July 18, 1986: They come out at night. Mostly. Aliens: Thirty Years On

[MKSheppard]

I'll be putting it into the Blu ray player tonight. What about you all?

[Iroscato]

I saw it a few weeks ago personally, showed it to a girl I was seeing at the time who gave it a 6/10 and said it was 'too slow'.

Suffice to say, we are no longer dating.

[TheFeniX]

I can.... kind of get behind the "too slow" comment. Aliens is easily one of my top 10 movies of all time. I love it. I've seen it.... man, I can't even count. But it is special for another reason: it's the only movie I've ever watched where nothing happens for the first 45 minutes. Don't get me wrong, that "nothing" contains some great dialog among other things, but damn man: no aliens for 45 minutes.

It's a testament to how good that movie really is.

[Borgholio]

The good movies often have a long build up to the good stuff. The original Alien, for instance, was almost sleep-inducingly slow for the first part of the movie. That's what makes what happens in the second half all the more terrifying by comparison.

[Elheru Aran]

The good movies often have a long build up to the good stuff. The original Alien, for instance, was almost sleep-inducingly slow for the first part of the movie. That's what makes what happens in the second half all the more terrifying by comparison.

It can go a bit too far the other direction though. 2001 Space Odyssey anybody? Arguably the 'good stuff' there is mostly the ~30, 45 minutes' worth of Poole and Bowman discovering what HAL is up to, Poole getting killed, Bowman 'killing' HAL and heading into the monolith. Everything before and after that point... eh.

[TheFeniX]

The good movies often have a long build up to the good stuff. The original Alien, for instance, was almost sleep-inducingly slow for the first part of the movie. That's what makes what happens in the second half all the more terrifying by comparison.

The Thing had the same (god damn it) thing going for it. But at least the "nothing" wasn't boring because it was about character development and it was well-done development. The thing (you're killin' me Smalls) about Alien was setting the theme. We're in Sci-Fi horror, which really didn't exist back then. But the first time watching Alien, once the exploration started, the movie was incredibly tense. Event Horizon did this as well and I think it worked. You've got exposition and character development so they can just start dumping shit on you after X amount of time to keep your heart-rate in the triple digits until the credits roll.

What probably helped with Alien is that the trailer, and it being awesome in doing so, gave you nearly nothing to go on. Subsequent viewings can be somewhat painful because that original sense of "what the fuck is going on?" is completely lost. Alien is definitely one of those movies I would love to have a pill that makes you forget everything for 3 or so hours.

Aliens was great as well because the "nothing" gave us great scenes, such as Bishop and the knife, or the line "Guess she don't like the cornbread either." They used comedy as part of the character development, whereas Alien started us with a crew of essentially space mercenaries that didn't seem to like each other too much, leading to even more tension.

[Sea Skimmer]

The buildup in Aliens is excellent, its slow in action movie terms but this was not meant to be a pure action movie, go watch Commando if that's what you want. The extended edition has a little more early action, and its painfully apparent why each and ever extended scene was cut. All it they do is either delay things or actively destroy the building tension.

[Borgholio]

The extended edition has a little more early action, and its painfully apparent why each and ever extended scene was cut. All it they do is either delay things or actively destroy the building tension.

The scene with the sentry guns?

[MKSheppard]

I saw it a few weeks ago personally, showed it to a girl I was seeing at the time who gave it a 6/10 and said it was 'too slow'.

Suffice to say, we are no longer dating.

Good Eject.

[Sea Skimmer]

The scene with the sentry guns?

That's one that was rightly deleted, though it's less important then others deleted earlier. It makes the final alien assault far more tense, and the failure to cover the air hatch more understandable. As opposed to 'oh now we know the aliens know the main route in is blocked, maybe they'll try something else' leading too... doing nothing.

The scenes I mean really are the 1) scene in which you learn the colonists were told to look at a grid, which also introduces children, which gets IIRC an additional Ripley screen time, 2) scenes of colonists finding the ship and alien attack. Having those in the movie basically ruins it.

Also killed were some expanded scenes with Ripley learning about her kid with Gorman IIRC, I might be confusing versions at this point but I believe that's an original cut. Which made sense as it did nothing but further slow the movie, the importance of it making Gorman more trustworthy to Ripley was minimal. He was the only person trying to help her in the first place, whatever his motives.

[TheFeniX]

The extended edition has a little more early action, and its painfully apparent why each and ever extended scene was cut. All it they do is either delay things or actively destroy the building tension.

The scene with the sentry guns?

Could be, but he might be talking about the scenes with the colonists finding the eggs (which some of that did make it into the movie), experimenting on the facehuggers, and some short scenes of things starting to go to shit. It worked so much better with the theatrical release with the marines et al giving second-hand account based on what they found.

Could have been an opportunity for them to use the footage as flashbacks... thank God they didn't do that.

[Borgholio]

Huh, I actually have the directors cut and I don't recall any scenes about anybody other that Newt + family finding the alien ship, nor do I remember anything about experimenting on facehuggers. Was there more than one director's cut released?

[Elheru Aran]

Huh, I actually have the directors cut and I don't recall any scenes about anybody other that Newt + family finding the alien ship, nor do I remember anything about experimenting on facehuggers. Was there more than one director's cut released?

There were facehuggers in preservative jars or whatever in the colony, so obviously people were working on them at some point. I'm pretty sure there was a different director's cut, yeah. Every now and then they come out with a different one, or at the very least they change the packaging...

[NecronLord]

Watching it now.

[Sea Skimmer]

Huh, I actually have the directors cut and I don't recall any scenes about anybody other that Newt + family finding the alien ship, nor do I remember anything about experimenting on facehuggers. Was there more than one director's cut released?

The full cut is called the Special Edition, it certainly has circulated in more then extended one form since release. James Cameron said the Special Edition is what he wanted, but executives overruled him. I think the executives were right.

As far as experimenting on facehuggers goes that's no further then what we ever saw, they had some in jars, after they killed people trying to take them off. Obviously after the outbreak.

[Elheru Aran]

As far as experimenting on facehuggers goes that's no further then what we ever saw, they had some in jars, after they killed people trying to take them off. Obviously after the outbreak.

At least one was extracted from an egg or something; it's alive in the jar and attacks when Burke bumps into it.

[Darth Tedious]

Personally, I found the stuff with Ripley finding out about her daughter to be really crucial in informing us of her motivations wrt Newt as a surrogate daughter

And I loved the tension of the sentry gun scenes

Could be a matter of tastes

I feel that being a sequel, the mystery factor was a bit 'meh' because we already had a decent grasp of what the monster was (presuming knowledge of the first film)

[edaw1982]

I can.... kind of get behind the "too slow" comment. Aliens is easily one of my top 10 movies of all time. I love it. I've seen it.... man, I can't even count. But it is special for another reason: it's the only movie I've ever watched where nothing happens for the first 45 minutes. Don't get me wrong, that "nothing" contains some great dialog among other things, but damn man: no aliens for 45 minutes.

It's a testament to how good that movie really is.

True, you do need to build up to things. Especially in the first one. "here are these people here are their personalities. Oh look the Wrench-monkeys are getting fucked over, as per usual. And here's the two newbies. Some new Warrant Officer, and a new Doctor. I wonder if they'll have any meaningful impact in the story, hmmm?"

[Iroscato]

I remember sneaking out of bed when I was maybe 8 or 9, this film was on the TV at 2am. It went from being the source of many nightmares to one of my favourite movies in just under 10 years