Teminator vs Terminator 2 - Alien vs Aliens

[BisexualMMA]

 

[HHJ]

The scenes were deleted with extreme prejudice as they were ridiculous.

The thing just sitting there looking at her was cool and eerie,but im glad they didnt put the butt scoot in the movie. I think they were just attempting something,and wanted to see what worked and what didnt. The movie never really showed the Alien moving or walking too much. The technology wasnt there yet.

 

[DIABOLUS]

The thing just sitting there looking at her was cool and eerie,but im glad they didnt put the butt scoot in the movie. I think they were just attempting something,and wanted to see what worked and what didnt. The movie never really showed the Alien moving or walking too much. The technology wasnt there yet.

Yeah I don't really like the wide shot where you can see the Alien actually moving. I prefer the close, tight shots they used that really gives you a sense of claustrophobia, that you're trapped in a cramped, confined space with this nightmarish thing.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Alien and Terminator are the better movies, but T2 and Aliens are better pure, high quality action movies.

 

[Bob Gray]

All classics I would watch at any time at the drop of a hat.


When I was younger I preferred the sequels. Now that I'm older I think the originals are better films, though all are 10/10.

 

[bubbleboyjones]

I don't want to sound like a movie snob but the sequels of both cater more to the lowest common denominator and this is especially true when comparing Alien vs Aliens. I'm going to get into my usual Alien vs Aliens rant but I'll say it again, James Cameron's version of the Alien character was a dumb bug that runs up to guns to be slaughtered for the purpose of a popcorn action flick. I'm not knocking sci-fi action films either. Aliens is just flawed even in that genre. Aliens is a fun movie but flawed.


The gold standard for me is Predator and thats my litmus test. Alien is the greatest sci-fi horror movie of all time and Aliens doesn't rank number one in it's own action category.


Compare the space marines in Aliens to the special forces of Predator.

If these assholes walked into a bar no one is running scared

These guys could take over a small town in a day.

 

[Bob Gray]

I hear this a lot, but really, if they could make it work so good in the 80's, why can't they now? Effects, as done in the 80s, but merely touched up with modern CGI, would be the absolute best of both worlds. I know for sure it takes a lot more work to do things practically, instead of all in a computer, but again, if they made it work in the 80s, why not now? Especially considering how much smaller budgets were back then and the bang they got for their buck. Even taking inflation into account, it's still mind boggling. Where's that type of work ethic and innovation now?

Late reply but I just came across this.

One of the big differences between modern day CGI and the practical effects of the 80's is what they're showing you. When you look at stuff like Alien, what they don't show you is as effective as what they do. You look at the gif that Loish posted and it looks like ass even though it's the exact same thing as every other scene in the amazing feature. That sort of close up and extended movement is the bane of practical effects and is largely avoided, to it's benefit.

Compare it to modern CGi where they can show you, well, anything. 9 foot tall aliens walking around? Cool, no problem. Giant, 10 story tall transforming robots throwing each other around a city and decimating shit? Gotcha covered. King kong fist fighting 3 T-Rexes? Here ya go. Giant, fantasy armies of orcs, dwarves, living trees, dragons and wizards fighting each other? Yeah, hold on, lemme get that done after this cigarette. The only thing it takes is time. Well, and money. Shit tons of money.

Literally none of that stuff would have been possible or is even possible today on that scale using practical effects. In fairness, theyve been using CGI for the most part to do things that practical effects are incapable of doing, and also doing a lot more of it. practical effects were often a one shot deal, like the transformation sequence in American Werewolf in London. The extending hand/foot and the snout were just made and used a single time because that's all they were good for. Thankfully, it worked perfectly. But imagine when it doesn't? All that time, effort and money lost.

That's where CGI is a known quality, and practical effects are largely seat of your pants make it up as you go ingenuity. Now, when it worked, it was awesome. But it's easy to forget how, like CGI, practical effects had more than it's fair share of absolutely horrible results. For every Rob Bottin and Rick Baker you have a DIck Gonzales or whoever the fuck it was doing Hell Comes to Frogtown with disastrous results.

The truth of the matter is, most of the time practical effects are not very good and it's success at meeting it's visionary goal is hard to predict at the best of times. But CGI has a baseline standard where you can pretty much predict a certain X level of quality as long as you put in Y amount of time and effort.

 

[Bob Gray]

I watched T1/T2 today for the 100th time

T2 is just amazing .

Going to watch another James Cameron movie tonight, never actually watched this one at all, despite having it for years.

the abyss

The Abyss is arguably the best example of how much a movie can lose greatness due to it's ending. Like, you can 145 minutes of awesome, but then when you insert 5 minutes of shit at the end it permeates the whole film.

 

[Scerpi]

They made the right choice.



This scene scared of the shit as a 2nd grader and it holds up to present times

 

[UL]

The Abyss is arguably the best example of how much a movie can lose greatness due to it's ending. Like, you can 145 minutes of awesome, but then when you insert 5 minutes of shit at the end it permeates the whole film.

Still not watched it
Think I'll watch tomorrow or Tuesday

 

[HHJ]

I don't want to sound like a movie snob but the sequels of both cater more to the lowest common denominator and this is especially true when comparing Alien vs Aliens. I'm going to get into my usual Alien vs Aliens rant but I'll say it again, James Cameron's version of the Alien character was a dumb bug that runs up to guns to be slaughtered for the purpose of a popcorn action flick. I'm not knocking sci-fi action films either. Aliens is just flawed even in that genre. Aliens is a fun movie but flawed.


The gold standard for me is Predator and thats my litmus test. Alien is the greatest sci-fi horror movie of all time and Aliens doesn't rank number one in it's own action category.


Compare the space marines in Aliens to the special forces of Predator.

If these assholes walked into a bar no one is running scared

These guys could take over a small town in a day.

Marines dont tend to look like bodybuilders who have the builds of Ventura,Schwarzenegger,and Weathers etc.
All that matters is if they are skilled enough to get the job done. Can they shoot? are they organized? Cool under fire?

 

[lion paw]

Well I like all of Cameron's movies mentioned. However, his sequels are waay better than the original. I like T2 and Aliens. But between the 2, T2.

 

[MarcoW]

i prefer Alien to all of these other movies.
But i do prefer t2 to terminator but T1 is good.

 

[Adamant]

The Abyss is arguably the best example of how much a movie can lose greatness due to it's ending. Like, you can 145 minutes of awesome, but then when you insert 5 minutes of shit at the end it permeates the whole film.

Literally just watched this last night. Pretty good movie overall, though it drags a little and the ending definitely is strange. Though it wasn't bad enough to turn me off completely. As far as the look of the film, it definitely had an Aliens vibe to it.

 

[Adamant]

Late reply but I just came across this.

One of the big differences between modern day CGI and the practical effects of the 80's is what they're showing you. When you look at stuff like Alien, what they don't show you is as effective as what they do. You look at the gif that Loish posted and it looks like ass even though it's the exact same thing as every other scene in the amazing feature. That sort of close up and extended movement is the bane of practical effects and is largely avoided, to it's benefit.

Compare it to modern CGi where they can show you, well, anything. 9 foot tall aliens walking around? Cool, no problem. Giant, 10 story tall transforming robots throwing each other around a city and decimating shit? Gotcha covered. King kong fist fighting 3 T-Rexes? Here ya go. Giant, fantasy armies of orcs, dwarves, living trees, dragons and wizards fighting each other? Yeah, hold on, lemme get that done after this cigarette. The only thing it takes is time. Well, and money. Shit tons of money.

Literally none of that stuff would have been possible or is even possible today on that scale using practical effects. In fairness, theyve been using CGI for the most part to do things that practical effects are incapable of doing, and also doing a lot more of it. practical effects were often a one shot deal, like the transformation sequence in American Werewolf in London. The extending hand/foot and the snout were just made and used a single time because that's all they were good for. Thankfully, it worked perfectly. But imagine when it doesn't? All that time, effort and money lost.

That's where CGI is a known quality, and practical effects are largely seat of your pants make it up as you go ingenuity. Now, when it worked, it was awesome. But it's easy to forget how, like CGI, practical effects had more than it's fair share of absolutely horrible results. For every Rob Bottin and Rick Baker you have a DIck Gonzales or whoever the fuck it was doing Hell Comes to Frogtown with disastrous results.

The truth of the matter is, most of the time practical effects are not very good and it's success at meeting it's visionary goal is hard to predict at the best of times. But CGI has a baseline standard where you can pretty much predict a certain X level of quality as long as you put in Y amount of time and effort.

Good write up. Yeah, I know what you mean. Too bad though that Hollywood is so spoiled and just wants to show everything and be as lazy as possible instead of doing it how they used to and putting real work and craft into it. No wonder movies in general aren't iconic anymore or transcend pop culture like they used to.

 

[Gene Tunney]

I don't want to sound like a movie snob but the sequels of both cater more to the lowest common denominator and this is especially true when comparing Alien vs Aliens. I'm going to get into my usual Alien vs Aliens rant but I'll say it again, James Cameron's version of the Alien character was a dumb bug that runs up to guns to be slaughtered for the purpose of a popcorn action flick. I'm not knocking sci-fi action films either. Aliens is just flawed even in that genre. Aliens is a fun movie but flawed.


The gold standard for me is Predator and thats my litmus test. Alien is the greatest sci-fi horror movie of all time and Aliens doesn't rank number one in it's own action category.


Compare the space marines in Aliens to the special forces of Predator.

If these assholes walked into a bar no one is running scared

These guys could take over a small town in a day.

Gunnery Sergeant Al Apone was grizzled.

 

[Adamant]

The thing that kills me worse than anything is that Cameron never got to make his T3. Boy, imagine if he did. Possible greatest trilogy ever. Also, imagine if he had signed on to direct the sequel to Aliens. Would have been absolutely epic.

 

[Bob Gray]

Good write up. Yeah, I know what you mean. Too bad though that Hollywood is so spoiled and just wants to show everything and be as lazy as possible instead of doing it how they used to and putting real work and craft into it. No wonder movies in general aren't iconic anymore or transcend pop culture like they used to.

I think you misunderstood my point. Modern CGI takes every bit of work and craft as practical effects, if not more so due to it's required expertise. I think you may have a bit of rose colored nostalgia when looking at practical effects. The majority of it was garbage. Just like a lot of CGI is garbage, but you have some amazing accomplishments like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, King Kong fisticuffs with T-Rexes and even Avatar. Regardless of how much you enjoy these movies they're an astonishing accomplishment that honestly blows any practical effects clear out of the water by a huge margin.

 

[Adamant]

I don't want to sound like a movie snob but the sequels of both cater more to the lowest common denominator and this is especially true when comparing Alien vs Aliens. I'm going to get into my usual Alien vs Aliens rant but I'll say it again, James Cameron's version of the Alien character was a dumb bug that runs up to guns to be slaughtered for the purpose of a popcorn action flick. I'm not knocking sci-fi action films either. Aliens is just flawed even in that genre. Aliens is a fun movie but flawed.


The gold standard for me is Predator and thats my litmus test. Alien is the greatest sci-fi horror movie of all time and Aliens doesn't rank number one in it's own action category.


Compare the space marines in Aliens to the special forces of Predator.

If these assholes walked into a bar no one is running scared

These guys could take over a small town in a day.

To be honest, after watching Alien and playing Alien Isolation, seeing the Xenos get taken out like canon fodder in Aliens was a bit off-putting. Especially where that one character presses their boot up against its skull and shoots it in the head.

Then again, killing bugs was their specialty.

As for the Predator crew vs the Aliens crew, the Predator team was an elite special warfare commando unit. The Aliens team was basic infantry. So the comparison is not exactly fair.

 

[Adamant]

I think you misunderstood my point. Modern CGI takes every bit of work and craft as practical effects, if not more so due to it's required expertise. I think you may have a bit of rose colored nostalgia when looking at practical effects. The majority of it was garbage. Just like a lot of CGI is garbage, but you have some amazing accomplishments like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, King Kong fisticuffs with T-Rexes and even Avatar. Regardless of how much you enjoy these movies they're an astonishing accomplishment that honestly blows any practical effects clear out of the water by a huge margin.

I hate the rose colored glasses argument. Yeah, there's definitely many instances where I can point out what looks fake in an old school practical effects movies, but regardless of that, good practical effects look way better than good CGI in my opinion. I can still watch older movies, even ones I've never seen before and still get excited and really into it (sometimes specifically because of the effects) and actually feel something, whereas nearly all CGI movies I see nowdays are so lifeless and numbing and inspire nothing within me. It's nothing to do with nostalgia or rose colored glasses. I think it's because subconsciously I know when something is not really in camera and it's created in a computer, and when that's the case, it absolutely feels like a cheat as far as I'm concerned.

As far as CGI being lazy, yes, the CGI itself takes a lot of work, but there's nothing going on "in camera" and that's what I find lazy. It's lazy to rely almost entirely on CGI, like a crutch, rather than using it simply to enhance. I wish Hollywood would start going back to more practical effects and less CGI. If they can do as much in camera as possible, like the good old days (with sets and models and makeup and everything else) and use CGI merely as a tool to enhance all of that and bring it all together, that is what I am looking for. But alas, most of the time Hollywood is lazy and relies too much on pure CGI to get the job done.

Gollum in Lord of the Rings looked fake as hell. That garbage abomination of shit that is the 2005 King Kong film looked like a giant video game from beginning to end. Avatar did absolutely nothing for me.