"Alien" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Lord Dalek]

In space no one can hear you scream.



Lambert: "You admire it?"
Ash: "I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."

Release Date: October 29, 2003 (limited; original release: May, 1979)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Ridley Scott
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton (voice)

Plot summary: When commercial towing vehicle Nostromo, heading back to Earth, intercepts an SoS signal from a nearby planet, the crew are under obligation to investigate. After a bad landing on the planet, some crew members leave the ship to explore the area. At the same time as they discover a hive colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer deciphers the message to be a warning, not a call for help. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew do not know the danger they are in until it is too late.

Official Site: http://www.foxhome.com/alienlegacy/index_frames.html

Buy the Director's Cut!

Comments?

[Trogdor]

Whoa, they re-released this last year? No one ever told me

[Lord Dalek]

Whoa, they re-released this last year? No one ever told me

Yeah, The Director's Cut release. They did it to plug the quadrillogy box. It was really cool getting to see the movie in a theatre last October.

[g_UnIt_GaNsTa]

If this movie gets a bad review, somebody loses their head.

[Deadly Messiah]

You know, it is pretty funny because I just bought the Alien Quadrilogy the other day. My favorites always went:

Aliens
Alien Resurrection
Alien 3
Alien

I don't know why, but the first one is kinda boring. It was definitely much better when I watched it yesterday than when I first saw it back in 1998 though. I give it a 3/5. I love HR Giger's work though.

Now I have a question. How come the Director's Cut is 1 minute shorter than the theatrical version? How can it be a DC if it is less than the original?

[Lord Dalek]

Now I have a question. How come the Director's Cut is 1 minute shorter than the theatrical version? How can it be a DC if it is less than the original?

The biggest minute Ridley cut out was a pretty redundant scene with Dallas asking Mother what are his chances of killing the Alien. There are some smaller trims throughout the movie as well.

[BonyT]

You know, it is pretty funny because I just bought the Alien Quadrilogy the other day. My favorites always went:

Aliens
Alien Resurrection
Alien 3
Alien

I don't know why, but the first one is kinda boring. It was definitely much better when I watched it yesterday than when I first saw it back in 1998 though. I give it a 3/5. I love HR Giger's work though.

Hmm, interesting. My rating of them, best to worst, is exactly the order the movies came out in:

Alien
Aliens
Alien3
Alien Resurrection

Alien made a strong impression on me many moons ago, when I was just a sprout, too young to be seeing such movies. I remember that, unbeknownst to my mom, I snuck & watched it on HBO. It scared the silly out of me.

"In space, no one can hear you scream." Great stuff.

Now I have a question. How come the Director's Cut is 1 minute shorter than the theatrical version? How can it be a DC if it is less than the original?

I just recently got the Quadrilogy, & it was the first time I'd seen the Director's Cut all the way through. From what I can tell, the major addition is the "Kill me!" scene where Ripley finds Dallas. Other than that & a few other scenes that are a bit longer, I noticed that they trimmed some seconds off of a number of other scenes, which I guess ultimately nets out to it being a minute shorter, even with the added scene. To me, the effect was to make the Director's Cut seem rushed compared to the theatrical release. I didn't really like the pacing of the Director's Cut by comparison.

BTW, I haven't had a chance to get into the extras, but I did briefly watch the commentary on the Dallas "Kill me!" scene on the Director's Cut. The commentators pointed out that Dallas isn't the only crew member there; several others are cocooned on the wall -- but, if I understood correctly, they are in various stages of being "transformed" into alien eggs. Apparently, the original idea regarding alien species perpetuation was that the face-hugger eggs come into being when some victims, instead of being killed, are transformed in this way. I guess this notion was quietly abandoned when they decided to have an alien queen to lay face-hugger eggs in Aliens.

I did watch the scene pretty hurriedly; can anyone confirm if I picked up on that original "transforming" concept correctly?

[James]

I actually thought it would be pretty logical. The problem with the Alien species is that the number is limited to the amount of hosts. If there is only one host, which creates one soldier, you're screwed until the next passing wander pops by the infinite avenues of space...

Since it seems likely that like any creature, an alien requies sustanance to survive, if there is no queen it would make sort of sense the soldier could create at least one egg some way and that while put it's breed again into hibernation once more.

Yeah, it's a long stretch - but having a queen and soldiers which have limited abilties to create eggs sort of makes sense... sorta.

And as for Director's cut.... there is a misapprehension that a film is made better by adding scenes. A film can be made far more superior by cutting them. Flow and pace is as important as content. I imagine after so much time, it wasn't hard for Scott to decide which scenes over-run or made no relevance to plot or pacing.

A DC/SE shouldn't been seen as an excuse to throw in a load of scenes which ruin the flow of the film (Empire Strikes Back....) - it should be an attempt to make a film better. In some cases that means making a film more punchy. Drawing out scenes can have an adverse effect on the films artistic merits.

Scott is very much an artist first and foremost. I'm not surprised he made more cuts than additions.

[sun]

This is a great film, with one of the greatest fright scenes in the history of all cinima. In the Quadrilogy, we see the masterpiece being assembled by Ridley Scott, and his team, a wonderful interview with the creater of the the alien craft, and its interiors (not the Nostromo) (forgot name) and the world the Nostromo landed on..When you combine these two films, Alien and Aliens, you may have the best original and sequal combination ever put on film.And I'd take them over the first two Lord of the Rings, anyday. ..And Camroon paid homage to Scott in his discussion on how he made Aliens...Alien and Aliens have set the standard, for this ganre, no one may ever surpass, in fact, it is said, Ridley Scott may have created a whole new kind of film with Alien..Stuart

[sun]

I actually thought it would be pretty logical. The problem with the Alien species is that the number is limited to the amount of hosts. If there is only one host, which creates one soldier, you're screwed until the next passing wander pops by the infinite avenues of space...

Since it seems likely that like any creature, an alien requies sustanance to survive, if there is no queen it would make sort of sense the soldier could create at least one egg some way and that while put it's breed again into hibernation once more.

Yeah, it's a long stretch - but having a queen and soldiers which have limited abilties to create eggs sort of makes sense... sorta.

And as for Director's cut.... there is a misapprehension that a film is made better by adding scenes. A film can be made far more superior by cutting them. Flow and pace is as important as content. I imagine after so much time, it wasn't hard for Scott to decide which scenes over-run or made no relevance to plot or pacing.

A DC/SE shouldn't been seen as an excuse to throw in a load of scenes which ruin the flow of the film (Empire Strikes Back....) - it should be an attempt to make a film better. In some cases that means making a film more punchy. Drawing out scenes can have an adverse effect on the films artistic merits.

Scott is very much an artist first and foremost. I'm not surprised he made more cuts than additions.

I agree,not all cuts are bad "Aliens" had to be cut. studios orders, you know what, it is probably a better film the way it is. ...Gale Ann Hurd discusses these cuts,(although Camroon says it is better, I am not at all sure) ,but Ridley Scott's film, whatever was left on the cutting room floor, doesn't matter a bit, that film grabs you, from almost the first moment to the end...a real classic...

[rggkjg1]

i caught the film on one of the movie channels this morning. i enjoyed it for a first time viewing. i think the film would have had a bigger "impact/influence" on me if we didn't have the last two sequels and the avp movies. the avp films especially look like they turned the alien into a "joke".

i hate when movies involve a defenceless animal/pet. you always think something bad will happen, thankfully nothing happened to the cat. as long as the pet is ok admist the caranage, then everything will be fine. i was actually expecting the cat to have a symbiote attached to it or an alien burst out of it's stomach. what was the point of the alien looking at the cat in the cage? i was also thinking that the alien's "weakness" might be cats since it virtually ignored it.

when the alien burst out of kane, i was grinning because i've seen spaceballs to many times and all i could think of was the parody. they should just insert that spaceballs scene in alien in place of the actual scene.

[Michael24]

Alien is my second favorite of the series. I actually never saw it in its entirety until perhaps the late-90s, but I had grown up on Aliens. The claustrophobic setting of Alien really ups the suspense factor, and the creature is truly horrific. They never scared me in Aliens, but the one time I happened to catch a scene (Brett's death) on cable while home alone one day, I was terrified and stayed in my room with loud music playing until my parents got back home. LOL!!

Now I have a question. How come the Director's Cut is 1 minute shorter than the theatrical version? How can it be a DC if it is less than the original?

A DC/SE shouldn't been seen as an excuse to throw in a load of scenes which ruin the flow of the film (Empire Strikes Back....) - it should be an attempt to make a film better. In some cases that means making a film more punchy. Drawing out scenes can have an adverse effect on the films artistic merits.

I haven't watched any of the special features on the Quadrilogy yet, but from what I've heard, Fox showed Ridley Scott the new re-release cut of the film, in which deleted scenes had simply been reinserted. Scott thought that just adding those scenes back in threw off the structure and pacing of the film, so he decided to get involved and recut the film from there to better the structure/pacing with those new scenes intact, resulting in the one-minute-shorter running time.

I watched the DC when I got the Quadrilogy and didn't see much difference, so I guess I prefer the theatrical release.

what was the point of the alien looking at the cat in the cage? i was also thinking that the alien's "weakness" might be cats since it virtually ignored it.

I always thought the alien was just curious. It had been dealing with these upright bipedal creatures that were trying to kill it, and here was this little furry four-legged thing.

Overall, I think I'd rank my favorites as:

1. Aliens (Director's Cut*)
2. Alien
3. Alien Resurrection
4. Alien3

* This is the only "alternate version" of any of the films I like. For the others, I prefer the theatrical cuts.

[Lord Dalek]

* This is the only "alternate version" of any of the films I like. For the others, I prefer the theatrical cuts.

You're kidding. The theatrical cut of Alien 3 is a disaster compared to Fincher's assembly version.

[Michael24]

You're kidding. The theatrical cut of Alien 3 is a disaster compared to Fincher's assembly version.

I liked some of what the (so-called) "Director's Cut" added, like the alien actually being captured for awhile until it's set free by Golic and some of the extended dialogue scenes, but otherwise it did little to fix the film for me and made it much too longer with weaker pacing. It felt like it was never going to end at times.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Overall, I think I'd rank my favorites as:

1. Aliens (Director's Cut*)
2. Alien
3. Alien Resurrection
4. Alien3

* This is the only "alternate version" of any of the films I like. For the others, I prefer the theatrical cuts.

The extended version of the second film (the so-called "director's cut") is a great improvement over the original to my mind, with a bit more characterization, suspense, and texture. The alternate version of the first movie was interesting, but the theatrical cut is beautiful and perfectly-paced that I couldn't keep from finding it to be a bit pointless. It's not bad or anything, and the cut footage is really cool to see, and its just a minor tune-up, but they Mona Lisa didn't need to be inked.

You're kidding. The theatrical cut of Alien 3 is a disaster compared to Fincher's assembly version.

Its always been a mess, but an interesting mess.

[Michael24]

The extended version of the second film (the so-called "director's cut") is a great improvement over the original to my mind, with a bit more characterization, suspense, and texture.

I always thought Aliens was fine the way it was, and I'd heard about this other version for years, but we never had Laserdisc. But I couldn't imagine how the film could be any better. Then when I finally saw it for the first time, I realized the theatrical cut had just sort of been an appetizer. I once tried to watch that version again, and it was like a completely different movie after having gotten used to the "Director's Cut."

[rggkjg1]

i have question about the alien universe. are the people of earth aware and in contact with other alien civilizations (like in star wars and star trek) or do the people of earth still think we're "alone" in the universe?

[Lord Dalek]

i have question about the alien universe. are the people of earth aware and in contact with other alien civilizations (like in star wars and star trek) or do the people of earth still think we're "alone" in the universe?

The Wayland-Yutani Company is clearly aware of the Xenomorphs' existance at the time of Alien as they redirected the Nostromo to collect a sample.

Also we've been visited by Preditors a few times in the interim.