Alien Resurrection (1997)
6.4
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Two centuries after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone who...
Alien
8.0
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Book
The crew of the Nostromo, a commercial deep-space mining ship, investigates a mysterious signal....
Alan Dean Foster Alien Film Tie-In Ellen Ripley
David McK (3168 KP) rated Alien: Sea of Sorrows in Books
Nov 20, 2019
Yep, Weyland-Yutanio is at it again, sending in a team of unprepared and ill-advised soldiers (or, here, mercenaries) in an attempt to gather a 'specimen' alive: a team that, of course - with a few exceptions - finds itself completely outclassed by the Xenomorph, who are here shown to hold a particularly impressive millennial-old grudge against 'The Destroyer', one Ellen Ripley (or her descendants).
Alien 3 (1992)
6.6
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Following the events of "Aliens", an escape pod carrying Ellen Ripley and an Alien organism crashes...
Alien Xenomorph
David McK (3168 KP) rated Aliens (1986) in Movies
Jun 23, 2020 (Updated Mar 16, 2022)
The Extended Edition of the movie adds even more context, with the revelation that Ripley had a daughter who has since died, to the 'found family' at the heart of the narrative - especially between Newt and Ripley herself - while Bill Paxton has the honour(?) of becoming the only actor to be killed by a Predator, an Alien and a Terminator, as one of the (initially) cocksure Colonial Marines trapped behind enemy lines.
Top it off with the iconic final act (Ripley in a Powerloader Vs the Alien Queen) and some eminently quotable lines throughout:
"Game over, man! Game Over!!"
"They mostly come at night, mostly …"
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"
"Get away from her, you b..."
And we have what most surely be one of the best sequels ever. Even, in my opinion, eclipsing the original.
It's just a pity it's all downhill from here ...
David McK (3168 KP) rated Alien: Out Of The Shadows in Books
Jun 16, 2019
Or, more precisely, the audiobook version of it, since that's the one I read (listened to?), picking it up as part of an audible trial where it was presented as, essentially, a series of podcasts.
Set between the events of the original Alien and it's sequel Aliens (the one with a 'S' at the end) and starring Ellen Ripley (or her sound-alike), you might wonder how Ripley never once mentioned the events of this at all in any of the later films.
You might wonder it, but it is explained away towards the end of this.
The story starts with her escape pod being picked up by the mining vessel Marion, a mining vessel orbiting the planet LV178 but which - just prior to picking Ripley up - has been knocked out of its orbit and had its communications array damaged by a shuttle coming up from the planet: a shuttle crewed by miners from that planet, and that has picked up some unwelcome guests.
What follows is a series of events and encounters, with the surviving members of the crew being picked off one by one as they attempt to find a way out of their predicament.
And, I have to say, the actress voicing Ripley sound amazingly like her, while Rutger Hauer is also suitably menacing in his role, while the background beeps and whirrs and hisses etc all add to the atmosphere.
It's also no surprise that this won an 'Audie award for excellence in production' in 2017.
Flatliners (2017)
5.4
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In Flatliners, five medical students, obsessed by the mystery of what lies beyond the confines of...
Industrial Society and the Sci-Fi Blockbuster: Social Critique in Films of Lucas, Scott and Cameron
Book
Can blockbuster films be socially relevant or are they just escapist diversions to entertain the...
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Aliens (1986) in Movies
Feb 13, 2020
The original Alien is about as perfect as sci-fi horror can get, so it was a smart move on James Cameron's part to not recycle that again, and take Alien in a different direction.
The slow burning, claustrophobic high tension of the original is replaced here with all out war.
The simple idea of multiple Xenomorphs is effective and terrifying, and packs the runtime of Aliens with top tier action.
Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley, and whilst she was a tough yet vulnerable survivor first time around, here we get to see her vulnerability crumble away. By the time the final act kicks in and Ripley is decked out in a mech...she just a badass from here on out.
She's is joined by a group of gun toting, 80s as fuck mercenaries, including the likes of Michael Biehn (fresh from the recently released, first Terminator movie), Bill Paxton, Al Matthews, Jenette Goldstein, and of course Lance Henriksen as Android, Bishop. It's a fantastic cast, who all end up mattering one way or another, even the ones who don't last very long.
The Xenomorphs themselves look as horrifying as ever, still practically achieved, and have an urgent sense of visceral danger whenever they're on screen.
Aliens is also the debut if the Alien Queen, a classic staple of the series since.
No matter how much time goes by, Aliens never fails to be entertaining, and still looks great. It's James Cameron at the top of his game.