Alien, Aliens, and more aliens *g*
Jan. 26th, 2004 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakInspired by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rozk's take on the subject, I have started rewatching the Alien movies; the first two, so far. I find my reaction is pretty much the same as when I first saw them; I still prefer Ridley Scott's Alien to James Cameron's Aliens.
Mind you, I'm less allergic to the Marines in the later than I used to be, probably due to having seen lots of soldiers in and out of sci-fi films and shows in between. So I'm not about to accuse Cameron of blind worship of the military, as my 19-years-old self did. But I still find them irritating, and I do think Cameron is overly in love with his big guns and big machines. Probably the most 80-ish thing about Aliens; remember when everything got bigger, the radios especially, instead of smaller? (Francis Ford Coppola had a neat jab about this tendency in Peggy Sue Got Married.)
Mostly, though, it's that I find Aliens less interesting. It's a good action movie, no question about it; everyone gives a good performance, and since Cameron makes the bond between Ripley and little Newt the emotional core of the movie, and hits upon the ingenious idea of paralleling this with the Queen (his contribution to the myth) and her eggs, it gives us an easy identification with the heroine. But. It's one of several polished action movies. Not unique.
Alien, now. Alien, for starters, is not an action movie. It's a horror film. Rewatching it, it strikes me that Scott could even have made it as a silent movie, because the spoken dialogue is not that important. It has no memorable lines, which doesn't mean it's badly written. Au contraire. The marines in Cameron's Aliens communicate in snappy Hollywood one liners, which is entertaining, but clearly identifies them as People Not You Or Me. The crew of the Nostromo, otoh? Are really, as one of several contributors to the script put, truck drivers in space. No one liners. They bicker (and then they panic), but they do it in a way you can imagine listening to in any working environment where the people have been together a bit too long not to be edge and tired of each other.
Still. This could have been a silent movie. It was only Ridley Scott's second feature film (after, as he points out on the extras, more than 200 commercials - since he makes a similar point when reminiscing on the Thelma and Louise DVD methinks the man has still issues about having been dismissed as a director of TV ads way back when), but there is nothing whatsoever either unaccomplished or, going into the other extreme, overindulgent in the new railway set (looking at you, Orson Welles) about his direction. He composes his pictures in a way that makes each frame fascinating, and he takes his time with the pace. We've got more than half an hour of the crew waking up, bickering, landing on a planet, and investigating before the action kicks in. I wouldn't want to miss a minute. What fascinates me isn't just Scott doing his usual great thing with the scenery (in this case, the set designs by H.R. Giger for the Alien ship and the Aliens themselves, and Rob Cobb for the Nostromo) but the way he sculpts his characters. I deliberately use the word "sculpt". It can be Ripley's face, or it can be the shot of Ash in medlab with Ripley barely visible at the edge of the frame, but you have the idea these people have been ever so carefully positioned and modelled from clay.
Not, though, in a Stanley Kubrick manner. Because the crew of the Nostromo is not supernaturally beautiful or physically perfect in the way actors appear in many movies and TV shows, American movies and TV shows at least. They have an every day look which reminds me more of British TV shows; even the two women, Ripley and Lambert, while being good looking are so in an, excuse the cliché, unconventional way. Ian Holm as Ash could not look more inconspicuous (no Schwarzenegger he). John Hurt, Tom Skerrit and Harry Dean Stanton are all character actors, not front-page-of-Vanity-Fair material or action heroes. There is a sense of eminent normalcy and realness about these people that isn't, perhaps because it can't be, with any of the casts of any of the sequels.
Moreover, Alien doesn't give us easy identifications. If someone manages to see this film now with blessed lack of knowledge about it or its sequels, this hypothetical viewer will take his or her time realising that Ripley is meant to be the main character, and the one who will probably survive. (Or will she? Scott in the extras confesses he had at one point the sudden mad idea of finishing the movie with the Alien killing Ripley, instead of vice versa, and then setting course to Earth.) She doesn't have more scenes than the other six crew members until her conflict with Ash intensifies, and she's not necessarily portrayed as more sympathetic, with her smart but also cold decision not to take the infected Kane back on board. There is no arrow pointed at her saying "This is your heroine; love her".
Then there is the element of fear. All the Alien movies have their scary moments, but Scott, doing it for the first time, could really use hints and fragments and teasing insinuation for a single monster which work that much more strongly on the imagination, instead of having to deliver ever more monsters. And since the crew of the Nostromo aren't soldiers, they don't even have pretend they aren't afraid. One of the reasons why one does identify with Ripley in Alien after all is that Sigourney Weaver and Scott show that she's scared out of her wits while trying to hold it up, that her courage goes along with fear just this side of body-numbing. When she, for the final showdown, sings to herself, tunelessly, you know it is about the only thing keeping her from an instant breakdown. This isn't the warrior goddess she was going to become.
Lastly, there is the bizarre sexuality present in Alien, absent in Aliens, fragmentary present in Alien³ and brought back with a vengeance in Alien: Resurrection. I understand why Cameron didn't go for it; he had the Queen instead, and structure that needed the face-off between two mothers, without any sexual dynamics. Which works very well emotionally. But it does not access the subconscious in the disturbing way Giger's original creature, and the way Scott uses it in Alien does. Dan O'Bannon, the original scriptwriter for Alien, uses the description "horrifyingly beautiful" for the Giger sketches that had first attracted his attention, and Scott says something similar in the audio commentary. O'Bannon mentions working out the story with his collegue who when they hammered out the logistics of how the monster was going to come on board said "what if he screws one of the crew, impregnates him and then gets born inside the ship". When the final showdown between Ripley and the Alien arrives, Scott and Weaver comment on the sexuality of it, the "Beauty and the Beast" factor. It's interesting that Ripley originally wasn't written as a female character (nor was anyone else) for Alien, but that the sexual subtext for the Alien seems to have been there from the start, whereas of course for Aliens her being a woman was a basic condition, and you have no sexuality at all.
Speaking of Aliens and sexuality. I've got my DS9 story, Cold Heaven, up on FFN since a few days though for some strange reason it doesn't show up on the normal director, just on my personal account. Same with the Londo/G'kar extravaganza, titled In Vino Veritas.
Also, this is Born to the Purple week in Babylon 5 terms.andrastewhite wrote a wonderful story featuring Londo and G'Kar between Born to the Purple and Parliament of Dreams; my own contribution for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thefiringline is a story about Adira:
Title: Her Better Days
Author: Selena
Rating: PG 13, I suppose.
Disclaimer: All owned by JMS and Babylonian productions.
Words: 838
Spoilers: For "Born to the Purple".
Her body had never belonged to herself. Adira had not been free since her early childhood, since her father, after his last attempt to make his fortune on a colony world failed, had sold himself and his family into bondage. Back then, he had told them they would be able to buy their own freedom back, which was certainly legally possible, and Adira had believed him. She did not realise that it had been as empty a promise as all his schemes until her breasts started to bud, and it had been time to shave her skull. It was only then that she truly understood what it meant to be a slave.
For a while, during her training as a dancer, she entertained hopes that she would still be able to earn enough money to buy her freedom, even if marriage and children were now out of the question. She didn't want children anymore, anyway. Not knowing what would wait for them in the end. But Trakis, who bought her contract from her previous owner, made it clear he expected her to deliver all her earnings, in full, and besides, she was not to believe that he'd ever let her go. Trakis hated all Centauri. He had been a slave himself once.
It wasn't as if Adira had much love for her people left in her either. The laws of the Republic had not saved her, or the siblings she had not seen since her fifth year. Still, when Trakis told her she was to seduce the Centauri Ambassador on Babylon 5, something in her balked. At this point she did not know the Ambassador. The other girls said he was generous with his tips, even if they did not always come from his own money, and good company to be with, but that was true of a lot of men. No, what disturbed Adira was the idea of putting anyone else into Trakis' power.
Then the Ambassador started to notice her, as Trakis had foreseen, and began to court her, which was completely unanticipated. Both Trakis and Adira had expected the Ambassador simply to summon her to his quarters and be done with it. True, he did not know she was a slave and thus had no right to refuse anyone's attentions, but a free dancer's status wasn't that much higher.
It was bewildering and strange to be exposed to flattery, gifts, and endless attempts to make her smile. Which she did, and soon she found she did not even have to pretend. The other girls had been right; Londo Mollari was good company. Adira began to remember bits and pieces of her childhood she had tried to forget; the tales her mother had told her, the romances, the songs. He never stopped behaving as if she had a choice in the matter, and it took all her energy to recall that she did not.
When they ultimately did have sex together, he continued to surprise her. It wasn't as if she had been lacking in experience, despite her youth. But the other Centauri she had slept with usually didn't bother to take their time between one and four, and once they got to six, that was that. It was so new for her to enjoy herself at all stages that she did not now what to say, how to look. All the practised expressions were gone.
But what broke her was that he wanted her to remain afterwards. When he fell asleep, she regarded him and tried to understand what she felt. It wasn't that he was particularly handsome. He wasn't young anymore, far from it, and he drank too much; she could smell it on his skin. And it wasn't as if they actually had something in common. He was a noble, the head of one of the great Houses; poverty was as alien to him as, she imagined, helplessness. Moreover, his kindness to her would surely end as soon as he found out what Trakis intended. Romances weren't the only tales she recalled now; a noble had the right to whip a commoner through the streets if the commoner had offended him.
And yet. And yet. Right now, she did not want to be anywhere else than here, in this room, with this man. Reality would catch up with her soon enough, she knew that; and ultimately she would betray him, or he would find out and turn against her. The past was a nightmare, and every experience she ever had told her there was no future. But there was the present.
He had told her to call him by his name, which she hadn't dared yet. Now that he was sleeping, though, she whispered it, just his name, because she still didn't know what to make of the bewildering confusion that refused to let her go. Then she told the computer to lower the lights, and tried to sleep as well.
Around them, the shadows crept closer.
rozk's take on the subject, I have started rewatching the Alien movies; the first two, so far. I find my reaction is pretty much the same as when I first saw them; I still prefer Ridley Scott's Alien to James Cameron's Aliens.Mind you, I'm less allergic to the Marines in the later than I used to be, probably due to having seen lots of soldiers in and out of sci-fi films and shows in between. So I'm not about to accuse Cameron of blind worship of the military, as my 19-years-old self did. But I still find them irritating, and I do think Cameron is overly in love with his big guns and big machines. Probably the most 80-ish thing about Aliens; remember when everything got bigger, the radios especially, instead of smaller? (Francis Ford Coppola had a neat jab about this tendency in Peggy Sue Got Married.)
Mostly, though, it's that I find Aliens less interesting. It's a good action movie, no question about it; everyone gives a good performance, and since Cameron makes the bond between Ripley and little Newt the emotional core of the movie, and hits upon the ingenious idea of paralleling this with the Queen (his contribution to the myth) and her eggs, it gives us an easy identification with the heroine. But. It's one of several polished action movies. Not unique.
Alien, now. Alien, for starters, is not an action movie. It's a horror film. Rewatching it, it strikes me that Scott could even have made it as a silent movie, because the spoken dialogue is not that important. It has no memorable lines, which doesn't mean it's badly written. Au contraire. The marines in Cameron's Aliens communicate in snappy Hollywood one liners, which is entertaining, but clearly identifies them as People Not You Or Me. The crew of the Nostromo, otoh? Are really, as one of several contributors to the script put, truck drivers in space. No one liners. They bicker (and then they panic), but they do it in a way you can imagine listening to in any working environment where the people have been together a bit too long not to be edge and tired of each other.
Still. This could have been a silent movie. It was only Ridley Scott's second feature film (after, as he points out on the extras, more than 200 commercials - since he makes a similar point when reminiscing on the Thelma and Louise DVD methinks the man has still issues about having been dismissed as a director of TV ads way back when), but there is nothing whatsoever either unaccomplished or, going into the other extreme, overindulgent in the new railway set (looking at you, Orson Welles) about his direction. He composes his pictures in a way that makes each frame fascinating, and he takes his time with the pace. We've got more than half an hour of the crew waking up, bickering, landing on a planet, and investigating before the action kicks in. I wouldn't want to miss a minute. What fascinates me isn't just Scott doing his usual great thing with the scenery (in this case, the set designs by H.R. Giger for the Alien ship and the Aliens themselves, and Rob Cobb for the Nostromo) but the way he sculpts his characters. I deliberately use the word "sculpt". It can be Ripley's face, or it can be the shot of Ash in medlab with Ripley barely visible at the edge of the frame, but you have the idea these people have been ever so carefully positioned and modelled from clay.
Not, though, in a Stanley Kubrick manner. Because the crew of the Nostromo is not supernaturally beautiful or physically perfect in the way actors appear in many movies and TV shows, American movies and TV shows at least. They have an every day look which reminds me more of British TV shows; even the two women, Ripley and Lambert, while being good looking are so in an, excuse the cliché, unconventional way. Ian Holm as Ash could not look more inconspicuous (no Schwarzenegger he). John Hurt, Tom Skerrit and Harry Dean Stanton are all character actors, not front-page-of-Vanity-Fair material or action heroes. There is a sense of eminent normalcy and realness about these people that isn't, perhaps because it can't be, with any of the casts of any of the sequels.
Moreover, Alien doesn't give us easy identifications. If someone manages to see this film now with blessed lack of knowledge about it or its sequels, this hypothetical viewer will take his or her time realising that Ripley is meant to be the main character, and the one who will probably survive. (Or will she? Scott in the extras confesses he had at one point the sudden mad idea of finishing the movie with the Alien killing Ripley, instead of vice versa, and then setting course to Earth.) She doesn't have more scenes than the other six crew members until her conflict with Ash intensifies, and she's not necessarily portrayed as more sympathetic, with her smart but also cold decision not to take the infected Kane back on board. There is no arrow pointed at her saying "This is your heroine; love her".
Then there is the element of fear. All the Alien movies have their scary moments, but Scott, doing it for the first time, could really use hints and fragments and teasing insinuation for a single monster which work that much more strongly on the imagination, instead of having to deliver ever more monsters. And since the crew of the Nostromo aren't soldiers, they don't even have pretend they aren't afraid. One of the reasons why one does identify with Ripley in Alien after all is that Sigourney Weaver and Scott show that she's scared out of her wits while trying to hold it up, that her courage goes along with fear just this side of body-numbing. When she, for the final showdown, sings to herself, tunelessly, you know it is about the only thing keeping her from an instant breakdown. This isn't the warrior goddess she was going to become.
Lastly, there is the bizarre sexuality present in Alien, absent in Aliens, fragmentary present in Alien³ and brought back with a vengeance in Alien: Resurrection. I understand why Cameron didn't go for it; he had the Queen instead, and structure that needed the face-off between two mothers, without any sexual dynamics. Which works very well emotionally. But it does not access the subconscious in the disturbing way Giger's original creature, and the way Scott uses it in Alien does. Dan O'Bannon, the original scriptwriter for Alien, uses the description "horrifyingly beautiful" for the Giger sketches that had first attracted his attention, and Scott says something similar in the audio commentary. O'Bannon mentions working out the story with his collegue who when they hammered out the logistics of how the monster was going to come on board said "what if he screws one of the crew, impregnates him and then gets born inside the ship". When the final showdown between Ripley and the Alien arrives, Scott and Weaver comment on the sexuality of it, the "Beauty and the Beast" factor. It's interesting that Ripley originally wasn't written as a female character (nor was anyone else) for Alien, but that the sexual subtext for the Alien seems to have been there from the start, whereas of course for Aliens her being a woman was a basic condition, and you have no sexuality at all.
Speaking of Aliens and sexuality. I've got my DS9 story, Cold Heaven, up on FFN since a few days though for some strange reason it doesn't show up on the normal director, just on my personal account. Same with the Londo/G'kar extravaganza, titled In Vino Veritas.
Also, this is Born to the Purple week in Babylon 5 terms.
andrastewhite wrote a wonderful story featuring Londo and G'Kar between Born to the Purple and Parliament of Dreams; my own contribution for thefiringline is a story about Adira:Title: Her Better Days
Author: Selena
Rating: PG 13, I suppose.
Disclaimer: All owned by JMS and Babylonian productions.
Words: 838
Spoilers: For "Born to the Purple".
Her body had never belonged to herself. Adira had not been free since her early childhood, since her father, after his last attempt to make his fortune on a colony world failed, had sold himself and his family into bondage. Back then, he had told them they would be able to buy their own freedom back, which was certainly legally possible, and Adira had believed him. She did not realise that it had been as empty a promise as all his schemes until her breasts started to bud, and it had been time to shave her skull. It was only then that she truly understood what it meant to be a slave.
For a while, during her training as a dancer, she entertained hopes that she would still be able to earn enough money to buy her freedom, even if marriage and children were now out of the question. She didn't want children anymore, anyway. Not knowing what would wait for them in the end. But Trakis, who bought her contract from her previous owner, made it clear he expected her to deliver all her earnings, in full, and besides, she was not to believe that he'd ever let her go. Trakis hated all Centauri. He had been a slave himself once.
It wasn't as if Adira had much love for her people left in her either. The laws of the Republic had not saved her, or the siblings she had not seen since her fifth year. Still, when Trakis told her she was to seduce the Centauri Ambassador on Babylon 5, something in her balked. At this point she did not know the Ambassador. The other girls said he was generous with his tips, even if they did not always come from his own money, and good company to be with, but that was true of a lot of men. No, what disturbed Adira was the idea of putting anyone else into Trakis' power.
Then the Ambassador started to notice her, as Trakis had foreseen, and began to court her, which was completely unanticipated. Both Trakis and Adira had expected the Ambassador simply to summon her to his quarters and be done with it. True, he did not know she was a slave and thus had no right to refuse anyone's attentions, but a free dancer's status wasn't that much higher.
It was bewildering and strange to be exposed to flattery, gifts, and endless attempts to make her smile. Which she did, and soon she found she did not even have to pretend. The other girls had been right; Londo Mollari was good company. Adira began to remember bits and pieces of her childhood she had tried to forget; the tales her mother had told her, the romances, the songs. He never stopped behaving as if she had a choice in the matter, and it took all her energy to recall that she did not.
When they ultimately did have sex together, he continued to surprise her. It wasn't as if she had been lacking in experience, despite her youth. But the other Centauri she had slept with usually didn't bother to take their time between one and four, and once they got to six, that was that. It was so new for her to enjoy herself at all stages that she did not now what to say, how to look. All the practised expressions were gone.
But what broke her was that he wanted her to remain afterwards. When he fell asleep, she regarded him and tried to understand what she felt. It wasn't that he was particularly handsome. He wasn't young anymore, far from it, and he drank too much; she could smell it on his skin. And it wasn't as if they actually had something in common. He was a noble, the head of one of the great Houses; poverty was as alien to him as, she imagined, helplessness. Moreover, his kindness to her would surely end as soon as he found out what Trakis intended. Romances weren't the only tales she recalled now; a noble had the right to whip a commoner through the streets if the commoner had offended him.
And yet. And yet. Right now, she did not want to be anywhere else than here, in this room, with this man. Reality would catch up with her soon enough, she knew that; and ultimately she would betray him, or he would find out and turn against her. The past was a nightmare, and every experience she ever had told her there was no future. But there was the present.
He had told her to call him by his name, which she hadn't dared yet. Now that he was sleeping, though, she whispered it, just his name, because she still didn't know what to make of the bewildering confusion that refused to let her go. Then she told the computer to lower the lights, and tried to sleep as well.
Around them, the shadows crept closer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 07:45 am (UTC)Scott could even have made it as a silent movie
Interesting thought.
not supernaturally beautiful or physically perfect .. which reminds me more of British TV shows.
Yes.
doesn't give us easy identifications
Yes. Group dynamic, not hero dynamic.
the element of fear
Brrrr, yes
bizarre sexuality </i. Wahey! I mean, yes, good point.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 01:26 am (UTC)Not that a studio would have ever given the go-ahead to such a prospect, of course, even in the more experimental 70s.
Yes. Group dynamic, not hero dynamic.
Quite. I can't think of many films which manage to pull this off.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 08:58 am (UTC)I'm not sure which editions of the films you are watching - the original or director's cuts. Comparing the original versions of Alien and Aliens, I have to agree with your assesment of the two films. But, it was after seeing the directors cut of Aliens that I found it difficult to decide which was the better of the two.
Granted, Aliens is much more the action picture, more visceral then meditative, but in the extended version we see where character development was sacrificed for the sake of gunfire. While it was easy enough to draw comparisons between Ripley and the Queen, the extended cut allows us to see why Ripley was so desperate to save Newt - she couldn't let her down as she felt she had her own daughter. And there is the brief exchange between Ripley and Hicks in which they exchange first names. It's a small moment that was easily cut, but seeing it included helps to strengthen the connection between the two.
Interestingly, had not Ridley cut a key scene from Alien showing Dallas and others being turned into eggs, would the Queen/hive concept have been born? If so, it was likely there would have been massive criticism of the films contradicting each other.
Agree about the regular vs. directors cut versions...
Date: 2004-01-26 11:07 am (UTC)The director's cut of Aliens allows the viewer far more character insights, including perhaps the most important detail of the entire film, the fact that Ripley had a daughter whose life she missed out on, and further, the film scares me more than the first. There is no moment I think in any film as genuinely frightening to me as Newt standing in the water as the alien arises out of it behind her. Ripley's final showdown with the Queen, rife with subtextual implications about their divergent maternal instincts, I also find more satisfying than the Beauty-and-the-Beast sexuality of the first film.
Pardon the typo
Date: 2004-01-26 11:08 am (UTC)Re: Agree about the regular vs. directors cut versions...
Date: 2004-01-26 11:46 am (UTC)That truly is a frightening moment. Seeing a child threatened is far more disturbing than an adult in the same predicament.
Another thing I found interesting about Aliens was we get to witness the intelligence of the Aliens. I know Ridely wanted to persue that more but didn't have the opportunity to. Thankfully James Cameron chose to incorporate it. I was always struck by the scene in which Ripley threatens the Queens offspring. Granted, you can argue it's instinctual to protect the colony, but I saw more than that. The Queen knew what Ripley was thinking and seemed to read both her actions and emotions very well.
Disagree
Date: 2004-01-26 12:43 pm (UTC)Again, with the showdown of the mothers it's the same thing. I find it effective, and a good idea on Cameron's part. But it does not haunt me in that nightmarish quality as the showdown in the earlier film, nor do I identify that strongly with Ripley as I do in the first one.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 12:49 pm (UTC)Even more interesting, the cut scene with Dallas must have been known to Cameron because clearly the scene in Aliens where the Marines find the half-digested colonists hanging from the walls is inspired by it visually.
Yes, if the scene had not been cut it would have taken some convoluted explanations to explain why all of a sudden there was something like a Queen necessary to lay eggs. I'm still in two minds as to whether I prefer the film (Alien that is) with or without the Dallas scene, because it is quite moving.
Incidentally, since this scene was included in Sigourney Weaver's original screent test it's somewhat ironic it didn't make the final cut...
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 12:06 pm (UTC)***
Don't remember where I read about this, but one of the differences between the men and the women aboard the Nostromo was that the men were all older than the women by several years. I agree that it's great that neither Ripley nor Lambert are prettified, though. (Except that Ripley, obviously, shaved. Hello, tiny underwear scene.)
Due to Cameron's changes in their biology and the deleted scene in first movie, the aliens in Aliens were less alien than in Alien.
Thanks...
Date: 2004-01-26 12:51 pm (UTC)Re: Thanks...
Date: 2004-01-26 01:05 pm (UTC)zombie snails?
Date: 2004-01-26 01:31 pm (UTC)Re: zombie snails?
Date: 2004-01-26 02:13 pm (UTC)Re: zombie snails?
Date: 2004-01-27 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:21 pm (UTC)Aliens, however, was still scary, but more manageably so. And I think your observation about the characters in the original being so darn ordinary is an excellent one, and may explain why Alien reduced me to a quivering wreck while Aliens merely frightened me. The marines with their pumped-up physiques and military jargon and barely-differentiated personalities weren't anything like the people I knew (even those Marines who got given some personality were still types rather than distinct and unique individuals). The crew members of the Nostromo could have been acquaintances of mine under different circumstances. So there was more of an identification. In Aliens the only characters I was able to identify with were Ripley and Newt; I didn't have an entire cast of regular people to agonize over.
But the ratcheting down of the tension meant i was better able to appreciate the less-scary stuff in Aliens. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and enjoyed Ripley's uber-maternal protectiveness (what is it with James Cameron and female characters who are total mama bears, anyway?) I thought it was a neat alternate focus, since we'd already done "focused on survival" for her in Alien. And the concept of the duelling Mothers was an interesting one. I was, however, annoyed by the final airlock scene, which I found tiresomely derivative. "Let's do almost exactly what Ridley Scott did in the first movie, only make it bigger and spend more money." is not an original idea.
Anyway, your analysis of the movies was really interesting. I still don't want to see Alien again, though. I'm a wimp.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 01:20 am (UTC)Yes, that's it exactly. Moreover, with Aliens being a sequel, you knew that they wouldn't kill off Ripley (well, not James Cameron *g*), or the little girl (cute kids don't get killed in American action movies), the two characters one did identify with. On the Nostromo, no one was safe.
(what is it with James Cameron and female characters who are total mama bears, anyway?)
He's really good at that, isn't he?*g* Mind you, given the overwhelming father-son obsession such a lot of other characters have, this is a blessed relief. Though it's interesting to compare and contrast Cameron's heroines with, say, what Scott does both in Alien and Thelma and Louise. You can bet that if Cameron had directed Thelma & Louise, he'd have rewritten the script to motivate at least one of the two women by giving her a child or adoptive child.
And the concept of the duelling Mothers was an interesting one. I was, however, annoyed by the final airlock scene, which I found tiresomely derivative. "Let's do almost exactly what Ridley Scott did in the first movie, only make it bigger and spend more money." is not an original idea.
Same with me. Duelling mothers, yes! (And btw I'm not sure but the fact that Ripley brings down the wrath of the Alien Queen on herself by breaking her implied word and torching the eggs - a superfluous gesture from a pragmatic pov, since she knows the entire complex is going to blow up in a few minutes anyway, but it makes psychological sense - could be read as a critique of the American action hero who just has to finish of the enemy himself/herself with a big gesture.) Copy of airlock scene, no! The former was an original contribution, the later was already done better and moodier by Scott.
I still don't want to see Alien again, though. I'm a wimp.
I understand, but it's really a pity. Aside from everything else, there is a visual elegance about Alien which none of the sequels achieved. (But than that's Scott's talent - even his lesser movies are worth looking at.)
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-01-29 01:10 am (UTC)Very. Which is perhaps why Cameron's violent, kick-ass female characters are seen as less threatening than Thelma and Louise. Their embrace of violence and rejection of men's rules is actually far less whole-hearted than a Cameron heroine's is, but it's not modified through a socially acceptable focus like a child. And men can reveal *weird* attitudes when you bring up Thelma and Louise in conversation. It's like a litmus test of insecurity, in some ways.
For Alien, I think it's interesting that, according to some trivia I read, apparently in some of the drafts of the script, Ripley had an offscreen daughter who was cut from the script. And then of course in the director's cut of Aliens, we have the dead daughter's existence revealed, and Cameron totally runs with the idea of Ripley-as-mother which Scott had ended up rejecting, and Ripley-as-mother dominates the whole of Aliens. I always wondered why Scott cut references to Ripley's biological daughter (perhaps she's mentioned in the director's cut of Alien; I've only seen the screen cut). Was he worried about making Ripley unsympathetic to the audience as an absentee mother (in 1979 I imagine moms with demanding careers would have gone down even worse than in 2004)? Did he want to keep the playing field between the characters level? Was it a question of wanting to focus on Ripley as a *person* and a survivor rather than a mother? Was he simply not interested in telling that story? I don't know that one incarnation of Ripley is necessarily 'better' than the other. It always struck me as the same character at different stages of her personal evolution.
You can bet that if Cameron had directed Thelma & Louise, he'd have rewritten the script to motivate at least one of the two women by giving her a child or adoptive child.
Snicker. You're not wrong. Although he would've had to change the ending too, because he'd never write a heroine who abandoned a child. Ya know, I'm suddenly *deeply* thankful that Scott directed T & L, and not Cameron. Don't know if Cameron was ever even in the running, but if he was, thank merciful heavens Scott got the job. T & L is definitely a movie about women as *women*, not women as mothers. Whereas in Alien, in many ways Ripley's gender is incidental to the story. One could replace Sigourney Weaver with a man, and only a scene or two would need alteration. It's a totally different vibe from T & L, although I think both are feminist-friendly in their own way.
Same with me. Duelling mothers, yes! (And btw I'm not sure but the fact that Ripley brings down the wrath of the Alien Queen on herself by breaking her implied word and torching the eggs - a superfluous gesture from a pragmatic pov, since she knows the entire complex is going to blow up in a few minutes anyway, but it makes psychological sense - could be read as a critique of the American action hero who just has to finish of the enemy himself/herself with a big gesture.)
It also made the Queen more sympathetic (or possibly less unsympathetic). I mean, I still wanted her to die at the end, but there was a sense of alien intelligence rather than simple rapaciousness, and also a sense of inter-species communication, however flawed. I like your idea of a critique of the action hero big gesture; I hadn't thought of that previously.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-01-29 06:20 am (UTC)It might be an apocryphal story. Here's what I got from the DVDs: Dan O'Bannon and his partner Shulitt wrote the first script without any background for the characters, because at that point O'Bannon thought he'd direct it himself and would work with the actors on the characters' life stories. They also wrote all of the characters male, but, with the intention to heighten the chance of a studio buying the script, said that any of them could be changed into a woman. O'Bannon honestly says that they assumed that if the studio would do this, they'd pick some of the early victims; they never dreamt of making the surviving character, Ripley, a woman. Fast forward through various rewrites by various people and some crucial changes, such as the addition of the Ash and Company greed subplot by Walter Hill. At a rather late point, after various directors had already passed up the script, the studio asked whether Ripley could be a woman and O'Bannon (having given up the hope of directing himself at that point) said, sure, why not. Now Harry Dean Stanton said that Ridley Scott provided each of the eight characters with a two-page bio. Since none of the scriptwriters mentions this, I assume said bios must have come from Scott at a rather late point.
Nobody on the DVDs mentions a daughter for Ripley, but Scott does say they cut various background stuff, such as references to Ripley and Dallas having had an affair at one point prior to the film's events, and he does say he wanted to make the characters as equal as possible to keep the emotional investment on the audience's part for as long as possible. Speculating myself, I'd think that if Ripley had mentioned a daughter it would have been obvious too soon that she was going to survive this film.
I don't know that one incarnation of Ripley is necessarily 'better' than the other. It always struck me as the same character at different stages of her personal evolution.
Absolutely. That sets her apart from most heroes from other movie franchises, who don't change at all and remain static.
Ya know, I'm suddenly *deeply* thankful that Scott directed T & L, and not Cameron. Don't know if Cameron was ever even in the running, but if he was, thank merciful heavens Scott got the job. T & L is definitely a movie about women as *women*, not women as mothers.
Now I have the sudden ghastly vision of Thelma going on that trip with Louise not because she wants to but because she needs to rescue her son/daughter from her husband, who instead of being merely a jerk is changed into an abusive jerk. And Louise killing the rapist wannabe not because of her own issues and the tense situation but because the guy is about to threaten the kid...
Re: Part 2
Date: 2004-01-29 12:59 pm (UTC)Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-01-29 01:11 am (UTC)I understand, but it's really a pity. Aside from everything else, there is a visual elegance about Alien which none of the sequels achieved. (But than that's Scott's talent - even his lesser movies are worth looking at.)
Well, I'd watch it again, if I had somebody to clutch at convulsively whenever I got scared, and that person didn't mind listening to me whimper with fear every so often. Not being able to think offhand of anybody who'd risk bruising in order to watch an old horror movie, I think it'll be a while. You're right, though, about the visual elegance. I find that of the older movies which hold up well over time, a lot of them are movies which didn't have a huge amount of money to throw at special effects, and thus relied more on a strong plot, psychological suspense, and atmosphere. And thus they hold up because even in the future if the effects look dated, the effects don't make or break the movie. You don't see much of the alien, but the whole movie is suffused with the menace of its presence. Which I'd say is down to Scott. And is probably the reason I remain scared of his movie!
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-01-30 03:03 am (UTC)Because it contains the prototypical alien. There's a lot of other things going on in the film, which is done on a shoe string, with the most basic of special efects - model space ships travel from left to right across the screen. Pre 2001, pre Star Wars, it's great dark humour.
And the alien is played by a beach ball with feet. And it's really scary.
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-01-30 03:06 am (UTC)Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-01-30 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-29 01:09 am (UTC)That's an excellent point. The viewer allows him/herself to give a damn about the characters who seem most likely to survive. And very little character development is 'wasted' on the cannon fodder. Although, to be fair, with a significantly larger cast, there isn't as much room for character development (not unless you want the movie to be about four hours long). It definitely means, though, that when a character who we don't know well dies, that there's a lot less of an impact.
(what is it with James Cameron and female characters who are total mama bears, anyway?)
He's really good at that, isn't he?*g* Mind you, given the overwhelming father-son obsession such a lot of other characters have, this is a blessed relief.
Bwahahaha! Yeah, movies are so often a vehicle for the directors to work out their daddy issues, aren't they? I remember going to this one action movie with my boyfriend at the time, in which the seminal event of the main character's life was the death of his father in an accident, and that was what drove his every subsequent action. But the thing was, it was obvious that his mother wasn't around either, and why she wasn't was never even *mentioned*. Was she dead? Were they estranged? No clue, as she was utterly irrelevant and invisible. Anyway, my BF leaned over at one particularly tedious moment of 'psychological insight' and said "Maybe if we donated the price of our tickets to a therapy fund for the director he'd stop making movies."
So, given that in many movies, especially action movies (which makes sense because those are supposed to appeal to a male demographic) women as mothers are either invisible or judged much more harshly than men as fathers, James Cameron's mama bear issues are considerably more palatable to me than issues which result in women either being erased from the movie or treated merely as trophies. At least I get to see strong female characters on the screen.
That said, I do think it's interesting that nearly all his strong heroines are motivated by love of a child, and that the tougher they are, the more sexless they are. It's like the toughness of these women has to be transmuted through something selfless and safe, like love of a child. Ripley isn't *quite* sexless, there's a mildly flirtatious vibe with Hicks in the gun scene, but she seems to view him far more as a potential surrogate daddy for Newt than as a romantic/sexual partner for herself. Her interactions with others are still all about Newt and what sexuality she does have is harnessed to her desire to be a good surrogate mommy. The same theme is seen even more explicitly in Terminator 2, where Sarah is extremely strong but interacts with others in a totally sexless way. We know she's had boyfriends because her son tells us so, but he portrays it as her shacking up with anybody she could learn from, so as to protect her son. When maternal sexuality *does* exist, it's presented as self-sacrificial, as another weapon in the maternal arsenal, rather than something positive (mind you, that could be a child's eye view, a child who's uncomfortable with the notion of his mother as a sexual being, but I doubt we're meant to take it that way. For one thing, everything else John says about his mother is true, and for another, Cameron's just not that subtle).
And of Cameron's triumvirate of strong women (Ripley, Sarah Connor, and Lindsey Brigman of The Abyss) the one who gets the least sympathetic treatment is Lindsey, who just happens to be the only one without a child or surrogate child. She's still heroic, but her behaviour is frequently coded as 'bitchy' rather than 'tough'. She doesn't have the but-it's-all-for-my-kid excuse for her strength.
Re:
Date: 2004-01-29 06:26 am (UTC)There is one semi-exception, in a film he wrote but did not direct, Strange Days. And the difference might very well be due to Kathryn Bigelow as the director. Now Mace in Strange Days is a mother (naturally) and in a flashback it's revealed her friendship with Lenny started when he was kind to her son in a hard situation. And Mace is certainly a classic action heroine - the movie does a total gender reversal in letting Lenny be the one who constantly needs rescuing, and Mace the fighter. Even the one time Lenny rescues Mace happens in traditional "female" fashion - he takes a bullet for her. But Mace's motivation in the movie is not connected to her son, it's her friendship with and not so hidden love for Lenny (who sees her as a friend, and is still in love with his ex wife). Certainly the way Angela Basset is presented in this movie as Mace isn't overtly sexual, but it isn't asexual, either.
Re:
Date: 2004-01-29 12:49 pm (UTC)