Alien Vs. Aliens : The Showdown Thread

I've been getting into arguments a lot lately about which is better. To avoid getting into a long winded discussion about it I'll vote.

You get 1 vote. When you have voted you can explain why.

Alien           1

Aliens         0

Alien 2

Aliens 0

Alien 3

See what I did there???  :)

Alien 2

Aliens 1

I don't really like scary "jump at you" movies, that may be why I like the "war movie" more.

Aliens 3

Alien 2

Allen 0

This race is a lot closer than I thought it would be.

Alien 3

Aliens 4

I admit Alien builds up suspense a lot better, but then again it had the advantage of being the 1st one. Ridley Scott did a great work on building this incredible ominous atmosphere, and fill it with a clever deconstruction of the "body snatcher" cliché, but heavy tone of the film is severely diluted outside of a cinema or projection room, unless you're watching it alone at night in complete darkness. Most of its entertainment value is lost after watching it for the first time, and after that the movie is mainly worth for technical details and plot innovation. Additionally it will also appear to be a lot more boring, unless you're realy into that sort of thing.

Aliens, on the other hand, maxes up the entertainment by spicing it with a lot of great action scenes and plenty of crowning moments of awesome. This might be a classic audience catering move, but surprisingly it doesn't wash away the metaphoric aspects of the original plot, as the main real-life paralels established in the 1st movie are still present and fairly well done, although a bit overshadowed by the action itself (it's not a perfect movie after all).  Aliens also does make use of a few streamlined characters for the sake of audience emotion exploitation (like Burke or Newt), but if you're contemplating a movie as both an artistic and entertainment experience, you have to learn to tollerate these, as sometimes they're necessary gimmicks to capture the general public attention, as cheesy as some details may sound.

All in all the main point in favor of Aliens is that it's the kind of movie you can watch anytime, with anyone, due to being a fairly well-directed blend between horror, suspense and action. Pick both movies and try watching them on a saturday night with your regular non-movie intelectual friends. What will likely happen is that they will get bored after 30 minutes of Alien hide-and-seek, but will scream "F*CK YEAH PVT. VASQUEZ!" the second you show 'em the Aliens dvd box.

Alien - 5

Aliens - 5

Sorry, but I like both equally, but for different reasons.  Alien is a great horror movie, while Aliens is a great action movie.  Comparing them, let alone pitting them against each other, makes this one of the stupidest threads I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot for this forum.

Bingowings said:

The thread and the forum are fine.

I voted before people made comments so I'll add this.

Aliens is a solid action film but it's cinematic and artistic merits are well below Alien in my opinion.

The first film is better directed, better acted, better scored, has better art direction and is better shot.

Aliens has the same B-movie roots as the first film but it is more of a direct translation of the films that inspired it (it's Them! 80's style).

Alien took a B-movie style plot and elevated it to a piece of serious cinema (it's only superficially It The Terror From Beyond Space for the 70's).

I think Aliens deals with some new meaningful themes that weren't present in the 1st one. It's definitely more than just Alien with more guns and more aliens. There's the motherhood theme present on Ripley's relationship with Newt after having "lost" her own daughter which meets its counterside on the alien queen, who was simply trying to protect her brood. The futility of war/disposable soldiers theme is also a major topic introduction and a direct critic to the ruthlessness of many governments/corporations when trying to protect their own selfish interests. For emphasizing this effect the art theme tried to make the soldiers look like a futuristic version of the vietnam era soldiers which, along with the quality of the special effects, also forces me to disagree with the better art direction on the 1st movie.

Again, the problem is overshadowing. The impact of the action scenes may lead the audience to ignore more meaningful aspects, but this doesn't mean Aliens lacks essence. The movie is as thematically deep, if not more than Alien. However it was Cameron's bad habit on adding cardboard-cutouts-for-characters (like he did on Titanic and Avatar, especially on the villain side) that lead to many other problems like poor acting.

As for direction, and shooting it's a bit hard to comment on which one is better considering MJpollard's opinion (as I haven't completely discarded it). Since one is more horror/suspense oriented while the other favors action, there's a different approach required for both.

This thread reminds me that I was bought the Alien box set on Blu-Ray for Christmas which is still sitting unopened on my shelf.

Maybe I should give it a watch.

It's been a while. Actually, the last time I watched any of these films was when the DVD super box set thing was released years back.

TV's Frink said:

Alien 4

Wasn't that the shitty one??!

Yeah the DVD of the new Alien3 is good, but did thy supe up the Blu-Ray?

Coz, if memory serves, the bits they stuck together for the DVD were of shit quality

Or, I should stop being a lazy arse and just pop it in and watch it myself!!

Wow...Just stopped being a lazy arse and it seems they have indeed cleaned up the Special Edition of Alien3 to Blu-Ray quality...

Well, seeing how it's in, may as well watch Alien3