Alien to Alien pt. II

[This entry is  part of an ongoing series concerning Franco and CoCo's Alien franchise marathon. For the opening entry click here, for the Alien entry click here]

This Franco.

As I have stated earlier, CoCo asked me to marathon the Alien franchise (four films) in preparation for the Prometheus release which in itself is a sort of prequel to the Alien franchise. Said franchise being one of my favorite of all time, I became excited and accepted her challenge. 

After viewing Alien (link to our thoughts at the top), CoCo whom had never seen any of the Alien films was excited to see James Cameron's entry. After Alien, she was ready for a movie whose pacing and plot was more in line with conventional Hollywood storytelling. I, on the other hand, was not. For me it was a case of diminishing returns after the original Alien and my only intrigue with Aliens was that we were about to embark on the director's cut version that I had never seen before. 

While we were watching the film CoCo laughed many times at the ridiculous dialogue (i.e.God damn it, that's not all! Because if one of those things gets down here then that will be all! Then all this - this bullshit that you think is so important, you can just kiss all that goodbye! --and-- We're all in strung out shape, but stay frosty, and alert. We can't afford to let one of those bastards in here.) and the clunky plot lines crowbarred in (Ripley's surrogate daughter Newt arch). I agreed with her. Aliens although being a classic has not aged well for me. Growing up it was my favorite for the very reasons CoCo was looking forward to it. The story moved quickly and there was a lot of action since there were multiple aliens as opposed to Alien's single threat. The problem with having many aliens in Aliens is that it doesn't matter when one dies because there are so many more coming in its stead. It becomes a zombie film rather than a tense brooding thriller. Add the marines in there (for a large body count) and you've got yourself a fast-moving zombie war film. The Alien mythology becomes tertiary. 

Overall CoCo enjoyed the film due to its easy-going structure but noted that it was just another big dumb movie. Unfortunately, I felt the same way. The added scenes for the director's cut didn't add any layers to the story or characters but instead slowed down the movie. 

Up next: the much-maligned Alien3. I wonder if CoCo liked this one a little better.