S01E02 Frame By Frame Revisit “Alien Saga part 1”
“Alien” (1979), “Aliens” (1986), “Alien3” (1993)
Part one of the Alien Saga revisit had us all running through familiar gardens that we recognize from childhood. That means that we saw them through developing eyes, and for the most part, Alien and Aliens have always lived up to the expectations for any rewatch. I can’t ever imagine Alien becoming an “Explorers” (1986) rewatch when I realized that a film I watched as a kid was actually trash. Everything about Alien and Aliens is pure magic, but for Alien3, there is pause. I watched this when I was at the height of my fascination with alien science fiction stories. It didn’t disappoint and despite its flaws, it has stayed with me, even on the rewatch. The assembly cut version is just as impressive, but as we all know, the movie made mistakes that were readily rectified with the reimagined Alien 3 story by William Gibson (links below for that fun venture)
But for now, here is the Frame By Frame podcast overview. “Hit it Brenda!”
Podcast Overview
00:00:00 — Alien Computer / Music intro.
00:01:05 — Starbeast was the original title / Darkstar (1974) came before Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (comparison reference)
00:04:45 — Alien is one of our favourite science fiction films.
00:09:00 — Was there any tension on the set of Alien?
00:11:45 — MOVIE THEORY: scares are delivered on the E of the 3.
00:16:30 — Geiger and the Pseudo sexual reference.
00:18:15 — Aliens is a sequel but not in the Ridley Scott vision.
00:21:45 — Ripley & Newt — Comparison with The Last of Us.
00:22:45 — Dialogue for a child from the mind of the adult. “It won’t make any difference.” doesn’t work.
00:23:55 — Paul Reiser follows the line of comedians playing dark characters.
00:26:15 — James Cameron being a dick.
00:27:30 — James Cameron is a genius. Pick a side!
00:27:40 — Our first mention of Michael Bay in a non-flattering light.
00:30:00 — James Horner: sub-level track. Jump scare, on the E of the 3
00:31:00 — Alien3 or Alien Cubed.
00:37:00 — Dar yet enjoyable.
00:39:40 — CGI not what it could have been.
00:40:35 — End of Part one
00:49:00 — END — Liquid Storage Bags
“ALIEN” (1979) REVISITED KEYS
HASHTAGS: #alien1979 #framebyframe #revisted
You can’t get annoyed or bored with this film.. It can be enjoyed in many ways, be it sitting and watching or having it in the background while cracking eggs in the kitchen, it works. It’s flawness. It can’t get any better than this:
- @StephenPRadford : Episode one was easy, just one film. Episode 2, we have three to go through, so here we go.
- @StephenPRadford : Opening credit of Alien — I stare at the text every time as if they will ever suddenly be different.
- @StephenPRadford : Practical sets on the Nostromo are astonishing. As a kid, I wanted to turn my room into this.
- @StephenPRadford : I used to sit in my wardrobe with my C64 computer to play the Aliens game. I demanded fear!
- @StephenPRadford : The crew could have avoided everything if they had just decided to not go into the ship. I mean really? (see “How the Alien encounter could have been avoided strip below)
- @StephenPRadford : Goldsmith score is incredible in this movie. I can’t play it on the piano. it’s all over the place.
- @StephenPRadford : Alien sex sculpture. That’s what opium can do.
- @StephenPRadford : Kane actually believes it’s easter and he has to find all the eggs. He didn’t realise it was Halloween.
- @StephenPRadford : Harry Dean Stanton has had a song written for him “I have a book for you to read on your way to the moon”.
- @StephenPRadford : The maze tunnel where Dallas gets it. All I can think of is WD40 would make this less scary.
- @StephenPRadford : Scraping, twisting, flamethrower and E of the 3 scares! That’s all you need.
- @StephenPRadford : I had a dream that I was with the crew of the Nostomo saying goodbye to Kane. When they asked if anybody had anything to say, I replied “better him than me.” (two part tweet)
- @StephenPRadford : I vote the safest place on the Nostromo is the cryotube beds.
- @StephenPRadford : “Dallas, get out… get out of there.” I quote regularly in life, and it never seems to be the right time.
- @StephenPRadford : “Dallas, get out… get out of there.” — cries from the bathroom stall.
- @StephenPRadford : “Get out… get out of there.” — in a high pitched whiny voice over a grocery store tannoy.
- @StephenPRadford : I could just watch alien over and over and over again.
“ALIENS” (1986) REVISITED KEYS
HASHTAGS: #aliens1986 #framebyframe #revisted
It was not the sequel that everybody expected. It was not the first sequel to take things into another direction and it created the suddenn fascination with what the “engineer” in Alien was really about. It didn’t get answered here. It was however a thrill ride that we never forgot :
- @StephenPRadford : Aliens was the first movie I ever attempted to turn into a comic book. It was also my last.
- @StephenPRadford : I stand by my opinion that the macho talk in the movie is too theatrically written. Too much flair.
- @StephenPRadford : When watching the ITV version of this movie that instead of “Whoopi-fockin-do” we had “whoopi-for-her”.
- @StephenPRadford : A line from Vasquez “nerve gas the whole fuckin’ nest.” was also redubbed by a soft spoken British lady. (additional note: the words were Uc and it didn’t sound at all right)
- @StephenPRadford : Sentry guns are fun, and not at all excessive. Cut for no good reason from theatrical version.
- @StephenPRadford : Sigourney Weaver was extremely protective of Carrie Henn, insisting that she sat with her at premiere.
- @StephenPRadford : Sure some of Newt’s lines were from an adult writer’s voice, but Carrie did a great job.
- @StephenPRadford : Michael Biehn just couldn’t move from being Kyle Reese. I think he felt safe doing these characters.
- @StephenPRadford : Bill Paxton was always going to have a fun career ahead of him. With exception to Twister.
- @StephenPRadford : Thankful that James Cameron didn’t make a documentary about this from inside Sigourney Weaver’s chest. (This is a reference to the Abyss underwater documentary he made… sickening)
- @StephenPRadford : French and Saunders did a very cool parody of Aliens. Jennifer Saunders as Sigourney Weaver was amazing.
- @StephenPRadford : Who didn’t play the OST to Aliens and pretend that beyond the bed, everywhere was swarming with aliens.
- @StephenPRadford : So I take it power loaders aren’t available to the general public? I could use one of those bad boys.
“ALIEN 3” REVISITED KEYS
HASHTAGS: #alien3 #framebyframe #revisted
This film explored the flipside to Alien and the extreme to Aliens. It was a brave venture, but as I mention in David Fincher’s defense, this is not his movie. If ever he had a chance to remake this, it would be extraordinary, but only if he had the power of final cut :
- @StephenPRadford : I saw this the first time on home rental video. I ate millionaire shortbread. I remember it well.
- @StephenPRadford : I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting rid of Hicks and Newt, but that setup had no pay off.
- @StephenPRadford : Our podcast review for Alien3 was quite thin. We covered production cock blocking but missed other things.
- @StephenPRadford : Paul McGann as Golic is one of those underrated performances in Alien3. He is truly lost in the blood.
- @StephenPRadford : Watching Alien3 makes the house feel warmer. it’s all that furnace work. Even the morgue felt spoiled.
- @StephenPRadford : I always mistook the line “why did we have to cremate [the bodies]” with “Why did we have to disconnect bodies”. (Sexual reference to Riply and Clemens)
- @StephenPRadford : Seriously Alien3 is such a morbid film, but it’s still fun to watch. More for nostalgia and the music.
- @StephenPRadford : As for directors cut Vs original. I liked the dog better, but the birthing sequence with the Ox was heavy.
- @StephenPRadford : I memorised several lines in this film: Dillon’s funeral speech & various Andrews “Rumour Control” moments.
- “This is rumour control, here are the facts: as some of you know, a 337 model EEV crash landed at 08:00 on the morning watch. There was one survivor, two dead and a droid that was hopelessly smashed beyond repair. the survivor IS a woman.”
- @StephenPRadford : The big run with the alien on the ceiling is fun, but the CGI of the alien is DOA. No life in the CGI here.
- @StephenPRadford : Lance’s pointless appearance from a canon character who isn’t even canon… Should be shot out of cannon.
- @StephenPRadford : Everything about this movie is held together because of the score, Charles Dance and Sigourney Weaver.
- @StephenPRadford : But Brian Glover as Andrews is the one character who jumps out ahead of the pack.
- @StephenPRadford : Biggest mistakes: kill Ripley and repeat the recorded message from the original movie.
- @StephenPRadford : Final word on this revisit of Alien3. I feel for David Fincher. He’s one of the best, & they never knew it!
LINKS TO “FRAME BY FRAME PODCASTS”
SPOTIFY | APPLE iTUNES | AUDIBLE / AMAZON MUSIC | YOUTUBE
- STEPHEN RADFORD
