I guess I’m really weird when it comes to Alien films. Alien 3 is my favourite of the four, and while I didn’t like Resurrection as a whole, I thought the hybrid at the end was pretty damn cool. Strange, strange me.
i was happy with it up until the stupid hybrid comes up. the fact theyd shown what a cool hybrid could look like in the failed ripley clones kept in the big specimen tubes that she torches about halfway through made it all the more disappointing. specifically, the human looking one with the alien head.
also, doesnt the earth have any kind of defences in the future? surely, someones going to notice a bnig ass military spaceship approaching and ask it what its doing there - ‘oh, were just going to crash the earth and cause irrepairable damage on a basic armageddon scale by taking out a continent to rid ourselves of 2 or 3 aliens left on board.’
im all for suspension of disbelief in a movie, but shit yo.
its got its good bits, the underwater/ ladder bit for one,but the ending completely sucks and blows, at the same time. please dont make a continuation sequel. aliens vs predator, in the right hands, seems a much better bet.
Alien: Resurrection was the second worst movie I have ever seen. I wish I had walked out. Good acting? Please. Everything about that movie was bad. The director and writers should no longer be allowed to work.
Now, don’t be shy – tell us how you really feel 
Hmmmm… Now you’ve got me wondering what the worst movie you’ve ever seen is.
Barry
$10 says it’s Alien III.
You’re on!
I hope you don’t mind being paid in cat food coupons…
Well, given that the director’s other films are absolutely billiant (Amelie, The City of Lost Children, Delicatessen) and well-recieved on both sides of the Atlantic, and the writer is the creator of the fan favorite, and often excellent, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that seems a bit harsh. I mean, it must have looked like a good idea on paper…
Which is why I find it disappointing that it was merely OK. I can buy the cloning explanation. It was better than the clones in dozens of other sci-fi works I’ve seen (at least they gave a hand-waving reason why she could remember anything). The Aliens, for once, had a discernable intelligence and an actual plan. I’m not sure if I liked that or not, I think I liked them better feral. Ryder wasn’t as annoying (IMHO) as some are saying she was. I thought the hybrid was a good idea badly executed, and death by vacumn was silly. Still, the characters were good and the action decent.
A solid C. Alien 3 is D-, Aliens and Alien both A-.
OK, here’s one bizarre, totally inexplicable thing about the film that just bugged the snot out of me… Once the aliens get loose, the ship automatically starts heading back to Earth, which is fine. But it’s stated that the ship will reach Earth in less than two hours! Now, I’m not going to argue about the whole improbability of a ship returning from deep space to Earth orbit in two hours (although, if they had some sort of hyper drive, why would people need to be frozen for long voyages?) But that two hour time limit really mucked up the plot for the rest of the movie.
Think about it. In that brief two hour timespan, not only do they go running around having all sorts of adventures, but at seemingly the last minute Ripley has her run-in/orgy with the alien queen. And then, as the clock is ticking down, the alien queen manages to completely re-evolve so as to be able to give birth live instead of having to lay eggs and actually gives birth to the alien/human hybrid! All of this takes place within the space of, what, 10 minutes? I could buy it (barely) if the ship was weeks away from earth, or at least days away, but hours? Give me a break!
I personally didn’t mind the look of the hybrid creature, but the timing of its birth as well as the circumstance of its death really ruined the movie for me.
And I’m still traumatized by that whole “breath activated door” thing…
Barry
Of all the alien movies, this had to be the WORST!
The only, and I mean only, redeeming quality was the hints of homoeroticism (which of course blows up in your face when you realize they kept it low key what with Winona’s character being an android and all.) and of course the only reason I will watch that horrible excuse for a movie is Sigourney Weaver. (in a tank top no less!) Damn.
MSSMITH537- Well, Ripley did have some Alien genes which gave her a bit more strength than your average human. This also was why she was such an uberbitch throughout the movie.
But I agree , that queen had to weigh a couple of tons, Ripley’s leg would’ve been ripped clean from her torso.
Of all the alien movies, this had to be the WORST!
The only, and I mean only, redeeming quality was the hints of homoeroticism (which of course blows up in your face when you realize they kept it low key what with Winona’s character being an android and all.) and of course the only reason I will watch that horrible excuse for a movie is Sigourney Weaver. (in a tank top no less!) Damn.
MSSMITH537- Well, Ripley did have some Alien genes which gave her a bit more strength than your average human. This also was why she was such an uberbitch throughout the movie.
But I agree , that queen had to weigh a couple of tons, Ripley’s leg would’ve been ripped clean from her torso.
I must confess that when I first saw Ressurection, I had been waiting with baited breath because I’d read the script online some 6 months before the film came out. Personally, I have to say that the director completely and utterly dropped the ball on this one. I was a huge fan of Juenet’s previous to Ressurection, and when I saw his cast list, I figured that it was a can’t-miss deal. But sadly no. Most of the problems mentioned in this thread so far are things are directorial additions (The breath doors, the ending etc.) What really screwed it for me was the mutated alien, simply because it looks incredibly stupid.
Actually, for an idea as to how far the ball was dropped here’s a direct quote from the shooting script as to the design of the mutant -
Here’s the complete link
http://geocities.com/scifiscripts/scripts/alienresurrection_early.txt
Hmmm…the description of that doesn’t sound a damn thing like any of it came due to cross breeding with human genetic make-up…was there another explaination for this in the original script?
CURIOUS_GEORGE brought up the part of the movie that ruined it for me. Why in the hell was Ripley so touchy-feely with Winona? Someone obviously wanted them to hook up, but they were too chicken to put in an out-and-out love fest. I would have rather they done that instead of boring us with all the inuendo.
And it seems to me that Ripley, having her alien intuition, would have known that Winona was an android from the get-go. Why was Winona an android anyway? Winona was no Bishop.
I liked it when it first came out. That was back in my time when I loved violent as hell movies. Actually, I still like violent as hell movies, but I like the violence to have some sort of point. That’s why the movie hasn’t held up to repeat viewings for me.
As others have said, it was a great concept poorly excecuted.
But still, SWIMMING ALIENS! That kicked ass!
If you ask me, Alien: Resurrection did one thing right that III missed out on completely. The running theme of the first movie is very maternal: note the opening shot of the curving orange tunnel, leaning to a nest of egg-like sleep pods, from which the crew emerge; the egg-like pods of the aliens themselves; even the movie poster itself has a bright white slit that is almost vaginal; and remember that the ship’s computer was “Mother.” The second film follows up on this theme by making Ripley the de facto ward of a small child, where Ripley is forced to take on the (surprise!) queen mother of the aliens (yay, symbolic parallel!). The fourth film, complete with the mark-3 series of androids (Ryder), goes back to that same thematic unity, although this time in daughterhood. Ripley is an offspring, searching for personal identity; ditto the android; ditto the alien hybrid. And the ship’s computer this time? Father. What does the tiny ship Father do? Crash into the giant ball of Mother Earth. Intentional symbolism for the moment of fertilization? I wouldn’t know, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
The third movie was good in its own right, but it departed completely from this thematic pattern. For me, III was tense and entertaining, though without a deeper meaning to tie things together.
I’ll agree that some of the acting was… well… wooden. And excuse me, but Dan Hedaya did not belong in the movie at all. It took too long to get really rolling. The ugly skull-human-hybrid-alien creature was crap. I can see the core of the thematic idea there, though, which I can appreciate, even if there were some problems with implementation.
FISH
I’ve got a friend who loves Alien: Ressurrection for all those same reasons, Fish. She’s all about the motherhood imagery and the like. Maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge in the school of psychology, because not knowing all that sure makes the movie a big bowl of stupid for me.