Alien 3 & 4

Colmo52

With Prometheus coming out soon I decided to go rewatch Alien and Aliens the last two nights. Still as brilliant as ever.

I've never seen Alien 3 & 4 and I was wondering if they are worth watching?

If so which version of Alien 3 to watch. The original or the assembly cut with 30 mins of extra footage. I read somewhere that the assembled cut is based on what Fincher originaly wanted. (could be wrong) Thanks.

They both aren't great to be fair but watchable all the same. If you're the kind of person that likes to see how the story ends etc watch it I guess. A lot of the stuff is repetitive stuff from the first & second films.

Basq

I really like Alien 3 tbh.... but Alien 4 was terrible!

ebbsy

I remember leaving the cinema after Alien 3 ( yes I am that ould ) and so disappointed with it, although it had a lot to live up to. There was various scripts discarded for it, ( I thought the monastery storyline would have been great ). Although other people liked it.

The 4th had some interesting ideas, such as the experiments, but I thought it was a poor mans alien 2.

Roll on the summer.

Zio

3 is ok nothing special, the two cuts are quite different at points but I prefer the original cut.

Alien 4 or Alien Resurrection as its called is a complete disaster just and awful film. The same person that wrote the script for buffy the vampire slayer series wrote the script for it. That should tell how bad the film is!

Alien and Aliens are classics best movies of the scif-fi genre out there no CGI can complete with the effects of Aliens imo.

It's amazing to think how different Alien and Aliens is though. One is Sci-fi horror and the other is just pure action. I don't know which I preferred!

spankmaster2000

Zio wrote: »

Alien 4 or Alien Resurrection as its called is a complete disaster just and awful film. The same person that wrote the script for buffy the vampire slayer series wrote the script for it. That should tell how bad the film is!

You mean Joss Whedon? Controversial opinion what with him directing the soon to be released Avengers film!

(But yeah, I agree - I'm not a big fan of his either, despite writing some of the original Toy Story)

Zio

Yea true Alien is more tense/creepy as you dont get more than a just quick look at whats killing the cast off for most of the film, but yea the second is more action but still has a good tense build up to it untill all the shooting starts, its my favourite though had it on vhs when I was a kid watched it so many times!

indough

the assembly cut of alien 3 is better if my memory serves me correctly. i watched it recently when i got the blu ray collection but i hadnt seen the original version in years. it does have some dodgy cgi which im not sure was in the original cut or not. the 4th film is fairly crap in my opinion when you look at it as part of the series, but it is watchable enough as a standalone film

krudler

Zio wrote: »

3 is ok nothing special, the two cuts are quite different at points but I prefer the original cut.

Alien 4 or Alien Resurrection as its called is a complete disaster just and awful film. The same person that wrote the script for buffy the vampire slayer series wrote the script for it. That should tell how bad the film is!

Alien and Aliens are classics best movies of the scif-fi genre out there no CGI can complete with the effects of Aliens imo.

Joss Whedon? he who wrote Buffy, Angel, Firefly/Serenity which is some of the best sci-fi ever, horror comedy insta-classic The Cabin In The Woods and directing The Avengers? its not like he's known as a bad writer, far from it.

Zio

spankmaster2000 wrote: »

You mean Joss Whedon? Controversial opinion what with him directing the soon to be released Avengers film!

(But yeah, I agree - I'm not a big fan of his either, despite writing some of the original Toy Story)

Yea thats him, really dont like his style full of stupid unfunny jokes and flimsy dialogue. Just googled him there and found out that co-wrote the script for waterworld, gick!

Looking foward to Prometheus though trailer looks promising but trailers can be deceptive!

CL7

3 is pretty good. I know 4 is meant to be rubbish but I still liked it afaicr. It's been a long time since I watched it.

ixoy

Alien 4? There's only 3 Alien features: 'Alien', 'Aliens', and 'Alien 3'. I actually quite like the DVD/Blu-Ray version of Alien3 which is flawed but has some very interesting moments. But the franchise died after that until this year's movie. There are no other flicks starring everyone's favourite xenomorph. None - OK?

krudler

Zio wrote: »

Yea thats him, really dont like his style full of stupid unfunny jokes and flimsy dialogue. Just googled him there and found out that co-wrote the script for waterworld, gick!

Looking foward to Prometheus though trailer looks promising but trailers can be deceptive!

flimsy dialogue? watch Serenity right now, flimsy is the last thing you'd call it

Zio

krudler wrote: »

Joss Whedon? he who wrote Buffy, Angel, Firefly/Serenity which is some of the best sci-fi ever, horror comedy insta-classic The Cabin In The Woods and directing The Avengers? its not like he's known as a bad writer, far from it.

I never seen cabin in the woods which I think he co-wrote but I might check it out to see it but I hate all of those series you mentioned wouldent consider them top notch sci-fi at all, but thats my opinion.

Turtyturd

Zio wrote: »

I never seen cabin in the woods which I think he co-wrote but I might check it out to see it but I hate all of those series you mentioned wouldent consider them top notch sci-fi at all, but thats my opinion.

Check out Astonishing X-Men 1-24, it's his best work.:D

Thoms Yorkie Bars

I enjoyed Alien 3. Took the series back to what Alien was, although not as scary.

Resurrection I also enjoyed but only because of Ron Perlman and that actor whose name I can never remember

Canis Lupus

I've no problem with Aliens 3, enjoyed it a lot although let down by some dodgy assed cgi.

Alien Resurrection (I assume that's what you referring to as no4) was, is and ever shall be a complete abomination of a movie.

Phony Scott

I remember reading a leaked script for Whedon's Resurrection and thought, that's it, that's a true sequel to 'Aliens'. It felt epic and the last third of the script didn't seem to go completely off the rails.

The off-kilter tone of the film itself killed it for me, I don't know what the film was aiming to be; a pseudo western body horror comedy with a bit of the old European arthouse weirdness? Certainly feels like it.

I saw Alien 3 at the cinema back in 1992 when I was 14. I found it depressing and disturbing from the get go, glued together brilliantly by Sugery (I can never spell her name :P) Weaver's performance. I think she is at her best as Ripley in the third film.

The last third is highly generic though, all that boring running around gets tedious fast and it is damn confusing because nearly everyone looks the same. Love the final moments though, very dramatic.

The film is deeply nihilistic and simply won't sit well with some people. On the other hand, there are people out there who think the whole family unit business of the second film was mawkish and wince inducing...

klose

Alien 3 is pretty good if ya ignore the dodgy cgi, at one point the alien is a shade of red, then black like the original films then a shade of green or something?? tis odd! I never get why people hate on it so much, its certainly not as good as the first two but not bad. Alien resurection can feck right off, dosent make sense and is just so...soooooooo ****.

Off topic but avp2 was on the other night, said id watch a few minutes of it. Ya cant see a bloody thing in it!! Amongst every other aspect of its awfullness..


But ya check out alien 3 if ya can!!

Ryaller

Thoms Yorkie Bars wrote: »

Resurrection I also enjoyed but only because of Ron Perlman and that actor whose name I can never remember

I'm guessing that would be Dominique Pinon?

Thoms Yorkie Bars

Ryaller wrote: »

I'm guessing that would be Dominique Pinon?

No. Michael Wincott

pixelburp

I think Alien 3 gets an unfair rep for being a poor sequel, particularly when the infamous studio interference gets brought into the analysis; outside of all that baggage however, I believe the third film is stronger than people give credit. As mentioned already, it's a gloomy, depressing affair with few chinks of light, where Ripley's own desperation & fatalism is manifest in the very surroundings. A gothy horror story really.

Among the gung-ho marine crap of the second film (that in of itself has ruined the Alien franchise), it's easy to forget that these films were always Ripley's story, not the xenomorph's. It was a trilogy of movies charting one woman's personal vendetta against something unstoppable that plagued her life; that no matter how far flung she is across time and space, this monster followed her. The ending in the furnace is poetic and proper - it could only ever be Ripley who disposes of this menace.

As for the 4th film, well that's where the wheels started to come off really. It was where the monster became the focus - the celebrity - not the characters. I actually think the failed scripts are far more interesting to read than the final product: including the one draft where the Xenos became an airborne virus, capable of infecting anyone & victims would literally tear themselves to pieces to allow the Alien to burst out. Nasty. But the final film was a dreadful piece of cinema & a huge miss-step by everyone involved, from production to staff.

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 form a complete story & a rounded trilogy. Number 4 is like the answer to the question nobody asked.

Also: mentioning the AvP movies in this thread - hell in this forum - should be a bannable offence.

ziedth

I didn't mind Alien 3 so much TBH. I was crushed as a young Fella because Hicks was my favourite movie character growing up and he wasn't even in it but its definitely good enough to watch.

Alien 4 was poor with a handfull of decent moments. poor but better then Alien V Predator.

Mickeroo

Pretty sure the failure of Alien: Ressurection had very little, if anything to do with Whedon. One of the best screenwriters in hollywood imo.

Jonny7

Alien 3 - passable, awful Alien CGI and scriptwriter/director

lazily decide to kill everyone

Alien 4 - heresy plain and simple, utterly stupid, however if you enjoy Vin Diesel films then may be up your alley, otherwise avoid.

Zio

Zio wrote: »

Alien 4 or Alien Resurrection as its called is a complete disaster just and awful film. The same person that wrote the script for buffy the vampire slayer series wrote the script for it. That should tell how bad the film is!
.

Ah, but he also did come up with Firefly/Serenity, so that is redemption in my eyes.

Jonny7

pixelburp wrote: »

Among the gung-ho marine crap of the second film (that in of itself has ruined the Alien franchise)

Good gravy man, you were expecting a black and white art movie?

Almost every scene, character, line, creation, set-piece from the second film has become absolutely iconic, and for good reason, it's a 1986 film that has since rarely been matched let alone surpassed.

Sad Professor

I would recommend watching both versions of Alien 3. However, if you are only going to watch one version then watch the assembly cut. It's not what Fincher wanted, but it's a recreation of the last cut of the film which he had a hand in. He's pretty much disowned the film and refused to have anything to do with the extended cut. Interviewers have a hard time even getting him to talk about it.

As for Resurrection, I like Whedon too, but he has to take some responsibility for the film. The last time I checked he was blaming everyone but himself:

Joss Whedon: Uh...you know, it wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending, it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines...mostly...but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script...but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.

Source

Lemming

Alien 3, as bad a rep as it has, suffered from having three different directors AFAIK, but it was, as people have mentioned, a very nihilistic, depressing affair that builds and builds ultimately allowing us to see what moves Ripley to her final choices. The final scenes are poetic.

Alien Resurrection (#4); I'm really not sure where to go with this. It has its moments that are good, & I can see the mixture of Alien with Aliens in that it's not constant action, and a bit more creepy at times, but just ... failed to engage for the most part.

Character-wise; Sigourney Weaver's "new" Ripley was an empty pair of boots for most of the movie, and Winona Ryder's character killed any on-screen moments with her presence alone; the character just jarred and seemed completely out of joint and ... yeah, the director could have done the movie a favour by just leaving her on the cutting room floor. The rest of the cast were either non-entities, or amusing in some way shape or form.

But jesus did it take a turn for absolute debacle in spectacular fashion with the

evolution of the alien birthing process to create that absolute freak of an alien

With the impending release of Prometheus; I'm apprehensive. This movie will either r0xx0r in my b0xx0rs, or destroy the myth and mystery around the first two movies regarding the 'navigator' and the alien ship, and ultimately bury the Alien franchise.

johnny_ultimate

I must admit to not being particularly fond of Alien 3. It's a film that IMO struggles to find a reason to exist: occasionally resembling an iffy reimagining of the tone and atmosphere of the first. It's a film that I have largely forgotten in the years since I seen it. It's not a bad film, and certainly has things to like in it (if I recall correctly: as said, my memories are hazy) but I'd have very limited interest in revisiting it based on the first go-around. I do vaguely remember it being a militantly bleak film at times, though, but alas not a strength that negates the other flaws.

Have never watched Resurrection, and have little interest in doing so given everything I've heard.

Sad Professor

Resurrection is actually pretty good if you are fan of Whedon or Jeunet. It's basically an early version of Firefly. But if you are an Alien fan, it's utterly woeful and completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the series. A big part of the problem is I don't think either Whedon or Jeunet were fans of the original film. They just seem like they were doing their own thing. Say what you like about Alien 3, but there's no doubt that Fincher loved the original Alien and was trying to make a film as good.

Mance Rayder

Alien 3 was good IMO. Not as good as the first two but very watchable for a fan of the franchise. Alien 4 was just ok, watchable as a stand alone move but cannot stand beside the original trilogy.

Alien 3 is the kind of movie that you would watch if on tv as it's not bad. Decent cast in it too, as people have said it really does try to recreate the first one which it did a good job of creating that horror side of things. Still not a patch on the original. Alien was just a total shock when you first watch it, such a good movie.

pixelburp

Jonny7 wrote: »

Good gravy man, you were expecting a black and white art movie?

Almost every scene, character, line, creation, set-piece from the second film has become absolutely iconic, and for good reason, it's a 1986 film that has since rarely been matched let alone surpassed.

What the hell has arthouse B&W movies got to do with anything? My problem with Aliens is simply that it ultimately took the Xenomorphs into the realm of just being another monster in the closest, or glorified target practice as a swarm. Alien 1 & 3 understood the menace it could pose both literally & metaphorically; and as great as Aliens was a movie, it was the progenitor for the AvP nonsense.

Sad Professor wrote:

Resurrection is actually pretty good if you are fan of Whedon or Jeunet. It's basically an early version of Firefly. But if you are an Alien fan, it's utterly woeful and completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the series. A big part of the problem is I don't think either Whedon or Jeunet were fans of the original film. They just seem like they were doing their own thing. Say what you like about Alien 3, but there's no doubt that Fincher loved the original Alien and was trying to make a film as good.

Ok that I don't see, you'll have to explain that one.

Lemming wrote:

But jesus did it take a turn for absolute debacle in spectacular fashion with the

evolution of the alien birthing process to create that absolute freak of an alien

Don't think we need to spoiler-text a film that's now 15 years old. Interesting side fact about that Alien hybrid: the puppet was extremely explicit & had very prominent genitalia. The studio saw the FX, freaked out & demanded that the Alien's weird mutant male/female wang be edited out in post-production.

Mickeroo

pixelburp wrote: »

Ok that I don't see, you'll have to explain that one.

The crew of the Betty are a carbon copy of the gang from Firefly, more or less.

Sad Professor

Yeah, there's loads of similarities between the crew of the Betty and the crew of Serenty. Resurrection was definitely an early take on what eventually became Firefly.

FlashD

pixelburp wrote: »

My problem with Aliens is simply that it ultimately took the Xenomorphs into the realm of just being another monster in the closest, or glorified target practice as a swarm.
.

What are you on about man? You sure you've watched Aliens or did you miss all this part (below)?

The audience learns way more about the alien species in Aliens than Alien. It showed us how it isn't just another monster in a closet, it shows how it creates a nest, how it breeds, feeds "they mostly come at night, mostly" and has a colony structure.

Alien 3 for me is the end of the Alien saga, it's worth watching but is disappointing compared to the first two. It's fairly grim, depressing stuff.

Alien Ressurection is also worth a watch but really has no connection to the first 3 films. Stylish cheesy fun.

fluke

I've come to a point now where I'm okay at best with 3 & 4 but (here's a real fanboy thing) I don't consider them to be canon. Even though Alien & Aliens are different movies they feel like they exist in the same universe. The tone after that is off-kilter and 3 & 4 almost feel like alternative universe stories.

Somebody else wrote in the thread that with 4 they moved away from character based stuff to focusing on the monster. It's odd because I feel like they got the balance right in the first two movies and then come the third movie it just went to hell.

First there was these shitty Brit prison characters, who all look the same, they're unmemorable (except for the doctor character). In the first two films there were an array of interesting and fun characters to root for... who gives a shit about scumbag prisoners? Newt and Hicks are killed off and we get these, yeah great job...

Also as a result of that (and to an extent the second film) the film focuses way too much on Ripley, and her relationship with the alien, even having looked at the failed scripts like the wooden planet (which is interesting) the writers seemed hellbent on it being all about Ripley. I like Ripley's character but with the focus largely on her the writers would only end up going down the obvious route of her sacrificing herself. Really I felt like her character arc nicely closed with Aliens. In essence if Prometheus is good (no great) then maybe that will be the proper trilogy - Prometheus, Alien & Aliens.

Alien 3 does have some nice set design and music going for it, but that's about it.

As for Alien: Resuscitation well don't bother. I liked it when I was younger just because it wasn't as grim as 3. It's a turd, shit effects, shit hybrid and shit characters. I recently saw an alternative ending where they land on earth and Ripley is talking to Call and it's revealed they've landed (albeit with ropey Betty effects) in Paris. I was like fuck off...stupid French angle...what the...ugh!

To the original poster don't bother with 3 & 4, no really, because if you do every time you watch the first two you'll be reminded of what happens next - what is seen can't be unseen.

Sad Professor

I love Aliens. It's a kick-ass action film and one of the finest sequels ever made. However, it reduced the "perfect organism" of the first film to a bunch of mindless drones that throw themselves in front of machine gun fire. As a result, Cameron pretty much killed the xenomorph for future films. It would never be scary again.

fluke

Sad Professor wrote: »

I love Aliens. It's a kick-ass action film and one of the finest sequels ever made. However, it reduced the "perfect organism" of the first film to a bunch of mindless drones that throw themselves in front of machine gun fire. As a result, Cameron pretty much killed the xenomorph for future films. It would never be scary again.

It's funny you say that because just as I was writing up my post I thought of how I love 1 & 2, Aliens is one of my favorite movies of all time and I actually saw that first years ago when I was 12 I think, then I saw 3, then 4 and then 1 (odd i know). I'm not afraid to admit it though but when you put Aliens beside Alien, Aliens is like a souped up version of the first one - this one goes to 11!

Zio

krudler wrote: »

flimsy dialogue? watch Serenity right now, flimsy is the last thing you'd call it

I seen it and its still what I'd call it! Its all a horrible wild west influenced sci fi mess! I dont like Joss Whedons style all his stuff just deosent have any substance with cheesey dialogue just nothing memorable. Like I said before its my opinion, people like his stuff and people dont like it, theres no point trying to convince me otherwise.

krudler

Sad Professor wrote: »

I love Aliens. It's a kick-ass action film and one of the finest sequels ever made. However, it reduced the "perfect organism" of the first film to a bunch of mindless drones that throw themselves in front of machine gun fire. As a result, Cameron pretty much killed the xenomorph for future films. It would never be scary again.

I love Aliens as well, its how you do a sequel, different from the original but maintains the basic feel of it, just ramps up everything, Alien is a horror movie, Aliens is an action film. Its still got one of the best climactic acts to a movie ever, from Ripley tooling herself up on the dropship going after Newt to the fight with the powerloader its one extended action sequence after another.

pixelburp

FlashD wrote: »

What are you on about man? You sure you've watched Aliens or did you miss all this part (below)?

The audience learns way more about the alien species in Aliens than Alien. It showed us how it isn't just another monster in a closet, it shows how it creates a nest, how it breeds, feeds "they mostly come at night, mostly" and has a colony structure.

Alien 3 for me is the end of the Alien saga, it's worth watching but is disappointing compared to the first two. It's fairly grim, depressing stuff.

Alien Ressurection is also worth a watch but really has no connection to the first 3 films. Stylish cheesy fun.

Think you're missing my point. As Sad Professor has already said, Cameron changed the nature of the beast & turned the Xenomorph into something it wasn't before. The details aren't really important, I personally thought The xenos were far more effective as the lone terror than the faceless swarm the creatures became in the 2nd movie. It's still a great film (not even going to dignify that part with a defence of my love for the film) but the change to the mythology ultimately damaged the franchise's chops as a horror concept in the long-run.

johnny_ultimate

Aye, I'd definitely agree with Aliens irrevocably altering the nature of one of cinema's finest monsters. It's a huge leap from overpowered predator to canon fodder, and a leap that was only pulled off once due to Cameron's craftmanship.

Looking at the trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines - the upcoming first person shooter - and it just looks like another massacre simulator in many regards. Imagine an Alien game where there's only one enemy, instead of hundreds of them. Perhaps it's outside the realm of what developers are capable of and what a demanding audience expect, but to me it's simply another indicator of how a franchise initially defined by horror has sadly become one defined by action.

Mickeroo

pixelburp wrote: »

Think you're missing my point. As Sad Professor has already said, Cameron changed the nature of the beast & turned the Xenomorph into something it wasn't before. The details aren't really important, I personally thought The xenos were far more effective as the lone terror than the faceless swarm the creatures became in the 2nd movie. It's still a great film (not even going to dignify that part with a defence of my love for the film) but the change to the mythology ultimately damaged the franchise's chops as a horror concept in the long-run.

I don't think it changed the mythology at all, it just added to it and it fit with what we already knew in the first movie. The xeno needed to be impregnated into something by a facehugger, the facehugger came from an egg, all aliens did is showed what laid the eggs. Going by the amount of eggs in the chamber it was logical that in a normal setting there would be tonnes of xenos.

I know there was stuff in the directors cut that may have suggested a slightly different physiology in the first movie iirc, but as a continuation of the the original cut I don't see any major change, only in the quantity of xenos. Personally I find the idea of a xeno swarm scarier, though obviously Alien is the scarier film

Mickeroo

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Aye, I'd definitely agree with Aliens irrevocably altering the nature of one of cinema's finest monsters. It's a huge leap from overpowered predator to canon fodder, and a leap that was only pulled off once due to Cameron's craftmanship.

Looking at the trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines - the upcoming first person shooter - and it just looks like another massacre simulator in many regards. Imagine an Alien game where there's only one enemy, instead of hundreds of them. Perhaps it's outside the realm of what developers are capable of and what a demanding audience expect, but to me it's simply another indicator of how a franchise initially defined by horror has sadly become one defined by action.

That game has been in development for bloody ages, guts of ten years! In fairness though, if there's only one xeno and the people have guns, the people will come out on top imo, the only reason it did so well in the first movie was the claustrophobic setting and the crews incompetence with the flame throwers.

johnny_ultimate

I think the problem is that guns seem like such a, shall we say, 'lazy' solution. It's a tool that gives the wielder an unfair advantage, in stark contrast to the first film where the lack of tools is what defined the horror. We get so many films and games that are simple blast-a-thons, and the Xenomorph is a creature that initially seemed well beyond mere cannon fodder. If you encountered one, you were more or less ****ed. Introducing guns almost made it too easy.

I doubt many will deny Aliens is a damn good film. But a part of me would love to see a true successor to the original, in film or game form. And watching Colonial Marines - which resembles the countless other gruff space marine simulators we've seen - I can't help but think of the interesting game that could've emerged had they went back to its roots.

Still, better than more AvP nonsense :pac:

krudler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I think the problem is that guns seem like such a, shall we say, 'lazy' solution. It's a tool that gives the wielder an unfair advantage, in stark contrast to the first film where the lack of tools is what defined the horror. We get so many films and games that are simple blast-a-thons, and the Xenomorph is a creature that initially seemed well beyond mere cannon fodder. If you encountered one, you were more or less ****ed. Introducing guns almost made it too easy.

I doubt many will deny Aliens is a damn good film. But a part of me would love to see a true successor to the original, in film or game form. And watching Colonial Marines - which resembles the countless other gruff space marine simulators we've seen - I can't help but think of the interesting game that could've emerged had they went back to its roots.

Still, better than more AvP nonsense :pac:

except, y'know all but 4 people out of a group nearly two dozen survive.

Cameron did do a good job of not ever making the Marines seem overpowered, like not being able to fire their pulse rifles in the nest and having not many supplies after the dropship crash. And with the xenomorphs having guns is only really an advantage in an open area, firing at them in enclosed spaces is going to get you a faceful of acid, as Drake finds out.

I like how the xenomorphs adapt to their environment, I think it was in the novelisation for Aliens that its suggested in the abscence of a queen then a "regular" xeno can lay eggs itself to restart the cycle, its why Dallas is cocooned in the original movie in that deleted scene, otherwise they're like bees or ants who have a colony mindset.

Mickeroo

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I think the problem is that guns seem like such a, shall we say, 'lazy' solution. It's a tool that gives the wielder an unfair advantage, in stark contrast to the first film where the lack of tools is what defined the horror. We get so many films and games that are simple blast-a-thons, and the Xenomorph is a creature that initially seemed well beyond mere cannon fodder. If you encountered one, you were more or less ****ed. Introducing guns almost made it too easy.

I doubt many will deny Aliens is a damn good film. But a part of me would love to see a true successor to the original, in film or game form. And watching Colonial Marines - which resembles the countless other gruff space marine simulators we've seen - I can't help but think of the interesting game that could've emerged had they went back to its roots.

Still, better than more AvP nonsense :pac:

I like the AvP games, and the one or two comics I've read, less said about the films the better.
I get what you're saying though, maybe a game a less gung-ho approach could be good alright, I could see more of a survival horror approach working with Alien, something along the lines of Silent Hill. Probably not the best comparison, but you get what i mean.

pixelburp

The new Aliens game is a completely wasted opportunity, but for the gung-ho types who just want to fire some pulse rifles, they won't know what the big problem is. But then gaming as a medium is being dumbed down beyond belief & even the old-guard of the Survival Horror genre are being made action-friendly (Resident Evil & Silent Hill)

Guns negate the power of any horror full-stop. Looking outside of the Alien franchise & at horror in general, one of the staple concepts of horror is the feeling of powerlessness & vulnerability. Guns simply can't figure; even in Aliens Cameron had to contrive situations where guns couldn't be used (the reactor), or where their ammo got conveniently destroyed. This is where Aliens was strongest of course.

krudler wrote:

I like how the xenomorphs adapt to their environment, I think it was in the novelisation for Aliens that its suggested in the abscence of a queen then a "regular" xeno can lay eggs itself to restart the cycle, its why Dallas is cocooned in the original movie in that deleted scene, otherwise they're like bees or ants who have a colony mindset.

It has been a while since I saw the deleted scene last, but I gathered that the captured crew were slowly morphing into eggs themselves, answering the question of where the eggs on LV-426 came from. So it's kind of a shame this got abandoned as an idea in favor of a Queen / hive concept, as I thought it a better continuation of sort of body-horror Alien was about