Renault on 9/1/2014 at 18:13
I love both movies, but to me T2 is much better. In the first, Linda Hamilton is just a helpless girl, fairly useless, whereas in the 2nd, she's a total badass. And the T1000 is so menacing that it takes both Arnie and the roided up Sarah Connor to take it down. He is much more imposing than the original terminator, and basically has you wondering throughout the movie - how are they going to beat this guy? Sure, Edward Furlong is kind of a pain, but he's a kid after all. And he gives us a few funny moments in between the violence.
Plus, it takes on much bigger topics and issues, such as fate, consequences, and changing the future. Good stuff there. I know it's fashionable and cooler to like the original Terminator and Alien movies, but I'm personally a bigger fan of their sequels.
Chimpy Chompy on 9/1/2014 at 18:15
Quote Posted by NuEffect
Knowing and understanding why humans cry is a very different thing. They were saying he understood emotions therefore suggesting that he had some emotions. Meh.
Well the exact line is "I know now why you cry." He also says "but it's something I can never do" which I guess you could take as either meaning a T-800 just doesn't come equipped with tear ducts, or that it's not capable of experiencing emotion on that level.
As an aside (on a tangent on a tangent, haha), interesting how T3, although goofy in its own ways, steps back from the sentimentality of T2. There isn't really the same sort of bond between the boy and his murderbot.
Vivian on 9/1/2014 at 18:25
Quote Posted by Brethren
I know it's fashionable and cooler to like the original Terminator and Alien movies, but I'm personally a bigger fan of their sequels.
Christ, if we're going to be passive-aggressively assigning each other annoying motives, then I know it's considered ethically-superior to like the sequels, but personally I prefer the originals.
icemann on 9/1/2014 at 18:26
In T3, after eagerly awaiting the movie and of discovering how in the hell judgement day still happened and Arnie uttering the line:
"You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable."
That movie ceased to exist in my mind. Great action scenes, but just such a terrible movie. The fourth was ok. Just ok.
To tie this back into Aliens slightly, the true question is: Which movie is worse. Terminator 3 or Alien Resurrection. My votes for Resurrection.
faetal on 9/1/2014 at 18:26
Deleted T2 scene: Arnie hugs John Connor before being lowered into the molten metal and exclaims "Why am I programmed to find this arousing!?"
Volitions Advocate on 9/1/2014 at 18:41
I'm in the extreme minority of the Alien 3 camp. I think Alien was a better movie, but Alien 3 is my favorite, mostly for what it could have been, and for its concept. My favorite thing about it is that it destroyed all of the setup Cameron did. As much as I love Aliens, and everybody does seem to love it, I find its the movie that ruined the franchise. (I've probably said that before on this forum, I know I say it IRL all the time) Nearly every spinoff conforms to the set pieces in that movie, if the time frame lines up. Comics, Vidyagames, comics, authorized novels, comics, etc.
The biggest gripe I have about the whole franchise is a complete lack of return to the source material and its muse. I don't think I'd be that far off in saying that most alien fans probably want more Giger. He created the monster, its his imagination that feeds ours. Cameron didn't so much as think about him (to be fair Giger said he thought the alien queen was a good design), Giler and Hill snubbed him after confirming an appointment to work on the design for Alien 3. Jeunet was.. well.. lets just not go there.
Scott had the perfect opportunity to bring Giger back into the fold, do a bit of fan service, and really make the story interesting.
Instead we get space jockeys that don't just look like people, but.. ARE human? (Seriously? after 30 years of speculation, they're just big people?)
I don't think Giger is any kind of go-to-end-all of the franchise. But he really hasn't be involved in a single project bearing the name Alien that I know of since the 70s. Lots of wasted potential.
wow.... [/rant]
Phatose on 9/1/2014 at 18:51
Quote Posted by icemann
To tie this back into Aliens slightly, the true question is: Which movie is worse. Terminator 3 or Alien Resurrection. My votes for Resurrection.
I vote T3. Resurrection was campy, stupid, played fast and loose with genetics even by the low standards of the franchise, and had a ridiculous pumpkinhead thing at the end.
But T3 pulled the whole "Remember 'no fate but what we make', and how it was a big thematic point in T2? LOL, we don't either!", which was far worse then campy stupidity.
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
I don't think Giger is any kind of go-to-end-all of the franchise. But he really hasn't be involved in a single project bearing the name Alien that I know of since the 70s. Lots of wasted potential. [/rant]
Think that it's just too overtly sexual for mass marketing? Alien had a vagina-spider that raped your face, and a crawling penis that burst from your chest then grew into a giant dick headed monster. And from what I've seen, that's actually pretty tame as Giger's art goes. Kind of hard to sell as a summer blockbuster.
nicked on 9/1/2014 at 19:09
I'm in the Alien 3 camp too (with Alien a close second). I love it for how unerringly bleak it is from start to finish, without a single drop of happiness. But Alien is the better horror film.
Also T3 is abominable tripe except for the final 2-3 minutes. The downbeat sense of inevitability about the ending was great. Everything preceding it, garbage.
Alien: Resurrection on the other hand would have been a pretty good dark comedy if it weren't for the brand name. If you swapped the xenos for generic space beasts and it was a standalone entity, it'd have been alright. Joss Whedon, Buffy in space - it should be a good recipe for throwaway fun. But throwaway fun can't go hand in hand with shitting all over the alien franchise.
So: both terrible; Alien: Resurrection sort of, just about "wins" I reckon.
faetal on 9/1/2014 at 19:12
Why did the aliens and facehuggers never get it on?
To be fair to Alien 3, which I loved, much of it was spoiled by the fact that they went for CGI aliens before the tech was quite ready and as a result, it's a bit like watching a much darker, Britishy take on Pete's Dragon.
I agree with VA that it'd be nice for someone, anyone to go back to the first film (or even the second film a bit) and make something without some drastic diversion. The addition of the queen was logical (eggs had to be produced somehow), the idea that the aliens imprint from host characteristics is also a good idea. It takes some of the cognitive strain out of wondering why a completely new non-earth organism just happens to be a jointed tetrapod with hands, feet, mouth etc... though the dragonfly nymph facegear is an anatomical non sequiter. It got a bit fucking silly though when you start having aliens with wombs giving birth to something which recognises Ripley as a parent.
Prometheus had some nice ideas, but the execution was just so poor that I couldn't bring myself to even take any of them in. Even Revenge of the Sith leading into A New Hope felt better.
Volitions Advocate on 9/1/2014 at 19:20
Well I'm not saying they should use all of his artwork as source material, he can easily come up with new designs, that's what you do as an artist when you're given a commission. Hell *I* can't handle most of his artwork, but not everything he does has dicks and electropneumatic vaginas.
Space jockey wasn't sexualized at all. And it was a fantastic set piece to the series.
I always thought that the Alien represents something different in each of the films. In Alien is absolutely is a sexual predator. Stalking you down the dark alley, raping your face and impregnating you whether you want it to or not. I'm sure it's not canon but there's some talk around fan discussion pages that it basically raped Lambert when it killed her based on the overall makeup of the scene and the sounds that Ripley heard. I don't know if I buy it really but I do think there is a highly sexualized sense of terror involved with the creature in the first film.
In Aliens it was a soldier, obviously. And in Alien 3 it was a demon, or the devil. Ripley represented a chink in the armor for the inmates, who had been living peacefully without temptation for years. The fact that people started dying after she appeared just meant that she was the vessel for this demon that was going to destroy them. The final theatrical version strayed from this a lot but the blueprint was there.
In anycase. It did work for Species didn't it? Tits and aliens tends to sell to the right market. Not where I'd want to see Alien go, but there you have it.
