Alien: Resurrection
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the video game, see Alien: Resurrection (video game).
| Alien: Resurrection | |
|---|---|
 Alien: Resurrection film poster | |
| Directed by | Jean-Pierre Jeunet |
| Produced by | Bill Badalato Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill |
| Written by | Joss Whedon (characters) Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett |
| Starring | Sigourney Weaver Winona Ryder Dominique Pinon Ron Perlman Gary Dourdan Michael Wincott Brad Dourif Leland Orser Dan Hedaya J.E. Freeman Kim Flowers Raymond Cruz |
| Music by | John Frizzell |
| Cinematography | Darius Khondji |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | November 26, 1997 |
| Running time | 109 min./116 min. (2003 Special Edition) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $70,000,000 |
| Preceded by | Alien³ |
| Followed by | Alien vs. Predator |
| IMDb profile | |
Alien: Resurrection (1997) is the fourth film in the Alien series, preceded by Alien, Aliens and Alien³. It opened on November 26, 1997.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The events of Alien: Resurrection take place two centuries after the events of Alien³. Ellen Ripley has been cloned using "blood samples from 'Fiori' 16, 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, also horribly deformed, remains alive on life-support, and is granted a mercy killing by Ripley later in the film. On the eighth try the scientists recreated a mostly human, almost normal-looking Ripley with a viable alien queen embryo inside her.
A rogue ship full of freelance mercenaries arrives with kidnapped humans for the aliens to parasitize and reproduce inside. 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.
This film reveals a new alien capability - the ability to transfer memory genetically, which enables the resurrected Ripley to keep some of 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 black claw-like fingernails, increased strength and regenerative abilities, lightning reflexes, enhanced hearing and weak acid for 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 the other aliens, with a human-like skull and eyes. This creature strikes its alien mother right after birth, recognizing Ripley as his 'true' mother, weeping in a quiet "childish" mode.
[edit] 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 $47.8 million at the U.S. box office and a total of $161.3 million worldwide. However, Winona Ryder won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for her role in the film.
[edit] Controversies
Some fans were disappointed by a number of mistakes in references to events in earlier films in the series. For example, Ripley's I.D. number has been changed [citation needed]. Fiorina 161 was in fact nicknamed "Fiori 16" in the third movie despite some fans believing otherwise.
Screenwriter Joss Whedon was extremely unhappy with the final product. In a 2005 interview, when asked how the film differed from the script he'd written, Whedon responded, "It wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines...mostly...but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script...but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable." [1]
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).
[edit] 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".
[edit] External link
| Feature films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet |
|---|
| Delicatessen (with Marc Caro, 1991) • The City of Lost Children (with Marc Caro, 1995) • Alien: Resurrection (1997) • Amélie (2001) • A Very Long Engagement (2004) |
es:Alien: Resurrección fr:Alien, la résurrection it:Alien: la clonazione nl:Alien: Resurrection ja:エイリアン4 pl:Obcy - przebudzenie ru:Чужой 4: Воскрешение (фильм) sk:Votrelec: Vzkriesenie fi:Alien – ylösnousemus sv:Alien återuppstår
