ALIENS versus PREDATOR - Page 3

This. Both groups are just riffs on the classic military squad that's been around at least since World War II films.

And really, I didn't feel anything more about Hawkins' death in Predator because he told a couple of bad pussy jokes early on.

With the exceptions noted, I'll grant you that. I question whether or not this is of critical importance, though.

Also, the Colonial Marines kind of suck. We never get to see them as an effective and cohesive squad. In Predator, we get to see firsthand that Arnie's commandos are really damn good at what they do, and that in itself is a nice way to characterize the group.

With the Colonial Marines, they talk a big game, but we never see it. They're ill-prepared and horribly ineffective, from Gorman's leadership all the way down to the grunts accidentally setting each other on fire.

Just how does Jesse Ventura's actions/personality lead to his death? He's standing in the jungle and gets blown up. Aside from Dutch, Dillon, Mac and Billy, most of the characters buy it simply because they're guys with guns who try to shoot the Predator and don't realize how outmatched they are.

An interesting and valid point. The only time that they're show as being collectively competent is during their initial infiltration into the compound. They're orderly and disciplined (with the exception of Hudson) under Gorman's command. In combat, the collective comes across as being disorganized, although individuals are shown to be calm, cool, and effective in their jobs.

Point to 'Predator'.

The Aliens are all gangly and foppish. Kinda gay. Predator works out.

They're never given a chance to be effective. They're sent in to a situation they have almost zero intel on, they have an inexperienced leader in Gorman, and they think the whole mission is either routine or a waste of time ("just another bug hunt"). Then they get confronted with the cocoons and the chest burster and xenomorphs spilling out of the walls. It's one thing to have one mysterious enemy out there picking off your squad one by one. It's another to be loaded for bear and be totally overwhelmed by something you've never seen before with superior numbers and which can come out of virtually anywhere.

Thats kind of what I'm getting at - the assault in the beginning of Predator is a nice way to add weight to the commradery between the commandos . After seeing them in action, its easy to buy into the history between Mac and Blaine, for instance.

Aliens is sort of at a disadvantage in regard to characterizing its soldiers because its Ripley's movie (as it should be). We're told that the Colonial Marines are badasses, and Drake and Vasquez high five each other and stuff, but because Cameron isn't really interested in their history together, neither am I.

Shouldn't Ripoll like ALIENS better, then?

I thought the wake-up, mess hall, and briefing scenes did a nice job characterizing the Marines.

If Michael Keaton played every Xenomorph, we wouldn't be having this argument right now.

Also, I'd say the large number of Xenomorphs is probably Aliens' biggest weakness. In Alien, they only had one creature, so they were able to keep it in the shadows and let the power of suggestion really do most of the work. This is also true, though to a lesser extent, in Predator. The Xenomorphs in Aliens look horrible and fake.

Take away the numbers and you're left with a retelling of Alien with a different cast.

The basic story throughout all 4 is "humans vs. aliens" but I find ALIEN and ALIENS to be light-years apart.

With worse characters, worse direction, shitty cinematography, less tension, and an obnoxious moppet. Other than that I agree. Also, I don't understand how saying it's a virtual remake helps the films case anyhow.

Well, when you get right down to it, Predator is a riff on that same style of story too.

I concede this point.

As Dickson pointed out, take away the numbers, and you have a rehashed version of the first movie. Of all the complaints or criticisms made against ALIENS, saying "There are too many" is the weakest. Cameron opted to tell a new, different story in the same universe. Isn't that a strength, or at least something we claim to admire here at CHUD? Rather than mimicking ALIEN and/or just switching out superficial plot points, he went bigger and in a different direction (action/war flick, away from horror/thriller).

No, we'd be arguing whether or not 'Aliens' is better than 'Multiplicity'.

Everything's better than Multiplicity.

Huh?

The critique was that ALIENS was less effective than ALIEN (and PREDATOR, I presume) because many xenomorphs are less scary than a single xenomorph. Dickson responded that if we pit a bunch of people against a single alien, it's essentially rehashing the first film. My add-on was that I find the "too many aliens" criticism weak and, frankly, surprising in this crowd. I thought we preferred sequels that dared to step in different directions, wherre the filmmaker (and/or studio) didn't just reheat the first film with a few different dressings. ALIENS isn't a horror film or a thriller. It's an action film with SF and suspense elements; it could be argued, IMNSHO, that it's more a war film than anything else. It resembles "soliders taking a last stand in the fort" a lot more than "unsuspecting people trapped in a haunted house."

Aliens is essentially Zulu with xenomorphs.*

*And before anyone asks, Zulu is far and away the superior film of the two.

I'd argue that's intentional. Burke kinda knows what might be there and intends to try to smuggle it back to Earth. So who does he decide to bring along? An incompetent/inexperienced leader he can more easily get one by.

Yes, let's press on with flamethrowers instead of falling back and rearming from the APC with either different weapons or different ammo. Stupid Gorman.

Not saying it's better or worse, but I'm inclined to think there's a reason why this particular group of marines were chosen.

Its got problems, but Aliens is still one of the best sequels ever made, largely due to Cameron's willingness to take the franchise in a new direction. I don't think the "too many aliens" argument can be held as a strike against the film. It just means you prefer the well crafted horror movie to the well crafted action movie.

And hey, look, through all of this Aliens has closed the gap to two votes! WE'RE WINNING!

"Too many Aliens"

Bizarre.

It's an old style Western Cowboys Vs Indians siege/fort story. Not a war story per se. The Aliens being camouflaged early on is a nod to those movies too.

Re: Drake and Vasquez.
The novelization had them in some kind of remand school/"wards of the state" brother/sister relationship. It's possible this was in the character notes, but never in the script. But they were also a separate team within the platoon. They were the tanks. So they have that in-built comradery in the onscreen relationship.

I was more annoyed by Ripley doing all the early business with the Loader and Hicks etc being super-impressed, when it's just the future equivalent of some chick showing she can turn on a fork lift (a shitty low-rent job/skill, as demonstrated in Burke's dealings with her).

Yeah, I can buy that. But I don't think Cameron wants the audiences thinking his marines are a bunch of awesomely huge dumbfucks. Gorman = For sure though. Hicks with his pump and the Tanks with their Dongles(?) tend to suggest they've been under a clueless commander or two before and so had some backup measures in place.

Another bit of characterization I liked out of Drake: He's portrayed as a badass, one of the alpha males of the platoon. He seems like he'd be the insubordinate one. Yet he's all YES SIR and NO SIR when Gorman comes into the main complex. He's by the book, professionally reporting his findings to his superior officer. I like watching characters within a film 'act'.

It does seem like once they stop listening Gorman and Vasquez shouts "Let's rock!" that the squad gets a lot more competent, or at least confident.

Heheh. In the overview, it's arguably Vasquez who's ultimately responsible for the destruction of the hive. It's Ripley who points out the sensitive reactor areas that gets the marines de-fanged in the worst possible situation (particularly knowing what she knows). The pouch with all the clips exploding couldn't have been too healthy for the various cooling systems, but the smart guns would have done some pretty heavy penetrative damage in those opening sprays.

The dumbness of the marines come from either Gorman or the pilots. Gorman shouldn't have ordered them to press on with only flame units, and the pouch with the mags was a result of that.

They still would have extracted easily enough and nuked the site from orbit if the pilots had decided to not be idiots and land to pee without guarding the drop ship and leaving the freakin' cargo door open.

Both. Gorman - due to inexperience and insecurity at being corrected by a subordinate - doesn't listen to objections or really think through what he's asking the troops. Nor does he plan ahead for real life contigencies. It seems relatively obvious that he was picked to lead the team on purpose.

That was pretty dumb.

I'm sort of surprised no one's launched into what I consider the worst thing about ALIENS: Ripley not being sucked into space when the airlock opens. It's really, really awful - the vacuum can suck out something much stronger and far more massive than her, and she manages to hook her elbow and hang on? It's so bad it nearly ruins it for me.

The rapid drop in temperature froze her to the safety ladder!

.......oh.

And instead of or.

It's a tie!

Wow, this thread has exploded like LV-426! It's like the geek Lincoln-Douglas debates!

Well said.

Thanks, Werewolf Girl. Glad to see people who appreciate that speaking up.

So an Arnie zinger amidst mass destruction during the opening raid felt more realistic to you? It didn't feel like an "extreme?"

You're not the only one, Richard. The briefing scene, as well, brings home their sense of "expanded universe." Ripley's clearly the outsider in the group there, just as she is during the dining scene. When she starts to wig giving her contribution, you get the same sense of unwanted intrusion into lives that the distress call they investigate in Alien has. "Why did we have to get saddled with this?", essentially. The Marines' comfort-zone has been well and truly left behind.

You've made a lot of great points in here, man, and this is foremost among them.

Thanks to "let's all meet the gang about to get it" screenwriting just as routine as the dining scene/briefing banter of Aliens. The chopper scene, in particular, isn't cinematic haute cuisine. It's diligent and effective, but hardly streets ahead of Aliens.

Does anyone else here find it funny that Cameron's being punished for having a clear theme? It's not subtext and, as such, is to be ridiculed apparently.

This has to be a joke, because it's hyperbole of the most forced variety. The "you're not reading it right", backed-into-a-corner battle and ensuing chase sequence (wherein Burke's character definitely informs how he dies, by the way), Newt's rescue scene in the birthing chamber, the final battle in the loading bay, none of these action sequences are anything beyond "really weak?" Laughable.

What a comeback!

I always figured Truman for a Cameron fan.

You know, even despite the shitty movies when I read "Aliens versus Predator" I still think "cool monsters, who would win?", not "let's argue for hours about which of these movies most of us loved is actually the better one, so that, by the nature of this kind of argument we all end up trashing one in favor of the other, in effect trashing both of them collectively".

I'm so so tired of this "either/or" online discussion thing. I'd say "why can't be be all both/and" but I might as well just wish for world peace.

Haha, complaining about that here is like lamenting about excessive caloric content on the Dunkin' Donuts menu to the clerk there taking your order.

I don't know, I've found good and engaging discussions in these boards. That's precisely why I happen to be here. Elsewhere, I don't think I'd bother.

Well, sure there's both good and bad discussion throughout the boards here, just like any other forum.

With regard to this thread specifically, yeah it's silly and it starts losing its appeal when you see people reaching and bending their own convictions and loyalties to get their point across, but at the end of the day it's harmless and kind of fun in the same "Magic vs Bird vs Jordan vs Etc" banter that goes on in bars, living rooms, barbershops, and workplaces around the world.

I love both movies, but I like Predator just a tad more than Aliens.

See: "On the nose"

There's a lot to be said for streamlining and simplification, particularly in genre. But push it too far and that theme becomes a lobotomy scar on your movie's forehead.

Here, here.  My thoughts exactly.