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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2019 4:12:03 GMT
Ok pretty cool movie right? The only thing I thought that was stupid about the movie was the way that the soldiers acted so unprofessional and untrained. They seemed more like the sweathogs than a highly trained special forces unit. I mean who in their right mind would go in to a potentially dangerous combat situation with these fuckups as their backup? All they did was goof around, and whine and complain. Even so I still found the movie quite scary and entertaining but it could have been much better with more believable soldiers helping Ripley out. Why do you think they made the characters like this?
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Aliens
Feb 13, 2019 4:49:30 GMT
Post by President Ackbar™ on Feb 13, 2019 4:49:30 GMT
What do you mean "sweathogs"? How could they be "sweathogs", man?! They're animals!
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Post by politicidal on Feb 16, 2019 0:20:26 GMT
It was symbolism. They overestimated the enemy. It's about 'Nam man!
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Aliens
Feb 16, 2019 7:11:28 GMT
Post by The Herald Erjen on Feb 16, 2019 7:11:28 GMT
They weren't just soldiers. They were marines. Regardless of the time or the place, you've got to be somewhat off kilter to even want to be a marine, IMO.
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Post by Prime etc. on Feb 16, 2019 8:40:01 GMT
Amen. Cameron is terrible at writing characters. He had help from William Wisher for the Terminator. The absence of him is evident in ALIENS. Even in 1986, the soldier stuff was a little over the top, even next to Rambo.
The most naturalistic performance was the Apone guy because he was a real military veteran. Most of the others were caricatures.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2019 21:41:37 GMT
Well if that's our future "Space Force" we are in big trouble!.😝
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Aliens
Feb 17, 2019 11:32:32 GMT
Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 17, 2019 11:32:32 GMT
Having just viewed Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) in the theater last month, I found it lousy and considerably worse than the original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). The sequel is mechanical and offers little visually (or thematically), and in a device that epitomizes the decline of cinema from the seventies to the eighties, it places a little girl at the movie's center in order to ostensibly tug on heartstrings and create meaningless melodrama. The original Alien offered a little edginess, along with atmosphere, mystique, and a hint of social irony. Aliens, conversely, offers nothing of the kind.
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Aliens
Feb 17, 2019 11:34:14 GMT
Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 17, 2019 11:34:14 GMT
Ok pretty cool movie right? The only thing I thought that was stupid about the movie was the way that the soldiers acted so unprofessional and untrained. They seemed more like the sweathogs than a highly trained special forces unit. I mean who in their right mind would go in to a potentially dangerous combat situation with these fuckups as their backup? All they did was goof around, and whine and complain. Even so I still found the movie quite scary and entertaining but it could have been much better with more believable soldiers helping Ripley out. Why do you think they made the characters like this? ... in other words, Aliens suggests a parody in this regard, even though the movie is not a parody overall ...
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Aliens
Feb 25, 2019 7:01:53 GMT
Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 25, 2019 7:01:53 GMT
Having just viewed Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) in the theater last month, I found it lousy and considerably worse than the original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). The sequel is mechanical and offers little visually (or thematically), and in a device that epitomizes the decline of cinema from the seventies to the eighties, it places a little girl at the movie's center in order to ostensibly tug on heartstrings and create meaningless melodrama. The original Alien offered a little edginess, along with atmosphere, mystique, and a hint of social irony. Aliens, conversely, offers nothing of the kind. I love Aliens - 86' and I gather you haven't seen it before, or was around when it was first released.
In the era it was made, it needs to also been seen in that context. Visually, I found it very strong and powerful and ultimately exciting. I had not seen anything like it before. Sigourney Weaver was terrific and gave us a strong female hero and protagonist, who wasn't precious, could buckle up just as the best of them and gave of her soft side as well. A well rounded and balanced performance and one that is iconic and perhaps even ahead of its time. This was one action orientated film that was sold on Weavers name and it worked. Ahead of its time perhaps, when they are attempting to emulate the same with strong female characters 30yrs later. She should have won the Academy award.
I also found Aliens quite suspenseful and imaginative in design. The rapport between the marines et all and Weaver was also very well handled with the personality clashes and conflicts. The little girl was also symbolic, in the sense that Weaver's daughter had outgrown her to become an old woman due to the amount of time she had spent in hypersleep. She had missed out on a life with her. This was a nice touch and gave Ripley an objective.
Now, there is a theatrical cut and then an extended edition. Not sure which one you saw. Cameron was forced to remove some stuff for the exhibitors sake, to get more sessions in. The extended cut is the best, but contains too much information, like the sequence with the planet colony discovering the alien eggs which was pretty much an entire reel. This was superfluous and takes away an air of mystery when the marines arrive on a barren and deserted LV426 colony. I skip past this sequence in the extended cut. The rest of the extended cut is fine to my mind, but Cameron had to trim scenes and shots from this also.
Overall, Aliens is one of the top films from the 80's for me, and far removed from the slog that I see as Alien - 79', as well designed and presented as it is.
I appreciate your perspective and information; I do not remember anything about alien eggs in Aliens, so I was probably viewing the theatrical edition. Frankly, I do not remember anything about the Weaver character having a daughter from either of the films—I probably just missed it or quickly forgot about it. I can see that motif as being meaningful and emotionally poignant, although given the nature of Cameron's direction, I am not certain that it will ever function that way for me. Yes, I just viewed Aliens for the first time; I was alive in 1986, but I was too small to have seen this movie. I have watched the original Alien twice in the theater in recent years (in May 2013 and January 2018); I was not alive when that one came out. I concur about Weaver's character constituting a feminist icon (now a feminist legend) of sorts, although of course she had established that character in the late seventies, a period that witnessed the reemergence of some strong or ambitious female figures in film (certain characters played by Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep come to mind). In terms of the rapport of the Marines, my perspective is more akin to that of some other posters in this thread—there was more buffoonish banter than real rapport. Visually, I believe that Cameron relies too much on closeups and tight coverage in general—more concerned with constant and mechanical shot-to-shot action than in creating an atmospheric portrait, as director Ridley Scott does in the original.
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Aliens
Feb 26, 2019 8:10:29 GMT
Post by joekiddlouischama on Feb 26, 2019 8:10:29 GMT
Cameron made it his own film, within his own frame of style. Did we really want to see the same movie that Scott made. He is more action orientated. Yes, the marines were a bit buffoonish, but that is also fitting with similar action films from that era. They were larger than life comic, but tough and no-nonsense and in context of their predicament, they were characters you would want on your side.
Weaver is the sole survivor in the first, but she is not altogether the central focus until the film starts to progress. Weaver in Aliens, was the main focal right from the start and in action hero mode too within that role. I don't recall Streep being in a role like this until the early 90's, with The River Wild. If she was playing strong willed and\or ambitious females, they were within a more dramatic genre of film.
... yes, for certain: Streep's strong-willed characters came within the "drama" genre—nothing action-oriented (until the movie that you mention). I do concur about the buffoonish nature of characters from most action movies of that time period. Personally, I find the eighties to be the most overrated (or weakest) calendar decade in Hollywood history. I will say that the "butch" female Marines in Aliens provide a little bit of social irony and intrigue, however limited and puerile it may be.
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Post by dirtypillows on Feb 27, 2019 9:10:22 GMT
... yes, for certain: Streep's strong-willed characters came within the "drama" genre—nothing action-oriented (until the movie that you mention). I do concur about the buffoonish nature of characters from most action movies of that time period. Personally, I find the eighties to be the most overrated (or weakest) calendar decade in Hollywood history. I will say that the "butch" female Marines in Aliens provide a little bit of social irony and intrigue, however limited and puerile it may be. I'd say you would be a minority on that one. I revel and bask in the joys of the 80's. I know it is a generational thing, but it holds much nostalgic value for me, that I behold within. I started my teen years off in the very 80's and while like most teen years, things can be a tough ride, in hindsight, it offered many treasures and delights. Things were still new and fresh and still had an awe factor about them. They started to get stale in the 90's. Oh, Lord, yes.
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Aliens
Mar 14, 2019 8:44:03 GMT
Post by joekiddlouischama on Mar 14, 2019 8:44:03 GMT
... yes, for certain: Streep's strong-willed characters came within the "drama" genre—nothing action-oriented (until the movie that you mention). I do concur about the buffoonish nature of characters from most action movies of that time period. Personally, I find the eighties to be the most overrated (or weakest) calendar decade in Hollywood history. I will say that the "butch" female Marines in Aliens provide a little bit of social irony and intrigue, however limited and puerile it may be. I'd say you would be a minority on that one. I revel and bask in the joys of the 80's. I know it is a generational thing, but it holds much nostalgic value for me, that I behold within. I started my teen years off in the very 80's and while like most teen years, things can be a tough ride, in hindsight, it offered many treasures and delights. Things were still new and fresh and still had an awe factor about them. They started to get stale in the 90's. I tend to agree about the nineties, even though I was a teenager in that decade. In recent years (since 2014), I have seen Titantic, Good Will Hunting, and Men in Black in the theater (I never saw them when they came out) and found them mediocre at best (lousy in the case of Men in Black). On the other hand, having viewed Unforgiven (four times) Jurassic Park (twice), Schindler's List (three times), and The Shawshank Redemption in the theater in recent years (since 2013), I believe that they all hold up strongly. (I did not see Schindler's List in the theater in the nineties or at all in the nineties; I saw Jurassic Park in the theater in 1993 just before I became a teenager and I viewed Unforgiven and The Shawshank Redemption later on in the decade, on VHS/DVD or television or both. So I would take the nineties over the eighties for film, but I would probably place both decades behind the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies, at least.
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Post by xystophoros on May 15, 2019 3:26:56 GMT
They weren't just soldiers. They were marines. Regardless of the time or the place, you've got to be somewhat off kilter to even want to be a marine, IMO. They’re not Marines, they’re James Cameron’s retarded fantasy of what Marines would be based entirely on his own ignorance about all things military. There is nothing about the demeanor, behavior or nonsense talk in Aliens that even remotely resembles the way real life Marines behave. Cameron did the same thing in Avatar. He has a hard-on for Marines, but he’s not intellectually curious enough to learn anything about them before making them a focal point of his shitty movies.
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Aliens
May 15, 2019 3:37:10 GMT
Post by xystophoros on May 15, 2019 3:37:10 GMT
Ok pretty cool movie right? The only thing I thought that was stupid about the movie was the way that the soldiers acted so unprofessional and untrained. They seemed more like the sweathogs than a highly trained special forces unit. I mean who in their right mind would go in to a potentially dangerous combat situation with these fuckups as their backup? All they did was goof around, and whine and complain. Even so I still found the movie quite scary and entertaining but it could have been much better with more believable soldiers helping Ripley out. Why do you think they made the characters like this? They were supposed to be Marines, but absolutely nothing about their behavior or demeanor bears any resemblance to Marines IRL. They’re James Cameron’s comically ignorant idea of what Marines are. As for the movie itself, it’s a massive disappointment compared to Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie. The original was intentionally ponderous and brooding, and went to extraordinary lengths creating an authentic sense of dread that kept building throughout the film. It was sublime, understated and relied on the terror of the unknown, with the alien itself largely keeping to the shadows until we finally get a good look at it in all its horrifying, nightmarish glory. Aliens feels like a 12-year-old with ADHD’s fan fiction of the original.
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Post by The Herald Erjen on May 15, 2019 8:49:53 GMT
They weren't just soldiers. They were marines. Regardless of the time or the place, you've got to be somewhat off kilter to even want to be a marine, IMO. They’re not Marines, they’re James Cameron’s retarded fantasy of what Marines would be based entirely on his own ignorance about all things military. There is nothing about the demeanor, behavior or nonsense talk in Aliens that even remotely resembles the way real life Marines behave. Cameron did the same thing in Avatar. He has a hard-on for Marines, but he’s not intellectually curious enough to learn anything about them before making them a focal point of his shitty movies. I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that you're not a James Cameron fan.
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Post by xystophoros on May 17, 2019 7:10:27 GMT
They’re not Marines, they’re James Cameron’s retarded fantasy of what Marines would be based entirely on his own ignorance about all things military. There is nothing about the demeanor, behavior or nonsense talk in Aliens that even remotely resembles the way real life Marines behave. Cameron did the same thing in Avatar. He has a hard-on for Marines, but he’s not intellectually curious enough to learn anything about them before making them a focal point of his shitty movies. I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that you're not a James Cameron fan.
Well the way he portrays Marines is enough to get on my bad side, but Cameron is also just a tool. He did that "History of Science Fiction" series on AMC, and basically credited himself and George Lucas for inventing and popularizing the genre.
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Aliens
May 21, 2019 20:09:46 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 21, 2019 20:09:46 GMT
Ok pretty cool movie right? The only thing I thought that was stupid about the movie was the way that the soldiers acted so unprofessional and untrained. They seemed more like the sweathogs than a highly trained special forces unit. I mean who in their right mind would go in to a potentially dangerous combat situation with these fuckups as their backup? All they did was goof around, and whine and complain. Even so I still found the movie quite scary and entertaining but it could have been much better with more believable soldiers helping Ripley out. Why do you think they made the characters like this? I thought they were actually fairly well trained and disciplined, when it mattered.
They were also way over-confident and unprepared for what they were about to face.
They seemed all very good at their jobs, even Hudson, until he was faced with real adversity.
But then even he redeemed himself.
I like they way they were all portrayed. Colorful. Even the minor characters who were killed off quickly managed to stand out.
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Aliens
Jun 3, 2019 0:00:25 GMT
via mobile
Post by RedDeadFallout on Jun 3, 2019 0:00:25 GMT
He based the marines on what real army soldiers were like towards the end of the Vietnam war, he acknowledges that it was inaccurate in the commentary.
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