Movie Defense Force: Alien: Resurrection
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I liked Alien Resurection. I also liked both the Alien vs. Predator films.
The problem with it is simply that the design really sucked. Instead of a big scary alien like the others had always been, you had an awkward baby with big eyes and a smile that looked more like a Disney character than anything else. I can understand what they were aiming for with it - after all, it is a baby and it's supposed to look more human - but aiming for a nice idea is very different from actually pulling it off.
I liked the idea of the Newborn. The previous films, plus the expanded universe, already established that the xenomorphs aren't just parasites that use our bodies as food to grow, they actually merege genetics in some way and take on different traits depending on what species they are born from. The twist with the Newborn is that it's exactly the same thing, only done to the aliens by accident instead of done by them as part of their lifecycle.the December King said:
The problem with it is simply that the design really sucked. Instead of a big scary alien like the others had always been, you had an awkward baby with big eyes and a smile that looked more like a Disney character than anything else. I can understand what they were aiming for with it - after all, it is a baby and it's supposed to look more human - but aiming for a nice idea is very different from actually pulling it off.
You what? The entire premise of the film is that they weren't able to separate her DNA from the xenomorph's.canadamus_prime said:
I totally understand this point of view, but as a fan of otherworldly horror, I get really tired of constantly being told in the narrative that the worst and most horrific things are humans/ done by humans/ mostly human. To me, the horror of the alien is that part of it's life cycle goes beyond the rape of the host and takes all of the victim, in a way that we cannot fathom (at least in a sane world/human perspective).Kahani said:
For me, the initial vibe from the 'Alien' movie was that humans stumbled onto something so horrific that it was best it had never been found. The second movie was a 'we can't understand it so let's gung -ho exterminate it' horror of an empowerment illusion- they came armed and confident, and got decimated. The third movie was a desperate last stand which I found endearing, though ultimately futile. The fourth? Another empowerment illusion, this time with science, and so over the top as to be a joke... and that doesn't cut it for me, but I can see the room for a self-satire of the franchise. I guess. (This is all under the shadow of the Weyland Yutani corp's faceless capitalistic greed, of course.)
It's a personal preference. I can see that the humanlike alien is all creepy for it, but in a creature that is already disturbingly human, I just didn't find it more poignant.
Also knocking a queen's head off with a baby slap is all kinds of retarded.
...
This might actually be the part that bothered me the most.
I agree, the whole premise of the newborn just doesn't make sense. All the xenomorphs we've seen to date have been human hybrids (apart from the hound in A3). Why would the newborn really look any different; it is already established fact that the xenomorphs takes genetic stock from their host at this point.the December King said:
It sort of ruined the whole movie for me, which I really enjoyed up to that point.
Yes it is. There's no way I'm going to believe that they were able to separate 2 separate sets of DNA from presumably one mashed up sample. Besides how did they get that sample anyway? Riply's body and the Alien within it were pretty thoroughly incinerated at the end of Alien 3.Bindal said:
Theres alot of reasons to hate the movie. While I agree the movie isn't bad, it just really average at everything it tries to do. Fact is, for a dark comedy, I really can't remember laughing much at all. I don't remember being scared much or the action being fun. It tries to do to much but succeeds so rarely.
I love True Blood (pretty much the Dark Comedy of the vampire genre, done extremely well). And it had lots of action, but thats a tv series so yeah they had alot of time to work with. Anyway I think that whatever Resurrection is, it doesn't feel like a Alien movie. Fans walk away disappointed and general movie goer (when you tally up all the votes) will come to the conclusion that its a average film. Alien 3 is the one that doesn't deserve the flak its got. Alien 3 is the kind of movie that has equal amounts of people saying they loved it, and hated it.
I love True Blood (pretty much the Dark Comedy of the vampire genre, done extremely well). And it had lots of action, but thats a tv series so yeah they had alot of time to work with. Anyway I think that whatever Resurrection is, it doesn't feel like a Alien movie. Fans walk away disappointed and general movie goer (when you tally up all the votes) will come to the conclusion that its a average film. Alien 3 is the one that doesn't deserve the flak its got. Alien 3 is the kind of movie that has equal amounts of people saying they loved it, and hated it.
Oh man, the scene when the General dude gets "stabbed" in the back of the head by one of the aliens, and he slowly reaches behind his head to pull out a piece of his brain, then looks at it with a confused "Durrrrr" look made me lose my shit when I first saw this movie. So damn funny! Everyone looked at me like I was insane! But thank Jim for Jim's clarification that this movie IS indeed a dark comedy, Now I can laugh my ass off at that scene again and again, and not worry about people thinking I'm "insane" I'm just more perceptive than them 
Yeah, this.canadamus_prime said:
I'm willing to throw a lot of science out of the window when watching movies like these, but there's no way any DNA survived a molten lava bath. Like, zero.
I found it b grade awesomeness too, kind of like starship troopers. By that i mean the first one, the rest we're just fucking terrible, though i look forward to the movie defense force of the third one.
Otherwise i found the hybrid reminiscent of skeletor from the movie, masters of the universe. Also, when you think about it aren't all of the aliens "hybrid"?
Otherwise i found the hybrid reminiscent of skeletor from the movie, masters of the universe. Also, when you think about it aren't all of the aliens "hybrid"?
I disagree with you on Alien 3 (it was mediocre at best) and I disagree with you on this one too. (it's garbage)
The one point I'll give you is that the newborn was creepy. I think they did a good job making it sit in the uncanny valley, where it's close enough to human that you can empathize with it, but far enough away that it's a little disturbing.
It doesn't matter if they were trying to make a dark comedy out of it, because they made it into a bad dark comedy.
The one point I'll give you is that the newborn was creepy. I think they did a good job making it sit in the uncanny valley, where it's close enough to human that you can empathize with it, but far enough away that it's a little disturbing.
It doesn't matter if they were trying to make a dark comedy out of it, because they made it into a bad dark comedy.
Even thought I know that Alien and Aliens are much better movies I acutally enjoy 3 and 4 more.
I think they are great and I also liked Prometheus alot.
Its pretty cool with a movie franchise with 5 so different movies. (+ the AvP movies but they doesnt count)
I think they are great and I also liked Prometheus alot.
Its pretty cool with a movie franchise with 5 so different movies. (+ the AvP movies but they doesnt count)
thats the thing, when they look like themselves they are cool, but when they some what look like humans you get that Uncanny Valley feels lol This one so happens to be just enough creep for me. Plus the sound it makes. :Cringe:Trezu said:
I likewise enjoyed the film for many of the (Ron Perlman) reasons that Jim (badguy from The Crow) mentioned, but the whole "it was supposed to be a comedy" has been losing traction ever since Tommy Wiseau flagrantly lied about it to try and justify The Room.Waffle_Man said:
I've been a bit busy recently and forgot to check in on this feature, so I missed commenting on "Hell On Earth", sad as I kind of like MDF.
I figured I'd throw in my two cents to this video before the new one comes out, by simply saying again that I think "Movie Defense Force" seems to be missing the point in the way some of these films are defended. Almost everything on MDF is a sequel, and the defense seems to usually be "well, it's not that bad if looked at entirely on it's own merits", the problem is that when your dealing with a sequel that is promoting itself as a sequel it's by definition not something intended to be judged on it's own merits, and doing so your missing the entire point of a sequel and the movie as a whole. What's more in cases where your dealing with a multi-media franchise, you have to understand that products are going to be compared to other products, in part the later "Alien" movies got so heavily blasted by fans because serious fans of the material were reading the "Dark Horse" comics, which produced a far better sequence of events following "Aliens"... at least in the minds of most people who seriously cared about the franchise in an overall sense. "Alien" is pretty much a good example of what happens when the people controlling a franchise don't respect the scope of the entire thing, and go charging off full tilt on projects that should never have been made due to invalidating material already embraced by the fan base. There are exceptions where doing this might be the right thing, but they are very, very, rare. "Alien 3" which was also defended here got blasted largely for de-canonizing the Alien comics and not replacing it with anything as cool, and inevitably an even more disjointed sequel following a movie the fan base already wasn't so keen on got blasted even worse.
While it was the episode before this one, I will say also that "Hellraiser III" wasn't too bad, and I can agree with that... and as much as I love them, it's a cinematic masterpiece compared to some of the later installments in the series, especially when it starts going into retroactively inserting things that also happened into the mythology. I mention it here largely because I'm a franchise fan, and noticed that MDF raised a good point which I brought up about Hellraiser 3's plot and the uncharacteristic behavior of Pinhead which was that he himself was in a degree of turmoil, a lot of the things the movie is criticized for can be justified by it's own concept, and the fact that this cenobite who was formerly a big wig in Hell's hierarchy is wandering around earth with emotional problems and no leash at all has a lot to do with it. Not to mention if the guy is going to create minions on the spot, he's going to have to work with what's actually there... beggers can't be choosers and so on. While such wasn't the gist of the defense, to be honest I think MDF would be more entertaining of we saw more conceptual defenses within the movies themselves and their own mythologies (especially when dealing with sequels) rather than harping on how a movie needs to be judged on it's own merits.
I'll also say that when dealing with science fiction and horror "deep" and "dumb" are surprisingly easy to get confused especially when dealing with the needs of a movie, and simple seeming, but surprisingly complex mythologies. This can be pretty pronounced when dealing with movie translations of books, comics, and ongoing universes spread across a lot of different media. In a movie where you can't always tell what people are thinking, easily work in huge monologues for back stories, etc... things just happening or pulling out "this is a clone of so and so" loses a lot of depth and comes across as being well... dumb, when in many cases a rather sudden occurance or odd turn of events can carry a lot more weight if lead into more. This has nothing to do with either film specifically, but in a lot of cases I think the problem with movies that fail is because the audience thinks they are dumb by being dumb, or at least ignorant, themselves. An example would be one occasionally picked on bit from the otherwise successful "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy of movies where The Witch King Of Angmar is pretty much paralyzed for a second after being jabbed by a Halfling, before being struck down by Eowyn in one of the climactic scenes from the book. The thing is that there is a good reason why this went down the way it did (having to do with the weapon the Halfling was using actually being an utter beast of a magical weapon) but it's not the kind of thing that you could work into the narrative because nobody really knew about this for there to be dialogue. Indeed a big part of the mythology is how nasty some of the weapons pulled out of a certain troll cave in "The Hobbit" actually are, with those weapons quietly being passed along and recurring in the stories, or things being used that aren't exactly expanded on until the simirilian. The audience reaction "this is dumb" in a case like this is more or less something going over the head of a viewer who has no real inclination when dealing with an otherwise well constructed work to figure out why something happened the way it did.
Ah well, enough from me for the moment, this is long and rambling enough, and I figure not many people will read it anyway.
I figured I'd throw in my two cents to this video before the new one comes out, by simply saying again that I think "Movie Defense Force" seems to be missing the point in the way some of these films are defended. Almost everything on MDF is a sequel, and the defense seems to usually be "well, it's not that bad if looked at entirely on it's own merits", the problem is that when your dealing with a sequel that is promoting itself as a sequel it's by definition not something intended to be judged on it's own merits, and doing so your missing the entire point of a sequel and the movie as a whole. What's more in cases where your dealing with a multi-media franchise, you have to understand that products are going to be compared to other products, in part the later "Alien" movies got so heavily blasted by fans because serious fans of the material were reading the "Dark Horse" comics, which produced a far better sequence of events following "Aliens"... at least in the minds of most people who seriously cared about the franchise in an overall sense. "Alien" is pretty much a good example of what happens when the people controlling a franchise don't respect the scope of the entire thing, and go charging off full tilt on projects that should never have been made due to invalidating material already embraced by the fan base. There are exceptions where doing this might be the right thing, but they are very, very, rare. "Alien 3" which was also defended here got blasted largely for de-canonizing the Alien comics and not replacing it with anything as cool, and inevitably an even more disjointed sequel following a movie the fan base already wasn't so keen on got blasted even worse.
While it was the episode before this one, I will say also that "Hellraiser III" wasn't too bad, and I can agree with that... and as much as I love them, it's a cinematic masterpiece compared to some of the later installments in the series, especially when it starts going into retroactively inserting things that also happened into the mythology. I mention it here largely because I'm a franchise fan, and noticed that MDF raised a good point which I brought up about Hellraiser 3's plot and the uncharacteristic behavior of Pinhead which was that he himself was in a degree of turmoil, a lot of the things the movie is criticized for can be justified by it's own concept, and the fact that this cenobite who was formerly a big wig in Hell's hierarchy is wandering around earth with emotional problems and no leash at all has a lot to do with it. Not to mention if the guy is going to create minions on the spot, he's going to have to work with what's actually there... beggers can't be choosers and so on. While such wasn't the gist of the defense, to be honest I think MDF would be more entertaining of we saw more conceptual defenses within the movies themselves and their own mythologies (especially when dealing with sequels) rather than harping on how a movie needs to be judged on it's own merits.
I'll also say that when dealing with science fiction and horror "deep" and "dumb" are surprisingly easy to get confused especially when dealing with the needs of a movie, and simple seeming, but surprisingly complex mythologies. This can be pretty pronounced when dealing with movie translations of books, comics, and ongoing universes spread across a lot of different media. In a movie where you can't always tell what people are thinking, easily work in huge monologues for back stories, etc... things just happening or pulling out "this is a clone of so and so" loses a lot of depth and comes across as being well... dumb, when in many cases a rather sudden occurance or odd turn of events can carry a lot more weight if lead into more. This has nothing to do with either film specifically, but in a lot of cases I think the problem with movies that fail is because the audience thinks they are dumb by being dumb, or at least ignorant, themselves. An example would be one occasionally picked on bit from the otherwise successful "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy of movies where The Witch King Of Angmar is pretty much paralyzed for a second after being jabbed by a Halfling, before being struck down by Eowyn in one of the climactic scenes from the book. The thing is that there is a good reason why this went down the way it did (having to do with the weapon the Halfling was using actually being an utter beast of a magical weapon) but it's not the kind of thing that you could work into the narrative because nobody really knew about this for there to be dialogue. Indeed a big part of the mythology is how nasty some of the weapons pulled out of a certain troll cave in "The Hobbit" actually are, with those weapons quietly being passed along and recurring in the stories, or things being used that aren't exactly expanded on until the simirilian. The audience reaction "this is dumb" in a case like this is more or less something going over the head of a viewer who has no real inclination when dealing with an otherwise well constructed work to figure out why something happened the way it did.
Ah well, enough from me for the moment, this is long and rambling enough, and I figure not many people will read it anyway.
sorry, but that was the weakest defense so far. Even if you follow the flimsy argument that it was supposed to be a comedy and the jokes are not the film makers' way of trying to cover up their colossal failure, Alien Resurrection isn't all that good...
One thing I never understood: They had that concept of an alien-human hybrid, which fits the "mythology" very well and is genuinely creepy in itself, and then proceed to throw that out the window by only using it in the last 15 minutes (or so) of the movie for a really cheesy "showdown".
Why not make this creature the main attraction of the movie just like the original Xeno was in Alien 1? Have it born at some point in the first 30 minutes and make that thing (with a better design) the main creature. That could have been cool.
One thing I never understood: They had that concept of an alien-human hybrid, which fits the "mythology" very well and is genuinely creepy in itself, and then proceed to throw that out the window by only using it in the last 15 minutes (or so) of the movie for a really cheesy "showdown".
Why not make this creature the main attraction of the movie just like the original Xeno was in Alien 1? Have it born at some point in the first 30 minutes and make that thing (with a better design) the main creature. That could have been cool.