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.