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What is your favourite Alien's score/movie?


What is your favourite Alien's score/movie?  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your favourite Alien's score?

    • Alien by Jerry Goldsmith
    • Aliens by James Horner
    • Alien³ by Elliot Goldenthal
    • Alien: Resurrection by John Frizzell
    • I've never listen to any of them.
    • I don't like any of them.
  2. 2. What is your favourite Alien's spin-off score?

    • Prometheus by Marc Streitenfeld
    • Alien: Covenant by Jed Kurzel
    • Alien vs. Predator by Harald Kloser
    • Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem by Brian Tyler
    • I've never listen to any of them.
    • I don't like any of them.
  3. 3. What is your favourite Alien's movie?

    • Alien
    • Aliens
    • Alien³
    • Alien: Resurrection
    • I've never watch any of them.
      0
    • I don't like any of them.
      0
  4. 4. What is your favourite Alien's spin-off movie?

    • Prometheus
    • Alien: Covenant
    • Alien vs. Predator
    • Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
      0
    • I've never watch any of them.
    • I don't like any of them.


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Alien, followed by Alien³, followed by Aliens. Definitely for the scores, and while the 2nd/3rd place ranking for the films is not so clear cut for me these days, it could go either way, and the flawed but stunning Fincher film needs more love.

 

I lied on the last question, because I've seen Prometheus, but only once, and none of the others, so I really have no opinion there. I really do want to watch it again, and its sequel, but I'm still waiting for a good Blu-ray deal.

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I like all Alien scores, including Alien 3 and Ressurection, but I voted for Horner. As for the movies, I like the first and second ones, and admire parts of 3 and 4, but I voted for the first. 

 

About the spin-offs, I don't like either of these movies and their scores. Voted for Brian Tyler and Prometheus only because the poll doesn't have a "None of them" option.

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Personnally it's for the score:

1) Alien

2) Alien3

3) Aliens

4) Alien: Resurrection

5) Alien vs. Predator

6) Prometheus

7) Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

8) Alien: Covenant

 

For the movie:

1) Alien

2) Alien: Resurrection

3) Alien3

4) Alien vs. Predator

5) Aliens

6) Prometheus

7) Alien: Covenant

and I have to admit that I haven't seen the second AvP.

 

2 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

About the spin-offs, I don't like either of these movies and their scores. Voted for Brian Tyler and Prometheus only because the poll doesn't have a "None of them" option.

Yeah I should have add this option. Don't know if I can edit it now.

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1 minute ago, Raiders of the SoundtrArk said:

and I have to admit that I haven't seen the second AvP.

 

 

Me neither. The first AvP was one of the major disappointments I had as a child. I rented this movie when I was 11 expecting an epic bloodbath between two of cinema's biggest monsters, while poor humans are nothing but casualties. I was very disappointed that they tried to make the Predator the "hero" of the movie, and teaming up with the generic lead character to take down the Alien queen. 

 

After I saw that the critics for the second movie were even worse, I haven't even bothered with it. I like Tyler's cue Decimation Proclamation from the OST though.

 

4 minutes ago, Raiders of the SoundtrArk said:

Yeah I should have add this option. Don't know if I can edit it now.

 

You can, just edit the original post.

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15 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

You can, just edit the original post.

Done.

I personnaly liked it because I have no expectation about this one as everyone told me it sucks. I was actually quite surprised about it.

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The films:

 

Alien - a utter masterpiece of cinema.  Every time I watch it I find more new things to appreciate about it.  It's so tighly paced and plotted while still taking its time to indulge in the great atmosphere of the different locations when needed.  One of the few films I could a watch again any time and never feel like I'm wasting time that could be better spent watching something I've never seen before.

 

Aliens - another masterpiece, one of the best sequels ever made.  It's so brilliant that instead of making another similar movie, Cameron made a different type of movie from the premise and character of the first.  Another expertly paced movie, I love how long it takes to get to the first action scene and how well everything that happens leads to the next.  Also has so many memorable characters, lines, and performances.  Another one I can rewatch endlessly and find new things to appreciate and never feel like I'm wasting my time.

 

Alien 3 - I saw it opening day in the theater and was disappointed; I saw it again when the director's cut version thingy came out and remember liking it more but still it's not a film I have strong memories of or really care much about.  I have no idea what my modern self would think of it.

 

Alien: Resurrection - I saw it when it came to DVD, I think I skipped it in theaters, can't remember for sure.  Don't remember much about it.  Nothing I'm particularly compelled to revisit, but I probably will eventually someday.

 

Alien Vs Predator - I saw it when it came out.  I was a huge fan of the original Dark Horse comics and was so disappointed this stole a few things from that but otherwise had a completely different and completely terrible story with completely different characters.  Have never wanted to see it again

 

Alien Vs Predator: Requiem - Never saw it

 

Prometheus - I saw this opening night in the cinema with a group of friends.  We all loved the original two Alien movies, and Ridley Scott's best work, and were so hyped for this to finally be a good Alien movie again, or at least a good and interesting sci-fi movie, and we were so utterly disappointed.  I loved the visual look but the story and characters were so nonsensical (this video does a great job of highlighting the same faults I had with the story).  I've never rewatched it

 

Alien: Covenant - Never saw it

 

 

 

 

The scores

 

Alien - One of my top 2 Jerry Goldsmith scores and one of my favorite scores of all time.  I find it completely brilliant from start to finish, not only are his original intentions for the score brilliant, but all the rewrites Scott made him do are just as brilliant too.  I love the kooky instruments and the whole tone and feel of the score, and the main theme is good too.

 

Aliens - One of my top 10 James Horner scores and one of my favorite scores of all time.  I think it's an action masterpiece, I never get tired of listening to it.  It works brilliantly in its OST presentation, its complete presentation, or just picking a handful of tracks to listen to.  I love every cue and my only wish would be that he got to score more of the movie instead of the relatively small portion of it he did.

 

Alien 3 - I never paid attention to this score at the time or afterward, until around when the LLL expansion came out and I gave that some thorough listens and realized Goldenthal crafted a fantastic score here that I had ignored for decades.  It's really good!

 

Alien: Resurrection - Never listened to it, couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who wrote it

 

Alien Vs Predator - Never listened to it, couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who wrote it

 

Alien Vs Predator: Requiem - Never listened to it, couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who wrote it

 

Prometheus - the Harry Gregson Williams cues are fantastic!  The Streitenfeld cues are completely forgettable.

 

Alien: Covenant - Never listened to it, couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who wrote it

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23 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

Like Terminator, I only consider there to be two films in the Alien franchise.

 

You definitely have a point but somehow I managed to get over my aversion for Jeunet's movie. 

 

9 minutes ago, Jay said:

Alien Covenant - Never saw it

 

It's utter trash but I enjoyed it a lot more than Prometheus, which is trash too. You'll hate it though.

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Yea I basically love the first 2 films equally.  In many ways I wish they had never made any more!

 

I think some of the ideas explored in the Dark Horse comics of the 80s and early 90s were so much better than anything they did in the movies.  Shame they didn't head in that direction

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Alien³  is a Christian movie for nerds. Ripley is like Jesus Christ, the xenomorph is a metaphor for the sins of the humanity, and the prisoners are her apostles. In the end, she sacrifices herself, taking with her the sins that plagued mankind (the xenomorph) after being tempted by Weiland, which is the movie's version of the Devil.

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@Edmilson

 

"Weyland".

 

Many films have "religious" (whatever that means) undertones, but that doesn't make them bad, or for nerds. I never thought of ALIEN³ having that subtext. I just enjoy it for what it is.

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15 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Many films have "religious" (whatever that means) undertones, but that doesn't make them bad, or for nerds. I never thought of ALIEN³ having that subtext. I just enjoy it for what it is.

 

I haven't said the religious subtext makes the movie bad, only that it draws inspiration from Jesus' story, so it can be seen as a Christian movie. But with aliens and spaceships instead of romans and jews.

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The ALIEN films, and primarily the first two, are some of the most important cultural products in my life. In fact, they're my favourite films of all time. Only JURASSIC PARK butts in in the top 3 there. Seen both of them between 60-70 times. But I'm obsessed with the whole series, really, and tend to see every single film in the franchise at least once a year. In fact, I just finished a rewatch of the film series a few days ago. Written a lot about them over the years, both in academia and on other platforms. So bla, bla, bla....it's all extremely important to me.

 

Favourie score-wise, there are two different answers depending on parameters. On album, I think ALIEN 3 is the best. In-movie, there's no beating Goldsmith's original.

 

Film-wise, it's a toss-up between 1 and 2 depending on my mood of the day.

 

There are a million more things to say, but I'm still hung over after Friday.

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

There's a great sadness at the heart of ALIEN³ that I strongly relate to. Tears were shed, in the cinema, when Ripley died.

 

I cried when I saw that movie also. It wasn't because Ripley died.

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I've never understand why Aliens was so popular. I really like it but find it a bit caricatural with some very bad dialogues. To me it is the Attack of the Clones of the Alien franchise, so much visually outstanding stuff, few excelent actors mixed with bad lines and some bad actors.

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Did IQ's suddenly drop while I was away?

 

Aliens is a fantastic movie. And actually the perfect sequel. It took an intriguing concept and did something completely different with it, and in its own way was just as effective. Cameron wisely didn't tread the same ground Ridley Scott did. He made his own story and moved the mythology forward in a compelling way.

 

Don't get me wrong, Alien is the better film. But Aliens is a very worthy sequel.  After that, the series goes off a cliff and the law of diminshing returns kicks in. You can only tell the same story so many times in so many different ways (the same problem Terminator had after T2).

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1 minute ago, Nick1066 said:

Aliens is a fantastic movie. And is actually the perfect sequel. It took an intriguing concept and did something completely different with it, and in its own way was just as effective. Cameron wisely didn't tread the same ground Ridley Scott did. He made his own story and moved the mythology forward in a compelling way.

 

Don't get me wrong, Alien is the better film. But Aliens is a very worthy sequel.  After that, the series goes off a cliff and the law of diminshing returns kicks in. You can only tell the same story so many times in so many different ways (the same problem Terminator had after T2).

 

I agree with every word of this post

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2 hours ago, Thor said:

Favourie score-wise, there are two different answers depending on parameters. On album, I think ALIEN 3 is the best. In-movie, there's no beating Goldsmith's original.

 

But Goldsmith's original isn't in the movie…

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11 hours ago, Raiders of the SoundtrArk said:

I've never understand why Aliens was so popular.

 

I never understood why Alien is/was so popular. It's a very slow paced simple story with low key characters. And perhaps even more than that, the film is very focused on the artistic and design side of things, very much like Ridley Scott made The Duellists, which was actually the reason why they hired him. OTOH, Aliens is an adrenaline ride with a more complex story and sharply silhouetted characters. And perhaps even more than that, it's the foundation of modern video games. 

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For the music, definitely have to pick Goldsmith, with Goldenthal as a close second. I actually didn't care for much Horner's effort when I gave it a full listen, outside of a few cues. Definitely would like to listen to it again once I see the film (no matter how butchered it is in the edit).

Can't say anything about the movies, as I've only seen the original. I have a bunch of friends that really defend the prequels, but I doubt I'd really bother much past Aliens.

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2 hours ago, AC1 said:

 

I never understood why Alien is/was so popular. It's a very slow paced simple story with low key characters. And perhaps even more than that, the film is very focused on the artistic and design side of things, very much like Ridley Scott made The Duellists, which was actually the reason why they hired him. OTOH, Aliens is an adrenaline ride with a more complex story and sharply silhouetted characters. And perhaps even more than that, it's the foundation of modern video games. 


Ha, ha. Pretty good satire post.

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Great post! The original 3 scores are soooo hard to separate. It depends purely on my mood!

 

Only just got the Intrada Alien so I'm keen to explore that score properly. I've listened to LLL's Alien³ more times than I can count. I always knew that score would sound great in complete form, but I didn't expect it to be as revelatory as it was.

 

Aliens is probably my favourite score in the series though. The existing release looks complete but it could use a sonic upgrade (and ideally produced by Mike, considering he did the other 3).

 

@BryonDavisI know you can't comment on future titles but is there any chance Varese could revisit Aliens with modern high-res transfers? Or is that series now locked behind the Disney firewall, since acquiring Fox?

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I think both original films are downright masterpieces for different reasons. It's a precipitous drop after Cameron's film, though there's plenty to appreciate about Fincher's entry.

 

The less said about almost everything that followed, the better.

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I find that the drop came after Resurrection, or more precisely at the end of this one when (spoiler coming)

Spoiler

this shit happen...

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "resurrection alien death gif"

I find the rest of the movie pretty cool though.

 

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It's first and foremost a great Jeunet movie (it helps considerably if you've seen some of his other movies, like DELICATESSEN, and his reliance on the burlesque). But over the years I've come to embrace it as a proper ALIEN movie too. Took me many years, though, due to the comic element.

 

The scene that Raiders refers to above is spinechillingly fantastic - one of the most gruesome and visceral film deaths of all time. In its own twisted way, one of the highlights of the movie.

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6 minutes ago, Thor said:

The scene that Raiders refers to above is spinechillingly fantastic - one of the most gruesome and visceral film deaths of all time. In its own twisted way, one of the highlights of the movie.

I find it was a bit too much. It makes me laugh every time reducing the tension of the scene, so I don't really like it but it was surely an original idea.

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Interesting reaction, completely opposite to mine. Even though I've seen the film and scene probably some 30-40 times over the years, I'm always taken by both a weird sense of sadness for the alien, as well as a (literally) gutwrenching need to look away. Extremely tense, in any case, as far as I'm concerned.

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1 hour ago, Thor said:

It's first and foremost a great Jeunet movie (it helps considerably if you've seen some of his other movies, like DELICATESSEN, and his reliance on the burlesque).

 

True. I didn't see that at the time. I viewed it as an Alien movie and wasn't pleased with the caricaturing of the Alien universe. But the last time I saw it (as part of my Alien Blu-ray box set), I decided to see it as a Jeunet joint, and yes, that really helped me to appreciate it more. I tried to do the same with Alien3, which should have been easy since I'm a Fincher fan, but it didn't work. I still hated it.

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Alex, it goes without saying that the Assembly Cut of ALIEN³ is much better than the T.V.

 

 

55 minutes ago, Thor said:

Even though I've seen the film and scene probably some 30-40 times over the years, I'm always taken by both a weird sense of sadness for the alien, as well as a (literally) gutwrenching need to look away. Extremely tense, in any case, as far as I'm concerned.

Quite true. Ripley is, in effect, killing her grandson, and means that all of her offspring have, now, died. It's heartbreaking.

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Aliens is Horner's most boring overrated blockbuster OST. I like the suite on that Collage album.

 

Aliens the movie is the most entertaining in my opinion. A fun Saturday night sci fi monster romp. I have always enjoyed the original but I honestly tune out when Ripley makes her escape until she's in her skivvies. Cameron's ending is way better, with the suspenseful buildup being where Alien 1 shines.

 

Jerry's music also tends to get rather boring and dismal but his themes and standout tracks are good.

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21 hours ago, crumbs said:

Great post! The original 3 scores are soooo hard to separate. It depends purely on my mood!

 

Only just got the Intrada Alien so I'm keen to explore that score properly. I've listened to LLL's Alien³ more times than I can count. I always knew that score would sound great in complete form, but I didn't expect it to be as revelatory as it was.

 

Aliens is probably my favourite score in the series though. The existing release looks complete but it could use a sonic upgrade (and ideally produced by Mike, considering he did the other 3).

 

@BryonDavisI know you can't comment on future titles but is there any chance Varese could revisit Aliens with modern high-res transfers? Or is that series now locked behind the Disney firewall, since acquiring Fox?

 

One never knows but I doubt they are interested in high res presentations.  I'll be honest.  I've been pushing for those types of releases for years.  They just do not sell like they should for all the extra money that we need to retransfer and remaster (or possibly remix).  Nobody is supporting these types of releases in the numbers they need.  I've pushed for SACD hybrid discs so the high res crowd can have that and then the CD crowd can still buy and enjoy but I am always worried they won't get the love they need for the cost it takes to prep one of those discs.

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17 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Anyone else also wanted to watch that Alien sequel that District 9 director Neill Bloomkamp was planning until Ridley Scott decided to make the prequels?

 

Yes! I was incredibly dissapointed when this was scrapped in favour of Prometheus.  Would have been better for the franchise and Ridley Scott's repuation if he'd have just stayed away.

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Not me, District 9 started off good (though quite ugly looking), but became dull in the second half, when they went after the secret formula. Elysium was just overall bad.  I stopped watching his career after that.

 

I don't think more Alien movies is the answer. It just feels like franchise milking. 

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1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Anyone else also wanted to watch that Alien sequel that District 9 director Neill Bloomkamp was planning until Ridley Scott decided to make the prequels?

 

Not at first, due to its break with the existing timeline, but the idea grew on me untill it was eventually cancelled. So these days -- when Scott's David trilogy has apparently come to a halt -- I would have liked to see it, just to get my ALIEN fix going. At least we have Noah Hawley's series to look forward to.

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Personnaly I really wanted to see it but I have to say that I wasn't much pleased like Thor by the break with the timeline. I don't really like when they do that. When you fucked up you have to assume it and learn from it not to do it again. Pushing away the mistake doesn't make you learn the lesson.

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