The old timey rewrite was comedy gold and the images were platinum. Thanks all! Fucking awesome.
Yeah, in the Director’s Cut he’s the head honcho of the Hadley’s Hope colony on LV-426. Only seen in one scene, though.
Hah! Aliens rap.
THREAD OVER, MAN! THREAD OVER!
I ran into some “making of” vids there and man, smart-guns were made out of MG-42’s and motorcycle parts. So basically, when Vasquez and Drake open up and start to rock we’re hearing actual (blank) MG-42 rounds fired.
Oh god what a gawdam amazing movie that is.
I… what? I’ve never heard that usage.
Yes! One of my favourite bits too - feels very James Cameron.
I watched both Alien and Aliens over the weekend, and it’s striking just how much they feel like part of the same world, something that neither 3 nor 4 achieved. The remastered version of Alien in the Quadrilogy which I have is particularly amazing; the picture quality is fantastic.
While it’s a bit unfair to compare them, the special effects in Aliens are dramatically superior. A lot of advancement happened in those 7 years. Either that, or James Cameron is just more of a task-master about FX than Ridley Scott was. But I think the FX in Aliens still look 100% believable, even today. They haven’t dated at all, which is pretty amazing. Whereas in Alien the FX look a bit fake by today’s standards. For example, the Chestburster effect in Alien is obviously a rigid puppet, whereas in Aliens it has arms and a mouth which move like a real thing. At other times, the Alien is obviously a human in a suit, whereas in Aliens you never get that impression.
I feel that Alien deals with these shortcomings remarkably well though. My God, the dinner with Kane is one of the best scenes ever put to film. Amazingly paced and edited, and the reaction of the cast in that moment after the Chestburster escapes is pitch-perfect.
If I had to pick one of my favourite images from Aliens, it would probably be the moment right after they torch the Chestburster, and suddenly all the Aliens come awake and uncoil from the walls.
Ooh, hey, it would be funny to rewrite the entire script as a play. Set it up as a Jules Verne-like vision of what old-timey sci-fi would have looked like. I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to get someone to produce it, assuming the rights came through.
Yes, it’s interesting how much the second movie manages to borrow from the first, while still retaining its own character.
- Alan
By the way, did anyone else know that Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Oscar for Aliens? I didn’t until today.
Empire had a great article a few years ago about the original vision of Aliens 3, with the original director before it and the director were jettisoned.Still, it got far enough in pre-production that sets were being built. The entire premise was so completely crazy it might have worked, but talk about different.
I had no idea Vincent Ward was originally supposed to do Alien 3. I loved the heck out of his weird, depressing time-travel movie, The Navigator.
Uh…Okay.
It used to be an article of nerd faith that, if only William Gibson’s screenplay for Alien 3 had been used instead of Vincent Ward’s, it would have lived up to and possibly surpassed the first two movies. But then we saw Johnny Mnemonic.
Give me the Dark Horse comic for script with Hicks and Newt as the main protagonists and I’d be a happy space marine. Even had some Ripley in it, too.
It actually kinda angers me to this day that that wasn’t Alien 3.
I just want the “On Earth, everyone can hear you scream” movie. WHY CAN’T I HAVE THAT MOVIE?!?
/tantrum
-xtien
“He’s comin’ in. I feel safer already.”
I almost agree 100% except for one thing: the dropship’s descent is a bit ropey, particularly when it’s flying through the clouds. Otherwise, yeah, the SFX stand up today and in some ways having practical FX is better because it avoids the uncanny valley effect you often get with CG lighting.
(I assume that we’re ignoring things computer displays and so on).
its really a matter of enjoy and I am feeling great for this
I read an interview many years ago with one of the guys who did FX and models for Alien. He said that initially the studio just expected Alien to be a semi-cheap horror ripoff of Star Wars, so the FX budget was somewhat limited. Then the studio brass saw the first scenes and the FX guys were given a pile of cash and told to do whatever it took to make the effects look good.