You guys should continue analyzing Aliens to convey just how vital Alien 3 is. That says it all, really. =)
There's a reason one is the measuring stick by which you're trying to quantify the other positively, and it's not because
the stick is broken. So, trying to make Alien 3 look better by comparison to Aliens will get you nowhere with me. For starters, everything listed as flawed about Aliens is
worse in Alien 3. Dated visuals, cliche characters, over the top dialogue and acting, but without the focus, ambition, or payoff (even the finale is riddled with cliches). I mean, it's a hodge-podge of a story (you probably know the disastrous production history better than I do) that amounts to a goose egg unless you're literally projecting some sort of abstract meaning on it all, and being essentially rudderless helps people do just that.
Which is also why people still don't like the way they killed off the principles from Aliens, because it was just an arbitrary dump (literally, they just didn't know what to do with them in any of their scripts) that didn't pay off in any meaningful way (unless you count a crass autopsy scene, "eww gross!" =). One could forgive it if there was some thematic purpose to their deaths, or even if they told a worthwhile story after, but they really didn't unless you're into movies about filthy bald British stereotypes (was it
really directed by a young David Fincher, or Guy Richie?) and... not much else, unless you're also into the reformed black preacher man/
magical negro cliche. So really, it's no less generic, it just appeals to a different sort, and the perception that it's
different is part of that appeal (or specifically, like Nightcrawler, you could have just liked it when you were young and grown the movie in your mind over the years; not so different in principle than being a kid into Space Marines =). Actually, Alien 3 is much more generic considering how many movies out there are stylistically like it, only better, and how few ever did what Aliens set out to do (or as well). There's a reason people so desire(d) another movie like Aliens, and a reason nobody has been able to deliver it despite giving us all the Aliens, army men, and even Predators we can handle. It's just too bad to hear it being taken for granted now.
Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll give Alien 3 another chance when David Fincher does. I'm clearly not pro-Alien 3, but even I
want to like it. I just need some better reasons, because when I watch it, I don't see a misunderstood movie so much as a very flawed one that had big shoes to fill.
Alien Resurrection was shit, but it's sort of my guilty pleasure movie.
I can see that, but just think: in five more years we can seriously reconsider its merits as a film! Worst Alien movie, or the most
avant-garde!? By then Alien 3 will be an undisputed classic, so we can challenge its safeness in comparison to the do-anything, nothing-is-sacred daring of
Resurrección.
