Alien - Resurrection (1997)

Welcome to Spacing Out with BB and Jason, this week covering the nineteen ninety seven film Alien Resurrection.

Welcome to Spacing Out.

I'm Bb and I'm Jason, and we are discussing the Alien franchise. One movie at the time, and at the moment of this recording, the fourth film is available to stream on Hulu and or Stars Stars.

Is that still a thing?

Yep?

Wow.

This podcast is being released on two different podcast feeds, So if you've found it through the Spacing Out with Alien podcasts, and I invite you to check out our main channel, Spacing Out with BB and Jason, where we've covered things like Battlestar Grolactica, Star Trek Our Flag Means Death. Today we are focusing on only Alien resurrections, so if there's any discussion of subsequent entries into the franchise, we will save that for a spoiler section at the end

Five.

Check.

Did we like the movie overall? How does it stand the test of time?

How'd this one sit with you?

I liked it. I liked it a lot. It featured a lot of character actors that were familiar with so it was nice to see a familiar face and it had a little bit of camp kind of sprinkled in, So that was fun. Wasn't like super serious all the time? Yeah, there were like moments where it was kind of breaking the fourth wall and pain silly. It literally felt like just in like the faces that they would make, like when that one guy died, the guy that looks like

Yeah, more than one woman in this movie, right. Yeah, this is a weird one for me because, like, I do kind of enjoy it. It's kind of fun. It's weird and campy, but it's also like it's so far removed from like that first Alien movie.

Oh yeah, Like I would not compare it to the first Alien movie at all. This is a Joss Whedon production for sure, But I think it's better than some of the other ones we've seen.

Yeah, I think I would take it over Alien three.

I would take it over Alien two as well. But I know I'm a controversial. Yeah, I'm a controversial girly. I just don't like all those like guns and like that military talk and these grunts and stuff. The mercenaries had a softer edge to them. There was more a more like familial sense to them, you know, like family, like we don't leave anybody behind. Very interesting.

Yeah, so I don't know, it's weird. I went in a weird direction and like it definitely wasn't like a necessary movie.

Yeah, like I could, I could take it or leave it in terms of the franchise's like storyline, I guess, But I thought it was good. I liked it. I thought it was interesting that they were cloning her, and that was kind of glossed over a little until the middle of the movie where they like show like all their failed attempts, and then that was kind of interesting.

Yep, all right, let's learn how this came about?

Trivia time what facts could we uncover for Alien Resurrection?

So impressed with his work as a screenwriter, twentieth Century Fox hired Joss Whedon to write the film script. His initial screenplay had a third act set on Earth with a final battle for Earth itself, and the studio initially imagined that the film would center around a clone of the character Newt from Aliens.

Was Newt Oh the crula white girl?

Yeah, Marney her, Yes, hate that, And that's just because Ellen Ripley had died at the end of Alien three, So they were figured they were.

Going to move on from that, and so we didn't began writing this before being formed, as the studio now intended to base the story on a clone of Ripley because they saw her as the anchor of the series and weren't ready to let that go yet. Sigourney Weaver wanted to liberate the character in Alien three, as she did not want Ripley to become a figure of fun

Him and his interpreter directed.

Yes, so every direction took twice as long. Really, the basketball shot was Sigourney Weaver's idea, and she insisted on doing it for real. She trained with a basketball coach over the course of a month.

She couldn't learned more ball handling with that. Oh Man that's too much. Okay, that was the silliest scene to me.

And reports on this very but some places say that she made the shot on the first take, the over the back shot, and then Ron Pearlman nearly ruined the take by reacting onscreen to her making the shot.

Ron Peerlman is a boy. Hell boy.

Yeah. So a large water tank was constructed for the underwater scenes, and swimming was a required skill for cast and crew signing onto the film. The castman week straining in pools for the scene. Why no, A writer had not been in the water since she nearly drowned at the age of twelve, and she struggled with anxiety during the shoot.

That sucks. I could have lived without that scene too. It was so unnecessary, Like it looked pretty sure, but I don't. It made no sense.

I think it's pretty interesting.

It just was out of left field. What the fuck is a pool of water a kitchen full of water doing in space?

The film use of puppets, animatronics, miniatures, and only u CGI when the alien's legs were in frame. Joane was adamant about the hybrid having genitalia, which resembled a mix of male and female sexes twenty century Fox was uncomfortable with this, and then Geniteliu genitalia on the animatronics were digitally removed. Ah boomoooo boomooooo.

I hate that. That's part of the human biology, isn't it. Yep, Damn gave us a Kendall version of the vision. Okay, what else.

For the release of the two thousand and three Alien Quadrilogy box set, Joane created an alternate version of the film with a different opening and closing scenes. We watched the original theatrical one just because it didn't seem like it was that different. The budget was seventy million and the box office return was one hundred and sixty one million. Critical response was mixed, with the praise going to Sigorney

Okay, his true artistic vision was clouded by CGI.

Yeah, they really needed him. Joss Whedon has been openly critical of the film, and 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. They cast it wrong, they designed it wrong, they scored it wrong, and they did everything wrong that they could possibly do.

What a little bitch?

Right?

What a little bitch?

Yeah? Definitely wasn't the script. Joss. A sequel the Resurrection was planned as Wheden has had written an Earth set script for Alien five, and Sigourney Weaver was not interested in the setting, but has remained opening to remained open to reprising her role as Ellen Ripley on the condition that she.

Likes the story good for her, I love her, Yes.

And I believe she has repeated that recently as well, that she would return to the franchise.

Yeah.

More sequels were planned to follow Resurrection, but they're ultimately abandoned as a focus shifted to the crossover series Alien Versus Predator and then later to the prequel film Prometheus. The storylines of Resurrections have been continued in the comic series Aliens Versus Predator, Versus The Terminator, and the books Aliens Original Sin and Alien Sea of Sorrows.

Deep Space Dive. Let's break down some of our thoughts on the film. You can share your thoughts with us through email or social media. We may use your comments on an upcoming episode.

Got any opening thoughts.

It was interesting that when we cut, when we first open the scene, we see basically adolescent nude, like a bald nude, sugordiny weaver in adolescent form.

Yeah, kind of they're.

Growing, Yeah, but they show her like Mont's pubis or whatever, and it's without hair. And then they pull back and she's still there and her hands are across her chest so you can't see her breasts. But they didn't let you see the adult Mont's pubis. How rude. I want to see it fully developed. It's so interesting what Hollywood deems is appropriate and what's not.

Yeah, and then so Charlie, So they cut the alien set out of her and all. And shortly after that, when she's kind of waking up for the first time, she already has a manicure.

A manicure, Yeah, she has her nails done in the sack that they put her in. So they put her in a weird dryer sheet bag and she emerges with her fresh nail set and she rips out of it with her like stiletto like nails. Yeah, And I'm like wow, and like.

Or did they like hack her biology to get for those nails all the time.

Well, it seems that this might be part of her biology then, because previous versions of her had alien like you know, like arms and legs, and they didn't fully develop. So maybe that's like a remnant of the alien because the alien has fierce nails. Yeah, you can't deny it. The bitch has nails and they are shiny and long and dark. And maybe that's kind of like alluding to her like being not of this world anymore. But I thought it was funny because I'm like a fresh set

Yeah, And so it turns out her DNA is crossover with the alien that was inside of her, which verse I don't know that they really explain, like how they got her DNA to Cloner.

I don't know how you can clone her with the thing inside of her right, because that's like a fetus. You can't. If you clone a person, you can't. It's gonna be a human without being inseminated. That's a separate human, that's a separate entity. It lacks a lot of logic here. I think you have to suspend your disbelief or whatever they call it. But they could have just cloned the fucking alien inside of her and left her alone. But they want so Gourney we were in this movie. Yep, they want Mother.

So she's a superhero. Now she's got super strength. She can play basketball, as we can see your skills on the court.

I really wish she would have learned how to do the basketball spin on the finger, but it would have sucked up her mannequre. I think that's why she could have been it for like five seconds. I wanted a good like spin, like like with her middle finger, just spinning that basketball, showing off.

I think if they were going to do that basketball scene, they should have had like a full game there. They should have Sigourney versus like for those guys.

Like a real basketball game. That would have like, I think the basketball took me out of it, like completely, Like it was weird. It was weird. We're in a spaceship and we're playing basketball.

So everything that they trained months for the basketball and the swimming that wasn't your thing, well.

Was none of my things. They could have saved so much money not doing any of that shit. I wanted to talk about how the whole ship is handicap accessible. That is the future I want to live in. This guy could go anywhere in the ship for the most part, yep, because there was elevators everywhere. The only reason they couldn't get to the elevators was because of the dam aliens.

Yeah, and a lot more survivors in this one too.

Yeah. I like that.

I mean, I don't have too many deep thoughts about this one.

Like I really liked Wanona in it. She was classic Wanona with her little pixie cut.

Yeah, she was really good.

She was so good.

And then Sigourney Weaver was definitely playing like, I know, this variation of Ripley that you couldn't really trust, and she.

Was right, you were like wondering seeing.

The world a little differently. And m mmm.

I like that though it was a different character for her. That that's really interesting.

Yeah, Like she just.

Because you have her memories doesn't make her you.

Yeah, and she never really felt like the old Ripley either.

And I'm glad they didn't do that because I feel like that would have been really cheesy and stupid. I like that they made that part of her character like this, Like, but she's so strong compared to Wanona in her other not And that's so emblematic of the relationship older women have with their bodies compared to younger women, Like, older women are more sure and more okay with who they are, whereas younger women are still kind of struggling to find

Yeah, yeah, he does.

So I liked seeing that in this franchise.

Yeah, and there's definitely some like the like the Quippi dialogue that he's known for and all his shows, like that's coming through here. Even if he says like they didn't read his lines right and they played it straighter than they should have or stuff.

I mean, it's a This film franchise is not known for its campiness. No, so when he's bringing camp, you're gonna get pushedback there He's lucky they got as much camp as they did out of the film, because if it was him running the show for real, real, it would have been like them running through the halls with Benny Hill as the background music. Sometimes you got to let go of that artistic vision in order to you know, meet the the ip where it lives.

Yeah. And then he later you created Firefly, which is also about like a group of space mercenaries.

Renegade road going out there rogue.

Yeah. So anyway, enough about him. He's been revealed to be kind of a shit person. So oh okay, I didn't know why known as a robot. Oh yeah, that surprised me. I did not remember that at all.

I was totally caught off guard. Yeah, I was super surprised.

Yeah, because she was playing so emotional and stuff.

Yeah, and then like the exposition about like, oh you're stuck a model year old easy BBB. That was too much.

That guy was just like I was so annoying. Oh, let me explain everything about this. Catch everyone up. Yeah, how'd you feel about seeing all those failed experiments?

Well, I took anatomy and physiology and microbiology and all of these like science classes in my community. College where we had a preserved fetus that had spina bifida and it was like fairly large, like pretty close to like birth, and it reminded me of that, like this preserved life that didn't get to live at all, like just like genetically wrong thing. Well, but it's also like this idea that just because there's something wrong with your genetics, that

That's that's like torture, bro.

You should have just put a bullet in her head or smothered her with a pillow, or choked her or done something else, because the way you did it was just like horrifying. Yes, it was horrifying, and like, I don't know, there was like who knows. Maybe that's the Gourney could have had a very happy and full life if she would have had like a surgery to detach her arm, and she could have used a wheelchair like that guy, like we don't know, she could speak, she

Well, it's like they didn't explore any of that they like that you're talking about, Like they didn't. There's no there's no like message in there really about like the ethics of cloning and about like the value of these lives or anything.

There was nothing. It was very vapid.

It seemed to be emotional for uh Ripley number eight, but she didn't really process out loud anything. So yeah, I don't know. It was just a weird little side step in the movie.

It was a literal side step, a literal like vignette into this other movie that could have happened, and then we're sucked back into the darkness of the alien movie and being stalked by these weird Well they're not really stalked by them in this episode or this movie. They're not because there's like thirteen of them and they're not all rushing to get them.

Yeah, I mean not the extent that they have been in other movies. Right, do they chase them a little bit, there's that underwater chain, but that seemed like it was more of the trap to get them to go up where the eggs are. Yeah, what's this guy's name, General Martin Perez?

Perez. He didn't look like a Perez to me. I've met a lot of Perez in my.

Life, and were they as harry as him?

I cannot say that. I don't know. I don't I cannot speak to that part because I'm not looking for people's body hair. That's not my business.

I mean, you literally were at the beginning.

Of the movie, he was wearing a you know what. It reminded me of Colonel Tye, another military guy wearing a wife, a wife, a tank top and his harry shoulders are out.

Yeah. He brought like a lot of the camp to this.

He did bring a lot of camp.

His death was kind of funny, and I don't know him yelling orders and I'm just seeing his character from Cheers.

That's pretty funny because he's like a dead beat in that show. Yeah, So to see him in a military position. The actor has done a lot, so I can see him in this role. But I feel like they didn't use him to his full range of or capacity, which was it was all right. I don't care about him too much, like I could take him or leiaeve him.

Then there's that one scientist who was making out the glass that was weird.

And that guy, I feel like he's been another stuff too where he's like the same creep. I couldn't tell you what it was, but I feel like I've seen him and other stuff where he's like a creepy creep. Let me see if I can find it.

He's the voice of Chucky.

Yeah, well he played and he played the Chucky guy.

Oh, he is the worm tongue in the Lord of the Ring series.

That's where I've seen his ass. Yeah, he plays Chucky before, like the man before he like possesses the doll Man. He did a lot of fucking chuckies. He won't say no.

Keep those Chucky checks coming. The creature effects and the visual effects in this I think improved from the last movie.

Oh yeah, they were really good. I really enjoyed the creature in this one. I wish we would have gotten a better look at the mom or the mother when she was in the cage, because it was, like, I mean,

Yeah, it seemed like you could have hit out and avoided them in the ship, Like.

Yeah, there was some signs of intelligence when they like sacrificed one of their own to like escape, and I wish they would have continued some of that intelligence. I guess you did see it in the trap, but it just didn't feel as calculated to me as it could have. Like, I don't know, it just they they didn't like this movie is called Alien, and I feel like we didn't get enough Alien. It was mostly like the Sigourney and Winona show. Yeah, with like a very strong hellboy cameo.

Yeah. And then I don't like that they keep like evolving the aliens in their like their design in their well.

You didn't like the cow one from last.

Time, No, I didn't like that change. And then this one goes from being an egg laying species to I.

Think that was the French guy man. I think that was all the French guys. And the way that the birth was portrayed to me was so unsatisfying, because human birth is some of the most like horrifying shit you will ever witness in real life. And part of it is that there is a watermelon sized thing coming out of a lemon sized thing, and there's this tension between the child and the vaginal canal stretching, and you don't get that when homegirls already all loose. Yeah, she's all

All the sign and the worm tongue in there saying that like, oh, childbirth is like a gift that you gave to the alien, and it's like, that's not a gift.

No, it's not that I fucking late. I wish I could lay an egg? Yeah, why didn't? What if we got the egg laying and we just you know, put the little egg in an incubator and then we later check on it, and then we just crack it open. Wouldn't that be nice? I feel like women would rather like hatch an egg that's the size of a chicken egg that grows progressively, or even if it's like the size of your child, as long as you just like let it chill.

Ugh. Yeah, you know, because like Biblically, childbirth is referred to as a punishment. Yeah, yeah, so.

I mean what they call it the women's battle or the woman's war because so many women have lost their lives doing this thing. And the alien did give pain. She was like screaming and hollering and shaken all about, and then she gives birth to this like chucky looking thing. This like they were they trying to make it look cute. I don't know what we're giving kind of like like puppy dog.

Yeah, there's like sympathetic eyes in there, and yeah, just I'm very creepy.

And imagine it with genitals.

You know, maybe uh ripley number eight is able to lay eggs now.

Oh maybe that'd be nice. That'd be real nice.

I'm telling you made that fifth movie that would have been in there.

She's just laying eggs in the corner. But yeah, that final creature just was not giving alien. It was giving like dog, like pet sea monkey. I didn't like it. And then the fact that it murdered its mother, no sympathy for it. However, if if that alien baby was born and then Ripley or somebody else murdered the mother and then caused him distress, I would have felt bad for that thing.

And of course, the way you kill an alien is by venting it into space. Yeah, this time, little pieces at a time.

Yeah, what is it? The vacuum of space was literally vacuuming it out.

What else underwater? I mean I kind of enjoyed that.

I thought it was visually stunning, but.

I think you've had three movies of kind of like Chase movies. Going underwater was a good twist on that.

I was just upset. I didn't like it. I just don't. For me, it didn't make any fucking sense in terms of being in the vacuum of space. Like, I don't know, I was just I didn't like it. It made me upset, But you know, it gave the site illusion of weightlessness that you don't get and it's kind of necessary sometimes when we're talking about space and otherworldly, like it was

Any other thoughts on the film.

I thought it was interesting that they got rid of the company.

Yeah, they're kind of like been two hundred years, that company doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah, I just I thought that was interesting because I thought that was kind of like the perfect bad guy.

Yeah, and that's been the through line with all the movies.

Yeah, so I thought it was really strange to veer away from that. Yeah, So that that was weird because.

They could have easily made this still the company trying to become.

With KIV, like stealing bodies and shit, like their own bodies like saying like, oh, yeah, you're going to go to this mining place, and then all of a sudden, you're not in the mining place. You're in the fucking room where there's a fucking face, sucker in your face. I also thought it was weird that they introduced that guy randomly and he ended up being like, they're saving Grace the miner.

Yeah, that was weird.

They're like, random, dude, he's part of our crew. Now we're gonna save his life. I don't know. The movie felt way longer than it should have to me.

I think it might be the shortest ones of our.

They all feel so long. Why are movies so long? Why can't they wrap it up after an hour and a half.

I mean, those are my ideal movies. What ninety minutes?

Ninety minutes? Is that an hour and a half? Yeah, yeah, sorry, I'm bout at that.

So yeah, I don't know. It's a fun movie. It's weird. I don't really consider it to be Cannon, even if technically it is. Like I'm good with the first couple movies and Romulus.

Astral Queen, who was the standout character in the movie.

You ready for your astral Queen?

Sure?

Who's your favorite character.

I mean, I said I was ready.

I'm going to pick Wanona.

I'm thinking about picking her too.

Just a softy for Wanona.

I mean, I feel like she brought a lot of fresh energy to the movie.

Yeah, and her and Sigourney played really well off of each other, especially in that chapel scene. I really like that.

Yeah, I mean, I'll go with her too. Her name was Annelie Kahl, and I think I mean a lot of the movie, I felt like she was more of the lead than Sigourney.

Yeah.

I liked that they were both alive together at the end. Yeah, kind of go start a new adventure on Earth as two not quite humans. Well, for a long time that was the Alien Quadrilogy for movies, and then eventually Prometheus. King Scott came back to the franchise and said, I'm going to make some prequels and they're going to be more cerebral, thought provoking about the origins of mankind. So Prometheus came out in twenty twelve, and that's the next movie we're going to watch.

When was this one released?

Ninety seven?

Whoa they waited almost a decade.

Yeah, Well, they were doing the alien versus Predator for a couple of years and then I don't those didn't do that great, I don't think.

But their video game was good, right.

I mean they were comics.

At the end of this movie, they were like, play the video game. Seriously, it was in the credits.

Okay, I didn't see that. Well, that wraps it up. We'll go to the spoiler section in case we have anything to say there.

Let's put our living stereo stylus in this group.

Brace for impact spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen the whole film series, now is the time to say goodbye. Remember you can contact us at Spacingoutpod at gmail dot com, find us on social media, share your thoughts and be a part of the discussion. Spoilers in five four three two.

One any spoilers.

The only thing I was thinking was like, did we watched Alien Romulus?

So the idea of the human hybrid is coming into light in Romulus in a way that you have to witness and I don't want to. I know this is the spoiler section, but if you want to hear about it, I would just recommend you listen to the episode where we talk about it in depth.

Yeah, so our episode on Alien Romulus is already out, so you can check that out. But it's interesting to see that they read there's a human alien hybrid thing going on, all right in this movie.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting that they revisit it, but they definitely took a different direction in a way that I really prefer over this cloning shit.

All right, all right, that's all we got.

I haven't seen any of the other ones. It's been so long since I've seen Prometheus, so and it's a prequel, so I feel like, I don't know.

I mean, I have vague memories of Prometheus and Alien Covenant. They're kind of blended together, and I don't know, I remember vibes more than actually what happens in them. So we will be checking those out in the next couple of weeks. Fill then, safe out there, Space Pirates.

Thank you for spacing out with BB and Jason. You can help us out by subscribing and leaving a positive rating or review. Next time, we will cover the twenty to twelve film Prometheus. We hope you will join us