It’s intriguing to consider how all the Alien
films differ in tone, approach and theme or message.
The 1979 film from Ridley Scott is all about feelings
of isolation and terror in the loneliest, darkest corner of deep space. Underlying
the film is a comparison between three distinctive beings that qualify as
survivors: the alien, Jones the cat, and, of course, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney
Weaver).
Each one survives or endures a harrowing crisis based
on its biological or “natural” make-up (instincts) and individual intelligence.
By contrast, James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) is a
gut-crunching, nail-biting war film that forges a space age comparison to the
Vietnam conflict. The Colonial Marines go into a combat situation with the best
technology, the best training and the finest experience in order to battle an
enemy considered “primitive,” but which nonetheless challenges their assumptions
of dominance.
The film also sets up a dynamic battle between maternal
figures: Ripley and the Alien Queen.
David Fincher’s Alien3 (1992)
categorically eschews thrills and action in favor of a dark, intimate story
about Ripley’s soul.
Is it worth it to survive if the entire human race is
jeopardized by pursuit of that end? In this case, Ripley confronts her own
strength -- her innate ability to survive and adapt to difficult scenarios -- and
judges that there is a higher human value than continued existence. The film serves
as a space-age Christ parable and an exploration of spirituality, and
sacrifice.
And Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection
(1997)?
I must confess my own bias here, before I continue
with another word of this analysis. I have always found this 1997 sequel to be
the least successful and least worthwhile of the Alien films. I awarded it
just two stars (out of four) in Horror Films of the 1990s (2011),
for example. My review was pretty harsh, and I wrote that the film began the “stupid-ification” of the beloved
franchise.
But on a new screening of the film this week –
probably may seventh or eighth viewing over the decades -- I began to detect
that there are indeed virtues embedded in Alien Resurrection. However, they are -- in some ways -- very
difficult to highlight or enumerate.
Why?
Primarily because of tone.
Unlike all the others, this Alien film is a dark
comedy.
Yes, you read that right. Alien Resurrection is a
grim comedy about, among other things, human folly. The film’s main character, a clone of Ripley,
stands outside humanity and quips about the circumstances and nature of the
failings she sees.
It’s all very….French.
Alien Resurrections acts, overall, as a cynical observation not about the
qualities that separate humans from the xenomorphs, but rather those that
connect us or tie us to them.
In Aliens, Ripley tells Burke that she isn’t
certain which species is worse. At least you don’t see the xenomorphs trying to
fuck each other over for “a goddamned percentage.”
That statement or observation seems to be the guiding
principle, the overarching leitmotif of Alien Resurrection. The film goes to
some length to eliminate the distance, essentially, between aliens and humans,
and asks us to put aside moral absolutes or precepts about good and evil, and
consider them in more relativistic terms.
But the rub here is that the filmmakers undertake this
task in Joss Whedon’s trademark glib fashion, often through quips, jokes, and
moments that puncture the “seriousness” of the enterprise. The humor in the film is not straight-up funny,
but rather cold, caustic…even bitter. It arises at a considerable distance from
humanity itself.
It’s as if the Ripley clone -- no longer entirely
human – wrote the film herself.
Alien Resurrection finds a lot of things about the human race funny, but understands,
simultaneously -- as Ripley explicitly observes in the movie -- that they
aren’t really funny at all.
No, those things are actually really sad.
The things that Ripley sees and comes to understand
speak poorly of us as a species. The
only way to treat these problems involving human nature, therefore, is through absurdist
humor. Otherwise, the mode of expression
will be…tears.
The problem, I believe, with Alien Resurrection is
that some touches of humor are downright dreadful, and thereby corrupt the
sense of “reality” we have come to expect in the Alien films. Yet by the same token, “the dark comedy”
approach accomplishes two things.
Firstly, it reflects a cynical, caustic view of
mankind. The film notes that man is, finally, no better than acid-bleeding,
chest-bursting aliens. The gap between species has been bridged.
Secondly, the attempt to take on an
Alien movie with a different, fresh tone (the dark comedy), honors the
lineage and tradition of these films. No
two films in the series are the same; no two films cover the same territory.
If I can honestly commend Alien3
for the same virtue (originality), I must assess Alien Resurrection in the
same light. I can maintain (and I do
maintain) that Alien3 is more coherent and more cohesive than Alien
Resurrection, but I can’t fault the latter for attempting something
new.
In the past, I viewed the movie as a retreat to Aliens
territory: big muscles, big guns, lots of fighting. Now, I see that
there are virtues beneath those surface values.
In fact, one illuminating way to view Alien
Resurrection is as the first movement of a (not realized) second
trilogy. The separate setting (200 years
in the future), the new heroine (not Ripley, but a hybrid clone), and even the
enemy (not the Company, but the military), all encourage this reading. If you look at the film as laying down future
markers for the series, exploring the interaction of aliens and humans in a
much closer, much more intertwined fashion, Alien Resurrection seems
to open up in a more gratifying or satisfactory fashion.
I still like Alien Resurrection the least of the
four original films, because of the wobbly tonal changes, but I can also see
that the film boasts some intriguing ideas, and at the very least, attempts to
take the series into new territory.
“I’m the Monster’s Mother.” How Alien Resurrection Succeeds
Alien Resurrection goes a long way towards making the point that “true”
evil may not come down to the physical properties that divide species. Rather,
the film suggests, an organism who attempts to co-opt the life another organism
for its own agenda is the true face of evil.
The aliens, of course, utilize human beings as
breeding material for their life-cycle. They do this, however, by instinct, not
out of malice. It’s “what” they are.”
But the humans of Alien Resurrection absolutely use
other human beings to make money, to make weapons, or otherwise further selfish
needs and agendas. They put these needs,
these desires, ahead of humanity, ahead, in fact, of human life. Their decision
to co-opt other organisms is conscious, determined. It’s “who” they are.
This idea is played out in regards to Ripley -- now a
clone -- and the fact that seven previous versions of her were produced and
discarded without thought, as merely a means to an end. The clones are just “meat,” with no thought
given to what they feel or require to survive. Quality of life isn’t even a
consideration. The Ripley clone is
permitted to live only because the scientists on the Auriga possess a certain
level of curiosity about her. Importantly,
that’s a reason that involves them and their needs, not Ripley or hers.
Dr. Gediman (Brad Dourif) and Dr. Wren (J.E. Freeman)
treat the aliens in much the same way as they treat Ripley: as meat. They clone
the alien queen, induce her life-cycle (egg-laying) and then attempt to control
(using a steam button in the laboratory for punishment)), the behavior of her
progeny. The mission of the scientists is to make a new weapon for General
Perez (Dan Hedaya), and to control that new weapon with force. No thought is
given to these creatures as living organisms. They are bio-weapons, that’s it.
Even the apparent “protagonists” of Alien
Resurrection -- the crew of the Betty -- undertake action for an evil
agenda. They steal a traveling spaceship crew in hyper-sleep and sell them for
cash so they can get rich. Like the
scientists or the general, the crew people have decided that their selfish
needs are more important than self-determination or quality of life. Johner, in particular, derives pleasure from
hurting people. He drops knives into Vriesse’s paralyzed leg.
The only person for whom this observation of avarice,
greed and desire is not true is the Ripley clone.
She is a creature of two worlds, of two separate
physiologies and she doesn’t attempt to “use” others for her own purposes. In
fact, her mission is often the opposite of that behavior. For example, Ripley elects to burn the
surviving clones, 1-7, because one of them begs for death; for peace. Ripley obliges because the creature is doomed
not just to pain, but to slavery at the hands of those who would use it. Ripley assesses that such slavery is no way
to live, and it is right (and noble) to obey the clone’s wishes and terminate
her.
At the same time that Ripley can see the humanity of
the clones, she can recognize the innocence of the Newborn -- another
alien/human fusion -- and regret its death. For the first time in the series,
Ripley is in the position, then, of weighing or mediating the two sides of this
conflict. In the past, she has always tried to destroy the aliens at all costs,
as a danger to mankind and the universe. In Alien Resurrection, the
plot develops in such a way that it is, finally, crystal clear, that humans are
no better than the aliens; that both species are dangerous to the safety of the
universe. Consider again, there are no
really “good humans” in the film. Call
is the most humane character, but she’s an android. Vriess and Christie are okay, but they still
go along with the mission to hijack the cryo-tubes, don’t they?
Consisting of human and alien nature for the first
time, Ripley now understands both species, and develops a gallows sense of
humor or irony about them. She finds death funny. Not because suffering is funny. But because
the behavior of the two species surrounding her have made death inevitable, a
predictable punch line to a very bad joke
Essentially, Alien Resurrection re-positions
Ripley. In the first movement of an apparent new trilogy, she is not the savior
of mankind as she was in the first three films, but instead the arbiter or
decider of values, weighing one side against the other; keeping in check the
worst proclivities of each.
And her ultimate determination of evil comes down to a
simple choice of control. Evil attempts to control the life of others without
any regard for its feelings, suffering, or emotional needs and desires. The Newborn, finally, must die, because it
kills without reason. The clones must
die, because they have been created not to live, but to serve an end that makes
them suffer interminable pain.
When Alien Resurrection works its cold,
bitter best, it is as an examination not of a good species and a bad species,
but two species that hurt people. Ripley -- the only one who can empathize with
both viewpoints -- becomes the one to weigh the scales.
This idea could have really developed in
future films, and it would have been interesting to see where the idea went had
a second full trilogy developed. Imagine
two films in which the alien and human worlds grow closer and closer, more
alike than unlike, and you start to get a notion of where the material could
go.
How are such ideas expressed in the film? Well, Ripley’s biology is an indicator of her
new position. She bleeds red acid, which signifies her mixed heritage. Similarly,
the cartoony, two-dimensional nature of the scientists in the film -- one mad
(Gediman), one evil (Wrenn) -- makes us understand that humanity’s villainy has
risen to the same extreme level as that of the aliens…or become even
worse. Ripley, “the fast learner” sees
the humans for what they are pretenders to power, and is, overall, disconnected
from human concerns.
There really is no human character in the film to
like, and that makes the movie’s point, but in some way, it also distances the
viewer from the players.
Ripley’s inappropriate sense of humor -- “who do I have to fuck to get off this boat?”
-- is similarly a signifier that she no longer is exclusively on our side. She
finds things funny, but knows they aren’t. They are funny to her because her
new genetic make-up has changed her very nature. She is now the child (and mother,
simultaneously) of the aliens, as well as, physiologically-speaking, mostly
human.
The Southland
Times called Alien Resurrection “grotesque and captivating” and the “best”
of the Alien series (January 9, 1998, page 12). I agree with the first observation, if not
the second. The film is unbelievably
grotesque, perhaps the most so of the series.
And it is captivating in the sense that we must ask ourselves, for the
first time, about Ripley’s loyalties and motivations.
As the center of the film, she stands as an ambiguous
figure, one who could side with either species.
Alien Resurrection succeeds to the level it does, perhaps,
because it is the first film that suggests a balance between human and alien
perspectives, and posits a force – the Ripley clone – who can navigate such a
balance.
“Father’s
Dead, asshole:” How Alien Resurrection
Fails
A bitter, caustic film that acknowledges man’s fatal
flaws, Alien Resurrection’s ideas are often superior to the execution
of the material.
It’s one thing to add a certain level of detached
glibness to Ripley’s mode of expression. It’s quite another to go for dumb physical
comedy in the body of the film itself. In its ambitious attempt to be a dark,
observational comedy about human foibles and transport the series in a new
direction, Alien Resurrection sometimes makes the characters and world of Ripley
and the aliens a live-action cartoon.
Specifically, the frightful strength and power of the
aliens has been made a laughing-stock, particularly during the horrendous
sequence in which the monster’s signature inner jaw pulps the head of General
Perez (a grievously miscast Dan Hedaya).
Perez stands there, not even unbalanced by the impact,
and picks out the back of his skull and brain…presumably while the alien stands
there waiting for him to make his next move.
The scene is so poorly acted, so poorly presented that
you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be funny or horrific.
Instead, it’s just a mess. It is a reality-breaking
moment that takes you out of the film.
Also, the film -- forged in the unfortunate and
unsubtle era of Face-Off (1997) and Con-Air (1997) -- is mired in
stupid, macho BMF-ism.
That’s Bad Motherfucker-ism, in case you weren’t sure.
Johner is a bad MF.
Christie is a bad MF.
Vriess – a fellow in a wheelchair – is also a bad
MF.
Of course, Ripley is a bad MF too.
Instead of genuine characterization, we’re asked again
and again to like these characters because they’re too cool for school. Ooh,
look at those big guns. Look at how
Christie can shoot ricochet shots!
There’s not a single supporting character in the
film who deserves to eat at the same lunch table where Parker, Brett, Hudson,
Hicks, Bishop, 85 or Clements do. They
are all walking/talking clichés with only the most basic of “qualities.”
And, incidentally, they are also pretty clearly the
early versions of Serenity’s crew.
Johner is the same dumb soldier guy/comic relief as Firefly’s
Jayne. And the Captain, Elgyn, navigates with the same sort of amoral,
do-whatever-it-takes-to-survive moral compass as Mal Reynolds does. The Betty’s mechanic is the much-lusted after
but diminutive Call, a good stand-in for Kaylee, except she’s an android. Even the cockpit of the Betty resembles -- at
least a little -- Serenity’s command deck. Whedon demonstrated how, in a
continuing series, he could take characters of such broad strokes and transform
them into beloved, nuanced individuals.
The crew of the Betty doesn’t quite get there.
Instead, the macho approach of rampant BMF-ism reaches
the height of idiocy when Larry Purvis (Leland Orser) -- a man carrying a
chest-buster inside of him -- also ascends to that territory. During his last
moments of life, he assaults an evil scientist, Dr. Wrenn and manages to
position his opponent at just the right place, in just the right moment, so
that the emerging ches-tbuster breaks not just through his own ruptured chest,
but -- conveniently -- through Wrenn’s skull too. It’s a ludicrous, over-the-top moment meant
to be intense and manic but in concept and execution, like the Hedaya scenes,
proves stupid beyond measure.
It’s difficult to like the film, and its “dark comedy”
approach when so many moments pander to dumb action convention.
Also, some of the verbal humor in Alien Resurrection
doesn’t work in either concept or delivery.
“Who were you expecting, Santa Claus?” asks Vriess at a crucial juncture,
and the moment flat-lines. The humor in the film is so hit-or-miss that Alien
Resurrection veers between groans and giggles throughout most of its
run.
Whedon once noted that it wasn’t that his script was
altered that made Alien Resurrection so poor, it was everything that came in the
production after the script: the
casting, the costumes, even the creature design. You can see his point. Winona Ryder is underwhelming as Call, and
Hedaya never manages to be convincing as a military general. He could get the job, but he couldn’t do the
job.
In terms of costumes, Alien Resurrection
dresses all of its evil scientist in -- wait for it -- futuristic white coats,
just so the audience understands that, you know, they are scientists. The
cartoony aspects of this once realistic universe have been ramped up to a
ludicrous degree.
Similarly, the film lacks any driving sense of
momentum. The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is one obvious template for the
story: survivors of a disaster must make their way through a wrecked ship.
But there’s no sense of how close or how far the
survivors are at any given moment from their destination. There’s no sense that
they are making progress. There’s a stop at the clone lab, a stop at the
face-hugger lab, an underwater swim, a stop at a chapel, and then a dash for
the dock. The incidents feel episodic
and don’t build towards anything significant or meaningful. Similarly, this is the first
Alien film in which the alien doesn’t cast a shadow over the movie even
when it is not on-screen. The aliens are
missing in action for long spells in Alien Resurrection, and you just
don’t feel the danger of their (hidden) presence. There’s no belief that they
could be hiding around any corner.
Oppositely, Alien Resurrection’s big set piece is
visually arresting indeed. It involves the survivors aboard the Auriga swimming
through a flooded compartment of the ship in hopes of reaching safety. It’s a long swim too, and the scene culminates
with swimming aliens in pursuit. The scene is tense and well-shot, as
characters struggle to hold their breaths and swim for their lives as the
aliens, the equivalent of great white sharks, circle in for the kill. And even
better, it’s all a trap, set to make the oxygen-starved swimmers open up
wide…in a room of eggs and face-huggers.
This sequence possesses a lot of energy, and gives the movie a real
kick. If the rest of the movie had lived
up to this set-piece, Alien Resurrection might be
remembered differently.
Perhaps the greatest virtue of Alien Resurrection is
that it attempts something different, and now that thing is behind us. The dark
comedy angle -- the exaggerated colors and characters -- has been done, and now
the series can move on and attempt another, hopefully more fruitful approach. So
I champion Alien Resurrection for its decision to, in honor of the series,
try something new. But I assess,
finally, that “dark comedy” is not the most successful approach for the
franchise.
Even acknowledging that judgment, I can’t help but
wonder what might have been: what a second trilogy -- with Resurrection as the start
point, not a dead end -- might have looked like. There are moments and images of greatness in Alien
Resurrection, but overall, the film doesn’t capitalize well on them.
I actually really loved Resurrection. Mostly because it left me extremely disturbed. That alien baby thing really really REALLY freaked me the eff out. It's a masterpiece. And then it got sucked out the hole in the ship and I had to go watch a marathon of Disney movies before I was able to fall asleep that night.
ReplyDeleteI like this film also. It has the cool cockpit and entry flight to the military ship. It has a funny bunch of mercenaries. But for me it's the room with all those unsuccessful human-alien hybrids, and the scene also carries emotional events. That scene embodies the disturbing quality Mich describes above.
ReplyDelete-T.S.