Some thoughts on the Alien trilogy
If you were to make a list of, say, the ten most influential science fiction films and then another of the ten most influential horror films, there would be a very strong case for Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) to be included on both. Not only an instant classic, the film also launched one of the most important and enduring multimedia franchises we
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I reviewed Alien 3 when it came out for the local student paper. My opinion was it is was OK, but had to compete with Alien and Alien 2 and as a result, was being a considered poorly - a little unfairly I thought.
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I assume you've since caught up with the Assembly Edit version, what do you think of that?
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Nice review/retrospective/analysis/whatever. I agree that the realism of the characters in Alien is part of what makes the film as good as it is. I also feel that Veronica Cartwright's performance contributes to the tension in the latter portion; being a hysterical and gibbering wreck is kind of a thankless role, but that is exactly how a lot of people would behave in such a situation. Also, Giger's design for the xenomorph was one of those things that's so significant that it can only be done once -- like, after that, a lot of people seemed befuddled as to how to come up with a really interesting alien design that wasn't a rip-off of or homage to it. Finally, while Ridley Scott has, IMO, largely settled cozily into being a Reliable Hollywood Director and no longer demonstrates the sheer genius he once did (though he's still better than a lot of people), he deserves credit for creating a REALLY unsettling ( ... )
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As an aside, I'd also like to add that I thought Alien Resurrection was entertaining enough, but it was essentially camp and an obvious case of the series entering what TvTropes calls a "Franchise Zombie" state.
Prometheus had a lot going for it, but I agree that the absence of Ripley hurt it, and it seemed like it was trying to do 27 different things and ended up just sort of giving up on half of them. Someone else pointed out that the revelation that Old Man Weyland is Charlize Therons's character's father, which is made to seem all dramatic, has no real bearing on the film or anything to do with anything; furthermore I felt that it pushed the series into the dreaded "fan-canon" state at which point all that was delightfully mysterious in the early days is now part of a pedantically-documented "mythology" (see also: the post-Lovecraft Lovecraft "mythos", which was originally just a loose collection of stuff he pulled out of his ass as a sort of metaphor for weird shit in the universe that is beyond human comprehension ( ... )
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Speaking of which, Resurrection is indeed bad, but your inner 15-year-old may enjoy it. Much of the film seems to be devoted to finding new ways to destroy the human head, which is often a worthy cinematic endeavor.
I pretty much agree with what that article says, i.e. that a lot of Fincher's list is obvious but nevertheless solid, and that several films on it bear almost no relation to his own style, but that's okay. Ha, Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior seems to be one of the few films in history to receive almost universal praise both at the time of its release, and ever since, despite being basically an exploitation flick. (It was another "canonical favorite movie" of my family, actually, and I'd say it's another example of a genre film that perfectly accomplishes what it sets ( ... )
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