Alien versus Aliens... which takes it?

[jman19]

Alien > Aliens.

Love them both, but Alien is a masterpiece in claustrophobic sci-fi horror. Aliens is a ton of fun and easily one of my favorite sci-fi action films, just not quite as artful as Alien IMO.

 

[Thebobo]

Aliens - Directors cut that shows the Settlers and when they got attacked.

 

[Zanovar]

Alien.loved aliens too.

 

[Paratus]

 

[feralkid]

Aliens - Directors cut that shows the Settlers and when they got attacked.

I did not know that...

 

[Thebobo]

I did not know that...

A good story about the Director's Cut for Aliens. Also I didn't realize there was a Director's cut of Alien.

"It seems that James Cameron’s Director’s Cut of Aliens is the only alternate cut of an Alien film preferred by any of the directors. Ridley Scott has gone on record stating that he considers Alien: The Director’s Cut to be an “alternative” cut of the film intended for long-time fans. David Fincher has explained that the only way he’d produce a version of Alien³ that he’d be happy with was if he were to shoot it from scratch. Jean-Pierre Jeunet believes that the theatrical cut of Alien: Resurrection is his preferred version of the film. So it seems that Cameron is the only director who has been able to successfully reintegrate material to produce what he feels to be a definitive version of the film.

And, to be honest, I’d agree. Aliens: The Director’s Cut is probably the best example of how to enhance an already superb film through the addition of previously excised material."

 

[JEDIYoda]

Forest Gump

 

[Bird222]

If I were flipping channels, and Alien was starting on HBO1, and Aliens was starting on HBO2, I'd watch HBO2, mostly....

I see what you did there.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Xenophobe tries to escape bigoted, racist humans for being an illegal alien after being forced to incubate in one of them.

 

[Ichinisan]

Alien, but I totally understand why most of my friends/family would prefer the sequel.

 

[mikeymikec]

Aliens - Directors cut that shows the Settlers and when they got attacked.

I tend to skip the extra scenes that involve the ship. Not great acting and pretty cheesy. Otherwise I like the 'special edition' / directors cut.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Have Alien 3 at home .... the directors cut or whatever cut it is that is a lot longer than the theatrical release. Alien 3 was meh but people love the long version of Alien 3. I have it at home and still need to watch it.

 

[Ichinisan]

Have Alien 3 at home .... the directors cut or whatever cut it is that is a lot longer than the theatrical release. Alien 3 was meh but people love the long version of Alien 3. I have it at home and still need to watch it.

Don't listen to the people who tell you there's a "good" version of that movie. They're delusional.

 

[Pens1566]

Love both, but Aliens wins if both are on. No question.

 

[Rifter]

Aliens, the directors cut, you know where they actually take the time to show you how the hell the aliens got into the camp.

 

[Eug]

Alien.

To be honest, I don't even remember the plotline of Aliens now. However, maybe that is a reason to re-watch it now.

Oh and Terminator >>>> T2. T2 was a sort of fun action movie but basically the whole thing was "look how great this new liquid metal special effect is!". It was great, but it got rather repetitive, and furthermore, that kid was annoying as hell.

 

[Paratus]

Alien.

To be honest, I don't even remember the plotline of Aliens now. However, maybe that is a reason to re-watch it now.

Oh and Terminator >>>> T2. T2 was a sort of fun action movie but basically the whole thing was "look how great this new liquid metal special effect is!". It was great, but it got rather repetitive, and furthermore, that kid was annoying as hell.

Here I will refresh your memory through the magic of gifs

 

[pmv]

Both are classics (and what a shame the 'franchise' was consistently wasted after that - curiously, every subsequent film failed in a slightly different way for different reasons). But I maintain that Aliens stands up to repeat viewing more than Alien, due to the nature of their respective 'genres'. The first relies more on scaryness and surprises, action just bears repeated viewing better.

Also, no space marine has ever (or will ever) slid from cockiness to panic with the panache of Bill Paxton.

 

[Ichinisan]

Also, no space marine has ever (or will ever) slid from cockiness to panic with the panache of Bill Paxton.

RIP

James Cameron remembers his friend:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/02/james-cameron-bill-paxton

I've been reeling from this for the past half hour, trying to wrap my mind and heart around it. Bill leaves such a void. He and I were close friends for 36 years, since we met on the set of a Roger Corman ultra-low budget movie. He came in to work on set, and I slapped a paint brush in his hand and pointed to a wall, saying "Paint that!" We quickly recognized the creative spark in each other and became fast friends. What followed was 36 years of making films together, helping develop each others projects, going on scuba diving trips together, watching each others kids growing up, even diving the Titanic wreck together in Russian subs. It was a friendship of laughter, adventure, love of cinema, and mutual respect. Bill wrote beautiful heartfelt and thoughtful letters, an anachronism in this age of digital shorthand. He took good care of his relationships with people, always caring and present for others. He was a good man, a great actor, and a creative dynamo. I hope that amid the gaudy din of Oscar night, people will take a moment to remember this wonderful man, not just for all the hours of joy he brought to us with his vivid screen presence, but for the great human that he was.

The world is a lesser place for his passing, and I will profoundly miss him.


http://time.com/4685241/james-cameron-bill-paxton/

Goodbye to My Friend Bill Paxton, a Talented, Kind and Damn Funny Man
James Cameron
Feb 28, 2017
acted in over 60 films, including Twister, Aliens, Apollo 13, True Lies, Titanic and Edge of Tomorrow, as well as many TV films and series, including his critically acclaimed Big Love. For 36 years he was one of my closest friends, a friendship that went far beyond our work together.

Of course even now, after his long and celebrated career, one of his most memorable characters remains one of his earliest: Private Hudson in Aliens. His wail, “It’s game over man!,” is as funny today as it was 31 years ago. It was the voice of the everyman, a quintessentially human response to fear and hopelessness.

The night before his heart surgery, which was ironically on Valentine’s Day, we had what was to be our last conversation. He was upbeat, even joking about being scared, saying “I feel like Hudson.” We both had a laugh riffing on “It’s game over man!” But tragically, for Bill, it was game over.

He will be greatly missed by all who knew and worked with him. He was always bursting with enthusiasm and ideas. I never met an actor or filmmaker who didn’t say he was one of the most likeable people they’d ever worked with. Of course, this business is not about being liked, but to stay sane and decent while doing some of the best work out there was Bill’s unique gift.

Some of Bill’s characters were plain-spoken, old-school men, humble and stoic. For these, he called on his Texas roots, and his own personal moral compass. But for others, like Simon the sleazy car salesman in True Lies, he went big and far from his own principles. Bill loved human frailty writ large. He swung for the fences as the blustering faux secret agent trying to seduce the plain-Jane wife of a licensed-to-kill Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he collapses into spineless pleading for his life near the end, he goes beyond caricature to pure classic.

Bill loved westerns, both period and contemporary, and played memorable characters on both sides of the law. As a small town sheriff in contemporary Arkansas in One False Move, Bill beautifully inhabited an average man who steps up to heroism, in the classic Western tradition. This film set the stage for the later part of Bill’s career, playing quieter, more internal characters. It certainly showed a side of him the world hadn’t seen before.

When another actor fell out at the last minute, I called Bill to play treasure hunter Brock Lovett in Titanic. He signed up without reading the script. In fact, I think he read it on the plane to the location. Then he notched up another indelible performance, and helped propel that film to a Best Picture Oscar.

A few years later I called him to come dive in the Russian Mir submersibles to the real Titanic wreck, just for the sheer hell of it. In the resulting documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, Bill graduates from playing a deep ocean explorer to actually being one, diving to the wreck four times. On the first dive, his comical on-screen trepidations about descending two and half miles down into the black abyss required no acting at all. Bill’s narration of the film reflects his own sensitive soul and his respect for the storytelling we call history, and perfectly captures the gravitas and humanity of the Titanic tragedy. In many ways, he and I were prouder of that second Titanic collaboration than we were of the movie itself.

He directed two feature films, Frailty and The Greatest Game Ever Played, in both cases showing total mastery of the medium. Bill believed in meticulous preparation, both behind the camera and for his acting. He once showed me the margin notes in his script for True Lies, and I was stunned to see that the broadest, most improvisational-seeming gestures of his Simon character were minutely detailed, like an astronaut’s checklist.

All of Bill’s characters were aspects of Bill the man: his humor, his decency, his rebellious spirit, his strong moral principle, his sense of the outrageous. Throw them all in a blender and you get Bill. But what you can’t see in his on-screen personas is his dedication to his family and friends, his careful tending of relationships, often manifested in hand-written letters that were always incredibly kind and thoughtful - so refreshing in this age of digital laziness. He was a lover and collector of art, broadly read, easy to talk to, always interesting and interested, always questing after some new story to tell. He was loyal, decent, kind and so damn funny.

With all of Bill’s gusto for life, his pure joy in the human experience, it’s difficult for me to process that he’s gone. The world seems quieter. Less filled with spirit. But I take solace that through his vast body of work, Bill lives on in the afterlife of cinema.

 

[angminas]

Aliens, the directors cut, you know where they actually take the time to show you how the hell the aliens got into the camp.

I think they were right to leave that part out. Too much information is the exact opposite of what makes Alien movies good.

And comparing the two movies is like trying to pick between Deacon Jones and Dick Butkus. So different in style, but so close in quality. That's why the Mr. Deeds thing somebody said is nonsense.

 

[mikeymikec]

Have Alien 3 at home .... the directors cut or whatever cut it is that is a lot longer than the theatrical release. Alien 3 was meh but people love the long version of Alien 3. I have it at home and still need to watch it.

I've got a director's cut of Alien3 (B-R Alien Anthology). I don't recall anything that made it better; one or two scenes re-worked IIRC.

 

[Hugh Jass]

All this pedantic nonsense COMPLETELY goes away when I said "I'm asking you which one you LIKED better, overall..."... ... ... So, ANSWER ME!

Screw you, bruh.

 

[Eug]

I actually didn't hate Alien 3. I didn't love it, but I thought it was worth the few bucks I paid to see it. It was better than Alien 4 anyway.

 

[Paratus]

I actually didn't hate Alien 3. I didn't love it, but I thought it was worth the few bucks I paid to see it. It was better than Alien 4 anyway.

However Alien Resurrection had this:

Weaver practiced and apparently made the shot for real on the sixth try. The director filmed it going out of frame in case he had to digitally insert it.

 

[Eug]

However Alien Resurrection had this:

Weaver practiced and apparently made the shot for real on the sixth try. The director filmed it going out of frame in case he had to digitally insert it.

That's one of the few good parts of the movie... back in the day when YouTube trick shot videos (or even YouTube) weren't a thing yet.