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The half that's factual, obviously.

I like the original film a lot, but I think it's a little weak on the characterisation and dialogue fronts. It's also somewhat over-analysed subtextually, and I have a bit of a grievence with Ridley Scott making visually pretty, near-silent sci-fi films that get analysed to death.

I think Cameron's film is generally stronger in all departments and I think he took on and developed the idea brilliantly. The original is essentially a tarted-up '50s creature-feature B-movie, but Aliens did something very new with it.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J The half that's factual, obviously. I like the original film a lot, but I think it's a little weak on the characterisation and dialogue fronts. It's also somewhat over-analysed subtextually, and I have a bit of a grievence with Ridley Scott making visually pretty, near-silent sci-fi films that get analysed to death. I think Cameron's film is generally stronger in all departments and I think he took on and developed the idea brilliantly. The original is essentially a tarted-up '50s creature-feature B-movie, but Aliens did something very new with it.

I don't know, I feel like the building anticipation throughout the first Alien is what makes it so special. It's not a bunch of Marines blasting their way through hordes of aliens. It adds an element of mystery to what the aliens even are, as you don't even see it through the majority of the movie. I can see your issues with it, but I think that's what makes it special. It's not just a sci-fi thriller action movie.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 I don't know, I feel like the building anticipation throughout the first Alien is what makes it so special. It's not a bunch of Marines blasting their way through hordes of aliens. It adds an element of mystery to what the aliens even are, as you don't even see it through the majority of the movie. I can see your issues with it, but I think that's what makes it special. It's not just a sci-fi thriller action movie.

If you think Aliens is just "a bunch of Marines blasting their way through hordes of aliens" you simply weren't paying attention. This is particularly true if you watch the original cinematic cut and not that shitty and unnecessary Director's Cut that was released entirely to shift a few more DVDs. It's a long way into the film before you actually see a xenomorph or find out what happened to the colonists, and at no point do the marines ever have anything resembling control over their situation. Aliens has just as much tension and release as the original film, and while it doesn't have the same mystery about it, I like the more rigorous expansion of the film's universe.

And you think skeletal dialogue and characters are what make Alien special?

I like all of them equally..

I think anything past the discovery of the alien ship, in Alien, was mostly a horror film suspended in a Sci-Fi setting patched together out of its superficially explored conventions (i.e. Artificial Intelligence Malfunction). It's one outstanding merit is its artistic conception.

Aliens was much better.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And you think skeletal dialogue and characters are what make Alien special?

I meant the visually pretty, near-silent part. I agree with Eddie though, that it's almost more of a horror movie than a sci-fi movie. I guess I like that because I really enjoy those types of horror movies that are more anticipation, and less slashing.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker Aliens was much better.

Yes. And Eddie, do you just talk yourself to climax?

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Originally posted by srussell0018 I meant the visually pretty, near-silent part. I agree with Eddie though, that it's almost more of a horror movie than a sci-fi movie. I guess I like that because I really enjoy those types of horror movies that are more anticipation, and less slashing.

There's very little science fiction element to the first film; perhaps the cockpit on the derelict ship is the only truly fictional thing the movie proposes. We have no idea how such a contraption might work, or why this gargantuan creature might need such an elaborate and fantastic device to operate an apparently once-functional boneship of odious design, the counter-point being the eventual take-off scene just a few segments later where it takes an entire human crew just to adequately propel their space 18-wheeler off Acheron.

I like to think of the first Alien as a pure horror film in antithesis to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original Chainsaw Massacre used a lot of sudden and grating sound effects to not only break its suspense, but to further it at the most disjointed times in what would essentially become canon for American and Italian Horror. Alien takes this concept and flips it on its head, as if to say that this killer is completely silent, it has no need for intimidation nor showy scare tactics, as it lacks any pathos whatsoever; It's horror is that which we instill ourselves with when we are quiet and alone, though the alien itself is, ironically, quite alien to this very concept. You know, like immigrants.

Hyes, quite.

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On There's very little science fiction element to the first film; perhaps the cockpit on the derelict ship is the only truly fictional thing the movie proposes.

Actually, in theoretical terms the alien itself is pretty much a pure science fiction device: a thematically metonymic "point of departure" and "an encounter with Otherness", rationally grounded and logically explored in a pseudo-scientific discourse (quite literally, in the film, by a "science officer" character).

There's also very little difference between science fiction and horror. It's significant that the prototypical science fiction texts came from gothic writers like Poe and Mary Shelley. A lot of HG Wells' work was extremely nightmarish and Lovecraft revolutionised the macabre by bringing in tentacled contractors from deep space.

I just like the idea that it was only one alien in the first movie. It wasn't an entire horde of them like in Aliens. Also, even though the Marines may not have known what happened to the colony in Aliens, the viewer still did, which took all of the shock element from the first film out of the equation.

In Alien, it was a single alien almost stalking its prey silently throughout the vast majority of the movie. It wasn't battling soldiers, it was hunting relatively "normal" people, with the exception of the cyborg character. Not showing the creature until near the end was what made it so unique and so much different than the second. I did enjoy the second (minus Bill Paxton's acting), but I just don't really find the military aspect of it very appealing.

Which modern viewer doesn't know what's going to happen to the crew of the Nostromo when they touch down on LV-426 in a film called Alien with a tagline "In space no one can hear you scream" that borrows liberally from older sci-fi films and is itself one of the most widely referenced and imitated sci-fi/horror films of all time?

In both films, you already know that the characters are going to have an unpleasant encounter with an alien. The tension comes from waiting to see exactly how it's going to pan out. One of the most effective devices for creating narrative irony is letting the audience know what the characters don't, and the first half of Aliens is all about an over-confident and under-prepared military unit marching into a situation they're completely unequipped to deal with.

For me, Aliens remains a more absorbing film even after a billion re-watches, because it is character driven. The characters are committing the hubris and mistakes that lead to their downfall, and in the second half of the film there's obvious development as most of the marines become decidedly more contrite, and Ripley gains a sense of vindicated authority. The characters in Alien don't really develop at all, such as they exist in the first place. Kane, Brett and Dallas in particular are just alien-fodder.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Which modern viewer doesn't know what's going to happen to the crew of the Nostromo when they touch down on LV-426 in a film called Alien with a tagline "In space no one can hear you scream" that borrows liberally from older sci-fi films and is itself one of the most widely referenced and imitated sci-fi/horror films of all time?

In the poster/movie cover all you see is an egg. You never know what the alien looks like, how it kills, etc. until you actually see it, which is nearly at the end of the movie. In Aliens, you already know what the aliens look like, what they sound like, how they move, how they kill, etc. I didn't really know anything about it when I first saw it, obviously since it's such a classic sci-fi film now, that aspect of the movie would be lost. Still, I find it to be much more tense than Aliens. The element of suspense in the first one can't really be duplicated by any sequels.

The tagline just adds to that imo. The viewer knows something bad is going to happen, but not when or how.

See my edit.

I found you guys a cheap room. Nothing fancy, but it'll do the trick.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J See my edit.

I agree with the character development issue you have with Alien, but I would argue that it's not really an issue for the film. The seemingly never-ending suspense has little to do with the characters. The viewer doesn't care about who the characters are, or how they're reacting to the stress of the seemingly invisible intruder. They're on the edges of their seat wanting to see what it is that's hunting them. You're right that they are two completely different styles of movies, so which one is "better" is obviously completely opinion based, I'm just saying that what I think makes Alien so great isn't dependent on acting or character development at all really. The characters are fairly irrelevant to the goal of the movie, which is to keep you guessing until the end.

Edit: You clearly know a lot more about film than I do, so I don't want to get into an argument about the various film conventions that make either movie so great. I'm just saying why I like the first one better.

I had a dream about a battle between superheroes and aliens when I was a young. They fought eachother on my grandmothers front lawn. I climbed the apple tree just to be safe from the fighting. I watched from where I hid as superhero and alien battled it out to their deaths. Supeman had his penis hacked off and green ooze started pouring from the svered tip. But he grew a replacement out of his ass and launched into the sky like a rocket.

Blade Runner

Bladerunner

Ghost Busters

Temple of Doom

Predator

Aliens

infact...gonna watch temple of doom tonight with the lady just cause.

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Originally posted by BTG Temples of Boom

Good album...

I have a couple of decent thoughts i could express through film, one came upon after a dream i had about the fallout (nuclear holocaust); well, to save yourself some valuable time, the most vivid part of the dream was 'waking up to the sirens'[...] walking down the stairs of the building, seeing the common folk [...] a buoyant sense of doom and gloom [...] very eighties.

I'm adding The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II to my list.

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Originally posted by Acton I'm adding The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II to my list.

Army of darkness was the only good one.

I like bruce campbell, but the 2 evil dead movies weren't very good.

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Originally posted by WittyHandle I want my two dollars!

I liked the reference to that in a "Hot tub time machine"


Here... I'll throw my favorite movies of the 80's (some not english)

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