Should I watch the theatrical or the DC cut of Alien and Aliens?

Should I watch the theatrical or the DC cut of Alien and Aliens?
Also Alien franchise general

DC are always better. Alien is amazing. Aliens is mediocre. Alien 3 and Resurrection killed the franchise. Juno Temple and Newt for sequel that retcon 3 and Resurrection.

*Juno Temple as Newt.

Theatrical on both. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are simply wrong and probably retarded

>Aliens is mediocre

I misread that as "Aliens is amazing. Alien is mediocre" and actually got mad

Theatrical for Alien, Director's Cut for Aliens.

Why? I'm also on the fence with Terminator 2 DC

This since Alien's DC was just thrown together for the anniversary and "Aliens" special edition was what the film was supposed to be before getting cut down

Who would've thought that Jonesy would end up being the last one standing?

Alien 3 had a fantastic director's cut. When you watch it, it's this fantastic prison break scifi movie.

Alien Ressurection was bullshit.

Showing the colony and everything full of people before it's destroyed kind of ruins the suspense and mystique of the later scenes. It's also intercut with Ripleys storyline which just kind of makes her emotional struggle seem less important . The scene about her daughter and the turret scene are great though, they should never have been cut.

Hello OP. Alien is my favorite film, full stop.

I came to the realization that it was (and is) my favorite film when I was about 19 or 20, and that hasn't changed since. I'm past 30 now. I have a better knowledge of the exact differences (which are mostly small) between the two versions than any other person who uses Sup Forums, period. I have discussed them at length.

You should watch the original 1979 theatrical version of the film, first. Please do so at night, in the dark, on the biggest available screen, without interruption. Preferably, schedule a screening with at least one or two people whose company you enjoy and with whom you know you can just watch a movie like civilized adults.

After this, feel free to watch the 2003 "Directors' Cut". It includes one significant plot difference, but apart from that the two cuts are functionally the same.

Thank you user, will do that

I am the autistic oldfag who just wrote the long post.

The above is a correct post. Theatrical for Alien, DC, or "Special Edition" for its sequel, Aliens. Block an evening or two evenings in a week or two to do them both.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy these great films, OP!

Now go watch them before anything further gets spoiled! it will happen in this thread.

This is a wrong opinion. The theatrical cut of Aliens, the sequel, is not what the creatives sincerely had in mind at the time. It took the original cut's success for the "special edition" to become viable. This instance of Aliens issuing a "director's cut" was a major industry milestone in the notion of a "director's cut" being released after an original theatrical cut has been done, to milk consumers for extra/different content. Cameron played this up in susequent home video releases of T2, Avatar, etc.

For Alien you definitely want theatrical, hands down.

For Aliens, like Terminator 2, what's really best is to just see both versions cause the movies true form is somewhere in the middle. Thanks fucking Cameron for cutting important meat out of your movies and then later shoving fucking everything into them.
The DC of Aliens adds a whole lot to Ripley's character and motivation in the film along with more sci-fi goodness but totally fucks up the pacing of the first half but also improves the tension in the second half. Like I said, it's tough to recommend one over the other. I guess I'd say go with the directors cut.

This user speaks the truth.

The Alien theatrical IS the director's cut, Ridley has stated this.

Basically the DC was a cash grab by Fox, it adds nothing to the enjoyment of the film and frankly fucks the pacing of the last act up significantly. The Theatrical is essentially a perfect movie.

did someone say Prometheus general?

>DC are always better.
Apocalypse Now

I like how the cat doesn't like her and wants down

fortunately the cat is long dead

No one should ever watch any shitty """Director's Cut""" ever

...

The only two things I like from the DC are Ripley getting slapped and the brief shot of the alien hanging from the chains before the first attack.

No. No one said that.

DC of Alien doesn't add much. The only worthwhile thing is a scene near the end that really disrupts the flow of the ending. It gives you a bit more insight to the Alien's behavior but is really at a bad spot that makes no sense. DC of Aliens is great though and worth watching

Hello user, it's that poster here.

I agree with you about the brief shot of the adult alien hanging from the rafters in the DC. It is one of the few improvements that actually occurs in the DC, as in that cut it serves as the first look at the fully adult, titular creature, and helpfully sets up the moments-later kill sequence, by giving us juuust a hint of context of the body of Giger's creation - even its swaying (the stuntman Eddie Powell on wires) "looks right", is elegant.

However, I can remember even to this day disliking the part of the sequence which is the bitchslap catfight between Ripley and Lambert. You can easily defend it as making sense in the context of the picture, but I thought that it was just one bit too "cheap" and "harsh" for the rest of the movie, which is really saying something. I watched the DC in a theater on Halloween with two friends, one of whom is a serious film dude whose opinion I respect, and we discussed what we'd seen. This is the very period in my life when my above opinion about Alien was solidifying. He did indicate liking the creative addition/detail, while I indicated not liking it.

Aliens DC adds in some shittily acted colony scenes which spoil Newt's and the setting's introductions and feel tonally missmatched from the rest of the film.

The theatrical is already plenty long and very satisfying.

I like her freaky small 7 year old boy ass

Although this user has a point about the "Hadley's Hope" sequence which does run a bit long, he is still mostly wrong. It makes valid sense to throw to Hadley's Hope at that point, especially since the close of the inquest sets up this concern perfectly, and we'll be spending much of our time there. The scenes make sense, although they could do with being cut in half, or more. On the contrary I've found it slightly more jarring to just go to the place with zero context, which is hypocritical in the sense that I had no trouble with visiting the Derelict for the first time cold, but I can excuse myself by pointing out that circumstances are different. This time, it's a place that humans have inhabited, and recently. We would like to know just a bit about them to set up the catastrophe.

This little anonymous kid along with all the others, fucking dies from a fucking chestburster, for example, and his remains are immolated shortly thereafter by a nuclear explosion. He probably watched his mommy and daddy give birth close to him, before succumbing himself. Maybe he was even a friend of Newt's, and got grabbed out of a vent while Newt watched. This is the imaginative value of the extra meat on the bones which the Special Edition gives us. Never forget that.

I think the slap adds a good human element to the story. The rest is just filler.

If anyone apart from the OP would like a detailed difference between both cuts of the original film, Alien, give a (You). I made a picture of it once but I've since deleted it.

I really fucking hate Alien 3 for the cheap deaths that Newt and Hicks got. Seriously. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?

Studio. New/Hicks were only viable as a back-up in case Weaver wanted too much money to come back. Once they were able to secure Weaver, they became disposable....

Ironically, because they were dead set on killing Hicks off, the studio ended up offering Michael Beihn TWICE what he was paid for Aliens, for the use of his likeness for a corpse dummy for the film. To the point, when they FINALLY ended up retconning him back to life in one of the Alien games released in recent years, they didn't even try and explain it away except to just say "HE'S ALIVE!!! STOP SHITTING ON US FOR FUCKING UP THE ALIEN FRANCHISE ALREADY!!!!"

>MFW I haven't heard of the DCs for these movies

The various "Director's Cuts" of the Alien films are historically important in the notion of the "director's cut" itself, as I'd pointed out earlier. The Aliens one is the most important one.

Another user ITT correctly pointed out that the Alien DC was just a cash-grab though. Today, you can buy a cheap blu-ray set of the four standalone alien flicks at your marketer of choice, which contains all four original films, and a standard "director's cut" version of each flick, though each one has a slightly different equivalent phrase for that notion.

Of course, in Fincher's case, he disowned his first miscarriage, and so it is designated as an "assembly cut". Even this is a historically significant example of a "director's cut" which isn't really a director's cut, since Fincher had no part in cutting that version. He said something like this to an associate who got the task: "You can do whatever you want, cut it together, that's okay, I don't care, you have my blessing about that. Only don't call it a director's cut, because it isn't one."