Would you feel better if Newt and Hicks survived?

Started by Kradan, Feb 10, 2019, 08:15:19 AM

Would you feel better about this?

Yes
33 (45.8%)
No
39 (54.2%)

Total Members Voted: 72

Author
Would you feel better if Newt and Hicks survived? (Read 30,316 times)

Russ

Quote from: HuDaFuK on Apr 28, 2019, 10:42:21 AM
The fact they were dead in all but one of the various scripts written for the third film suggests it wasn't merely technical.

I'd have preferred something along the lines of AlienKamp, but to be honest, its not that they die. It's the "how" - in my view (and it's all subjective) I don't think it was handled very well. It really fits the "pissing against the wall and call it Alien and people will watch it" analogy.

It was disrespectful to what had already been established - sure, kill one or both off, but at least do it on camera and make it a part of the story and not treat the characters as obstacles that needed to be removed for this story to take place. It is a sequel after all, but it makes no sense from the get go (as has been discussed for eleventy billion pages elsewhere) and then having decided that we're not going to explain the facehuggers, we're also going to handwave two major characters.

Not for me, but equally, I'm aware of the nihilist counter argument. I just think there were better stories that could have been told, but we all know how much BS surrounded A3.

HuDaFuK

Quote from: Russ on Apr 29, 2019, 09:53:39 AMIt was disrespectful to what had already been established - sure, kill one or both off, but at least do it on camera and make it a part of the story and not treat the characters as obstacles that needed to be removed for this story to take place.

The "do it on camera" comment is fair, but I don't really see how anyone can claim their deaths aren't a part of the story. The entire first act of the film is about Ripley dealing with their passing.

If they were merely obstacles, would the film have wasted time giving them such a grand (and quite moving) funeral scene? They're literally the only characters in the entire series to get such a sendoff, so I've always thought it's unfair to say they were simply tossed out or handwaved aside. They weren't. Their passing was actually dealt with far more reverently than anyone else in the franchise.

Russ

Good point - you could argue that this scene also serves to underscore the religious aspect of the prisoner cult, but duly noted, its a fair comment.

As I say, it's purely subjective - it's just not the film I wanted to see.

I suspect that this site aside, that's a fair barometer of wider opinion given the attempts to reboot, reinvent and all the rest of it that have followed...and haven't really been that successful in narrative terms. ... even if the box office returns on Prometheus were great (wonder if that was curiosity money as Covenant didn't do nearly as well and that was a much more "Alieny" movie than its predecessor?).

The Old One

The Old One

#243
It's because Prometheus was touted as Ridley Scott's return to Sci-Fi, a amazing cast and a superb trailer. Obscuring the awful script.

So by the time the sequel appears, people are throughrally disenchanted.

Stitch

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Apr 28, 2019, 09:50:07 PM
Quote from: Stitch on Apr 28, 2019, 09:28:37 PM
Quote from: HuDaFuK on Apr 28, 2019, 10:42:21 AM
Quote from: Roby on Apr 28, 2019, 12:42:52 AMSeemed more of a technical thing than story thing.

The fact they were dead in all but one of the various scripts written for the third film suggests it wasn't merely technical.
Yeah. It makes sense. Scary isn't scary when you have company. It's why co-op horror games don't work. Alien Isolation with a friend would be way less tense.

Yet Ripley had plenty of company.
She did in Aliens, which isn't really a horror movie. In Alien 3, there was threat from the other inmates almost as much as from the alien.

Huggs

Aside from the attempted assault, the inmates were mostly kept under control thanks to andrews, their religion, and Dillon.

I think the most frightening problem Ripley personally faces in the third film is that there is a legitimate chance the company will succeed in acquiring a specimen. In alien, she had a determined crew with flamethrowers and a self destruct system. In aliens, she had heavily armed marines. All she has to fight with in alien 3 is a bunch of cons who want to save their own skins, and no weapons at all. The Alien is running circles around them, the company is getting closer, and her time is running out.

LastSonofKrypton

Quote from: Huggs on May 04, 2019, 03:57:44 AM
Aside from the attempted assault, the inmates were mostly kept under control thanks to andrews, their religion, and Dillon.

I think the most frightening problem Ripley personally faces in the third film is that there is a legitimate chance the company will succeed in acquiring a specimen. In alien, she had a determined crew with flamethrowers and a self destruct system. In aliens, she had heavily armed marines. All she has to fight with in alien 3 is a bunch of cons who want to save their own skins, and no weapons at all. The Alien is running circles around them, the company is getting closer, and her time is running out.

Alien 3 for me also has the most interesting aspect of Ripley, in that she has already lost her Nostromo crew, then learns that she outlived her own daughter, then she goes back to LV-426, forms a bond with both Hicks and Newt and believes she has finally destroyed the creatures that effectively ruined her life, only to be dragged back into the nightmare at the last second.  Alien 3 picks up with her coping with the loss of Hicks and Newt,having Clemens die right in front of her, and then the final nail, she has an embryo inside her.  I always saw her pleas for Dillon to kill her to be her wanting to check out, she's completely broken.  She wants to die because she has had enough, not just because of the alien inside her, though it is a factor.  For the first half of the movie, it feels like Ripley is absent, and the woman in her place is just a shadow.  But then Dillon refuses to kill her, and gives her a 'motivational speech' which then almost brings her back when she decides to help kill the alien first.  Then she gets a lifeline, Bishop offers to remove the embryo and give her a chance at a new life, and credit to Sigourney Weaver's performance, you can see her consider it for a second, but then she says no, and the real Ripley comes back.  This is just my opinion, and it is the reason why 3 is my favourite of the franchise. 

The Old One

The Old One

#247
Awesome.  :)

[cancerblack]

Quote from: LastSonofKrypton on May 04, 2019, 06:14:53 PM
Quote from: Huggs on May 04, 2019, 03:57:44 AM
Aside from the attempted assault, the inmates were mostly kept under control thanks to andrews, their religion, and Dillon.

I think the most frightening problem Ripley personally faces in the third film is that there is a legitimate chance the company will succeed in acquiring a specimen. In alien, she had a determined crew with flamethrowers and a self destruct system. In aliens, she had heavily armed marines. All she has to fight with in alien 3 is a bunch of cons who want to save their own skins, and no weapons at all. The Alien is running circles around them, the company is getting closer, and her time is running out.

Alien 3 for me also has the most interesting aspect of Ripley, in that she has already lost her Nostromo crew, then learns that she outlived her own daughter, then she goes back to LV-426, forms a bond with both Hicks and Newt and believes she has finally destroyed the creatures that effectively ruined her life, only to be dragged back into the nightmare at the last second.  Alien 3 picks up with her coping with the loss of Hicks and Newt,having Clemens die right in front of her, and then the final nail, she has an embryo inside her.  I always saw her pleas for Dillon to kill her to be her wanting to check out, she's completely broken.  She wants to die because she has had enough, not just because of the alien inside her, though it is a factor.  For the first half of the movie, it feels like Ripley is absent, and the woman in her place is just a shadow.  But then Dillon refuses to kill her, and gives her a 'motivational speech' which then almost brings her back when she decides to help kill the alien first.  Then she gets a lifeline, Bishop offers to remove the embryo and give her a chance at a new life, and credit to Sigourney Weaver's performance, you can see her consider it for a second, but then she says no, and the real Ripley comes back.  This is just my opinion, and it is the reason why 3 is my favourite of the franchise. 


Quality post.

Local Trouble

Guess who made the list.


The Old One

The Old One

#250
The first of the list, characters rightfully immediately dispatched.

HuDaFuK

Also, I disagree Jaws 2 is "dreadful". It's the only sequel that's kinda solid.

Still Collating...

The Alien universe is brutal and realistic. No happy ending against all odds lasts here. I like that and I like that they died. I do understand that the way they died was insulting for the people who liked those characters. I personally never understood why they were so liked. I always considered them secondary characters, though killing a child was a ballsy move.

My favorite characters in Aliens, besides Ripley of course, were Hudson and Apone, but they died as they should've. No one is safe from the alien. I also like that part of the prequels, though again it does help that I found Shaw very annoying. I liked Daniels quite a bit, but meh, plot armor be damned, David doesn't give a f*ck, he can have her.

That's also why I recoil in fear when I hear about continuing Ripley's story. Don't make her the goddess that destroys a billion aliens, please. The comics are already testing my suspension of disbelief with how many times can Amanda survive her encounters, especially with the last comic and the horde of aliens. But it's not that bad, yet.

Keep the aliens deadly, no character should be safe from them. These movies survived and were so popular in large part cause of the creature. And I think the Alien is more important than any one character, even Ripley.


The Old One

The Old One

#254
The list is garbage, because it starts with characters eliminated to improve the overall narrative at the beginning of the film, not in-between.

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