Unless you’ve been living under a rock, head wrapped in a facehugger… on LV-426 you’ll know that Neill Blomkamp’s Alien movie has been greenlit by Fox. The level of impact Ridley Scott’s original has had on popular culture cannot be underestimated. It influenced every single sci fi movie that came after it and has spawned a slew of movies of varying quality. Countless video games have been made and, oh yeah, it also launched the career of one of the finest performers out there, Sigourney Weaver! I won’t bother mentioning the rest of the cast, you know and love them too.
Let’s take stock of what we know. Blomkamp has been fanboying over the idea of a direct sequel to James Cameron’s magnificent and probably best movie, Aliens. We’ve all seen the artwork and at the time, I thought (and still do) that the artwork looked cool but was ultimately fan fiction. It was enough to make the internet explode and then came the genius move from Blomkamp letting us know he’d had Alien discussions with Sigourney Weaver on the set of Chappie. He then went on to say “Fox would make it”, it was more about him wanting to put together the right story. Most recently he has claimed that he is “not trying to undo parts 3 and 4″ he just wants to make a movie that’s connected to the first two movies. The language there is interesting “not trying to undo”. Nothing definite there but honestly, there’s simply no way to make a sequel to Aliens without undoing parts 3 and 4. The rumour mill has been working overtime with talk of parts 3 and 4 being explained away as dream sequences… Bobby Ewing style. I truly hope this isn’t the case.
Is there precedent to just pretending a large portion of a franchise never happened? Yes there is. Halloween H:20 disregards Halloweens 4, 5 and 6. Now this pissed off the 12 or 13 people who love these movies. Sidebar… yes I enjoy them but not so much that I give a shit about time lines and crazy assed stories of Michael Myers being a druid demon or some shite. Seriously, someone explain Halloween 6 to me End Sidebar… But everyone else was indifferent to it and as it happened Halloween H:20 turned out to be a decent bit of fun. With something as big and celebrated as Alien though, sweeping what some consider to be the the dirt under the carpet just seems like cheating. These movies exist and have a fan base. And they always will. Fox have packaged box set after box set (bastards reeled me in three times now, see below pics) over the past 20 odd years proudly including Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection as peers to the first two movies. There’s history there and cutting out some of that history (if that is indeed what is going to happen) just seems wrong.
Let’s discuss the two latter alien movies. There’s no getting around
this fact: Of all the sins of Alien 3 and 4 and they are many, the
biggest sin exists right at the start of Alien 3. Ripley’s craft crash
lands on Fury 161 crushing Hicks and drowning Newt… What. The. Fuck?!
The opening credits show somebody getting loved up by a facehugger.
Hicks is dead and after a fucking horrible scene where Newt’s chest is
ripped open we see she remained unspoiled. A small mercy for sure
but the only other person it could be is Ripley. Yawn! Then you throw
our heroine into a prison full of horny psychopaths, religious
nutjobs and BOOM! You’ve got yourself a horror. Charles Dance provides
the most important thing in any movie, a character to relate to. But the
alien knocks him off far too early and we’re back to Ripley and prison
vermin. Eventually they attempt to rape her because the facehugger that
did it at the start of the movie just wasn’t rapey enough. Mercifully,
this wholly unnecessary scene is interrupted by the leader of the
aforementioned religious nut jobs, Dylan who takes an iron bar
to the cardboard cut out scumbags. Dylan is a likable sort of scumbag.
Think Riddick but capable of delivering speeches. This all leads to an
adrenaline filled finalé where the remaining prisoners, led by Ripley,
aim to trap the creature in boiling hot led. In order to do this they
must use themselves as bait. LOVE IT!!! Running around their
labyrinthian fortress, closing off corridors as they go and forcing the
creature to the led works. Many people die but they do enough to kill
the beast. Meanwhile Weyland Yutani arrive just in time to see Ripley
dive into an enormous furnace as her newborn bursts through her chest.
She holds it close as a mother would hold a newborn baby and they die
together. It is a stunning moment, let down a little by the optics but
the sheer gravity of the moment far outweighs any technical
shortcomings. What a finish! David Fincher directed this movie and he
fucking hates it. A lot of others love the movie.
Weaver wanted to die in Alien 3 and never return but the movie just didn’t sit right with her so she was coerced into making Resurrection because A. the money was fantastc and B. she fucking loved Joss Whedon’s script. Like 3, the movie turns out to be a mixed bag. How do we bring Ripley back? We have a bunch of scientists clone her (excellent idea) on behalf of some dodgy millitary types (meh). We extract a queen alien from Ripley which eventually lays eggs. An early draft of the Firefly crew kidnap twelve human hosts for the facehuggers to have their way with and we put everyone “outside regulated space” on a huge ship. Of course the aliens are born, they grow and quickly escape from their holding cells. They’re crafty. Ripley meanwhile is part alien and she’s out for herself… mostly (ahem). When our heroes and villains are established and the aliens (who’ve never looked better btw) start attacking, the movie works quite well. The high point is an under water action sequence that’s up there with the best in the franchise. B movie legend Ron Pearlman as badass, Johnner is another massive plus. But then the whole thing takes a turn for the weird and the pointless. Ripley ends up snuggling aliens in their nest. Then the cloned queen (remember her?) gives birth like a human to a “Newborn”. The creature is hungry for blood but thinks Ripley is its mother which I suppose she is… Ripley kills the creature, crashes the military ship, killing all the aliens while a few survivors make it safely to earth. For all that the ending flops when it should fly. “I’m a stranger here myself” should have been a line that stayed with you but the final act is so preposterous, you just don’t give a fuck. Resurrection tried to do something fun with something that didn’t need fun. It needed rescuing. Alien 3 put it in the penalty box. Resurrection kept it there. Jean Pierre Jeunet says (on the box set extras) that he’s happy with the movie. Joss Whedon has called it a shitty movie and blames the casting.
Despite massive flaws I quite enjoyed part 3 and I will say this about Resurrection: I bought my ticket, sat in my seat and had an absolute blast and so did everyone else in that full house back in 1997. I can still remember the adds on the tv: “Witness the resurrection” and it was a buzz going to see an Alien movie on the big screen.
Alien 3 cost a cool $50 million making $159 million and the equally reviled Resurrection cost $75 million taking in $161 million. Neither are huge amounts of profit but, with the advent of CGI, movies like this are getting cheaper to produce and if you can get the same amount of people out to see them, you’ve got a nice little cash cow. Hence the awful AvP movies. They were made for weirdo fans who obsess over which is the better creature (who gives a shit?) with no regard for story. This one is on the fans. They asked for it and they got what they deserved. Garbage! Neill Blomkamp’s Alien will also be a fan service movie and that is worthy of concern. My hope is that Blomkamp makes a great movie for fans of all the movies. That’s a big ask. Maybe too big.
Here’s a nice parallel to finish on. It seems like this movie has been green lit on the back of Neill Blomkamp’s excellent artwork. Back in 1978 Fox had decided what the budget would be for Alien. Ridley Scott storyboarded the whole thing and on seeing this amazing artwork Fox doubled the budget.
UPDATE: The movie has been shelved. Gotta say, I'm mostly relieved... mostly.
Cheers,
G.
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