200 years after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone. Along with a crew of space pirates, she must again battle the deadly aliens and stop them from reaching Earth.
After her last encounter, Ellen Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina 161, a maximum security prison. When a series of strange and deadly events occur shortly after her arrival, Ripley realizes that she has brought along an unwelcome visitor.
Director:
David Fincher
Stars:
Sigourney Weaver,
Charles S. Dutton,
Charles Dance
Ellen Ripley is rescued by a deep salvage team after being in hypersleep for 57 years. The moon that the Nostromo visited has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, colonial marines have impressive firepower, but will that be enough?
Director:
James Cameron
Stars:
Sigourney Weaver,
Michael Biehn,
Carrie Henn
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
The crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination, and must attempt a harrowing escape.
Director:
Ridley Scott
Stars:
Michael Fassbender,
Katherine Waterston,
Billy Crudup
During an archaeological expedition on Bouvetøya Island in Antarctica, a team of archaeologists and other scientists find themselves caught up in a battle between the two legends. Soon, the team realize that only one species can win.
Amidst a territorial gang war in 1997, a sophisticated alien hunter stalks the citizens of Los Angeles and the only man between him and his prey is veteran L.A.P.D. officer, Lieutenant Mike Harrigan.
A cybernetic warrior from a post-apocalyptic future travels back in time to protect a 25-year old drifter and his future wife from a most advanced robotic assassin and to ensure they both survive a nuclear attack.
Director:
Jonathan Mostow
Stars:
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Nick Stahl,
Kristanna Loken
The saga continues 200 years after Ripley sacrificed herself for the sake of humanity. Her erstwhile employers long gone, this time it is the military that resurrects the one-woman killing machine through genetic cloning to extract the alien from within her, but during the process her DNA is fused with the queen and then the aliens escape. Now Ripley must decide where her allegiance lies.
Joss Whedon has commented on his dissatisfaction with the movie. Fans had speculated that the finished movie deviated from his original script in some fatal manner, however he put such rumors to rest. His dialogue, action and plot were essentially intact. However he had written with a playful, tongue-in-cheek tone, which didn't work when the director decided to "play it straight." Eventually, Whedon created Firefly (2002) and Serenity (2005), which was also about a group of pirates on an old space ship, and captured the tone he had aimed for in this movie. He said that he never realized the similarities with the Betty and her crew until someone pointed it out to him. As irony would have it, the series was shot on the same stages at Fox Studios where 'Alien: Resurrection' was filmed, with the Serenity built over the pit that was dug for the underwater scenes. See more »
Goofs
The look of the legs does not correspond between the practical and computer-generated Aliens; the CG ones have an extra joint at the ankle, while the practical Alien shot by Vriess is shown with human looking ankles (i.e. without an extra joint) as it is seen crouched on the grate from below. Also, it lacks the long toes of the CG Aliens, instead having more human-like feet. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Ripley:
[voiceover]
My mommy always said there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are.
See more »
Crazy Credits
Many of the creature effects casting and mold making crew. Some long standing, heavily contributing members, were omitted from the credits. Supposedly due to budget concerns. See more »
Alternate Versions
The R2 Special Edition (available on the Alien Quadrology Boxset as well as separately) contains 7 extra minutes of altered and/or extended scenes. As a result, there is a little more character development, but the music has also been re-edited (a bit poorly) in some scenes. Here follows a short description:
The main titles (the distorted shots of the 7 early Ripley clones in the theatrical cut) have been replaced by an alternate opening, which starts with a close-up of a growling alien mouth. As the camera pulls back, it is revealed to be the beak of a fly, that is subsequently squashed by a thumb of a soldier. The soldier uses a straw to blow the fly's blood against a window, which shows that he is actually sitting in a nacell of the Auriga spaceship. The rest of the shot shows the Auriga slowly flying away from camera.
Directly after the chestburster has been surgically removed from Ripley 8, she wakes up from her narcosis, grips the surgeon's arm and breaks it.
In the scene where Ripley is shown drawings of a glove and fruit, directly after Genral Perez, Wren and Gediman leave, the doctor shows Ripley a drawing of a young, blond girl, which seems to trigger an emotional memory in her.
During the meal scene, Ripley repeats Gediman's 'Fiori 16', and he asks her what she remembers. Dr. Wren can also tells some more about the Weyland-Yutani company ("bought up by Wall-Mart")
The 'Betty introduction scene has been completely re-edited and extended. The scene now starts with the Betty flying towards the Auriga, Elgyn giving the clearance code over the radio (E-A-T-M-E), but now he flirts some more with Hillard, and warns Call and Vriess over the intercom to get ready. Next, Call and Vriess are shown working on the cargo, followed by some extended dialogue in which Vriess tells Call an obscene joke. This is followed by the scene in which Christie gets his hidden weapons (which came first in the original cut). Next is Johner's 'target practice', Vriess then throws a tool to his head, Call calls him names, but Johner simply replies by asking for his knife. When Vriess comments on his alcoholism, Johner demands his knife back, Call breaks it, Johner threatens her, and there is an extra line from Vriess that he and Call deserve better company.
During the deal between Elgyn and Perez, Elgyn has some more 'flattering' remarks about Call, thinking Vriess has an eye on her. After Elgyn asks Perez for three days bed and board, Perez agrees under a few conditions (no trespassing in restricted areas, no trouble, no fighting).
After Purvis shouts "What's in-f###ing-side me?!?", Wren answers: "A parasite! A foreign element!" After Call says that Purvis can be frozen and operated later, she has another run-in with Johner, followed by Christie agreeing that Purvis comes, but saying he will shoot him if he starts acting funny.
Just before everyone takes a dive through the flooded kitchen, Christie and DiStephano have a short conversation on Christie's weapons ('the disposable kind'), and Call reminds everyone to take a deep breath.
In the chapel, just after Purvis' fake chestburst, there is an extended line from Call, stating she recalibrated ground level, sending the ship into an uninhabited quadrant of Earth, before she mentions time of impact. After Ripley asks if she's the new a##hole model, she replies she couldn't let humanity annihilate itself. Ripley comments that she once tried to save people as well; she remembers a girl that had bad dreams, but she died despite her help, and now she can't even remember her name. After DiStephano enters to take them with him, Ripley asks Call if she dreams, which Call does thanks to neural processors; Ripley says she dreams about the aliens every night, and that she used to be afraid, but not anymore, since it is always worse when she wakes up.
After Johner kissed Vriess for getting them safely through Earth's atmosphere, there is an alternate ending with the Betty landing on Earth. Call warns Ripley for the military that will come looking for her soon. She says someone can get pretty lost on Earth, and asks Ripley what to do. Ripley replies that she doesn't know, since she is a stranger there herself. The camera then goes up, to reveal a post-apocalyptical Paris.
Alien Resurrection was released about six months after I graduated from high school, and at the time I wasn't very familiar with the series. I took my first film class about six months later, at which point I learned to really appreciate the great films and filmmakers, and one of the first things I learned was that the first three Alien films are spectacular achievements of science fiction cinema and the third sequel is a sad, ridiculous mess. This happens all too often with sequels and yes, part four is not yet another amazingly impressive Alien film, but come on, it's not THAT bad.
I watched it last night for the first time in almost ten years, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's strange that I liked it so much, because it shows all the signs of a botched, modernized sequel of a series that should have been left alone long ago. The characters, most of all, are almost all goofy caricatures with preposterous dialogue and routine motivations, and some just don't belong at all. Personally I am a pretty big fan of Winona Ryder, but only in roles that suit her, and she has had a lengthy list of roles that suit her, but Annallee Call in Alien Resurrection is just not one of them. Too often she comes off as a tough talking teenager in this movie and it just gets hard to take her character seriously. She's like Ja Rule in Half Past Dead, but less ridiculous.
Then again, this could just have been a result of her starring alongside Sigourney Weaver, and that woman is just awesome. Dan Hedaya is suitably over-the-top in his role as the gleefully neurotic General Perez, and I have to admit that I was curious to see the performance of Gary Dourdan as Christie. Lately I've been watching countless hours of CSI on DVD, and it's amazing to see how different his role is in this movie from the most serious role he would play later in that show. I prefer the later performance, myself.
The resurrection implied in the title refers to Ripley being borough back to life 200 years after her death for the purpose of creating one of the alien queens, and then breeding the animals for twisted scientific purposes. They decide to keep Ripley alive for observation after surgically removing the alien from her chest, only to discover that she and the aliens are clearly more than they are prepared to handle. There is a negligible subplot involving a group of shady characters headed by the wonderfully sinister Michael Wincott as a Frank Elgyn, who promises his men won't start trouble or get into any fights if they are allowed to stay on board for a few days and nights.
I also have to mention Ron Perlman, who just has a face for this kind of movie. Probably most recognizable lately as Hellboy, this has to be one of the least appreciated actors of the last few decades. In just over 20 years he has acted in more than 150 films and TV shows, and at the time of this writing he has 18 projects in the works. Unbelievable! He also has one of the best lines in the movie ("Why the waste of ammo?! Must be a chick thing ").
The aliens are probably the thing that will make or break this movie, and in my opinion they were impressive enough. The occasional CGI effects are never convincing, but then again they never are, so luckily they didn't overdo them. Even the aliens swimming underwater was not too much for me to accept, perhaps given the automatic tension that is immediately generated in almost any movie where someone has to hold their breath for a long time. This went on far too long to be anything remotely realistic in this movie, but it was a good scene nonetheless.
I would also argue that this is the goriest of all of the four alien movies, particularly at the end, but also contains some of the best comic relief. This combination makes the movie highly entertaining, even following in the long shadows of its spectacular predecessors. There is a high energy scene in the third act of the film where Perlman's character performs a daredevil stunt to shoot one of the pursuing aliens dead which is followed by what has to be the funniest spider killing in film history. I haven't laughed out loud like that at a movie in a long, long time.
In browsing through the posts on the message board for Resurrection I have been inspired to raise my rating for the movie from a 7 to an 8, if only because it is so obvious that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon about bashing this movie. I see nothing but whiny, pouting little brats whimpering and griping about little nitpicky details in the movie, condemning the third sequel in the Alien quadrilogy as a travesty and an embarrassment and a pathetic way to end the series.
Stupid people in large numbers, man. It's sad to see such a clear mob mentality slamming a movie that is about 100 times better than most people say. No, it's not up to the same level as the first two films and it definitely has its drawbacks, but it is definitely a good installment in the series, and you could certainly do a lot worse for some fun popcorn sci-fi on a Friday night. I'll admit that my judgment might be a little skewed because I watched the staggeringly awful Eaten Alive just before seeing this, but it is clear to me that Alien: Resurrection has yet to receive the respect it deserves.
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Alien Resurrection was released about six months after I graduated from high school, and at the time I wasn't very familiar with the series. I took my first film class about six months later, at which point I learned to really appreciate the great films and filmmakers, and one of the first things I learned was that the first three Alien films are spectacular achievements of science fiction cinema and the third sequel is a sad, ridiculous mess. This happens all too often with sequels and yes, part four is not yet another amazingly impressive Alien film, but come on, it's not THAT bad.
I watched it last night for the first time in almost ten years, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's strange that I liked it so much, because it shows all the signs of a botched, modernized sequel of a series that should have been left alone long ago. The characters, most of all, are almost all goofy caricatures with preposterous dialogue and routine motivations, and some just don't belong at all. Personally I am a pretty big fan of Winona Ryder, but only in roles that suit her, and she has had a lengthy list of roles that suit her, but Annallee Call in Alien Resurrection is just not one of them. Too often she comes off as a tough talking teenager in this movie and it just gets hard to take her character seriously. She's like Ja Rule in Half Past Dead, but less ridiculous.
Then again, this could just have been a result of her starring alongside Sigourney Weaver, and that woman is just awesome. Dan Hedaya is suitably over-the-top in his role as the gleefully neurotic General Perez, and I have to admit that I was curious to see the performance of Gary Dourdan as Christie. Lately I've been watching countless hours of CSI on DVD, and it's amazing to see how different his role is in this movie from the most serious role he would play later in that show. I prefer the later performance, myself.
The resurrection implied in the title refers to Ripley being borough back to life 200 years after her death for the purpose of creating one of the alien queens, and then breeding the animals for twisted scientific purposes. They decide to keep Ripley alive for observation after surgically removing the alien from her chest, only to discover that she and the aliens are clearly more than they are prepared to handle. There is a negligible subplot involving a group of shady characters headed by the wonderfully sinister Michael Wincott as a Frank Elgyn, who promises his men won't start trouble or get into any fights if they are allowed to stay on board for a few days and nights.
I also have to mention Ron Perlman, who just has a face for this kind of movie. Probably most recognizable lately as Hellboy, this has to be one of the least appreciated actors of the last few decades. In just over 20 years he has acted in more than 150 films and TV shows, and at the time of this writing he has 18 projects in the works. Unbelievable! He also has one of the best lines in the movie ("Why the waste of ammo?! Must be a chick thing ").
The aliens are probably the thing that will make or break this movie, and in my opinion they were impressive enough. The occasional CGI effects are never convincing, but then again they never are, so luckily they didn't overdo them. Even the aliens swimming underwater was not too much for me to accept, perhaps given the automatic tension that is immediately generated in almost any movie where someone has to hold their breath for a long time. This went on far too long to be anything remotely realistic in this movie, but it was a good scene nonetheless.
I would also argue that this is the goriest of all of the four alien movies, particularly at the end, but also contains some of the best comic relief. This combination makes the movie highly entertaining, even following in the long shadows of its spectacular predecessors. There is a high energy scene in the third act of the film where Perlman's character performs a daredevil stunt to shoot one of the pursuing aliens dead which is followed by what has to be the funniest spider killing in film history. I haven't laughed out loud like that at a movie in a long, long time.
In browsing through the posts on the message board for Resurrection I have been inspired to raise my rating for the movie from a 7 to an 8, if only because it is so obvious that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon about bashing this movie. I see nothing but whiny, pouting little brats whimpering and griping about little nitpicky details in the movie, condemning the third sequel in the Alien quadrilogy as a travesty and an embarrassment and a pathetic way to end the series.
Stupid people in large numbers, man. It's sad to see such a clear mob mentality slamming a movie that is about 100 times better than most people say. No, it's not up to the same level as the first two films and it definitely has its drawbacks, but it is definitely a good installment in the series, and you could certainly do a lot worse for some fun popcorn sci-fi on a Friday night. I'll admit that my judgment might be a little skewed because I watched the staggeringly awful Eaten Alive just before seeing this, but it is clear to me that Alien: Resurrection has yet to receive the respect it deserves.