While promoting Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation, actress Sigourney Weaver has made further comments regarding a potential Alien 5 movie in an interview with The Guardian. We last heard from her a couple of months back at the Hero Complex film festival and again, she reiterates that the story is unfinished and she would like to go back and finish Ripley’s story. Though this time she says she has a clear idea of how she wants to end Alien 5 that would please the fans.
“I definitely feel the story is unresolved, we never really finished it,” she said. “That was sort of my responsibility, because I didn’t like where the story was going – I’d already tried to kill myself in Alien 3. I didn’t like the Alien vs Predator movies, I thought they were demeaning to a wonderful story. Jim Cameron said it was like Alien vs the Wolfman. For many reasons, I didn’t want to pursue it, I wanted to do other things.”
“As a former English major, I feel like … hmmm, I wish we’d finished this story,” continued Weaver. “It feels incomplete to me. I wish it didn’t, but it does. We left it hanging. And there’s a way to finish this story that I think would be satisfying to me and the many fans.”
It’s a bit amusing how she keeps saying she died in Alien 3 to kill Ripley off yet she still returned to do Alien Resurrection. Anything is certainly possible. She goes onto to mention what she thinks the xenomorph was doing at the end of Alien. It’s commonly believed that the creature was dying while Weaver says there’s a romantic element to the scene and it was drawn to her because she was so different. Thanks to Chronical for the news.
I just think the monkeys were a bad idea, badly executed.
I can buy Indy in a fridge, because it's Indy. I can't buy Mutt and some 1s and 0s pretending to be monkeys, because it's not Indy.
I guess it's the fate of such films to have those little quirks that some people shrug their way past and others stop, squint, and ask, "What the f**k"?
For me in this film it's the monkeys. For you Mr. Clemens, the gophers. For someone else the ants or the guys with the blow guns. Some are fortunate enough to enjoy a film anyway instead of having that conversation with it that begins and ends with, "This is just not working. It's not you, it's me. No, it's totally you, Alien Resurrection." Both reactions are perfectly normal in my book. Different strokes and all.
Now I'm going to have trouble not picturing Lucas, wearing a Spielberg costume, sneaking into the director's chair. Thank you for the image Mr. Clemens!
Local Trouble, that was a snippet of the Plinkett 'review' of Episode 1? What a fascinating genre the Internet has birthed: film critique as entertainment.... or has it existed before in some periodical?
Those monkeys on the other hand...
...and the opinion of someone actually in favour of an Alien 'reboot' no longer matters to me.
Oh stop it Local!
Is that a Henschel and Son, class 25 4-8-4, engine number 477615? Wow they always were considered a bit overpowered.
They also always had problems with connecting rods failing, big end bearings breaking up as well as cracks developing in the motion girder of the Alligator crossheads.
Subtle.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgdb.voanews.com%2F362347A9-BBC1-4422-91D2-4F9210E21940_cx0_cy9_cw0_mw1024_s_n.jpg&hash=691af3b552994e4b5b5ba52e17049d72d236633b
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F_ZIki7YXUWV4%2FTBCiaLRntiI%2FAAAAAAAABbA%2F5taxsyNff_4%2Fs1600%2FPass%2Bof%2BBrander%2B070610%2B008.jpg&hash=60a77a29e2774ad1ea85ce39df72188c449f1d51
Empire wants to blow Yavin; Alliance wants to destroy Death Star.
Empire wants to destroy Alliance shield and base; Alliance fights delaying action while they evacuate.
Alliance wants to destroy shield/ Death Star; Empire wants to annihilate Alliance fleet.
Naboo/ Gungans want to take out droid control ship and capture Viceroy; Trade Federation wants the Queen.
The battle is the story.
With ROTS, the story is Obi-Wan and Anakin have to rescue the Chancellor and the battle is just a backdrop.
I got the impression that was supposed to be a little confusing and chaotic, what with all the strobe lights and quick cutting.
Perhaps the same is true of Revenge of the Sith. But I didn't get that from the battles in the original series, or The Phantom Menace.
I can understand that but I also wonder whether the fact that the crystal skull was a body part of the "mystical" being means that to not show it whole would have denied the viewer an expected payoff or been anti-climactic. Might having not depicted the restored "alien" been on par with opening the Ark and having the Nazi's simply drop dead instead of the pretty-then-scary wraiths and face melting?
For the sake of conveying mysticism I suspect they could have done better than interdimensional beings but another religious artifact might have been too old hat. In my opinion, it was set up to be non-mystical from the start when they borrowed from Roswell and Area 51.
My thoughts on imagery-rich space battles: Revenge of the Sith's opener challenged me a bit too. I wanted to follow what was happening to this ship and that ship, wondered which ship belonged to which side, etc. It was spectacular, but perhaps too much so for me. And perhaps that is part of the point: "fog of war" for the viewer if I don't misuse the phrase. Some of the bigger battles in the various Star Trek series and Babylon 5 probably did this to me too, as well as the Alliance/Reaver fight in Serenity. "Pan back! I was still looking at that one ship!"
To be honest it's a similar effect for me during the Operations battle in Aliens.
Not to me. That one felt far more lucid.
Anakin and Obi-Wan battle droid starfighters and buzz droids as they fight their way to General Grevious' ship to resuce the Chancellor. The battle is just background.
Best opening to a Star Wars film since the original.
My 20 month old didn't seem confused in the slightest...
How is it difficult to work out what's going on in a Star Wars film anyway?
As for Crystal Skull - they assessed it and changed their minds. Stiff shit. Pablo Helman said what I said above. The originals used the best effects available at the time - they did the same this time.
CGI can be incredible when used properly (look at District 9), but far too often movies go overboard with it. And I think Crystal Skull was a case in point, especially as that's what they specifically said they wouldn't do.
With the new one and the Star Wars prequels they were also inventing new effects technologies in order to get the job done. Why wouldn't they use the pinnacle of current effects?
There's no difference. Are there some dodgy CG shots? Yep. Same as how there's some dodgy practical effects shots in older films. When you wear rose coloured glasses though, and are in a hurry to bash CGI, that tends to get forgotten.
While I hated the fourth Indy film, I completely agree with this. The fridge scene was no less stupid than jumping a mine cart across a fifty foot pit of lava and landing perfectly on the rails on the far side.
I think what ruined the film for me was that they showed you the aliens at the end. In the first film, the Ark kills all the Nazis but we never see God. Shiva doesn't rock up to burn Mola Ram's hand in the second. Jesus Christ doesn't walk out of the temple in the third. It was all left to our imagination. By simply showing us the aliens, it took away all the mysticism.
Also I was massively annoyed by how they were adamant they'd steer clear of CGI to help the film blend with the originals, then the movie turned out to be a CGI sh*tfest. I had the same problem with the new Star Wars films - in the originals, it felt like they were having to invent all these new SFX technologies as they went along to get the job done. In the new entries they simply had CGI to just do it all for them, and they took it way too far.
I suspect some bias at work: special status afforded to movies first seen when one is at an age when one is less critical perhaps raises the bar too high for newer entries. But Crystal Skull did partially remind me of how it felt to watch the earlier movies as a child.
I do draw the line at the Russian-hating monkey scene. That was a little too much cheese for my taste.
I maintain that Event Horizon is the only really decent film he's made.
And Prometheus. Haven't seen Superman Returns.
Wow, I bet you love the Star Wars Prequels too.
BTW, Superman Returns also has a great score on RT, as does Prometheus...
Like how Aliens had all those nods to Alien?
I remember how Crystal Skull rated 78% on RT, 6.3/10 on IMDB and made $780+m. Sounds pretty good to me.
"So bad it's good" I think is how it's regarded.
Just remember the abortion that was Indiana Jones 4, thats pretty much how Alien 5 would be.
I'm all in favor for a remake/reboot at this point...
They were all better movies than Alien Resurrection.
dude even starting with Mortal Kombat it was horrible. I think the one film that maybe got close to even being called worthy to be a film is the first Resident Evil and thats it. All the other stuff is plebian.
I caught some of one of the later sequels. Think it had the same laser trap from the first one... And the first one was incredibly average.
Didn't he do Mortal Kombat first?
ALIEN/ALIENS/Predator are usually associated with fantastic creature design, extremely high production values and visuals, fantastic soundtracks and very memorable characters - all of which AvP had none.
I haven't seen his latest Evil movies, but I imagine they're basically copies of what came before each one of them.
Good work if you can get it.
To be honest, I think the guy is a real success story; started out with a small indie film, formed his own production company and now writes and directs films he wants to make. I mean - its the dream job for many people. Many have tried, many have failed, but whatever you think of his films, he's living the dream. I admire that.
Yes. But I like that film *lol*
In the case of X-Men, everything fell apart when Singer scrambled for Superman Returns and Fox decided to hire Brett 'the Hack' Rattner for the third film. When that film buried any aspirations for continuing with the original X-Men cast, they 'AvP'ed' the franchise with the first of a series of planned Origins films. I believe a stand alone Magneto film was planned to follow Wolverine.
Nevermind... I'm derailing the thread with this rant.
As for X-Men aren't they all considered pretty good apart form 3 and the first Wolverine flick? Sounds pretty consistent with a couple of hiccups, rather than something thet needed turning around.
They turned it around when they started hiring talented directors and screenwriters again.
Die Hard on the other hand.... f*** me... and I cherish John McTiernans original film as much as I would cherish my first born...
Anderson comes across as a film maker who's basically remade the same film over and over his entire career. AvP is almost identical to Resident Evil and Event Horizon in how the film looks/sounds/is edited/builds on 1-dimensional character arch types etc etc.
In that sense, I can't really blame him for how AvP turned out - he can only make 1 kind of movie, no matter the source material given to him, I suspect. 20th Century Fox had done this with other high profile franchises - Die Hard, X-Men - handing sequel duties over to creative teams with little skill on the cheap and the results... well...
Not even gonna bother chop apart AvP:R here, which might be the worst film I've ever watched in a movie theater. Transformers 2 was an orgasmic thunderbolt of enjoyment compared to that one.
I feel like Alien 5 is a wanted film and its not impossible to think about something like this happening. The studio just needs to have a clear idea with a very innovative director and move forward with it. I mean if James Cameron and Ridley Scott were at one point in, "violent agreement" about making an Alien 5 than that should be enough for any director to want to explore this series further. Apparently Scott and Cameron believed there was still life in the series and Sigourney firmly believes this as well. Why the hell has no one picked up on this yet? Are the studios just that ignorant. I mean the people that seeded this series into existence wanted this series to move forward yet no one took action. Its such a shame and probably one of the most overlooked sequels that could of made this series something again.
For me, the characters were killed by the dialogue. Like you said, in Alien we know almost nothing about the crew, but most of what they say is interesting and naturalistic enough for them to be engaging. In AVP, everything anyone says sounds like it comes straight out of an awful, undeveloped screenplay - which it did.
Paulie mostly told us stuff we already knew, or could easily guess. We learn little about the characters and what we do learn isn't terribly exciting. Conversely, have a look at how much we learned about Parker, Dallas, Ripley, Burke, Bishop, or Hicks. Sweet f**k all - and yet they were all way more interesting than Lex ('Here's some backstory about my dad'), or Sebastian (aka Exposition Boy). All Lex's backstory did was give Weyland more than one dimension. Miller's death was predetermined as soon as he whipped the pictures of the kids out - yet, he was able to suddenly become interesting seconds before said death.
The original characters personalities are all determined off screen, and then portayed by the actors - rather than having it blatantly told to us "I act like this, because of this in my past". An accusation that could be levelled at Shaw in Prometheus too while we're at it.
I really think he did too - watching all those special features and listening to the commentary, it's really clear that he has a lot of love for what he was doing and really wanted to give "the fans" (including himself, I guess) something "they'd never seen before."
I think it was in the commentary of "Aliens" where Cameron talks about the slow build? He says that about 40 minutes has gone by and nothing has really happened and "you'd never get away with that nowadays."
I'm not sure that its competency - I think he's a good (not great) director, but he's also a man that delivers what the studio wants - so maybe with all the money in the world and the time, he would have made a slow burner. Or not - It's difficult to say, given Anderson's track record: going on the majority of evidence, you'd be right (which is all we can go on) but then you look at Event Horizon and you think "well... may be he could have pulled it off better".
I'd be interested to hear if anyone actually wants to see a sequel with Ripley 8? I certainly wouldn't - But then my unreasonable (but in my world totally reasonable) hatred of A:R is probably clouding my judgement.
Have to say that the "at gunpoint" synopsis sounds pretty good though... IF you had to have Ripley 8 *lol*.
I was being *lol*