Alien (1979) - 40th Anniversary

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SixTwoSix

SixTwoSix

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EDITed the thread title to 40th anniversary thread.

Showcase are reshowing the original Alien on 1st March this year.

https://www.showcasecinemas.co.uk/film-info/alien

For those who don't know anything about it, here's a brief synopsis ;)

After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious life-form, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
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Figure there might be a few others interested in this that might miss it. It's my all time favourite movie however due to my age (40 this year), I haven't been able to ever see it on the big screen. I've always been unavailable for the limited screenings in recent years.

The movie for me is an absolute masterclass is building suspense and fear and never showing too much, it's over an hour before you even get a glimpse of the Alien. It's aged remarkably well aside from the tech aspect.
 
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Unsure of the version or whether it's 4k but i'd imagine it'd be the original theatrical release with this year being the 40th anniversary and all. I just wish they'd done it in September on the proper anniversary, I don't know why they chose March.

Even alien day...26th April would have been better.
 
MookJong said:
Anyone else agree with me this is the best combination:

Alien - Directors cut
Aliens - Theatrical cut
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Personally no because the directors cut of Alien makes the whole queen life cycle redundant as the Alien is transforming people into eggs directly.

There are elements of Aliens director cut I like more but overall the theatrical is a leaner experience and more well paced. There are some cringe worthy moments in the Aliens: DC like Ripley and Hicks exchanging first names, it's painful.

I just wish they'd managed to keep the Burke hive scene in.
 
ianh said:
I agree on Alien but I think Aliens needed to show the Sentry Gun scene as a: it's only short and b: it adds another layer to the tension and Aliens intelligence.
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I'm conflicted on this because as you say, it does show the intelligence but at the same time, the guns kill a large amount of Aliens so it reduces the tension a little.
 
@mid_gen get onto The Cold Forge next, better than the entire trilogy and an excellent anti hero protagonist. Plus it completely ditches any direct movie links apart from the Aliens themselves.
 
Same, while I stated in my OP that Alien is my favourite movie, I've never been vaguely attracted to her. As @Rroff said, she's not unattractive, she's just never given me a twitch.
 
MookJong said:
One of the best and immersive things about Alien was the fact that Sigourney Weaver wasn't a typical love interest or eye candy.

Ripley is such an amazing female character for the time, she has none of the usual Hollywood plastic sheen and seems very human and real.
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Also Parker (Yaphet Kotto) isn't just a token black character put in just to be killed off early. While it doesn't seem a big deal now, the idea of having both a female hero and a black guy survive to the final act of the movie was quite ground breaking back then.
 
mid_gen said:
Alien 3 is well underrated imo. Charles Dance's doctor is easily the second best performance out of the whole series, after Ripley's first outing. The whole setting of these hardcore double-Y criminals getting scared witless and hacked up works great.
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Agree completely but needs to be the workprint/directors cut which makes more sense, flows better and also doesn't cut out the whole Alien capture at the mid point.

Dark Horse are currently doing a comic book series of William Gibsons version of Alien 3, up to issue 3 and is an excellent alternate version which very nearly got made.
 
mid_gen said:
I haven't actually seen Alien 3 Director's Cut all the way through :S

Did Prometheus or Covenant get a directors cut?
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There is a fan made cut of Prometheus that makes the film more coherent, it includes extra/deleted scenes which explain certain stupid decisions later on in the film.

For example when Milburn and Fifield are lost earlier on, Milburn is handling worms/snakes with no issue which explains why he has no worries approaching the hammerpede later on.

Nothing ever explains running from a rolling object in the same direction though :D
 
mid_gen said:
I don't get too hung up on the 'daft things people do' stuff, Aliens has plenty of people doing dumb things (taking away magazines? Really?)..(we've developed interstellar travel but we still rely on meatsack grunts pointing rifles at things?) . Sometimes in big spectacular scenes, sensible decision making takes a back seat to framing the action.
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Thing is, if you look at the Prometheus thread I started when it was first rumoured, after the movies release there was an echo chamber of annoyed people pointing out stupid things people did in the movie.

I'm obviously biased but even trying to be objective, there isn't a lot wrong with that film...if you disregard stupid things people do.

The trouble with Prometheus was that it started as a direct Alien prequel, then went off at a weird tangent and was re-written poorly by Lindelof.

https://www.indiewire.com/2011/06/s...cript-made-like-a-less-direct-prequel-117784/
 
ttaskmaster said:
t's still an alien creature, and they've still just been running around like headless chickens, scared out of their minds... why would this fully explain why he suddenly switches and starts fondling an alien?
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I should have said he was handling alien snakes/worms after they landed on lv223, he stupidly assumed the new one was harmless as well.

Didn't say it was perfect, just makes more sense. ;)
 
MookJong said:
Thoughts on Ripley having a daughter at home or not based on the directors cut? I really dislike the idea Ripley had a daughter. It detracts from the family dynamic created between her Hicks and Newt at the end.
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The fact she outlived her daughter drives directly into the catharsis she feels by rescuing Newt and essentially becoming her mother.

The scene with her in the "garden" when she learns of her daughters death was originally removed as they felt it would make things too obvious later on once she found Newt and the lengths she'd go to rescue her.

MookJong said:
I don't know what goes wrong with so many films now but I would say visual effects possibly have a lot to answer for. Standing in front of green screens surely does not get the best out of actors or the crew. In a real world set you would rework and develop a scene probably a lot more than in a green environment. Just making sure you stand in exactly the right place and pretend to be interacting with something not there must be the highest priority.
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I was reading an article about Denis Villenueve who stated he could count on his fingers the number of times they had to use green screen for Blade Runner 2049.
 
@Somnambulist Feels like FOX are putting out feelers to see what kind of Alien movie people want next.

I don't mind though, some of the short indie Alien movies have been excellent over the years.

Here's the rundown:

“ALIEN: Alone”: Hope, an abandoned crew member aboard the derelict chemical hauler Otranto, has spent a year trying to keep her ship and herself alive as both slowly fall apart. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life. Written and Directed by Noah Miller.

“ALIEN: Containment”: Four survivors find themselves stranded aboard a small escape pod in deep space. Trying to piece together the details around the outbreak that led to their ship’s destruction, they find themselves unsure to trust whether or not one of them might be infected. Written and Directed by Chris Reading.

“ALIEN: Harvest”: The surviving crew of a damaged deep-space harvester have minutes to reach the emergency evacuation shuttle. A motion sensor is their only navigation tool leading them to safety while a creature in the shadows terrorizes the crew. However, the greatest threat might have been hiding in plain sight all along. Directed by Benjamin Howdeshell.

“ALIEN: Night Shift”: When a missing space trucker is discovered hungover and disoriented, his co-worker suggests a nightcap as a remedy. Near closing time, they are reluctantly allowed inside the colony supply depot where the trucker’s condition worsens, leaving a young supply worker alone to take matters into her own hands. Written and Directed by Aidan Breznick.

“ALIEN: Ore”: As a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony, Lorraine longs to make a better life for her daughter and grandchildren. When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, Lorraine is forced to choose between escape or defying management orders and facing her fears to fight for the safety of her family. Written and Directed by the Spear Sisters.

“ALIEN: Specimen”: It’s the night shift in a colony greenhouse, and Julie, a botanist, does her best to contain suspicious soil samples that have triggered her sensitive lab dog. Despite her best efforts the lab unexpectedly goes into full shutdown and she is trapped inside. Little does she know, an alien specimen has escaped the mysterious cargo, and a game of cat and mouse ensues as the creature searches for a host. Directed by Kelsey Taylor.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/alien-40th-anniversary-shorts-revealed/
 
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