”In space no-one can hear you scream” unless you’ve both get helmets on and the comms system is working or you’re standing REALLY close together or you scream REALLY loudly.
Welcome to the world of ALIEN - a scary horror film on a spaceship made by the brilliant director Ripley Scott. After his success with TOP GUN he felt the need for (light) speed and made a space film which was superb if you like that sort of thing, which you definitely should.
The clever twist with ALIEN is that the spaceship is rubbish and has no weapons to use against the alien. It’s called NOSTROMO but should really be called NOWEAPONO. Don’t know why they didn’t think of that one. EPIC FAIL SPACESHIP NAMING COMMITTEE! It is also a bit dirty and, worst of all, has a cat on board. The cat is called Jones after Indiana Jones because it keeps getting into the fridge (Get it? But also because it wears a hat and carries a whip)
At the start all of the crew are asleep but then they wake up and go to a planet called THX1138 to investigate a mysterious signal in scary alien talk, which is a bit of a clue (dumbasses!) They find a big round ship designed by the H.R. department that is full of eggs that are full of aliens. One of them scrambles about and then eats John Hurt and from then on all bets are off!
Luckily there is a woman on board who is also called Ripley in a blatant bit of nepotism by director Ripley Scott and she kills everyone, blows up the ship and escapes into the sequel.
Fun Fact – Alien 2 is not called Alien 2. No, it is called ALIENS and was made by James Cameraman who was promoted from using the camera to directing things after the success of his first film “Piranha 2: Can I do a real film next time please?”. This naming convention started a trend for sequels just adding some letter “S”s onto the end such as PREDATORS, THE ABYSSSS, WONDER WOMANS and luckily not LIFE OF PI.
ALIENS is arguably the best action film of all time. Because it is full of action. SO much action! You thought another film was full of action? Well that other film is nothing compared to Aliens, don’t be ridiculous. Aliens has MUCH more action than THAT film. FACT!
In ALIENS there are lots of army people called space marines who are hicks and grunts. But (surprise) one of them turns out to be a SPACE ROBOT who was also nearly a Terminator (look it up) and he turned out to be a good guy, rather than a bad guy after all. Well half a good guy actually as the alien queen bites off his evil legs in the big fight at the end just leaving the good bit. This fight is so exciting! Ripley tries to steal a big metal Powerloader but gets trapped inside it. Newt plays hide and seek with the alien queen but gets found easily, hence the famous line “Game Over Bitch!” and then the airlock opens and the alien queen explodes and it is the end and then it’s ALIEN 3 and they are all dead which is a bit of a downer.
Did you know that there is a secret fact about the robots in the Alien franchise because they all start with a letter of the alphabet in alphabetical order. In the first one it is A for ASH and in the second one it is B for BISHOP (and also P for POWERLOADER). In the third one it is C for “Can’t think of a robot in that one” and in the fourth one it was D for Winona Ry-D-er I guess, which is a bit weak.
So that was ALIENS. The problem was that no-one really needed a sequel, because it was so good and anything else would be pointless, so of course they made several more. Alien 3 and Alien 4 and Alien VS Predator were all too boring to talk about. But then there was PROMETHEUS, which was so bad I could talk about it forever.
Did you see Prometheus? Holy stinky garbage poop it was SOOOOOOOOOOO bad. I spent the whole film hoping it would soon be over and when it was over I wished it would start again so I could walk out in disgust.
Anyway back to Prometheus. Crazy name, crazy film! Do you know where the name came from? Well it is from a Greek God called “Etheus” who invented the school prom. Hence the name. The first prom was a disaster as people put vodka in the punch and dolphins in the jacuzzi. Prometheus didn’t want to do another prom but the other Greeks said he had to CARRIE on (get it?). Actually the film Carrie is about a girl who goes to a prom, but while everyone else is wearing nice clothes she decides to wear a dress made of pig blood which is a pretty major fashion error. Everyone laughs at her and she literally dies of shame, apart from her arm which comes back to life at the end. Not very realistic to be honest. Avoid.
Anyway back to Prometheus. The original script was brilliant (this is a real true fact) but it was then rewritten by Damon Hasselhoff to become something terrible. Damon had a proven track record of rubbish because he also wrote LOST which was awful. It started good but then they completely LOST the plot (get it?) I still don’t know why the statue only had four toes. If you know why please explain in the Talkback below. Thanks!
Anyway back to Prometheus. It starred Charlie Theron who is brilliant. She was awesome in this and awesome in SUICIDE SQUAD and awesome in I TONYA. She looks totally different in every film, it’s almost like she’s a different person. That’s real acting. Did you see that Tonya film? It was about skating and knee bashing and had lots of fourth wall breaking which is a cinematic technique invented in STAR WARS when ObiWan’s ghost says “Use the fourth wall, Luke” to break into the Death Star.
Anyway back to Prometheus. It was rubbish. FACT!
So I hope we have all learned a lot about the ALIEN franchise. Two great films followed by millions of terrible ones. A bit like there have been two great STAR WARS films (Empire and Rogue One) followed by millions of terrible ones. (Editor’s Note - And like there have been two great Hedgehog articles followed by millions of terrible ones. Ha! Got you there!)
Next week I will be back with my analysis of 1956 French arthouse classic “LE BURVOISIER”. (Not really, it will be some juvenile time-travelling superhero CGI overload garbage as usual).
Au-revoir mon amis!
LOVE YOUR HICKS AND GRUNTS - Hedgehog xxx
@HedgehogAICN
HedgehogAICN@mail.com
