Time to put my nerd cred at risk. Up until last week, I'd never watched Alien, nor had I ever seen more than 15 minutes of Aliens. I decided to remedy this by watching all 4 films in the proper Alien franchise (AVP and AVP: Requiem are not included in this franchise, as far as I'm concerned). So, here are my thoughts, which may be controversial to super movie nerds.
Alien: This movie is fantastic. I've always enjoyed sci-fi horror films, and watching Alien shows me who I have to thank for creating the genre. It's tense, original, well paced, menacing, and when you do get the glimpses of the Alien, it's horrifying and amazing. Considering this movie was made like 30 years ago, the special effects were fantastic. The Alien was completely freaky, and seemed lifelike and real. The characters in the film were pretty good for the most part. A few of them were instantly forgettable, but overall I would say this movie was amazing.
Aliens: I was blown away by this movie. It smartly picks up off of the first one, and makes a guns blazing spectacle out of it. As much as I like sci-fi horror, I like sci-fi action/horror even better. The characters are much better in this one. Ripley, Bishop, Burke, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, they all have good presence and are memorable. This Aliens were again awesome looking, and the movie had a great pace and plot, leading to an amazing final battle.
Alien 3: And then this happened. I didn't just dislike this movie, I pretty much hated it. It seemed to lose everything that made the first two great. The characters in this film are immediately forgettable. Ripley is at her least enjoyable here, and aside from her the best character in the film gets ganked by the alien very early on. That leaves just one more memorable character, the psycho-religious criminal Dillon. The characters were such a strength of the second movie, and yet they just populate the third with interchangeable scum bags. Reducing the movie back down to a single Alien was a good idea, but instead of growing the franchise in a new genre direction the way the second film did, they tried to recapture the tense horror of the original, and just completely fail. When the characters run up and down corridors for fifteen minutes at the end, locking doors and unlocking doors behind them, I had no idea what the hell they were even trying to accomplish. It was as mindless as the film itself, which was also paced horribly. Oh and you can't forget to mention the horrible special effects. The weird cgi/puppetry mechanic they used was beyond awful. The alien looked like a floppy meerkat skittering around. This was especially noticeable on the few close up shots, which employed the same great effects from the earlier films. Ultimately, this movie was mind numbingly slow, and culminated with a predictable ending.
Alien: Resurrection: Okay, I loved this movie. Just like Aliens, it took the franchise and did a new genre with it. This was an over the top, comedic, larger than life, almost parody of the franchise, and yet somehow it works. Again, characters shined in this one. Ripley is interesting again as this monstrous, hate filled psycho, and you've got this whole pirate crew of awesome characters like the sharp shooting Christie, the dead too soon captain, Winona Ryder, and then Ron Perlman doing a great job at being a brutish scumbag. The storyline is interesting, the writing is genuinely funny in a lot of places, and there's a lot of creative moments. Alien bursting out of your chest? Grab a bad guy and pull him next to you so the alien bursts from your chest, through his head! After being so boring in the third one, the Aliens were interesting again, and apparently super smart now. Setting up ambushes and using different tactics made them even more menacing than before. And the special effects were good again, unlike Alien 3. Ultimately, I think this one was very successful, and fit well within the evolution of the franchise. I can see why big Alien/Aliens fans might be a bit put off by it, because in a lot of ways it did sort of wag its tongue at the franchise and just sort of have fun with what was taken so seriously in the previous films. But to me, that's why this movie worked. It kept alive the spirit of jumping genres and taking the alien idea in new directions. There was no horror at all in this one, just big guns blazing, wise cracking larger than life characters, and some pretty ludicrous assumptions about how society had involved in Ripley's long absence.
So there you have it. My take on the Alien franchise. My favorites are Aliens, Alien: Resurrection, and then Alien.
