What is the best version of Aliens?

What is the best version of Aliens?

strawpoll.me/12880815

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=XmOateL3ohI
youtube.com/watch?v=RTCo2ChE5R0
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Special

40 miles of bad road version.

The best version of Aliens is the Special Edition, the 90s home video release of which did much to popularize the contemporary concept of the "director's cut" on home video releases. This, because the Special Edition added back actually important context about the relationship between Ripley and Newt, which had been missing in the original theatrical cut.

On the other hand, the Original Theatrical release of Alien is the best cut of that particular film. I have detailed knowledge of the differences between this cut and the so-called 2003 "Director's Cut", the one where Dallas and Brett get turned into eggs without any need for a queen to lay more eggs. If anyone would care to learn more in detail about the differences among the cuts of ALIEN, as opposed to ALIENS, let me know.

>tfw I have seen both films in the theater

>tfw Alien is my favorite film

>tfw each time, I have only seen the inferior cut of each film (2003 "DC" Alien, 1986 OT Aliens)

in the special edition of Aliens do you think the scene where Newt's family finds the ship ruins any tension or mystery in the movie? that seems to be the main reason why people don't like the special edition.

Please, go on.

Special Edition for sure. In fact it's the only movie in the Alien series where the theatrical edition wasn't better, including 3.

The SE of Aliens isn't really substantially better but the added scenes were a bonus. I think most people will point to the scene about Ripley's daughter being the most important difference, and while she certainly didn't need to have had a daughter previously to have that maternal instinct, the implication of Ripley taking on Newt as a sort of surrogate daughter was emphasized by that addition and perhaps provided further depth to it. What's even more important to me though is it subtly implicates Burke as a slightly more sympathetic character by slipping him into a sentimental scene early on when of course he turns out to be anything but.

Then there's also the sentry gun sequence which gets criticized but I like it. Folks say it's just two scenes of watching numbers deplete on the screen but there's more to it than that. This sequence (which is pretty short by the way) establishes further just how under equipped they really are against the hordes of aliens, shows how quickly the aliens adapt and react to traps, and is one of the few moments where Hicks becomes visibly frustrated which is telling because of how calm he normally is. Really cool scene that should have been left in.

Yeah the cocoon scene in the Alien DC doesn't add up at all and that's one of the things I don't like about it. The other is that it's a complete interruption of the pacing of the "escape" sequence. Also I kind of liked considering what happened to Dallas a "mystery".

It also makes me wonder if James Cameron and company saw this cutting room floor scene somewhere before making Aliens, cause they must have gotten the idea from that. I only wonder because only the theatrical was out at the time and that scene is only in the DC.

The theatrical release of Aliens is the one I recommend for first time viewers and the one I've watched the most.

Ridley Scott has said, unequivocally, that people turning into eggs is not canon.

For whatever it's worth coming from a senile old hack.

>Special Edition for sure. In fact it's the only movie in the Alien series where the theatrical edition wasn't better, including 3.

Alien 3 Assembly Cut was kino, and confirms that fincher had a great film until the studio jews at fox cut it to shreds.

Not who you're replying to, but

I know what you're talking about, and I really don't see how at all. The "mystery" that's somehow lost on that scene is spelled out very plainly early on anyway in both versions and the tension really begin until they arrive at LV-426 anyway.

>ruins any tension or mystery in the movie

This is an effect of post-date movie watching as well. There's no mystery. There's no fucking way you're going blind into the movie anymore, the whole idea behind the surprise is ruined anyway so you might as well have the character introduction for Newt.

>It also makes me wonder if James Cameron and company saw this cutting room floor scene somewhere before making Aliens, cause they must have gotten the idea from that. I only wonder because only the theatrical was out at the time and that scene is only in the DC.

James Cameron went to H.R. Giger and asked him to design an alien queen to be the source of the eggs and Giger said no fucking way it's too sterile and commercial, and so Cameron said fuck you we're doing it anyway.

Giger was super pissed that he wasn't asked to consult any further on Aliens after that.

Eh, that's not what happened.

Cameron designed the Queen himself and never even asked Giger.

The story I heard was slightly different.
At some point in the creation, Cameron went to Giger for some kind of approval, if only out of respect from one artist to another.

Meh. Golic's subplot is ultimately such a non factor and I never really liked the notion that those bumbling fools managed to trap an alien on their first try anyway. Only in the Assembly.

Then there's all those scenes of preaching which didn't provide any more depth to the characters like I think it was supposed to. Just a bunch of babbling and if anything it just made Dillon look even worse. There's more but these are the biggest differences.

The Assembly Cut is certainly longer, I'll give it that.

Interesting, that's for that.

blogposts plus information:

The original theatrical release of Alien came out in 1979. In 2003, in conjunction with Fox putting together the alien quadrilogy DVD set (the content of which has been repeated in various releases since that time,and are familiar to Alien-liking anons today), Ridley Scott was approached to put together an alternate cut of his contribution, which he happily consented to do. This was called a "director's cut" but it was really just Ridley playing ball. As Sup Forums knows, Ridley has always been perfectly happy with the original, and so the original is, confusingly, the /real/ director's cut in the sense that per the director, it is the definitive and final version of the film, and of his artistic vision for the film.

Along with this, the 2003 "DC" received its own theatrical release in the fall.

I grew up liking Alien quite a lot, watching on the sci-fi channel, and watching with friends who actually appreciated kino, I started to realize that there was a lot more going on in the film than just monsters. It was actually around this time that I started to think of Alien as my favorite film, an opinion which hasn't changed.

To this very day, I still have the ticket stub from when I saw Alien (the DC) in the theater for the first time, on Halloween 2003, with friends.

cont. (I will discuss the differences among the cuts, home video etc)

>I started to realize that there was a lot more going on in the film than just monsters

I absolutely love the 1970's aesthetic of what they thought the future would look like, and I'm thrilled that they perfectly recreated that for the Alien Isolation game

cont.

Among the home video releases of Alien, the 2003 DC is usually prefaced by a one-minute intro by Ridley, where he mentions in a lukewarm way how oh wouldn't it be nice to try a slightly different version, here ya go, hope you enjoy. This cagey tone may give a clue as to Ridley's real opinion of the cut-and-paste job, check please.

Both cuts are perfectly good films, and each does beautifully on its own. But the 1979 OT is clearly the superior version when you really spend time with them. Obviously the major plot change from the one to the other is the Dallas-Brett egg snippet in 2003DC, and people may tend to think of the DC as being a strictly ADDITIVE Cut, only ADDING footage back in. This is untrue, and several 1979OT bits are REMOVED from 2003DC, so that each cut has mutually exclusive bits. Neither is a "subset" of the other. Home releases tend to emphasize what is ADDED in the DC without mentioning what was SUBTRACTED from the OT for the DC cut, so people can easily miss this. Here, then, is a partial listing of the differences, from my best memory.

Stuff in the 2003DC but NOT in the 1979OT:

the Dallas/Brett egg sequence (most obviously),

the little catfight between Ripley and Lambert after getting back into the ship (I never liked this, I thought it was a bit much and felt like a throwaway take).

a clear, half-second shot of the ADULT alien hanging quietly in the rafters before the Brett kill (this is great setup shot and one of the few places where 2003DC is better, should have been in 1979).

-a general overall reworking of the brett kill, esp. faster cuts in places and Brett's blood raining down on Parker.

like 2-3 other minor-slight cuts here and there which are basically immaterial, but can be of academic interest.

NOW the interesting stuff: the stuff that's IN the original but NOT in the 2003DC (cont)

So why EXACTLY is the 1979 cut of Alien better? I will try to explain this in terms of the stuff which is IN the 1979OT but NOT in the 2003DC, the real point of judgment.

Two things: first, the dallas/brett egg thing is an old bit which was just cut back in un-naturally, almost, and interrupts the chase.

But most importantly is that in the original, the strange nature of Ash is explained far more clearly, building an important subplot. The OT only stuff goes like this, mostly:

-the time when the away-team is away and the remaining ship crew are settling in, Ripley and Ash go back and forth politely early on, just a bit more. This sets up the translation stuff more explicitly and is a good beat. Ripley refers to "running the message through E.C.I.U" or similar, an aconym I've never known what it might be, but it's clearly a translator program of some kind. Ash does not VOLUNTEER to translate the message (For now obvious reasons), but he also doens't object.

-good close-up in Brett kill: during the 1979OT brett kill, there is a literal /40 second unbroken close-up/ of Harry Dean Stanton just wetting his face, looking haggard, just acting for the camera, oh where's that fucking cat. This is one of the longest continous shots in either cut of the film, and is a great pre-MTV-era example of just slowing things down for several beats, just film your actor. Obviously actors love love love long close-ups no matter the context, and Stanton was very appreciative.

-ASH BACKGROUND This is missing from 2003DC, but this is huge for first-time watchers as a subtle thing. Ripley confronts Dallas after the decision is made to keep the dead facehugger and Dallas spells out for the audience how Ash was mysteriously subbed-in to the crew at the last minute. This is huge as it builds the Ash subplot, the in-world "Thedus" is mentioned by name, and it ever-so-slightly expands the Ripley/Dallas relationship. These important beats of the scene are missing from 2003DC.

cont.

After this, it's agian just tiny cut-edits from spot to spot. the last big one which is actually important that I can remember is that in the 1979OT, we enter MUTHUR's inner chamber THREE times, early, middle, late. The MIDDLE one is missing in 2003DC. This is like a setup to a punchline, and it needs to be a three-panel comic, not two as pared-down in the later cut.

PANEL 1: Dallas gets up, queries Muthur, 'sup.

PANEL 2: Dallas queries Muthur, hey alien's killing my crew, 'sup, what can I do. Muthur is un-helpful.

PANEL 3: Dallas is now presumably dead and a panicked Ripley queries Muthur, emergency. Oh, here's what's really going on, and Ash is right behind you to boot.

You need that PANEL 2 in order for the thing to really work, even though in-its-context it's really only a dull breather-panel, which is maybe why Ridley cut it in his later alternate. It is apart from this also an important "famous last words" for Dallas, he sorta figures he's boned by this point and is just about out of ideas. But he also never figures out why.

There's also a nice little skeletal, atonal bit of music with this bit, like a xylophone clicking or something, not in the DC. It's really, really set in by this point that we're in a haunted house, as Ridley would put it.

is this in both cuts:
youtube.com/watch?v=XmOateL3ohI

and what do you think of that, namely is this dude just making a big deal out of a mess-up

Yep (it's in both cuts). The balding nu-male has a point which I honestly had never seen before, to my embarrassment. But to get pedantic, I wonder if it really was the camera rig actually bumping the shit or a grip (?) doing it, I'll have to re-watch.

Also:

youtube.com/watch?v=RTCo2ChE5R0

The addition of Ripley learning about her daughter easily makes up for the kind of lame early scenes on the colony. Special edition is better, Cameron is right.

James Cameron is a hack.
>Alien1: The alien is a prime being both ruthless and beautiful in its efficiency and absolute perfect killing abilities
>Aliens: They're dogmeat retards to a group of meathead marine shitters with 1 turret.

Assembly was absolutely kino. I was impressed. Seemed like watching a completely different version. The cow just made sense...

The lame early scenes also humanize Newt, however, and this is terribly important.

Ripley and Newt were normal people before they lost their complementary family figures to the same one problem, and so they found each other as meaning and real, important plot-purpose which animates the whole business. It's in Ripley's voice as she is about to plunge back in, and despite her personal emotional investment, she is also of course perfectly right: if we don't save this one kid, then the entire mission has been in vain, and I can not live with myself. Hicks understands this as they part.

You fucking retards. Why are people saying Dallas is "turned into an egg" in the Alien DC? He is caccooned, which is what the xeno drones to in preparation for implantation by an face hugger, which hatch from eggs. Which will never happen because there is no queen to lay the eggs. But the point is that the xeno drones don't give a fuck. They just mindlessly perform their task like a drone ant or a worker bee. They are smart, but also stupid like an animal.

Obviously Fincher directed all the raw material which gave rise to AC, but it was cobbled together without his involvement, so your attribution to Fincher is partially misguided. Editing is also important.

That said, I'm the long-winded user and I still maintain a general dislike of Alien^3, but even I get the appeal of the AC. It does explain things a bit, but my thing is that I do not care about violent criminal prisoners, even in a fiction, beyond the autistic pleasure of taking a body count and knowing who had what skill set. I even reject apologies to the effect that "that's the point".

In my view, Dillon is made even LESS sympathetic in the AC because he is more clearly revealed for the cynical shut-in monk that he really is, which is to say: no good, real, true Christian. In my bitterest view, he just hit on a Jesus schtick and ran with it. OTOH the faith of the other prisoners is tested in the end, and they doubt, esp. in one hallway exchange.

In some vague, modern-leftist sense, these characters are good christians exactly because they "stick it to the man", in an anti-capitalist mode. Ripley is clearly crucified at the end (they should have left this bit in the AC, nothing subtle was gained by removing it).

The Christianity stuff, on surface-and-deep levels, has clearly had importance for the franchise. the "bishop" character. the "deacon" creature of Prometheus. The monkhood of Alien^3. The survival of the true believer in Prometheus. I know there's another good 4-5 big bits roaming around but there we are.

I watched the the TC for Alien for practically the first time, and even though it was an incredible film, I felt it moved a bit too quick in terms of pacing.

Does the DC differ in that aspect? Is there more of a focus on the crew?

Nice try but there's at least three points here.

the "stuff" in which people are secreted throughout the rest of the franchise (especially in Aliens) doesn't /look like an egg/. It's just alien resin/cum, pasted against walls. Meanwhile, the eggs are kept nearby, somewhere else. /The people aren't trapped inside egg-things/.

When the original Alien egg "alternate" thing was shot, the queen-model was not yet canon. They were trying their own version of the life cycle, which they left out at the time. This strengthens the view that the men are being turned into eggs, because they (the original filmmakers) haven't yet come up with a queen/drone life-cycle.

Third, the thing that Ripley acknowledges as "Brett" has clearly ceased to be human, and is clearly /slowly transforming into something else/. That something is an egg, and the same process is clealry happening with Dallas.

Basically, you're confusing alternate xenobiologies and retconning this-and-that, which is admittedly excusable.

the only REAL plot difference is the infamous egg-thing which I'm currently debating with my hot opinions. See my above tl;drs for expansion on this, I've already systematically described the differences.

Ash is developed much better as a looming threat in the TC (OT). That's the big thing.

If anything the later 2003 version moves more quickly in terms of pacing, while 1979 is better and more studied (but which you still felt moved a bit too quickly).

I believe that Ridley's later editorial choices were made because he figured that he was editing for a fan audience/general culture who already knew the basic plot, so he could afford to pare slight plot details.

>Third, the thing that Ripley acknowledges as "Brett" has clearly ceased to be human, and is clearly /slowly transforming into something else/. That something is an egg, and the same process is clealry happening with Dallas.
All assumptions.

You still miss the meat of the argument. What the above user is trying to do, in a confused way, is to conflate the "egginess" of the alternate Alien scene, with all future scenes in the franchise, especially those in Aliens, which depict people being encased in resin/cum, awaiting facehugger impregnation. What he's trying to do is to say that exactly the same thing is happening in both cases, when clearly it isn't, which is borne out by knowing the context and historical circumstances of making the films, and, er, actually watching them.

When you pay attention to a fictional narrative, it is quite tenable to derive /conclusions/, which may be challenged, but which also rise far above the level of assumptions, exactly because they can be rested upon prior text, evidence, storytelling, etc. If we allow your thing then nobody can ever say anything definite, which is false.

Special Edition

While I love all the other additions, the Newt's Family scene is the only one I would rather not have. I think the film is better if we don't see the colony before it is destroyed. That way we are seeing it for the first time, just like the Marines.

Just saw Aliens for the first time, special edition. Really good.

The special edition spoils the story of what happened to Newt's family taking away all suspense from the film. The pacing is also messed up by the scene where she looks at the picture of her dead kid. Both scenes are fine but the movie is better without them.