When we think of science fiction and horror, we think of Alien. Ridley Scott’s 1979 vintage single-handedly revitalized its genre after decades of B-movies, while the design of its jet-black antagonist permeated pop culture for more than four decades. To celebrate the legacy of science fiction’s ultimate creation, Hammer’s ranked the nine Alien films from worst to best, from the groundbreaking original to Scott’s dubious prequels more than three decades later and access to the franchise’s most recent, Alien. :Romulus.
You can watch the first 8 Alien movies online on Disney+.
Movie. Name: “A series of animated images, usually shown in cinemas or television, that tell a story. » By the dictionary definition, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem is rarely a movie. Its lighting is so uniformly black that it is very difficult to make out a moving image, and even if you could, the action is filmed with such intensity and with such jarring cuts that it would still be disorienting. Then there is the story. What story? The “Predalien” from the first Alien Vs Predator breaks into civilization, a Predator comes to stop him from murdering the local population of sexy teenagers, and then they both get bombed. The end. What a waste of time in every single way imaginable.
The fourth entry in the original series has been given the green light to take advantage of and address the bugs of Alien 3. The seemingly “last” film in the franchise made money ($160 million vs. a $60 million budget), but left many enthusiasts apoplectic in the end.
Resurrection lives up to its name by literally reviving protagonist Ellen Ripley, but the invention and horror that accounted for the show’s heights don’t return. Instead, there are murders that range from gruesome to comical (see Dan Hedaya’s army general pick his own brain to verify that he’s been bitten) and outlandish concepts like alien DNA making other people gods at basketball. . At least director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and screenwriter Joss Whedon would leave that behind by creating masterpieces like Amelie and The Avengers, respectively.
Twenty years after Resurrection failed to correct the Alien series by listening to the public’s negative reactions, Covenant made the exact same mistake. Ridley Scott returned to the director’s chair for this sequel to Prometheus, which many have criticized for being too remote and confusing a prequel to the 1979 original.
It’s evident that Covenant is a story Scott never intended to tell. The film rejects Prometheus’ central theme of the absence of a god-like auteur in favor of slasher clichés far below even the worst Alien entries up to this point (such as an Alien murder). a couple in the middle of a shower). Everything from the creature’s origin to the fate of the characters from the previous film is in store, all before a twist that anyone with a mobile brain would have predicted after half an hour.
The idea of the two 20th Century Fox alien villains facing off has been around since 1989, when it was at the center of a Dark Horse comic book series. And, in theory, the collision has been a wonderful movie. An unstoppable hunter in search of the most damaging prey in the galaxy – how can you it up?
Well, Paul W. S. Anderson has figured out a way. The director of Resident Evil and Event Horizon was once chained to a PG-13 rating, seriously restricting what his two fighters can do on screen. However, it must be recognized that Alien Vs Predator has sympathetic performances, while the non-verbal communication between Predator and the protagonist Lex Woods is expertly done. It’s not a disaster, but it’s far from a crossover worthy of the name.
Alien 3 would never have been great. When production began in January 1991, five other people had attempted to write it, but director David Fincher still did not have a finished script to work with. Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth was booted from the film after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and an absolutely interchangeable finish was filmed and then abandoned.
That Alien 3 makes any sense is a miracle. The sequel even has some wonderful concepts: trapping Ridley on an all-male crime planet paves the way for many more realistic horrors, while an ensemble that includes Charles Dance and Paul McGann does a masterful job. At the same time, though, murdering almost all of Aliens’ survivors off-screen is an insult to audiences, and there’s no huge genre replacement like the past sequel spotted here.
Bringing in the guy who so masterfully rebooted Evil Dead in 2013 felt like a stroke of genius and, to be fair to Federico Alvarez, Romulus is the most faithful and lovingly made Alien movie to arrive in decades. It looks and sounds amazing, cleverly recreating the dirty, dystopian, techno-organic aesthetic of the first two films, bringing the series back to its claustrophobic roots in style. Its cast is solid, with Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson in particular developing their roles brilliantly, making Rain and Andy two of the franchise’s most plausible leads.
Unfortunately, the film’s many strengths are undermined by a largely derivative plot and overly clunky fanservice, ranging from in-your-face camera shots and homages to silly callback lines. Most unforgivably, however, the franchise’s abhorrent CGI resurrection of a former cast member is more than a distraction, a tasteless “homage” that can’t help but leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Given the space to, in fact, forge his own path, Romulus could have been a classic. As it stands, it’s another absolutely decent but flawed entry.
Going into it, everything about Prometheus screamed that this prequel would be an instant classic. Fans had long been speculating the exact origins of the Alien species, and the original master Ridley Scott was back in the director’s chair. It could have been great.
In the end, it was. . . good. Prometheus is a science fiction tale about the absence of God that raises very provocative questions about the purpose of life, backed by an exceptional soundtrack and cast. The direction and effects are also undoubtedly excellent. However, the film’s ties to Alien are so tenuous and so many questions remain that, as a prequel, it confuses far more than it clarifies. It is highly recommended to view this as a standalone philosophical sci-fi film and not as an essay on Alien 5.
How to make the sequel to one of the most important horror films of all time?Instead, you make one of the most important action movies of all time. Director James Cameron’s resolve to remake Alien’s claustrophobia and up the ante on a human-monster shootout remains a masterstroke, distinct and complementary to the original.
Aliens complements the Alien story by showcasing the queen as well as the talents of a fully formed hive, while the set of human marines tasked with exterminating them seems just as complete. Lars Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein sign up for the cast and launch an avalanche of quotable lines. The surrogate circle of relatives theme, shaped through Ripley, Hicks, and bathroom survivor Newt, is also a healthy counterpoint to the rape- and abortion-centric nuances of the first film. If it had ended here, Alien would be remembered today as the best and most complete series in all of science fiction.
With the exception of Frankenstein, no one took the sci-fi horror genre seriously until Alien came along. It’s a label that had long been synonymous with low-budget, exploit-money B-movies: dumpster fires like The Wasp Woman and Them!Then Ridley Scott walked into 20th Century Fox, presented “Jaws in Space” and unleashed his masterpiece.
On one level, Alien is a conglomeration of all things nascent in science fiction and horror. Its premise of seven ill-equipped truckers being wiped out by an inhuman force is prime slasher territory, while the set takes its cue from Star Wars in depicting a dark Cosmos. From those easy-to-follow tropes, Scott is able to invent outlandishly.
With its jaws inside its jaws and its phallic head, the Alien itself is taken straight from H. R. ‘s nightmares. But its parasitic life cycle is even more worrying. In a metaphor for rape, a “face hugger” suffocates his host and provides him with only a few hours of respite before a newborn baby emerges from his breast. Then the monster kills and kills – as the treacherous android Ash says, “the best organism” – with nothing less than the immensity of the area capable of preventing it. A real fucking terror.
Louder’s obsessive resident, Gojira, was still in school when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt has become a regular on Prog and Metal Hammer, much to his delight when he interviews the top avant-garde artists that heavy music can muster. He also has signatures in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many more. When you’re not writing, you’ll most likely find him skydiving, scuba diving, or roller coastering.
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