rachel on 7/8/2008 at 15:54

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No, I agree. The first version was way more powerful with the Marines drop-off, and the tension, and then what the hell, there's no one here, WTF happened? You viewer were kind of in the Marines' shoes, you were there, but didn't know shit and wandered just as cluelessly as they did.

With the Director's cut you get this intro shot, and that changes things radically. You're now "in on the joke", as a matter of speaking, and the tension's off. You know what's going on. You're just waiting who will be the first Marine to find out.

Aliens was always more action than horror, but the emptiness of the LV426 colony was extremely moody and powerful, and that's lost, not completely but in great part, in the revised edition.


Think of it as if System Shock 2 was released in Director's cut with the Tau Ceti landing and the Shodan unit and the eggs shown in the intro cutscene. Not so good now, is it? Part of the fun in movies and games is finding out as you go. If the backstory's served to you on a plate before you even start, what's the point?

rachel on 7/8/2008 at 16:47

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No, of course, it's not like I went in expecting a musical. :)
What I mean is seeing the aliens that early in the film weakens the exploration bit and their "awakening" later on.

Anyway that's just how I see it ;)

icemann on 7/8/2008 at 18:22

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Aliens doing the Timewarp dance would be awesome :)

And I dont agree that seeing an early intro to a face hugger gives away that the entire colony was gone pretty much. I happened to watch the Special Edition of Aliens first, and didn`t see the normal version until many years later (here in Australia the SE got shown on tv first), and I remember being completely on the edge of my seat the first time round watching it. Specially with the first few motion scanner scares.

Remember that the whole concept of Alien queens and all that wasn`t introduced until roughly 3/4 through Aliens. Prior to that there had never been one shown in an Aliens movie. Soon as it was was introduced it answered alot of questions for me, like what had made all the eggs in the first movie, and how there was so many aliens about the colony.

Such an awesome film. Though I`ve always thought that it was a massive bad fluke that the first person to get impregnated in the movie just happens to get an alien queen in him. Plus it would have needed something to feed off to get to that massive size, and if it had settled in the area that Ripley turns up at later, surely engineers or whatever would have noticed it. Meh ah well. The best questions are the ones you never get answers to I guess.

nicked on 8/8/2008 at 07:57

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I tell you what's more of a fluke - how the fuck did the eggs from the start of Alien 3 get onto the Sulaco? The Queen's birthing sac was destroyed. Did she sneak them on board in her handbag?

rachel on 8/8/2008 at 09:14

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I'm totally imagining here as it's not supported by anything, but maybe it's not a fluke nor a coincidence... Ripley is also carrying a queen. It is possible that depending on the initial host's condition, the alien embryo evolves into a queen. Most of the alien drones were born from hosts that were immobilized and sedated, whereas both Ripey and the initial host were"fine" and walked around doing their stuff... It could be that any first infectation is destined to be a queen as this will ensure the birth of an alien colony.

Of course, this theory fall apart at the mention of the doglien, which is obviously not a queen, however it could be argued that since both eggs originally came from the Sulaco it "sensed" that a queen was already evolving in Ripley. (I got no such cop-out for Kane though, that's why I'm probably totally wrong)