After watching all the lien films over a few days, I have been able to make a few deductions about the series. The main one being Alien Resuerection is pants.

I hate Alien 4 with a passion. It makes AVP look like Aliens.

I have decided to document here, exactly why I hate it, so bare with me, and feel free to disagree.

First a few generalisations....

Alien 1-3 were all very gritty, realistic films. Alien 4 is is filmed as cross between a dream and a comic strip.

Most of the actors keep pulling funny faces all of the time. This is not real acting.

The characters are really poorly written. There is not one really likeable character, or remotely believable. Even Alien 3 had some sympathetic characters, and you at least felt most of them had back stories. The heros turn out to be a genetically enhanced Ripley, who the Aliens are not really interested in killing, and an Android a cripple and an Ugly nutcase. Symapthy for most characters come from being likeable or vunerable. In this case the two leads dont really provoke any sympathy at all.

The dialogue is what you would expect to see in a comic book.

The humour is really misplaced half of the time, with Arnie style one-liners

Despie having lots of guns, no one wants to shoot them. this is probably due to Sigourney Weaver, and he loathing for guns which influenced both this and Alien 3 as producer. Lets hope she has no involvement in any ALien 5.

Now to the gaping plot holes.....

USM Auriga, a military research vessel with over 50 decks and about 2 or 3 miles long. Why would there be a crew of only 42 on a ship the size of a city?

Her blood was taken from Fury 161, not sixteen.

Blood samples would not supply enough dna to clone the Queen inside Ripley (But hey, thats the plot, so maybe we will let this slide).

Johner drops a knife into his ship's engineers leg, for fun. How stupid. Thats his characters arc. That tells the audience he is not a nice guy. Makes no sense whatsoever.


The Betty crew try to smuggle at least 4 weapons past a metal detector. Is that really the smartest thing to do? Even airports have better tech (x-rays) to detect weapons.

Note: They are in Unregulated space (currently).

The Betty crew try to start a fight with Ripley. Christie tries to smack her in the face with a steel bar. Again, nt the

brightest thing to do on a military ship. This could get them all executed.

An Alien shows on screen signs of actual intelligence for the first time when he stops hitting the screen when Gediman hold up his hand next to the button. Then in the next Aliens scene, they have chucked 3 in together. Is that really sensible?


When Call asks Ripley who whe is she replys "Ripley, Ellen, Lieutenant first class, number three-six-seven-oh-six." The first 2 films describe her as a Warrant officer.

Ripley can smell Aliens, sense the ship moving, but not that Call is an Android.

In the mess hall, at least 5 soldiers are shot even though their guns are bearing on the Betty crew. Two mercs are able to kill highly trained soldiers before they even get a single shot off.

Christie bounces a bullet off two bulkheads to shoot a soldier in the head that he cant even see.

The microphone between Gediman and security just stops working.

You would think they would have a method to kill the captured Aliens quickly, like an incinerator.

The ships computer can detected escaped Aliens but not gunfire.

Gediman just walks into the cage without a weapon. Followed by the guard who only has a pistol. Would you only have a single

guard handy armed with just a pistol? They know how dangerous the situation is, or else they wouldnt just imediately abandon ship.

The ALien operates the punishment device with its extendable teeth, something which can punch through skulls without any problem.

Perez pulls his own brain out!!!!

Elgyn goes off on his own to start a gun collection, despite knowing that there could be some nasty creatures walking around.

Not a particularly intelligent leader.

The Alien decides to just kill Elgyn instead of taking him for impregnation.

None of the crew will fire at the Alien, although I am sure they have flame throwers. Surely the bulkheads on a military ship

are thick enough to withstand a gun shot?

The workcrew sold to the miliary were in Stasis, but the Aurgia can get from Unregulated space to Earth in that matter of a couple of hours. Why is stasis still used?

This next bit is the swim through the galley. This just makes no real sense at all.......

Now, the cooling has been shut off, and caused folooding. I am guessing they are at the bottom of the ship, and need to head up to get to the docks. The fact that water will drop down, and the deck is flooded suggests this is the case, plus the fact

they climb upwards at the lift shaft, and the betty flew upward some way when docking.

The corridor through to the gally goes downwards for some reason. You would expect the deck to be flat, as it makes the ships space more efficient,

The crew can swim 90 feet without breathing, while carrying weapons or people.

The crew all decide to either swim away or drop their guns completely when being attacked underwater, despite Johnner showing that its possible to kill one.

The Aliens set up some kind of ambush, and membrane with eggs all around - in record time, but attack from the rear.

When Christie gets a bit of acid on his face, he just decides to cut his harness and fall in the water, instaed of shaking the alien off his foot. And instead of climbing back up, he just drowns.

Di Steffano cant be bothered to help shoot the Alien climbing the shaft.

They only climb up what seems a single level before Dr Wren exits.

There must be other exits but they act as if they are trapped.

Call opens the door from the other side, even though it was stressed there was no other way to get up to the next level other than this shaft.

Call claims she came to stop the breeding of the Alien, because she cares, but didnt do much to save the guys the betty crew sold to the USM.

Wren is trying to get to the Betty, why would he not just head to a lifepod, there must be more left on a ship that big.

Ripley cuddles the Alien Queen - Stupid

The Aliens queen is whacked apart with a single slap from the newbord.

The Alien queen has no drones defending her.

Wren shoots purvis several times without killing him. Purvis gains superhuman powers.

The Newborn manages to open the door to the Betty, but doesnt close it again properly.

Call - the caring android all out to DiSteffano, but doesnt warn him about the newborn.

In the next scene, Call has climbed out from her hiding place, for no reason.

Instead of orbiting Earth, Johnner and Vriess try to renter the atmosphere, even though the cant fly.

The Newborn get sucked out of a hole in the ship, when by covering the hole with its body, it should have maitained pressure.

You dont get sucked into space. You get blown.

The window is stronger than the newborns body, and doesnt crack any more under the pressure of it getting sucked out.

Crashing a ship as big as the Auriga into Earth would wipe out all life on the continent, and probably severely effect the environment across the whole planet

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I didn't like it much when I saw it at the cinema, but I will admit watching it again on DVD I managed to see past its faults and find some thing I like. There are some moments where the tension is building, some chilling atmosphere is there. But it doesn't last long.

This film is just too much of the same. We've already had 3 films of running around dark corridors. They needed to try something different. Set it outdoors. On an isolated planet, or something.

I'd agree that the characters are all so unlikeable. Even Ripley annoys you. You just don't care much if any of them die. And they're all so odd looking. I know the directors likes these actors, but it just doesn't fit with the more real "truckers in space" style of the first films.

Then about three-quarters of the way through it turns into a freak show. The alien-human baby is disgusting, but hardly terrifying.

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Just wait 20 years. We may get quality remakes of the entire Alien/Predator series. The first 2 Alien movies don't need remakes, but the rest sure do.

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No, no no. Not remakes, prequels!

--hipster

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Mining: In Space, No One Can Hear You Drill

Alien4...in space, no one can here you suck!

Good point about space shouldn't be able to "suck" a monster though a pinhole. That never occurred to me while watching it. At the most, maybe a nasty raspberry?

The part I didn't like about that scene is the flicking of acid onto the window. People think acid will just dissolve anything, but it really doesn't work like that. Acid is just a very good solvent for metals, and perhaps organic flesh. However, glass should be pretty darn stable. In fact, acid is stored in glass containers all the time (in a lab, for instance). I just rolled my eyes at the premise that acid could in anyway make a pinhole in a glass window.

That whole Sigorney Weaver thing and artistic input...I think we can see how easily nutty personal views can really deep six a film. It's ok to have all the personal views you want, but don't inject them into movie projects just for the hell of it. We don't go see movies because we want to see how "Sigorney Weaver" would battle xenomorphs. We go see movies to see how space people deal with xenomorphs, and if that requires lots of gunfire, that's the way it's got to be, imo.

For the longest time, she wanted a "make love to the Alien" theme, too, I hear. Get too close to some of these celebs, and you find what real kooks they are, I guess. She suggested it in Aliens production, but not until Alien4, did she get her wish. 'kay, whatever, Sig. I guess when it comes down to it, it's not like Alien4 could really have been ruined any worse Alien-luv or not.

As for the topic title...I don't know about it being the worst ever movie, but it certainly was bad. Battlefield Earth still gets my vote for worst sci-fi movie ever.

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There are far, far worse films out there than Resurrection. I prefer it to AvP for a start.

Sure, there are giant plotholes, and the whole thing is a big demonstration of how taking some of my favorite people in film-making and sticking them together doesn't work if they don't get on (from "Amelie" and "City Of Lost Children" director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, to Joss "Buffy" Whedon), but that whole underwater sequence lifts it out of 'worst' for a start.

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I'd actually enjoyed AvP (other than the whole running around Antarctica without a jacket on thing, which irritated me to no end.)

I'd forgotten the pinhole in 4 was made by a drop of acid. For some reason, I (vaguely) remembered it as a bullethole (which would have been slightly more plausible.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, though, wouldn't a bullet-sized hole with comfortable air pressure on one side and hard vaccuum on the other simply make a lot of noise and empty the room of air over a few minutes or so? Maybe cause a detectable breeze if you're close enough to it? I mean, you can only get so much air through that tiny little hole, right?

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Dreadful film altogether. An insult to the other films in the series.

You are absolutely correct. They did this on Mythbusters, though not in a hard vacuum. They shot a bullet through the side of the plane while it was pressurized (so that the pressure difference between the inside of the plane and outside were the same as if it were at 30,000 feet), and the results were pretty much what you described. When they shot a hole through the cabin or the window, nothing moved, not even stuff right near the hole. This result was disappointing to the Mythbusters team, so of course they had to see what would happen when high explosives were used instead. Those results were pretty much what you would expect.

Well, way back in the first Alien movie, the facehugger ate its way through Kane's faceplate, so I guess the ability of the acid blood to eat through glass was well-established.

Uh, the acid that caused the hole in Resurrection was alien blood, wasn't it? 8-[

I also found the "likability" factor (or lack thereof) of the characters in this film to be off-putting.

Hard to believe that Joss Firefly Whedon wrote this, ain't it?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I think the first would be in the first movie. The alien hided in the escape shuttle to escape the ship before it blew up. It showed enough intelligence to figure that it had to get off the ship and how to get off.

I'd say that's debatable. It may have just picked that place because it was remote from the rest of the ship and approachable only through one entrance - like a cave. The alien seemed to want the place for a nap, since it seems to be sleeping when Ripley spots it.
Also, the alien was less than a day old. It seems much more reasonable that all of its behavior was instinctual.

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I don't think the difference between "hard vacuum" (in quotes because I don't know of a definition of hard vacuum) and 30,000 feet vacuum would be significant for this effect.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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Agreed. It's hard to get into a movie if you find you really don't care what happens to those annoying people.

Say it ain't so, Sean.

It's slangy, Swift. In science fiction, hard vaccuum usually implies significant peril; the prospect of experiencing vaccuum while unprotected.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Whedon's IMDB page.

I believe he has somewhat "disowned" the final film, saying that the director changed a lot of what he wrote - he certainly didn't have the creative control here he had on Firefly or even Buffy. Still, his name is the only one on the "Written By" credit (except for a "Characters" credit for the writers of the original Alien).

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I understand that; I was answering as someone who works frequently with vacuum furnaces, in the 10^-6 torr range. From a "sucking" standpoint (air sucking into leaks, seals to atmosphere sealing down, etc.) it doesn't much matter if 14 pounds per square inch of atmospheric pressure is pushing against 1 torr, 1 millitorr, or 10^-9 torr of vacuum.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

What the screenwriter writes, and how it finally ends up on the screen can be two completely different things. Does anyone know how much imput the studio and director used to 'improve' the script?

Even though I understand the problems the director of A3 had (the changing script, sets that were already constructed for when the movie was suppose to take place on a space station with monks that was constructed of wood), I still dislike the movie, and find A4 more enjoyable, even though it is pure bubblegum.

David.

The problem that I have with this (though I didn't see the ep, I've heard of the results) is that there is one real world example out there of just such an event. I don't have the reference in front of me, but a National Airline DC-10 had an outboard engine blow up over New Mexico in the 1970's because the pilot and flight engineer were having a discussion about the autothrottle. They pulled some breakers, did a few tests, and then the engine overspooled and blew up. Fragments hit the main cabin and blew out a window, and the passenger seated there was pulled right out of his (loose) seatbelt and out, even though the passenger next to him tried to hold on.

Similar thing happened more recently on a British Airways jet where they'd replaced a windshield with the wrong bolts. Windscreen blew out and the pilot was almost ejected completely out (only saved by a stewad holding on for dear life). So it apparently can happen, but they couldn't replicate it on Mythbusters. Don't know if they acknowledged the real world incidents, however.

Back on topic, there was another oddity as I recall about Alien Ressurecction. The military ship is supposed to be at the edge of controled space in a universe where long trips require sleep pods, right? How is it that it managed to get back to Earth so bloody fast to crash into it? And Earth has no defence againt an out of control ship heading right for it? When it apparently has enough force to take out Brazil?

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Back off topic...

One of the things that they found was that the volume of air released makes the difference. For example, the bullet hole only allows so much air out at a time, and so it has almost no effect on the inside of the plane. Take out a larger portion of the plane (or in the case of the British Airways flight, the windscreen), and the large volume of air leaving the plane will pull large objects with it, including people. I'm pretty sure they made mention of previous incidents (the Hawaiian Airlines plane where the cabin blew apart due to metal fatigue was mentioned, I believe).

We now return you to your previously scheduled discussion about the dreadful movie that was Alien 4. It certainly wasn't the worst movie ever, or even the worst sci-fi movie ever, but I don't think I could ever voluntarily sit through it again.

Well, in the movie Earth is no longer nearly as important as it used to be. Maybe it is on the edge of controlled space these days?
The "Director's Cut" version ends with Ripley and Cal looking out on a post-apocalyptic-style desert wasteland, so it's not all that unlikely that no one cares that they're about to crash into it.

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Back off topic. Spent a little over a year as a Fatigue and Static Test Technician for Cessna aircraft a couple lifetimes ago. They would fill the fuselages's or test vessels if you will, with as many foam peanuts and foam blocks to fill the vessel before tests including catastrophic tests. Points of failure were located, identified and watched and depending on the tests, cycled to failure. Little bitty holes will spew air like on Mythbusters, till the air goes out. Kinda like the Greek airliner or Payne Stewarts plane. Well, I forget what valve let go in Payne's plane and it'll be a bit before we know on the other, but it's just like punching a hole in a tire, spew till empty.

However, in the right areas a large hole will open up and allowing large volumes of air to leave at one time and as force equals preasure by area a big hole has lots of force. Those explosions, and they were pretty loud, would blow foam blocks and peanuts all around. I once watched a peanut fall out of the rafters a full 6 months after the test. And we filled these things as full of foam as we could to minimize the danger, STILL there is a whole lotta air in those things.

So, catastrophic, blow a whole window out of the airplane, style decompression, your in trouble. Little bitty hole in the window, stick a metal or thick plastic tray against it while the airplane crew descends to 10,000 feet.

Oh, another real world equivalence? Ever pull a nail out of a tire. Big enough hole and it'll just spew till flat. Ever see a sidewall seperate? I watched a lady get knocked a good 5 feet away from her tire when it happened and she only had 25 pounds of preasure in it. Sounded like a stick of dynamite.

And yes, although the big bomb explosions were kinda neet, they were never as cool as the rooster shots!

Ok, you got me there- finding the rare acid that does react with glass! ...but upon closer examination, this may not be the super-acid we would expect to do the kinds of things premised in the movie. It may turn out that HFl doesn't necessarily "dissolve" glass, rather etch it or slowly weaken it. It's possible the higher reason it is not kept in glass containers in laboratories is to keep it pure (you don't want Si to leech into the chemical because that would easily throw off the reaction for anything else you'd use it for later on), and you don't want to have to worry about the glass container cracking apart due to a weakening stress fracture (spilling acid all over the place). This is aside from the acid being able to actually dissolve glass (which I don't think is the case).

So I maintain that even if the Alien acid was HFl-based, spritzing a gloop of it onto an industrial-tempered "space" glass window isn't going to pinhole it. At the worst, maybe leave a dull mark, I'd expect.

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I'm not sure acid was involved in that case (reaching way back in memory, I am). Didn't the face-hugger just shatter its way through the face helmet simply via blunt force? We did not see the action of "acid" for the first time until a bit later when they tried to cut it off his face, I think.

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No, it most definitely used acid to get through the faceplate. You can hear the sound effect of the acid at work when it first jumps on Kane and when they remove the faceplate later it looks melted, not just shattered.
The novelization and script both include the facehugger using acid to melt through the faceplate.

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Ok, my bad.

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Has anyone ever explained what the Alien's circulatory system is made of, given it conducts an acid strong enough to effortlessly pass through metal & glass? Unobtanium?

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What, hard to believe that Joss wrote a script about a bunch of mean-looking renegades who are actually not that bad in the end struggle to get along on a beat-up old spacecraft, until bad things start happening to them and they turn out to have the street-smarts to get themselves out of trouble when more 'professional' troops get their backsides handed to them?

Yes, I'm really struggling to get my head around that, too...