Alien resurrection - inspirational or pointless?

Lets hear your thoughts people!

 

pointless

 

While it?s not iconic in the sense of the first two, I certainly don?t think it?s the train wreck many detractors make it out to be. Jeunet succeeded in letting his own favored style shine through with a multitude of dark, comedic moments, while I?d dare say that the various space pirates are just as lively and individually developed as the fan favorite space marines from the second film. There?s a real rapport in a lot of the byplay going on between the core cast, especially in regards to Weaver, Dominique Pinon, and Ron Pearlman (which isn?t so surprising considering the latter two actors were previously established as Jeunet favorites.) And in regards to bringing back Ripley, I actually think this was handled quite well with the whole human/alien hybrid thing. It was a creative risk bringing back a Ripley version that?s inherently different from the character we knew from the first three films, but in the end I think this brought about an air of freshness and thematic depth that might have been lacking had the clone Ripley been characterized too close to her earlier counterpart.

I consider Resurrection to be a worthy installment to the Alien series, while every time I see the powerful ending to this film I lament the fact that, barring some miraculous turn of events, a continuation to the story left off there isn?t forthcoming.

 

you are standing alone there - it truely was a train wreck - cemented by that joke of a new type of alien born towards the end.

 

Stellar analysis.

 

i agree. i'd rather they had gone with a storyline from one of the alien novels from the early/mid 90s. those were more worthy

 

It had its moments, but as an effort to revitalise the series I think it was a failure.

 

I liked The Betty, the pirates, the conversation between Elton and the General, the underwater scene and the basketball scene. But it's not a good film, and far from a good Alien film. The Humalien = worst film monster ever.

 

I enjoyed AVP more.

 

It wasn't helped by the fact that the best actor in the film, Michael Wincott was the first main character killed. I liked the development given to some of the Betty crew, but Ryder was even more miscast in this one than she was in Coppola's Dracula.

 

same here

 

fair point, but I'm not prepared to point-by-point rip the movie apart as that won't change anything.

Simple analysis for me would be to say "movie sucks, watch Aliens again instead". No-one will disagree.

 

now that I think about it The2ndQuest has a good point. it was a good decent movie up until the last 15minutes. that newborn idea was just plain stupid. i'd rather there had been another battle with the queen. just have the Betty be a little bigger

 

It should have ended with Alien 3, forming a nice little trilogy.

 

It should have ended with Aliens

 

I kinda liked watching baby Alien get sucked out the window. The other characters were good, but I couldn't get into the new Ripley. She just annoyed me.

 

It was pointless, but not a pointless as Alien vs. Predator. At least for Alien vs. Predator they could of added a cameo apperance by Arnold Swarcheneger and just have him yell, "COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!!"

I don't know about you, but Aliens is better than Alien 3 and Alien Resurection combined!

 

Jaws 1: Outstanding, Iconic

Jaws 2: Good

Jaws 3: Fair-bad

Jaws 4: Abysmal

Jurassic Park 1: Outstanding

Jurassic Park 2: Good-fair

Jurassic Park 3: Fair-bad

Jurassic Park 4: Abysmal???

Alien 1: Outstanding, Iconic.

Alien 2: Good

Alien 3: Fair-bad

Alien 4: Abysmal

Notice a pattern?

 

I enjoyed Ron Perlman's performance as Johner. Perlman's great in anything and I loved his wisecracking badass persona.

Gary Dourdan (of CSI Miami) is also fine as Christie. His twin mini-gun is cool. But I dislike the way his character is killed off, they should have at least kept him alive for another couple scenes.

The underwater action sequence is fun.

Other than that I felt disappointed by the film, due to the following: terrible dialogue and lame attempts at humour ("fork"..."f-word"), the whole wierd cartoony vibe that takes away any suspense, Winona Ryder's terrible performance, Dan Hedaya is also wasted, underrated actor Micheal Wincott is killed off way too quickly, and not to mention the alien newborn is one of the most ridiculous looking movie monsters ever.

 

Gary Dourdan was cool and I think the movie started to slip after he was killed off. The alien spit in his face, but it didn't look to be fatal to me. He should have lived in my opinion. Ron Perlman was cool as usual. The newborn pretty much killed the movie for me, even though I still watch it from time to time.

 

I think it had a few good ideas...that were quickly squashed into a jumbled mess.

Let me put it this way: my Grandmother fell asleap during this film.

That's not a joke either - she kept snoring and had to be woken up.

 

Mostly pointless. But its problems stem more from the direction that Alien 3 took the franchise than anything I think Jeunet or Whedon did (except maybe the Hybrid). What I really can't understand is this unwillingness to let go of the Ripley character. The universe that was hinted at in Alien and to a greater degree in Aliens is IMO so very ripe for further exploration. I've always been fascinated by the very early history of Europeans in the America's and in a lot of ways the first two Alien films hearken back to that feeling of unreality and immense foreboding that you get when you read about these people who were so bent on profit that they went off into the wilderness and sometimes never came back. In short, its the setting that does it for me - a time of unbridled greed in a new world filled with indisctinct possibilities and situations that nobody really understands, which by extension makes the things they don't understand that much more terrifying. Here be dragons indeed.

But getting back to the main point, I've been disappointed ever since seeing the other 2 Alien films that the producers/studio/whoever decided that Ripley vs The Alien needed to stay the main focus of these films. I think the universe they've created as so many possibilites that by making these movies inseperable from the Ripley character, a lot of great story-telling possibilities are lost. Alien vs Predator got it half right, but the fact that the time-period was changed and it has a veritable Ripley clone anyway goes a long way to negating it.

In all, I think there were and still are a lot of interesting opportunities with which a good director and some writers could plumb the depths of what I think is a very richly detailed universe.

But of course, I think I'd probably go see an Alien movie even if it was just about the Nostromo making ore runs without any Aliens showing up, so take what I say with a grain of salt

 

Ripleys a good character, but the point of the whole series was the Aliens. Her story ended in part 3, there was no need to bring her back. Its like they were afraid to carry on without her. I for one wouldn't have been bothered if she hadn't been in resurrection, I was just excited to see another Alien movie.

 

Some very good points. i too think that the film was a disappointment. I thought that the "Newborn" Alien mutant at the end was lame to say the least. However, i did like Ron perlmans performance as Johner. As for the ripley thing, i think that the Alien films are not really complete without Ripley, but in Alien Resurrection, her character changes dramatically - she no longer really cares about saving people etc.

Anyway, keep your thoughts coming...