Alien: Resurrection

        After the disaster that was Alien 3, it almost seemed that the franchise ended on bad terms. There seemingly was no way to continue the series and bringing back Ripley since we saw her jump to her death. In one way, the studio wanted a do over and to clean up their own mess up by properly ending the series once more. What better subtitle than Resurrection to slap on the sequel. It’s practically a first warning of just how far the franchise was willing to try anything to be interesting. 

1. Somehow Ripley Returned

        I think in one way to have the series continue is to have it take place so far into the future where it’s basically a clean slate. Gone is Weyland-Yutani and in comes the next questionable organization the United Military Systems. The whole film starts as they successfully cloned a brand new Ripley after eight tries. They removed the queen embryo from her chest so they can begin what the Weyland company had been trying to do. Predictably, it all goes wrong. 

        There’s new characters that we see but I’ll talk about them in a moment. It really feels that they can never leave Ripley in a good place, or just try to do something different without having to bring her back through some convoluted scientific way. That’s probably my biggest gripe whenever a sequel comes along and tries to make a story happen and undoing any sense of closure that the prior entry had. The film does at least explain that the scientists did find some left over DNA of Ripley, but it’s one of those things where seeing it is better than being told about it. 

        And this is a completely different Ripley that we see. She is taught some things and what is interesting is that while she is a clone, she contains some Xenomorph DNA as her blood is acidic. Her whole introduction is weird as we see her in a transparent plastic tarp as she “births” out. It’s very artsy fartsy and there are moments where there’s weird close ups and it’s very French in some areas. It’s weird that Fox hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet to helm this one. I haven’t seen his films to give me an indication that his prior work matched what this Alien film was going for. Although, his film after this Amelie is highly regarded. It always seemed that after a bad Alien film, the director’s next film becomes a classic. 

        As I mentioned earlier, we got a new motley crew of characters that are only Alien fodder. We see the scientists and military for the USM. They are just stereotypical characters where they breed new Xenomorphs only to study them. And of course we have the rebellious mercenaries. Ron Perlman as the leader of the mercs followed by Winona Ryder who portrays the new android in the series. I feel that with this big cast, it can get crowded since it doesn’t help the movie with its tone. Like, it’s all over the place as far as getting invested or just cringe inducing. 

        To elaborate on that, there’s some seemingly comedic moments where it’s not supposed to be comedic. One instance is when one of the scientists is testing the Alien, he tries to bond by kissing the glass but immediately punishes it by trying to freeze it. We see him again as he part of the brood and he just eats the scenery as far as acting. That’s the main thing with this film where it doesn’t really know what to do with these characters but to kill them progressively. The mercs get put through the ringer but there’s never a moment where Ripley takes charge. 

        I feel that is where the movie fails, Ripley doesn’t take the lead since the crew does everything where it’s basically on autopilot. The android Call knows a lot about Ripley but doesn’t really help assuage Ripley’s distrust of androids. They do bond, but it’s only to progress the escape without legitimately bonding. It’s doesn’t quite match the same type of bonding as Ripley and Newt from Aliens. More than anything, the film is just a huge retread of the prior films. 

2. Greatest Hits

        People complain that the recent release of Alien: Romulus is just another retread of what came out in the past. While there is some validity in that assessment, I feel that people don’t realize how much of this film basically crams in the same iconography of the prior films into this one. In one way, they couldn’t quite nail the same beats without doing the exact same thing visually. Just the way the film looks harkens back to the Ridley Scott classic. With the claustrophobic hallways, and the few shots of space where it’s very reminiscent of the first film. 

        I feel that in one way, this is the first greatest hits of the film where it references the past films so egregiously. And what compounds it is that the film is an action-oriented film. Guns blazing without the sense of suspense since there’s no motion trackers or have it shot where the threats can pop up anywhere. More so that, there’s moments where it tried to be different such as the underwater scene and when we see the new Xenomorph variant. That thing is freaky, but it’s hilarious that it only appears in the final moments of the film. 

        One thing that I will commend the series is that they finally give Ripley some peace as the film ends. Of course, a retread where she finally can rest after surviving but one where she can finally start her life anew on Earth. This for the moment is the last time as we follow Ripley in her adventures. She’s the anchor to the whole series, and one of the defining heroines in cinema. I feel that her whole character evolution is really something as she has urgency and manages to take charge to survive. 

3. "Alien vs Predator"

        I haven’t mentioned the spinoff involving the two characters when discussing the first two Alien films. It only made sense that two of 20th Century Fox’s horror mascots would face off each other in various media. Since I’m not covering this spin off as the two films aren’t canon with the mainline Alien and Predator films, I’ll at least acknowledge their impact since that’s how I was introduced to the aliens. The spinoff did start as a comic book series that ventured off into the video game sphere. 

        The first direct acknowledgement of each other in film is in Predator 2. The Xenomorph skull appears alongside the collection of skulls in the Predator ship. Seemingly confirming that the two franchises are connected someway, albeit years and millennia apart. The 2000s is when Fox decided to adapt the series into film, and it was bad. Broadening the appeal for a PG-13 rating did no favors. They were my first exposure to the creatures, but watching itis basically a neutered take of what could’ve been an R-rated venture. 

        They rectified that by releasing a sequel and obviously emphasizing the rating to attract the more hardcore fans, and it didn’t fare much better. With the recent success and resurgence of the two franchises, there’s been talks of Disney trying to restart the spinoff franchise once more. All of it is just speculation, but it’s an easy task to fail when trying to portray two species duke it out as far as having a hunter and prey angle to it. As well as having the human element being the ultimate gamble of making or breaking the film. 

4. Overall

        Alien: Resurrection is yet another bad end to the franchise and one of the worst sequels to end a beloved franchise. 

Alien 3 Review

        Happy New Years! It’s around this time that I discuss another franchise. This time was tough since I had no clue which series to talk about. I wanted to avoid the ones where there was a good entry  and then the drop in quality was immense. To me, it makes sense to talk about one horror series. I think it’s appropriate to have an overview since the series is now branching towards the small screen with a show on FX. So throughout the month, I’ll be looking at the Alien franchise. 

1. Skinheads in Space

        Everybody at the time thought that the franchise was done after Aliens. The ending was a perfect capstone for the seemingly short series. Ripley nuked the home planet and killed the only queen in existence. Well, to say that this film had a troubled production is putting it mildly. For starters, there was five drafts of the script that didn’t get used. The fifth one was mostly a retooling of the fourth draft. Compounding the issue was that 20th Century Fox released a teaser that seemingly was going to take place on Earth. 

        Only that, they had a firm release date without a working script to shoot. The idea was that they didn’t care if the final product was good enough, and that people would still run to see the film, since the first two were financial winners. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case since David Fincher was brought in after Fox let go of another director Vincent Ward who had a script while Fox had a concurrent script that was being written. Already, nothing was going right and this was David Fincher’s first film. 

        To say the film is an unnecessary entry is one thing. Considering the way it opens, practically ruins any goodwill the film comes in with. And man was I upset with how it opened, since we see that both Newt and Corporal Hicks are killed as a Facehugger appears in the stowaway ship from Aliens. The android Bishop even gets destroyed as the ship descends and crashes on a foundry and maximum prison named Firoina 161. I can understand that the whole series involves just Ripley, it’s a real head scratcher why the film went about that way creatively. 

        So with that, we follow Ripley as she’s the only woman in the planet. She is surrounded by former inmates as she tries to tell them about the alien that was on her escape ship. While no one believes her, inevitably the Xenomorph appears and causes mayhem as Ripley suspects that she’s carrying a hatchling. 

        As I mentioned earlier, I can understand that the whole series revolves around Ripley and having the supporting characters from the last film removed is just a massive downturn. And I know what the film is doing, is that to strip away the things that will help Ripley like her friends and weapons and see a deconstructed look of how she can survive in a literal male dominated space. While an Alien is running around. 

        If there’s one thing where I’ll give the movie some positive notes is how the whole male dominated space is set up. You see, the men chose to stay in the planet as a way to get redemption since a majority of them are criminals to the highest degree. And they have a huge issue as Ripley is in their space and see her as a threat to their environment. The whole film has a religious angle to it, albeit not full blown but very subtle. It’s clear that the men have a monk look to them with their shaved heads and see the newcomer as a sign and of course the Alien as a demon that’s rampaging through their monastery.

        The problem I have is that it doesn’t advance Ripley’s story or build upon the company that reaches its supposed end. Like, having Ripley dealing with the creature once more now makes it personal since it killed the only people and android that she cared. And the company now has a chance to finally capture the thing and use it for their means. More than anything, I feel that the film would’ve been impactful had the inmates be criminals instead of reformed ones. That way Ripley would have to watch her back twice as hard and amp up the horror since she has nothing to defend herself.  

        You know I go into a lot of detail without talking about the main star of the film. While trying to be different, the Alien as well is different since this time the victim was a dog. I think it’s an interesting concept to have the Xenomorph have variants of whichever life form is spawned off from. It has the same face and head but having a more feral body as it moves in all fours. The effects are weak since the creature looks stiff since it was a puppet and the body suit was used in the only best shot in the film. 

2. David Fincher

        It’s understandable why David Fincher disowned this film. More so that he was so close to having his filmmaking career cut short because of what happened. He came from a music video background and it was more than enough for a major studio to hand him the keys to their biggest franchise aside from Star Wars. Not to besmirch his background, but he was handed a really bad product from the start. I think the one thing I can take away is that there’s video of him grabbing the boom mike and cursing out the studio. 

        A miracle had to occur for Fincher to finally get a proper reintroduction in terms of filmmaking. Se7en is one of those films where it defined Fincher’s direction and aesthetics. That one is when he had total control of the whole project. It’s interesting that both films focus on a religious angle, albeit one does it in an interesting manner, while the latter is Alien 3. Due to how it was received critically, Fincher disowned the film. 

        When it came for the obligatory film collection on home media, Alien 3 came with a special cut called the “Assembly Cut”. Out of all the cuts in the series, this is the only one where the director didn’t have a say in it. Most people say that it’s the superior version of the film. Even in the making of documentary that highlights the pains of making the film, Fincher wasn’t in it and it’s one of those things where I can’t blame him since he delt with a bad situation and the studio did not do him any favors. 

3. Overall 

        Alien 3 starts the downward trend of the franchise; I recommend only watching the Assembly Cut if you want to marathon the series.