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Alien 40th Anniversary - Cinema re-release in March 2019

Started by thraxx, February 07, 2019, 02:28:12 PM

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greenman

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on February 10, 2019, 01:00:11 PM
Without wanting to be too generous, but in the spirit of fair play, does the fact that Aliens was effectively a low budget film (even Cannon were working with budgets of about $5+million more at the time) go some way to explaining the technical issues of how bad it looks?

Yeah I suspect that's likely a factor, I mean I don't think Cameron has ever made a film as good looking as Alien or Blade Runner(or the Duellists for that matter which had a tiny budget) but equally Terminator or the Abyss are clearly better looking than Aliens.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I'm still fascinated/amused by the idea that 3 has better dialogue.

Paaaaul

Quote from: St_Eddie on February 09, 2019, 03:03:08 PM
>
>
Alien 2: On Earth
>
>
This is the only film I've bought on Blu-ray, watched and then flogged to CEX within a single day.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on February 10, 2019, 01:22:17 PM
I'm still fascinated/amused by the idea that 3 has better dialogue.

Meanwhile most of the rest of us are fascinated/amused by the idea that Aliens is brilliant.

WINK

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I'm the leading authority on the Alien films. I won a quiz.

Shit Good Nose

Was the prize a copy of Alien 3 in every format it was ever released on?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The prize was knowing that my opinion is fact. Also a bunch of promotional tat the cinema had lying around.

The next quiz they held was after a preview screening of Drive. I won a Mini Cooper for the weekend.

Replies From View


St_Eddie


magval

Saw this yesterday but no sign of Dallas gooped up for preservation. Which cut is that in, and which cut did I see by extension? Didn't imagine that, did I?

surreal

That was in the Directors Cut which was released a couple of years ago - this is the original, and IMHO far superior, version.  The Directors Cut just adds unnecessary scenes back in and stops the movie in it's tracks.

I saw this re-release last night, loved it, lots of good reaction from the audience too - and Cineworld Birmingham actually put it on a good sized screen, not in one of their broom closets like they did with 2001 etc

magval

Was the busiest I've seen Queens in Belfast on a Saturday. Here, Alien is a class film. Think I'm going to hoke out the boxset with the six discs so's I can watch all the documentary stuff related to it, commentaries and such. Enjoyed it very much yesterday.

Only other one I recall really interesting me was 3 (cubed!) but I doubt that'll hold up to a second viewing.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I done saw it last night.

I'm assuming it's the same version that I've seen countless times before, but there were a few jarring cuts that I'd never noticed before (when they head off to the derelict ship). Maybe the booming cinema speakers made it stand out more. Something else I noticed, thanks to the big screen, was the use of children doubling for the crew in spacesuits, to make the sets look bigger.

surreal

I also get that when I watch Alien on a big screen - always spot shots and bits I don't remember.  Maybe I just watch it a bit more closely when I get to see it at the cinema than when watching on TV, and analyse it a bit more.  I'd forgotten how long Brett searches for the cat before getting killed, which works well as I think the girl sitting behind me didn't breathe for the entirety of that section before the inevitable exclamation at the end of it.  Good to see people enjoying it though and it does still work with modern audiences.

St_Eddie

#104
Quote from: surreal on March 03, 2019, 09:42:55 AM
That was in the Directors Cut which was released a couple of years ago...

A couple of years ago?  It was released 16 years ago (2003).

Quote from: surreal on March 03, 2019, 09:42:55 AM
The Directors Cut just adds unnecessary scenes back in and stops the movie in it's tracks.

Indeed.  Interestingly, Tom Skerritt (Dallas in Alien) agrees that the film is better off without the egg morphing scene (and also the sex scene with Ripley which was in the original script)...

Quote from: Tom Skerritt"When I first read that script, I thought it was an interesting, solid science fiction thing.  Once [the alien arrives], what's the point of having any suggested romance going on the side? It didn't make sense to me when I read it.  [The romance] just doesn't work. Any more than the thing towards the end when she's trying to get off the spacecraft and she finds the lair of the beastie and sees me attached to a wall like a postage stamp.  All those things felt bumpy."

"You're going down a smooth road of terror and suddenly these other things show up and slow everything down. That's how I felt about the material and that's basically how [Ridley Scott] felt about it too. We shot [the nest scene], we didn't get around to doing the romance as he got rid of that early on."

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth


St_Eddie


thraxx

Going to see this this week. Fucking hell cant wait.

St_Eddie


surreal

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 03, 2019, 02:14:09 PM
A couple of years ago?  It was released 16 years ago (2003).

I refuse to believe it's been 16 years since I saw that in the cinema with friends...

There's a Telegraph review of it here from 2014 so I can only imagine it was a remaster of the Directors Cut which I saw back then: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11253233/Alien-The-Directors-Cut-review.html

surreal

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 03, 2019, 02:14:09 PM
Indeed.  Interestingly, Tom Skerritt (Dallas in Alien) agrees that the film is better off without the egg morphing scene (and also the sex scene with Ripley which was in the original script)...

Oddly, watching it last night there is a scene with Ripley and Dallas on their own in the corridor (maybe just before he goes into the ducts) where I felt there was some "romantic" tension between the two and I think that was all that was needed, just to suggest something which gives the scene a bit more in terms of stakes. Don't always need to make everything blatant, something modern movies seem to have forgotten, how to trust their audiences.

Although, more Ripley is always welcome, Sigourney Weaver was soooo gorgeous back then.

St_Eddie

Quote from: surreal on March 03, 2019, 03:57:58 PM
There's a Telegraph review of it here from 2014 so I can only imagine it was a remaster of the Directors Cut which I saw back then: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11253233/Alien-The-Directors-Cut-review.html

I don't think that it was a remaster.  Just a re-release.

Quote from: surreal on March 03, 2019, 04:02:50 PM
Oddly, watching it last night there is a scene with Ripley and Dallas on their own in the corridor (maybe just before he goes into the ducts) where I felt there was some "romantic" tension between the two and I think that was all that was needed, just to suggest something which gives the scene a bit more in terms of stakes. Don't always need to make everything blatant, something modern movies seem to have forgotten, how to trust their audiences.

Absolutely.  The romantic link between Ripley and Dallas is subtlety implied and that's all that it needs to be.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Another thing I'd never noticed before is how unceremonious the first glimpse of the alien ship is. There's no Spielbergian mounting sense of mystery and awe, no closeups of the characters taking it all in (as there is when the Space Jockey* is revealed), or fragmented views of the spacesuits video feed (which does happen afterwards) just a very sudden cut to a wide shot of the ship. It feels like something was missing there.

Something I have always noticed, but feel like praising again, is how naturalistic the dialogue is. Everyone talks over each other. It doesn't sound like movie talk - in a good way.


*who is not, nor ever was just some giant bloke in a spacesuit, thank you very fucking much, Prometheus.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 03, 2019, 05:44:05 PM
It feels like something was missing there.

I respectfully disagree.  The matter of fact presentation only adds to the fly-on-the-wall documentary feeling which the films exudes, in my opinion.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 03, 2019, 05:44:05 PM
*who is not, nor ever was just some giant bloke in a spacesuit, thank you very fucking much, Prometheus.

Damn straight.  The "suit" has teeth, for fuck's sake.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 03, 2019, 05:55:31 PM
I respectfully disagree.  The matter of fact presentation only adds to the fly-on-the-wall documentary feeling which the films exudes, in my opinion.
Well I respectfully disagree with your disagreement (and I certainly disagree with anyone showing me any respect). It's less matter of fact than it is simply outright jarring - and not in the way that seeing an alien craft might be. There just feels like a disconnect between the two shots.

Still a goddamn masterpiece though.

thraxx

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 03, 2019, 06:15:17 PM
Well I respectfully disagree with your disagreement (and I certainly disagree with anyone showing me any respect). It's less matter of fact than it is simply outright jarring - and not in the way that seeing an alien craft might be. There just feels like a disconnect between the two shots.

Still a goddamn masterpiece though.

That shot is a matte if I recall, Scott kept trying to build sets and the producers kept putting a stop to it. The Space Jockey was the cause of that I think, they hated the fact that a huge expensive set was only on screen for a minute.

As for the Prometheus explanation of the jockey, it's just one more example of the modern phenomenon of cunts trying to explain stuff that is far more interesting left unexplained.

St_Eddie

Quote from: thraxx on March 03, 2019, 06:24:50 PM
That shot is a matte if I recall...

I'm almost certain that it was a miniature, shot with a low-resolution home video camera.  That's covered on the exhaustive 'making of' documentary on the DVD/Blu-Ray, if I recall correctly.

Quote from: thraxx on March 03, 2019, 06:24:50 PM
As for the Prometheus explanation of the jockey, it's just one more example of the modern phenomenon of cunts trying to explain stuff that is far more interesting left unexplained.

Yep.  Prequels rarely, if ever, work out for the best.  A lot of people cite The Godfather: Part Two as a counter argument but that wasn't a true prequel.  It had elements of that, sure but it was also a straight up sequel.

greenman

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 03, 2019, 06:30:35 PM
I'm almost certain that it was a miniature, shot with a low-resolution home video camera.  That's covered on the exhaustive 'making of' documentary on the DVD/Blu-Ray, if I recall correctly.

That's my memory as well, wasn't using the helmet cams partly to cover up the model not looking that great?

I do think it works well dramatically though not to have a big reveal of the exterior, lets the tension gradually build up when there inside the ship.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: St_Eddie on March 03, 2019, 06:30:35 PM
Yep.  Prequels rarely, if ever, work out for the best.  A lot of people cite The Godfather: Part Two as a counter argument but that wasn't a true prequel.  It had elements of that, sure but it was also a straight up sequel.
Also, Vito Corleone was only an alien in the sense that he was an immigrant to the United States. Learning his backstory doesn't completely rob him of his mystique and turn him into some mundane chump.

Prometheus is to me what the Phantom Menace was to so many. It's not even a stupid person's idea of a clever film. It's a complete fuckwit's idea of a clever film.

Replies From View

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 03, 2019, 06:50:56 PM
Prometheus is to me what the Phantom Menace was to so many. It's not even a stupid person's idea of a clever film. It's a complete fuckwit's idea of a clever film.

I like the fact that you can go straight into Alien Covenant and ignore the events of Prometheus.  This is because I like Alien Covenant.