Alien Quadrilogy!

[yendi]

Amazon's Deal of the Day is the Alien Quadrilogy for $25.99 (with free shipping)!

If you don't already own these films, this is an unbelievable deal. How many box sets give you Walter Hill, Dan O'Bannon, Joss Whedon, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and David Fincher? As well as HR Giger. And that's not even counting the folks in front of the camera.

Comments

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Although Whedon has pretty much disowned Alien: Resurrection.

Rather churlishly, I've always thought, since I never bought into the party line that the third and fourth films suck. Then again, Whedon can be a whiny bitch about any script he's written that (gasp!) got changed in the finished film. Then he goes and makes Serenity with no interference and makes a crap film that tosses out everything unique about Firefly and seems to kill off major, well-liked characters for the hell of it.

[yendi]

All true.

In fairness, I think the third film sucks as a sequel, but is a fine film otherwise (so fine, in fact, that Charles Dutton took his death scene with him when he did Mimic). But even the fourth movie (which is definitely the weakest) is perfectly cromulent, and features some great characters.

And Serenity is proof that he definitely shouldn't be given full control of a movie. He lacks the sense of pacing to handle a full-length film on his own (see also the original Buffy film, which is still a flawed screenplay in spite of what the director or studio might have done).

A TV series, on the other hand, is a damned fine medium for him.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Or comic books.

I always saw the Alien films as one big Ripley story and enjoyed the stuff that pissed the fanboys off (say, the offhand killing of Newt and Hicks at the beginning of the third one). The titles of the Alien movies have always referred as much to Ripley (or her current posse) as to the xenomorphs.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I admit to being frustrated by Alien 3 -- mainly by how confused a lot of the script wound up being (I headlined my review "In script committees no one can hear you scream") -- but appreciating its mood, and its setting up a situation where, at the end, Ripley simply does what she has to do. Plus it introduced me to Elliot Goldenthal, who knocked me on my ass musically.

One of the best defenses I've read of Alien 3 was from a gay reader of Peter David's, who wrote in to say "I've lost a lot of friends to AIDS. I'm used to shit happening. So knowing that Newt and Hicks died and that Ripley was dying was easier for me to accept."

[kenakeri.livejournal.com]

Amazon lives to torment me. Why do they always have these deals the same freaking time I have major bills to pay?

[wyyknot.livejournal.com]

Boy do I hear that!

Aliens (#2) is one of my all time favorite movies.

[kenakeri.livejournal.com]

Definitely the best of the series. I can't watch the fourth one these days without being reminded of Firefly. I keep seeing echoes of River, Jayne and the others in the characters. It's a little off-putting.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I refuse to purchase any tetralogy that sinks to the level of calling itself a quadrilogy. =:o}

[eh-notsomuch.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh! OK, THAT is worth using my $25 gift cert on! Thanks for the heads-up!

[eh-notsomuch.livejournal.com]

Although... hmmm. We're getting a Blu-ray player later this year. Maybe I should wait and get them in Blu-ray instead...