Ah, Alien. I have some issues contained within the full scope of this series (not really a fan of AVP – as a concept yes, execution… not so much) but overall I think it’s probably my favorite sci fi series of all time. And with the escalating news about Ridley Scott’s Prometheus my wife and I recently decided to go back and re-watch the series start to finish.
I’ve been told I’m nuts so in the interest of full disclosure I’ll say this up front: my favorites of the series are 2 & 4. While people generally seem to agree with me about James Cameron’s Alien sequel, Alien 4 – better known as Alien Resurrection- is the one that a lot of people guffaw at. Why I’m not quite sure. To me the series needed a swift kick in the nuts after the fairly disappointing third chapter*, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet – director of such classics as The City of Lost Children,Delicatessen and Amelie – was just the man to do it! And let’s not forget a script penned by Joss Whedon, a script that incorporates a crew of space pirates whose numbers include Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon and of course, the only slightly irritating (in this case) Winona Ryder, all of whom combine to form a sort of first draft for Whedon’s wonderful Firefly several years later.
The combination of Whedon’s words and Jeunet’s visual sense is what makes this flick. The grimy, mechanized and almost Steampunk disarray of the film’s setting, the massive, sprawling USM Auriga adds to the from-the-turn-of-the-second-act-forward frenetic madness that moves our characters into one of the most disturbing confrontations in the series’ (or Sci-Fi flix in general) history. What starts as Jeunet’s surrealistic take on the the Universe in which the Alien films take place, some 200 years after Weaver’s Ripley was killed at the end of Alien 3 turns into a full out Frankenstein-esque monster movie and what is, in my mind, the only Alien entry that comes across as a Horror movie with a capital ‘H’. Sure, films #1 & 3 contain textbook slasher film mechanics (again, not a bad thing) but they remain essentially Sci Fi. Resurrection has more in common with another rough-around-the-edges but much beloved Sci Fi horror film, Event Horizon.
Only Alien Resurrection is better.
SPOILER:: (after the image)
I don’t know of anything I’ve ever seen that effected me the way the final moments of this film did the first time I saw it, upon it’s release, with Mr. Brown at the cinema. The half-human, half-alien monstrosity is at once almost unbelievably grotesque and also so sad it draws a strange, salty form of tear to my eye to behold it and and it’s rage as it first slaughters its Broodmare and then turns to the Ripley-clone for the approval any innocent newborn baby would long for from its mother. Look at that facial expression above – YEESH! What’s more, during those final moments, as the monster is being slowly mutilated by the effects of the pinhole vacuum it knows its mother has created in order to kill it, the expression becomes one of the most surreal, terrifying register of betrayal – I can hardly even put it into words! And then couple this with the ungodly screams Ripley 2.0’s brood issues as its own final expression of horror at being murdered by its own mother… my skin crawls even thinking about this, so imagine how I feel when I watch it.
I feel like a good horror movie is supposed to make me feel, and that is the exclamation point with which I seal my argument that Alien Resurrection is one killer movie. Now, if Prometheus stirs the money pot perhaps we can eventually get another GOOD entry into the series, perhaps sans Predator (if they were worked in right that’d be cool – then again, why did the two franchises HAVE to become joined at the hip? Just another cool Alien, perhaps 200 years after Resurrection, would be cool enough, eh?)
………………..
* No offense to Mr. Fincher, who remains a director whose work I love and respect (for the most part)
7 comments
I agree. Though I’d put Alien 2nd , & Resurrection third
Alien was the original horror movie
Aliens was Camerons version of Starship Troopers
Resurrection had some truly great characters and visuals.And I agree that for Baby to die at the end was truly sad.
The Newborn is fucking disturbing.
I agree the Alien series is probably my favorite of all time(Aliens being my undisputed favorite movie of all time). So even though I have to politely disagree with you on this, I think we are still on the same team. I have tried to give this movie a chance, watching it in full several times, but so many things pop in my head as soon as I think about what I like/dislike about the movie. The basketball scene(echoes of Escape from L.A. and not in a good way), most of the supporting characters(guy in wheelchair, guy with dreads, etc) though Pearlman is great as usual. Also, Leland Orser type casting himself as the emotionally wrecked guy who is so scared he can’t help but stutter and stammer every line(remember him from Seven and Saving Private Ryan doing the exact same thing?). The ending is pretty good, and Sigourney is great as usual, but I can’t seem to muster much excitement for this one. Alien 3 has actually grown on me quite a bit over the years(THIS THING IS REALLY PISSED OFF!!! haha), but it definitely has it’s flaws too. Great article though, always good to see things from another perspective.
Have to agree to about Event Horizon. Such a great piece of horror/sci-fi. (YOU LET ME BURN!!)
I’m glad someone finally showed this film some love. I never really understood the hate. It’s got great Jeunet visuals and some good character moments and dialogue. Plus an exciting Poseidon Adventure style escape. I agree the hybrid at the end is hard to take, but I like the idea of it. The final moments of the movie get me amped up for some kind of Alien Earth Wars film they’ll probably never make.
I also love this one however it’s hard to take you seriously when you write about “The combination of Whedon’s words,” when clearly, the dialogue in the worst part of the film. It’s practically nothing but Tarantino-wannabe motherfuckin’ fuckin’ fuck this and fuck that and it’s a gross exaggeration to call it anything but a pile of garbage. It goes against how elegant the series had been up to this point.
This is a really good point. Up till this stage, gritty realism had been one of the franchises hallmarks, (blue collar workers in space, grunts in space, quasi-religious lifers in space), but no one in Resurrection feels real. Every single character wants to be a wise ass.
Poor old Dan Hedeya is probably the most violently caricatured, (bless his hairy shoulders), he’d be more at home in Galaxy Quest than the Alien universe. The less said about his death scene the better.
That said I think the premise is solid and the films were four for four in terms of great scores.
Yeah, the dialogue is a bit weak (and RCA, you are very correct in saying the basketball scene is terrible – it’s the best example in the film of bad ‘tough guy wannabe’ dialogue’) also, Ms. Ryder’s character’s dialogue is fucking THE WORST, she pops up behind Ripley2.0 here and there to bleed exposition or what we’re supposed to be feeling in the context of the series – NOT NEEDED (amazingly, once Ryder is revealed to be a robot she annoys me quite a bit less). However, the Whedon’s words I was referring to were not the dialogue, but the fact that if someone is a screenwriter then they actually write the movie before the director makes it. Granted they are no doubt given guidelines by studio exec’s and/or producers, however given that this resembles a first draft of Firefly, I’m betting a lot of it was all Whedon’s words that were then visualized by Jeunet on screen. Hence, dialogue aside, I still say the combination of Joss’s words and Jeunet’s visuals are indeed something to be taken seriously if you dig the flick.
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