FRANCHISE ME: ALIEN RESURRECTION

These really are terrific write ups Josh thank you.

Can I assume that by skipping to Prometheus you'll be avoiding the AVP films.

Probably for the best, but I'd be interested to see your take on their impact on the Alien legacy.

Cheers again for improving my working day!

Watched Resurrection the other day and found it oddly enjoyable. I'd actually put it on par with Alien 3. The alien baby is a tough one. The design and execution are pretty terrible but there's something awesomely twisted about Ripley and the monster that's defined her ending up in this loving embrace.

I don't care what anyone says I really like Resurrection. One of the twists of the formula does is the Ripley in the movie is not the real Ripley and the aliens are not real aliens. You end up with hybrids and an alien queen with a vagina. Both have been perverted by the cloning process. The whole thing gives a nice idea of what might happen if Weyland-Yutani actually succeeded in their alien capture. While the newborn design isn't exactly scary it is a nice spine on the alien aesthetic.

 

It is definitely enjoyable to watch. Jeunet has a kinetic energy.

The thing that bugged me the most about this movie was that every character I wished would die didn't, and how much better it would have been with more of those who had.  Hedaya and Dourif should have been the real adversaries, one as a military general to a leader of rogue scientists and androids, and the other as a Dr. Frankenstein creating bizarre Alien clones/freaks.  Wincott, typically the bad guy because...well, his voice doesn't exactly come across as endearing, ends up being the resilient one and pilots the survivors away at the end.  Ryder doesn't really fit in any scenario, almost like they casted her as a replacement for Weaver if she decided not to come back (hey, we couldn't get Ripley, but we still have a strong, recognizable female lead)...and then they got stuck with a Plan B that they no longer needed.

 

I do find the parallels to Firefly interesting, as I haven't watched this again since it originally came out...even River being a cryo stowaway ties in to the hosts as presented here.  

No mentioning of the not-so-subtle romantic attraction between Ripley and Call? Ryder is awkward all over this movie, but Weaver is obvious playing #8 (I don't think of her as Ripley, but as a fascinating new character) as curious. The scene where #8 sticks her long Weaver fingers into Call's gooey white wound is especially unnerving. This is made all the more fascinating by the not-so-subtle attempts to contrast Call with Newt. The imagery of Ripley's form comforting and protecting a young girl harkens back to Aliens, but now it's more like two lovers rather than mother and daughter.

 

Also highlights Ripley's lack of interaction with females, in general, in the entire series. Ripley and Lambert barely say a word to each other in Alien, and Ripley hardly pals around with Vasquez in Aliens. There's a seed of a feminist thesis in this movie, but it goes nowhere.

This is one of those films that shouldn't exist.

I know this is an odd critique, but one of the most off-putting aspects of the Alien hybrid is its nose, which reminds me a lot of Michael & La Toya Jackson's nose.  And yet imagining it as some kind of fucked up MJ-Alien baby still doesn't make this movie enjoyable to me. 

I think the Ang Lee comparison is apt, there really is the strong vibe that Jeunet just wanted to make a movie about aliens, not Aliens. Another great article, it's so much more interesting to see an actual thoughtful deconstruction vs. "well that sucked."

 

As for what Michael Wincott is up to, apparently voicing Death in Darksiders II, which as far as not being in movies goes is pretty good I guess.

Enjoyed this write up, but IMO, this film and Alien 3 just dont have a real reason to be, aside from showing Fincher and Jeunet working sci-fi concepts; both films still have high and low points, but in terms of the franchise, they are irrelevant as far as im concerned.

Looking forward to the Prometheus article!

And please, no AVP whatsoever...although a look at the expended universe of teh franchise would be nice.

This is a movie on which my opinion switches each time I view it.  I'll watch it, and focus on all of the neat ideas and triply visuals, and really enjoy it.  Then, the next time I watch it, I'll remember that enjoyment, but find myself so let down by the story and the direction that I come away angry.  The next time, I'll go in remembering the anger, and find myself pleasantly surprised by the good bits.  It's a crazy roller coaster of disappointment, surprising enjoyment, disappointment, surprising enjoyment, ad infinitum.

To me there is the Ellen Ripley-Alien Trilogy and then A:R is sort of some strange epilogue that you either take or leave. I don't really care for it, it's an inconsequential entry for me.

Same here. When I think of the Alien franchise this one rarely comes to mind. It's more of a 'what if?' exercise.

I love me some Michael Wincott, and remember being pissed off he died so early. I remember and old article that described his voice as "gravel coated in honey", and that always stuck with me about him. Get him into Game of Thrones ASAP.

I love Call, but then I love Winona Ryder. She has to be one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century, and her work as Call was very intriguing, showing us a side of synthetic life we'd not seen before in the series. I especially enjoyed the undertones of her relationship with Ripley. I generally agree with the write up on Alien: Resurrection about it feeling like a slightly pointless film with it's unusual, very French tone..  but for what it's worth I still dig it. Also, I think the final human Alien hybrid is supremely creepy and unsettling. That face is deeply haunting. I'm not sure it's a movie I think is very good, but it's determined to forge it's own oddball path, and for that I have to respect it.

It's just wrong that the best moment of an ALIEN movie is watching a laser turn a cube into a glass of scotch.

 

I do like that scene. Wincott and Hedaya. I could have stood more scenes with them together.

 

 

This would please me. I'm not sure who he'd play, but this would please me.

Just a quick note on how great Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes are, especially Weaver's strappy vest. He designed The Fifth Element that same year.

Must be noted that after Ripley escapes from her prison cell she's suddenly wearing a new outfit. The first half of the movie it's a brown life-preveserver kind of thing, and in the second half it's a leather vest.

 

Certainly reflects the don't-give-a-fuck attitude of this movie, and I kind of love it. Ripley's outfit represents her new found sense of freedom, and the whole movie becomes much more enjoyable if the physical world is viewed as an extension of Ripley's perception.

 

Notice all the haze everywhere throughout the ship, like the fog and confusion in her mind.

  I do like Weaver in this movie and that is about it. She plays clone Ripley with a weird detachment. She doesn't seem to care what happens to anybody. The reason I think this is a weak movie is that I have seen it all before. People trapped on a ship with aliens after them. Its the same story as the first, just with more aliens. Of course it isn't as good. While I'm not a fan of Alien 3, at least it tries something different.

 

  I watched some of this on SyFy last weekend. Every time Ron Pearlman spoke, I thought that Adam Baldwin could play this character so much better.

No kidding "My own recipe. Way more dangerous." The whole thing plays like a proto-Firefly (with aliens), that's what really struck me the first time I watched it after being a huge fan of the show.

I love Ron Perlman. But he overdoes it in this film.

I think I saw a list of where they point out Ron Perlman plays the same part in several films.  There was this, Blade 2 and one or two more, I can't remember exactly (bit lame if it was only two though)

It's funny that only with pounds of makeup on his face does he ever get to play the romantic lead (Beauty and the Beast, Hellboy)

These Franchise Me installments are really wonderful and awesome. But...

 

look...

 

I know you have your (very good reasons). But I really do kinda want to see you discuss AvP and AvP: R. Doesn't feel complete without acknowledging them.

Same here. For better or worse they sorta part of the Predator/Alien series.

I might have missed what's up next, but maybe a run-through of the Predator films, with the AvPs as a sort of  very special cross-over edition?

 

No.

 

They are not.

No they are not.

 

The shame of it is there's an exciting, scary intense Aliens Vs Predator to be made, and now nobody will ever believe me because the reputation of that concept is so bad.

 

There was so much promise in the Dark Horse days...

 

    

 

 

 

The AvP2 game by Monolith got the formula right. Keep the Predator pretty much entirely out of it except for some nice teaser moments and the final throw down - and focus on the Aliens action. Playing through as the non-human species is actually pretty awesome too, particularly getting to be a facehugger scuttling through vents at the beginning.

 

But regarding those terrible movies - There's nothing goofier (in a bad way) on this earth than seeing a big rubber-headed space-Rasta wrestle a blind guy in an Alien mask. The strength of both franchises are thrown out the window just so you can have these two dildos in the same shot: All the stealth and tactics of the Predator are lost and all the speed and ferocity of the Alien is lost.

Man AVP2...  I played the FUCK out of that game...

I have trouble imagining what a good AvP movie would be like and how they'd fit the human element into it without making every scene with them feel like a waste of time.

Many moons ago I bought an AVP novel at a gas station while on a family roadtrip http://www.amazon.com/Prey-Aliens-Vs-Predator-Book/dp/0553565559/ref=cm_lmf_tit_2 and it ended up being a fun read; at least for a 14yearold.

 

I always thought the movie should have gone much closer to what that book did, which was pair a human with a Predator for the majority of the story. They adapted a bit of that element right towards the end of the movie, and unsurprisingly that's the best portion of the fucking awful film.

I don't see how you can not do the AvP films.  Yeah, their status in the greater continuity is iffy, but any more so than other reboots or the Rambo cartoon?  It would run counter to the entire spirit of the enterprise to skip them simply on the basis of being shit. 

 

I suppose they fit more neatly into the much vaguer continuity of the Predator series, since the Predators are more the protagonists in them, so I could see reviewing them as part of that one (also, it allows you to do Prometheus while its still in theaters).  But ignoring them altogether seems like admitting defeat.

I always feel bad for liking the second AvP movie. It feels like Predator 3 but just happens to have aliens in it. Even the Predalien is kind of cool with its disturbing pregnant chestbursting abilities.

 

I'll see myself out...

"Even in his thirties he sounded like Tom Waits and Lance Henriksen fucked in his throat, then both died there."

 

I want to make sweet, sweet love to that sentence. Sweet, sweet, Waits and Henriksen fucking love.

 

I watched this about a month before Prometheus and it was not near as bad as I remembered/anticipated.  Not to say it's GOOD, but not as ball scathingly bad as I recalled from seeing it like 10 years ago oh my fucking God I am old.

 

While I, too, would love to see AvP shredding, I dig the reason it's not happening.  Maybe  for the inevitable Predator Franchise Me?

I've said before, and will say again, I think the AVP films fit better into the PREDATOR series than the ALIEN series. And even beyond the mythology aspect, there is a very pragmatic reality here too... ALIEN franchise now has five films. Without the AVP films PREDATOR only has three.

The only thing that would even remotely redeem A:R is an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge ending with the whole thing being Ripley's imagination running wild as she falls into the furnace at the end of A3.

 

My bad.  Carry on with your sexy self.  Prometheus should be a great entry, as both the What Works and What Doesn't sections could both be as long as a normal entry in themselves.  Such gorgeous execution of a stunningly inept script.

I just wanted to see more writing. I am a simple man.

Ifm you ahd the time and the interest, I do think it would be itneresting to see the AvP films reviewed twice in this column, once in the context of the Alien series, and again in the context of the Predator series. But that would be a lot to ask even from such a skilled commentator as yourself.