Alien: Resurrection

Alien: Resurrection (1997) is the fourth film in the Alien series, preceded by Alien, Aliens and Alien³. It opened on November 26, 1997.

Synopsis

The events of Alien: Resurrection take place two centuries after the events of Alien³. Ellen Ripley has been cloned using "blood samples from Fiorina 161, on ice" so that the United Systems Military can extract the Xenomorph queen embryo that was inside her from Alien³. The first seven tries are unsuccessful hybrids of human and alien body forms. Six of them are dead in fluid-filled preservative chambers. The seventh, horribly deformed, remains alive to be discovered and mercifully killed by Ripley later in the film. On the eighth try the scientists recreated a viable normal-looking Ripley with a viable alien queen embryo inside her.

This film reveals a new alien capability - the ability to transfer memory genetically, which enables the resurrected Ripley to keep her former self's memories. It also piques the curiosity of the scientists and leads to their decision to keep her alive for further study. Having her DNA mixed with the aliens' has also given Ripley increased strength, lightning reflexes, enhanced hearing and weak acid blood. She also has somewhat of an empathy for the aliens, referring to them as "my babies." At the end of the film, it is shown that the alien queen has also received a gift from Ripley's DNA: the ability to give birth to live offspring directly. This offspring seems more "human" than others aliens, with an human-like skull and eyes. This creature kills its alien mother right after birth, recognizing Ripley as his "true" one, weeping in a quite "childish" mode.

A rogue ship full of freelancers arrives with kidnapped humans for the aliens to parasitize and reproduce upon. However, before the freelancers depart, the aliens escape and wreak terror across the ship. Ripley teams up with the freelancers to help destroy the ship before it reaches home base, Earth.

Responses

Despite positive reviews for Sigourney Weaver's performance, the film is considered the least successful in the series, having been poorly received by many fans and critics. It grossed only around $45 million at the U.S. box office. However, Winona Ryder won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for her role in the film.

Controversies

Some fans were disappointed by a number of mistakes in references to events in earlier films in the series. For example, Fiorina 161, the location of Alien³ is referred to as "Fiori 16", "Weyland-Yutani" is referred to as "Weyland-Utonic", and Ripley's I.D. number has been changed .

A novelization by A.C. Crispin corrects these mistakes and quotes several lines from past movies. It also offers more details about the thought process of the aliens, showing them to be considerably intelligent animals that are not only capable of reading different languages, but also have the ability to remember the events of Aliens from the perspectives of both the Alien Queen and Ripley. It also quotes several past characters, and makes mention of the character Morse from the previous movie as having submitted information on the events in Alien 3, later discovered by Call.

There was also controversy surrounding proper credit for the alien design. H.R. Giger, the artist famous for creating the original alien design, was openly displeased that the film did not give him a credit for this and sent a letter to the studio complaining. This does not parallel to his lack of credit in Aliens, as the new design for the Alien (Queen) in the second movie was actually put together by someone else entirely (James Cameron).

Alternate version

In the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, Jeunet included an alternative version of the film with alternate opening and closing scenes, references to the character Newt from Aliens and extended dialogue between Call and Ripley's clone in the chapel scene, including the dialog "I'm not afraid to dream anymore. 'Cause when I wake up it's always worse".

Basketball scene

In one scene of the film, Ripley picks up a basketball, and, without looking back, throws it over her shoulder across half the length of a basketball court, whereupon it lands right in the net. This could easily have been faked with editing or special effects, but Sigourney Weaver committed herself to do the scene for real and trained for months to achieve the shot. Jeunet tried to talk Weaver out of it, fearing that she would be unsuccessful and that trying to achieve the shot would cause delays in the filmmaking. Weaver insisted, and on the very first attempt threw an incredible shot that went straight into the basket. Unfortunately, her co-actors were so astonished that they were clearly 'out of character'; Ron Perlman even looked at the camera and said "Oh my god!"; Jeunet had to edit the shot carefully to trim these reactions. A differing account says this take was completely unsalvagable and after many failed attempts to recreate the first take, Weaver succeeded on her last chance, that shot remaining in the film. An additional problem was that the ball left the frame for a few seconds during its travel through the air, which made the scene look as though it could have been faked. In his commentary on the film, Jeunet goes to great lengths to insist that the shot took place in real time and was not faked.

Other media

Alien Resurrection has been published also as a video game on the Sony PlayStation platform and Windows operating system.

External link