movie, but don't let that bias you against Predators. Predators is nearly as good as the first movie, and in some ways superior. It puts the action back where it belongs, in the jungle. Also, unlike Predator 2, but like Predator, it will age well because it doesn't rely so much on current events and popular culture.

Don't wait until it's bowdlerized on TV.