Anyone else a huge fan of the Alien franchise?

[Kai Robinson]

I grew up as a massive fan of the first two films (the others not so much), which was helped by the fact my mum had a very, very tiny hand in both of them as a seamstress working in the props/costuming department. While i went out of my way to try and enjoy Prometheus and Covenant, i really just felt let down by the plot holes you could have driven a bus through and overall character stupidity that the first two entries in the series never had - the dialogue, pacing and story just felt...'meh'. While i do appreciate Michael Fassbender and think he does an excellent job, i do wonder if the execs in charge used his character properly.

However, having seen the latest trailer for Alien: Romulus and also managing to get my hands on some ACTUAL SET PLANS (from who, I cannot divulge!), I am so excited - i've not been this excited for a movie release since Pacific Rim back in 2013.

For anyone that hasn't seen the trailer:

Thoughts?

 

[trag]

I also liked the first two movies. I was working at NASA JSC when "Aliens" came out -- NASA JSC is in Clear Lake, 10000 married couples, 5000 single male engineers, and 6 single women. I saw Aliens by myself many times in the theater.

Actually, the first two movies did a pretty good job of bracketing my first time at college.

I abhored the third film. I could never understand how anyone would believe that Ripley would not have searched every cubic inch of the Sulaco before going into hypersleep.

I kind of liked the fourth (fifth?) one with the team of mercenaries. In retrospect it kind of resembled Firefly, but I think Whedon had a hand in the script, so maybe not so surprising.

 

[Kai Robinson]

I also liked the first two movies. I was working at NASA JSC when "Aliens" came out -- NASA JSC is in Clear Lake, 10000 married couples, 5000 single male engineers, and 6 single women. I saw Aliens by myself many times in the theater.

Actually, the first two movies did a pretty good job of bracketing my first time at college.

I abhored the third film. I could never understand how anyone would believe that Ripley would not have searched every cubic inch of the Sulaco before going into hypersleep.

I kind of liked the fourth (fifth?) one with the team of mercenaries. In retrospect it kind of resembled Firefly, but I think Whedon had a hand in the script, so maybe not so surprising.

Alien3 was just a mess due to studio interference, even David Fincher just walked off and disowned it. There were so many better scripts - one got made into a graphic novel (the William Gibson version).

Alien Resurrection was just....'ehhhh'. The horror element was even less than that of Alien3, all the Xenomorphs just looked like a shiny turd and the script was mediocre.

In my personal head-canon - everything following Aliens, doesn't exist.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I do like the franchise. I dont follow the story too closely so have managed to enjoy all the films w/o noticing any terrible timeline or plot holes. I always thought the human/xenomorph looked bad/wrong to me in Resurrection & despite the obvious flaws in 3, the over arching theme of lifetime criminals/socio/psychopaths standing up to do right was an enjoyable arc. As far as the primary big picture flicks, I did enjoy the prequel nature of Prometheus which for an Alien layman was a nice origin anchor for the xenomorph.

My favorite movies are the Predator vs Alien/xenomorph movies as I am a big fan of Predator/yautja culture and to have the xenomorph as part of that is just cool.

You can still build your own custom kaiju smashing Jaeger HERE.

 

[trag]

I can go along with your head canon. Resurrection might as well have been a completely unrelated film.

 

[trag]

the over arching theme of lifetime criminals/socio/psychopaths standing up to do right was an enjoyable arc.

In addition to the glaring plot hole premise for the film, part of my dislike was a personal preference kind of thing. Other than "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile" I abhor prison films. And I pretty much had to be dragged to those two, but enjoyed them after I was there. However, I was also dragged to "Dead Man Walking" and want that 2 hours of my life back. How that got the reviews it did is still a mystery to me.

Anyway, so Aliens 3 just wasn't going to be something I liked unless it was super exceptional, because it was set in a prison.

 

[Fizzbinn]

Alien = First movie to give me nightmares after watching on VHS (in ~1988 at age 11). The gritty realism made it connect at a level very different level from the Star Trek world I had grown to love, which didn’t go ”there”.

Aliens = OMG WTF was that! James Cameron’s epic bowled me and friends over upon repeated watchings from preteens to college. I feel like it’s almost a perfect movie. It’s a rollercoaster!

The rest: disappointing to meh, to kinda neat/somewhat fun. Maybe it’s just that I got older and expected more but none of them seemed to work as well as the first two (that did so for very different reasons). Alien III was the low point for me as I could not square its total downer story with the triumph of the previous film. Academically interesting I guess.

 

[Arbystpossum]

I really liked 1 and 2, but I feel like the series has been on a decline since. 3 was a little weird, resurrection was very weird, Prometheus and Covenant played out like generic horror movies wearing the aliens franchise like a skin suit. I don't mean to be overly negative, but I don't think Scott knows what to do anymore.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Well, I guess we'll get to see what this most recent offering will bring to the story

Besides a healthy dose of scifi horror, acid blood and face huggers

 

[Anden Selmani]

I snuck once into a kinema to watch the Alien monster movie, and I was very afraid at the bursting of the chest! Scarred for life as they say.

 

[Patrick]

I liked this video

an astronomer reacts to Alien(s)

 

[trag]

I liked this video

I quite liked the moment at 30:30.

Also appreciated his commentary on the dropship. It had been a couple of years since I got my Aerospace Eng. degree when Aliens came out and the dropship thrusting in the direction of orbital motion and dropping to the planet has always bugged the heck out of me.

Would it have killed them to point the nose hte other way around?

 

[Kai Robinson]

I liked this video

an astronomer reacts to Alien(s)

It's a good watch for sure - I enjoyed it. I quite enjoy watching reaction video's from people that haven't seen it - hard to believe that anyone out there thats an adult that hasn't seen it...but still, they all seem to react about the same especially at the dinner table scene...

 

[Patrick]

I quite enjoy watching reaction video's from people that haven't seen it

speaking of things thats surprising that people havn't seen it.

there is a couple youtube channels first time watching star trek. .... like TOS and TNG.

i find that wild. But i guess if you are younger you may not be that exposed to star trek.
...
(or alien(s) i guess)

 

[Kai Robinson]

speaking of things thats surprising that people havn't seen it.

there is a couple youtube channels first time watching star trek. .... like TOS and TNG.

i find that wild. But i guess if you are younger you may not be that exposed to star trek.
...
(or alien(s) i guess)

Yep - for the Star Trek side of things, i've been watching 'Target Audience' and 'Jen Murray' - Target Audience has good breakdowns of the episodes especially.

 

[Daxeria]

This seems like an appropriate place to recommend the Aliens strategy game for Classic Mac OS that resurfaced last year.

 

[Kai Robinson]

This seems like an appropriate place to recommend the Aliens strategy game for Classic Mac OS that resurfaced last year.

Wow, I had no idea this even existed...!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Wow, I had no idea this even existed...!

Me neither! Thanks for sharing @Daxeria

 

[François]

Speaking of games: Alien: Isolation is a must play! Available on a lot of platforms, even on iOS.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

My fav Aliens game was the late 80s side scroller arcade box.

Redirect Notice

Burned through a lot of quarters at the local ice rink playing this gem.