Alien Resurrection (1997) aka Alien 4
Starting the film with a goofy, cartoonish-looking bug may not bode well for those who were hoping the fourth film in the series would, at least, get as serious a treatment as the preceding three, but its introductory function might be to prepare audiences for the serio-comic shenanigans they are about to see which, considering the participation of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Joss Whedon, should not be at all surprising in retrospect.
Not a Horror film, not a war film, and not even the flawed third attempt to maybe blend the distinct tones of the first two films, this is strictly tonally all-over-the-place comic book matter. As such, we might be fine with the nonsense science we are asked to immediately buy into: A secret scientific base has cloned Ripley, and as an improbable result of which they have also clone/replicated the alien parasite she was carrying at the time of death.
How is this possible?
It’s not.
That the Ripley clone is presented as a genetic hybrid of human and xenomorph introduces for the first time to the series a miscegenation theme common to much science fiction films, possibly as early as The Island of Lost Souls with its own human/animal monstrosities which was updated in the later part of the 20thcentury to include human/machine (2001: A Space Odyssey, Demon Seed, Star Trek TMP, etc.) and human/extraterrestrial chimaera (Species, Splice, etc.)
Even This Island Earth's introduction of alien technology to human culture might fit the general theme.
In Alien 3 we began to see evidence of this with Ripley explicitly voicing her concern of having become the alien's 'mother'. The hybridization aspects of Alien 3 and beyond (and the whole ‘Chariot of the Gods’ aspect of the prequels) relate more to aspects of human identity and the boundaries between humans, aliens and machines. The xenomorph was initially presented simply as a parasitic/predatory species with no possible eventual balance between it and its host/prey.
Since it’s such a common and recurring theme, one might as well forgive the film its comic book excesses and focus on the theme as if it were its main strength; the problem might be that to discuss it in depth would require several volumes...
But back to the film (SPOILERS, BTW,) a motley crew of likable characters delivers a shipment of living, but cryogenically frozen bodies, meant to be used as hosts to xenomorph offspring with no awareness of what they are to be used for. These space pirates are merely couriers. The true villains of the piece are the scientists conducting unholy cloning experiments (as described previously) with the intent to extract and isolate the xenomorph species and breed it for military purposes. A fascinating scene presents the xenomorphs as recognizably intelligent.
As might be expected, adult (or at least grown up… who knows when adult age happens here?) xenomorphs escape and start a sequence of destruction which results in a mostly failed full evacuation which also directs the space-going scientific vessel on a collision course with Earth, (we are told the spaceship is hours from Earth before seeing it pass by Jupiter…. Real universe distances and traveling speed are meaningless in this movie.)
That is the script's basic plot, but it hardly explains how the three escaped xenomorphs generate not only a hatchery but produce a full-grown alien queen we get to meet on the way. The only explanations are a) that there had been a previous escape some time back the crew was unaware of, or b) that the unexplained queen and hatchery were already part of the base's scientific plan, and that the crew of the base were, in fact, aware of it.
Neither option makes much sense.
Another thing that also does not make sense is the idea of gestating and maturing a clone to a biological age of 48 (Sigourney Weaver’s age at the time of film release) when the development of the alien embryo (from facehugger seeding) seemingly requires mere hours or days, but I guess we are to assume technology here is able to speed-age the human and alien components of the composite Siamese clone at different rates, as required, (even when we see the extraction happen to an adult ‘human’.)
Oh, I suspect one can go on listing this film’s cinema sins on and on but, as I mentioned, the film might be worth discussing for reasons other than these.
I've written before on how many of these franchises tend towards the idea of human hybridization whether with alien species or with machines and not aiming the essays at any particular film, (though it may still be so), but at the eventual direction its franchise inevitably takes.
In this way these films function much as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (or as detailed by Carol J. Clover in her discussion of movie monster rip-offs revealing true cultural intent in contrast to their first appearance on celluloid which might be much too idiosyncratic,) in preparing us for a possible future. This tendency seems much more important than even specific scientific details contained in a particular script.
These themes aren’t just incidental—they’re part of the cultural subconscious. In preparing audiences for potential futures where human identity is fundamentally transformed, these films explore anxieties about loss of autonomy, ethical boundaries, and the nature of existence.
This discussion seems more important than the work itself or its perceived flaws.
With Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Dan Hedaya, J. E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, and Michael Wincott.
While Alien 'purists' might hate the film, and while its science is pure nonsense, its themes are still worth looking into as shared, common, still valid Science Fiction.
Check it out.
Starting the film with a goofy, cartoonish-looking bug may not bode well for those who were hoping the fourth film in the series would, at least, get as serious a treatment as the preceding three, but its introductory function might be to prepare audiences for the serio-comic shenanigans they are about to see which, considering the participation of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Joss Whedon, should not be at all surprising in retrospect.
Not a Horror film, not a war film, and not even the flawed third attempt to maybe blend the distinct tones of the first two films, this is strictly tonally all-over-the-place comic book matter. As such, we might be fine with the nonsense science we are asked to immediately buy into: A secret scientific base has cloned Ripley, and as an improbable result of which they have also clone/replicated the alien parasite she was carrying at the time of death.
How is this possible?
It’s not.
That the Ripley clone is presented as a genetic hybrid of human and xenomorph introduces for the first time to the series a miscegenation theme common to much science fiction films, possibly as early as The Island of Lost Souls with its own human/animal monstrosities which was updated in the later part of the 20thcentury to include human/machine (2001: A Space Odyssey, Demon Seed, Star Trek TMP, etc.) and human/extraterrestrial chimaera (Species, Splice, etc.)
Even This Island Earth's introduction of alien technology to human culture might fit the general theme.
In Alien 3 we began to see evidence of this with Ripley explicitly voicing her concern of having become the alien's 'mother'. The hybridization aspects of Alien 3 and beyond (and the whole ‘Chariot of the Gods’ aspect of the prequels) relate more to aspects of human identity and the boundaries between humans, aliens and machines. The xenomorph was initially presented simply as a parasitic/predatory species with no possible eventual balance between it and its host/prey.
Since it’s such a common and recurring theme, one might as well forgive the film its comic book excesses and focus on the theme as if it were its main strength; the problem might be that to discuss it in depth would require several volumes...
But back to the film (SPOILERS, BTW,) a motley crew of likable characters delivers a shipment of living, but cryogenically frozen bodies, meant to be used as hosts to xenomorph offspring with no awareness of what they are to be used for. These space pirates are merely couriers. The true villains of the piece are the scientists conducting unholy cloning experiments (as described previously) with the intent to extract and isolate the xenomorph species and breed it for military purposes. A fascinating scene presents the xenomorphs as recognizably intelligent.
As might be expected, adult (or at least grown up… who knows when adult age happens here?) xenomorphs escape and start a sequence of destruction which results in a mostly failed full evacuation which also directs the space-going scientific vessel on a collision course with Earth, (we are told the spaceship is hours from Earth before seeing it pass by Jupiter…. Real universe distances and traveling speed are meaningless in this movie.)
That is the script's basic plot, but it hardly explains how the three escaped xenomorphs generate not only a hatchery but produce a full-grown alien queen we get to meet on the way. The only explanations are a) that there had been a previous escape some time back the crew was unaware of, or b) that the unexplained queen and hatchery were already part of the base's scientific plan, and that the crew of the base were, in fact, aware of it.
Neither option makes much sense.
Another thing that also does not make sense is the idea of gestating and maturing a clone to a biological age of 48 (Sigourney Weaver’s age at the time of film release) when the development of the alien embryo (from facehugger seeding) seemingly requires mere hours or days, but I guess we are to assume technology here is able to speed-age the human and alien components of the composite Siamese clone at different rates, as required, (even when we see the extraction happen to an adult ‘human’.)
Oh, I suspect one can go on listing this film’s cinema sins on and on but, as I mentioned, the film might be worth discussing for reasons other than these.
I've written before on how many of these franchises tend towards the idea of human hybridization whether with alien species or with machines and not aiming the essays at any particular film, (though it may still be so), but at the eventual direction its franchise inevitably takes.
In this way these films function much as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (or as detailed by Carol J. Clover in her discussion of movie monster rip-offs revealing true cultural intent in contrast to their first appearance on celluloid which might be much too idiosyncratic,) in preparing us for a possible future. This tendency seems much more important than even specific scientific details contained in a particular script.
These themes aren’t just incidental—they’re part of the cultural subconscious. In preparing audiences for potential futures where human identity is fundamentally transformed, these films explore anxieties about loss of autonomy, ethical boundaries, and the nature of existence.
This discussion seems more important than the work itself or its perceived flaws.
With Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Dan Hedaya, J. E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, and Michael Wincott.
While Alien 'purists' might hate the film, and while its science is pure nonsense, its themes are still worth looking into as shared, common, still valid Science Fiction.
Check it out.
statistics: Posted by hermanthegerm — 4:52 PM - Sep 30 — Replies 2 — Views 188