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A L I E N

… for so many reasons:

- perfect example of slow film making, letting the story unfold at its own pace
- excellent sets
- great font
- opening credits are awe inspiring
- realistic gritty acting - love the premise of the pissed of workers just wanting to get home

Blew my head off at 12 years old when it came out!

Aliens is fine - but it makes the mistake of trying to ‘rev up’ the stakes with lots of action. Some corny lines and hamminess- none of that kinda fat in the original - it’s all lean muscle with no wasted content, no frivolous filler or dialogue… as a watcher you feel like a Nostromo crew member yrself… in the sequel your just an observer being (highly) entertained

If Alien was Marques Moon (the song), Aliens would be Blank Generation (the song) - just a bit too much swagger

Two favorites. Alien is perfect, and there didn't really need to be a sequel, but if there was going to be one, I'm happy it was Aliens. Really smart that they didn't just try to rehash the same format.

Absolutely Alien is a artistic triumph, but it's not like the sequel is just all explosions. Despite no Giger, Aliens manages to include Space Marines, the futuristic weapons, the Drop Ship, the Space APC "cybertruck", the exo-skeleton Forklift loader thing and loads of cool set design. These are all things that have been since re-hashed a million times in Anime, Videogames, and Movies. Just focusing on the forklift for a second, it's really clever that they designed a lowly futuristic forklift, showed us how it works loading crates, and then worked out about how a futuristic forklift could be repurposed to fight a giant alien in a pinch.

Add to that pushing further forward on the intelligently applied female-centric themes that challenge the "survivor" template for these movies without being preachy. It's all very progressive and it all works. Sad how nobody in Hollywood has ideas anymore, including Cameron and Scott.

Bottom line: Yaphet Kotto + Harry Dean Stanton always wins.

Aliens is probably the best sequel that could be done. One of my fave movies.

But that first movie is just incredible, a game changer.

Alien is.

Aliens is a fantastic action movie, probably Cameron's best, in my opinion. I can drop in at any point and feel like I should watch it to the end.

Alien is a masterpiece.

Alien is a work of art and Aliens is a fun action movie.

Curry Pervert wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:35 pm Alien no contest.

Aliens is a decent film, but it's my least fav of the first 4. I also really like the fourth one, but it seems to get a lot of flack.

I think 4 is an unabashedly camp romp and is filled with many entertaining set pieces. I like it quite a bit these days (late 90s nostalgia? Maybe, but not entirely...)

But you are on bad drugs if you think 3 has an edge on 2.

M.H wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2024 12:39 pm

Curry Pervert wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2024 7:35 pm Alien no contest.

Aliens is a decent film, but it's my least fav of the first 4. I also really like the fourth one, but it seems to get a lot of flack.

I think 4 is an unabashedly camp romp and is filled with many entertaining set pieces. I like it quite a bit these days (late 90s nostalgia? Maybe, but not entirely...)

But you are on bad drugs if you think 3 has an edge on 2.

Yeah I love 4 for many reasons, and 3 is my least favorite. I assume we are not including any of the Prometheus or AVP films in our calculations, though that would not change my choices (or most others' I reckon) though I did enjoy the first AVP.

Edit: the more I think about Aliens 3, the less I can think of anything of value in it. The only essential parts are those that tie 2 to 4, which are really just the beginning and end of 3. The inmates were made to be scarier than the xenomorphs (and Weyland Yutani is ostensibly scarier than the inmates) and I don't think that concept is compelling enough to base a film on.

I love 3 ('Assembly Cut') even though the final act sucks shit - everything from the moment they put their final plan to trap the alien into action.

I dislike 4 even more than Prometheus or... er... the other one. Haven't seen Romulus yet.

Depends on whether you prefer haunted house movies or war movies. I prefer war movies.

ALIEN is a super-stylish haunted house movie in outer space. It's great.

ALIENS is a war movie about corporate malfeasance and motherhood, which is an insane swing for a filmmaker to take, let alone hit out of the park.

It also has my favorite cavalry-riding-to-the-rescue sequence of all time.

ALIENS.

One thing about the original Alien I love is that the shots of outer space look colder and more desolate and more real than any other space movie I've seen. Probably has to do with the practical effects and models of the 70s; there's just something about the look of those shots that really does it for me in a way that even 2001 doesn't.

Anyway, Alien gets my vote for all the reasons already stated.