Alien 5

[Noah Angel]

Strange But True(ly shite).

Dark Horse have re-released the original Aliens in colour and with the names of the characters of Newt & Hicks changed so the stories can now be tied in with the film continuity. Unfortunately, someone managed to miss out changing Vasquez's name in one of the flashback sequences which arses it up a tad.

[Tweak72]

mmm but that sounds like a load of arse to me should keep the oeiginal and b*llox to the films

[Noah Angel]

Yeah, they work *okay* with the changes, but I'd rather they'd left them as they were with an explanation for the uninitiated (There's one at the beginning of the GN saying why the changes were made).

Idealy, I'd prefer it if they changed the films to tie in with the comics ;)

[Will I. Cooling]

I've always thought Dredd vs Aliens would be a tasy movie...failing that Aliens invading Earth and WINNING would be cool.

Will

[Mr D]

When did they try it and lose??

[Byron Virgo]

Hmmm...

I remember Ridley Scott said a while back that the idea of the Aliens on Earth doesn't really work, and I have to agree with him. That was a great problem with Alien Resurrection. His idea was to set the next story on the Alien homeworld, so that more could be revealed about the Aliens physigonomy, which I hink is the best idea.

I accept that Ripley has been a useful focal point for the series, but the characters changed so much from the first film that she is noe unrecognisable.

Did anyone else read the original William Gibson script for Alien 3? It hadproblems, but some great ideas, like the wodden planet inhabited by convicts turned monks.

Also, did anyone read the David Thompson book about the Alien films? He certainly has some crazy ideas about how he thinks Alien Resurrection should have been made! In fact I'd go so far as to say that the man has some serious psycho-sexual problems regarding the character of Ripley - he was never like this when he's writing about, say, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid! Still, it sounds a lot better than the film they did eventually make...  

[Buddy]

Aliens is shyte. FACT. And I can prove it on an etch-a-sketch.

The films ARE about Ripley (at least from Aliens onward).

Aliens frigged up just about everything Alien set up regarding the alien (supposed to be virtually unkillable - this is the reason Ash, who replaced the assigned science officer at the last minute, was sent by the company to bring one back as a specimen for weapons division - remember 'crew expendable').

Then James Cameron comes along and decides that they can be killed with a handgun and introduces the rediculous 'Queen'.

In Scotts original vision, hinted at in the re-releaseed 'directors cut', the scene shows Dalas in a cocoon in mid transformation into an egg, with other Nostromo crewmwnbers visible in various stages of transformation. He begs Ripley to kill him (a scene replicated in Aliens when the marines find the teraformers in the processing plant)

The Alien is asexual. It doesn't require a mate to reproduce, just a host body for the embrio to gestate.

Sequence is:-
Victim is cocooned.
Cocooned transformes into egg (with face-hugger).
Face-hugger plants seed into host.
Seed transformes into alien (bursting out of chest at 'birth).
Kid alien grows into big alien.
Alien cocoones victim.
Cycle starts over.

Alien three, even with all its trouble during production, is a far better film and David Fincher should be congratulated for at least attempting to rectify the mess that was Aliens (even if he became a puppet to the studio in the end).

If Alien 3 has nothing else going for it, at the very least it killed of that bloody annoying 'newt' character, and Hicks (never liked him anyway).

Anyway, rant over.

As for the comics, I quite liked HIVE with the Kelly Jones art, the rest was fairly non-eventful.

[Misanthrope]

 I thought the reason why they couldn't kill the alien in the first film was because they didn't have any projectile weapons. And even if they did, using them aboard a space craft would have been a bit silly.
 And in the case of the alien being killed with a hand gun, in aliens, it still took some killing. When Vasquez empties a clip into it, it's still thrashing around in the air duct. I must admit I thought the alien queen was cool UNTIL she started chasing the survivors.

The main reason I liked aliens was because you had a primitive lifeform kicking the hell out of heavily armed marines. Remember Hudsons little speach at the beginning? Then near the end he's a blubbering wreck? And the only way they did win in the end was by nucking them.

[Buddy]

Ya know Ratty, you may have a point there. In Alien the only real weapon they had was a modified cattle prod.

And at the end Ripley manages to impale it with a grappling hook type thing.

Regardless of that, Aliens is still shit!!.

[Mr D]

For the most part, Aliens had great ideas and decent execution. Problem is, UU's summary is very enticing. Shame the movies didn't stick to't.

I have to admit, I always thought that the only reason the Alien in the first one was so hard was they had a crummy flamethrower etc. Nothing more.

Having said that, I wanted them to be a lot tougher than they were. Their skin NEVER stops a bullet, which is a shame. I'd have liked them to be so well armoured/thick skinned that they were ALMOST bulletproof.

Umpty, I really REALLY don't think it's fair to say Fincher became a puppet to the studio....

'I'm going to do on-location filming. Don't touch my sets.'

'We won't'

*He goes, comes back*

'Where are my sets?'

'Oh, we burnt them.'

How do you fight that??


Umpty, where are you getting your facts about the Alien from? It's asexual? Where does that cycle come from? Genuinely interested.

[Steamboy]

The Aliens life cycle is disscussed in the first Alien book by Alan Dean Forster(sp) and it includes the scenes cut from the original movie that explain its life cycle a bit more. IIRC if there is only one Alien it will produce a single egg, the facehugger in that egg usually has a queen embryo ready to implant in the first viable life form, if its not a queen it will produce just a normal alien which in turn produces a single egg this proccess goes on untill a queen is produced which has the ability to lay thousands of eggs in its life cycle, meanwhile the workers gather up fresh hosts to impregnate with the new embryo's. As well as acting as icubators I think the hosts also become the alien hatchlings first meal. This  ofcourse has all just been dragged out of my memory and might be wrong but I'm pretty sure thats how it went in the books. so while the Aliens reproduce Asexually they still need a queen to truely dominate.

CU Krestel

[paulvonscott]

I'm pretty sure Ump is right, there was no queen in the original.

In the comics I think they introduced the idea of a daddy aline, the progenitor or something.  I can't remember, I gave up before they found it.

The alien doesn't really feel very alien any more so it's become a soap about ripley and these ever mutating aliens.

I really hate the way they take on aspects of the host in the third movie.  It just seems so fucking desperate.  The figures always made me laugh.  Rhino alien! Snake alien!

Alien films, like Halloween or Friday the 13th films have degenerated into the most abysmal desperate mush.  Perversly enough the people largely to blame are probably the executives.  Those guys from Brandywine always make my skin crawl when I see them interviewed.

I look forward to the day we get to see a sf film as well thought out as Alien.  If Ridley Scott has any sense he'll pour his energies into a new project and not return to lend this dross some respectability.

[Smiley]

I really hate the way they take on aspects of the host

I think that's the only good idea, even if it is a rip-off off The Thing, it justifies having the humanoid shape in the first one and makes the life cycle less predictable and more alien. The insect hierarchy in the second is what's really rubbish.

[Art]

Ironicly enough, I suspect theres more than a little bit of ripping off Starship Troopers going on in the second one. Which is funny, because when it came to the Starship Troopers film...

[Smiley]

It's all Space 'Nam.