07/06/2012: Alien: Resurrection [1997]

By the time I post this, I will already have watched and posted my review of Prometheus. However, I did take the last two months to rewatch all of the previous Alien movies, with this being my first time for Resurrection. From what I recall, as much as Alien and Aliens are heralded as such great movies, the two latter sequels were always despised for being the standardly terrible that many sequel are. Of the two, Resurrection is the one that tends to get the most flack as a sequel, but as movie I think it was damn well palatable. 

Everybody knows that when a great movie such as Alien comes along, the sequel will likely be of pretty poor standard. That was not however the case with Aliens, which for many is considered better than the first. While I'm not exactly sure which side of the fence I sat on there, I do know that, the odds were against us for getting anymore decent sequels out of the series. While Alien 3, was barely ok, it could barely hold a candle to the first two. Alien: Resurrection however received a terribly bad wrap for some of its most outrageous story elements. I mean 3, clearly established that Ellen Ripley as being dead, how exactly can you come back from that?

The plot synopsis of Resurrection on IMDb is truly a scarey thing. It claims something along the lines of; Ripley being cloned 200 years after the 3rd movie, and being some kind of half human and half alien hybrid. (Remember, I didn't have the internet when I wrote this, paraphrasing expected). At this point, Ripley has really eturned from the dead one too many times, and the thought that we are now doing a hybrid story is a daunting thought considering how lame the third one had been. There is really one shining aspect to the movie that really enticed me to watch it. It was written by Joss Whedon.

People always seem to come back from the dead via test-tubes.

I was reading over on The Smoking Pen (link below) about how awesome Joss Whedon was. In the world of cinema, he is second only to Tarantino amongst my favourites. As a self professed (I've heard that before, but I'm just using it without really knowing the meaning) Browncoat, I am always excited by Whedon's name, and he has had a great showing this year. So I wanted to see if he could make the insanity that sounded like Alien: Resurrection make sense. From what I could see, Whedon's touch is all over all of the best aspects of Resurrections script, and from what I could see and what I read earlier, someone else went over and added in everything that sucked.

The biggest thing one has to consider is that when Whedon wrote the script, Sigourney Weaver was not returning to play Ripley. So think about the movie, and think every bad element in the script. Conveniently, it all seems to revolve around Ripley. That is kind of what happens when you have to write in a returning character who was dead. That is not to detract from Weaver however. While her return may be a little crazy, it is good to see her, and she is exceptionally bad-ass in this movie. This is slightly unfortunate for the rest of the character, whom I will discuss later, as they were really awesomely Whedonian (?). However, the Alien quadrilogy as it stands now, has always been a sci-fi series. I mean, there are first off aliens, and then there is those androids, or are they robots, I can't remember. But anyway if you can't forgive a sci-fi series for getting a little far fetched in the science fiction department, you really aren't appreciating the movie.

This guy does for arm hair what I do for leg hair.

So, let us pretend we can forgive Alien: Resurrection for all its, cloning/hybrid/mutating/alien species craziness. While it will never be along the same vein as the first two, it can be quite a good movie on its own. But if you ask me, every strong and great element of Resurrection comes from Joss Whedon. I mean, the cast of characters are all screaming at me "Firefly" on the one side, The Company has been abolished. 200 years later, and Wayland Industries is apparently no longer all powerful. Instead we get a space capable military and a congress. Kinda sounds like the Firefly universe, no? So what could make this movie scream Firefly even louder. The crew of The Betty.

I mean come on, if you can't look at that ragtag crew of space cowboys and not see the crew of Serenity in the making, it is simply because you've never watched Firefly. We have Captain Malcolm Reynold as whatever that Capt.'s name was, who unfortunately doesn't survive long. Woops small spoiler. Then there is Anara embodied in that dark skinned one, Sabra (?), and even an romantic scene with the two. Winona Ryder's character, oh wait I forgot to mention that? Yah, Winona Ryder plays a pretty big role here, (I think this must be her only sci-fi movie), as the mandatory; "Surprise I'm secretly an android this entire time" Annalee. While it wasn't really a surprise she wasn't human, I mean, I watched Alien 3 waiting for that same reveal for the third time and didn't get it, it only makes her flawed, and slightly quirky character even more akin to Willow Song.

Of course, where would we be without Jayne? While Ron Perlmen maybe a little less lovable than Alec Baldwin, you could easily draw some character parallels there. I couldn't quite place Kaylee, but she was probably embodied in the wheelchair guy. Overall, if you tell me that Joss Whedon didn't think about the crew of The Betty when he crewed Serenity I call shenanigans. Perhaps that was really why I enjoyed Resurrection as such fun. It was really like getting to see a new episode of Firefly. Almost.

Why did we ever stop doing this to aircraft?

The movie itself is a lot more fun than it is the silent terror that made the series originally famous. While it doesn't benefit from some of it insane sci-fi elements, I can forgive it that knowing that as usual, the studio forced that in so they could bring Sigourney Weaver back on board. One of the key things however, is that Resurrection shows us Earth, which, I was under the impression was long gone from the Alien universe. While the characters don't seem to appreciate Earth much, we do see it in the end, and that means it is at least still orbiting. As preparation for Prometheus, I think that may be important, and am glad I decided to watch the forth one before seeing it. While perhaps it won't be taken into account, it is important to no that Earth was still in play all those years later.

Overall, Alien: Resurrection is not in the same bracket as Alien and Aliens. It easily falls into the category of terrible sequels. But considering just how bland Alien 3 was, Resurrection, at least the parts written by Joss Whedon is at least full of interesting characters and some exciting turn of events. Alien 3 was so simple, formulaic and unoriginal as to be terrible. I will however that Resurrection has some merit, and for those fellow Joss Whedon fans, it is worth checking out.

Link:
Alien: Resurrection IMDb
BAMF Of the Week Joss Whedon @ The Smoking Pen