Movies - Alien: Resurrection

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	Movies - Alien: Resurrection

Alien: Resurrection (1997) is the fourth film in the Alien series, preceded by Alien
, Aliens
and Alien³
.

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 alien queen embryo that was inside her from Alien³. It is not explained exactly how the alien's DNA would have been mixed with Ripley's in order to allow this to take place, but it is assumed that Ripley and alien DNA was mixed because Ripley had the Queen inside of her during her entire stay on Fiorina. 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.

A new capacity of the aliens is revealed in this film, being their ability to transfer memory genetically. It is this capacity that lets resurrected Ripley 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 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.

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, who is now part alien, teams up with the freelancers to help destroy the ship before it reaches home base, Earth.

Trivia

The film opened on November 26, 1997.

Winona Ryder won the Blockbuster Entertainment award for her role in the film. In spite of this, the film is considered the least successful in the series, being poorly received by many fans and critics. It grossed only around forty-five million at the U.S. box office.

In regard to the movie itself, several references to the past movies are botched, to the disappointment of some fans- in particular, Fiorina 161 (the location of the Alien 3 movie) is referred to as "Fiori 16", Weyland-Yutani (the megacorporation involved with the capture of the Xenomorphs) is called "Weyland-Utonic", and Ripley's I.D. number has been changed. The novelization, written by A.C. Crispin, provides corrections to these mistakes and further insight which shows the thought process of the aliens and shows them to be considerably intelligent animals, and also quotes several lines from past movies.

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 in the second movie was actually put together by someone else entirely.

In the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy
DVD box set, Jeunet included an alternative version of the film with extended opening and closing scenes, referances to the character Newt from Aliens and extended dialogue between Call and Ripley's clone in the chapel scene. Many fans state the latter two additions should have been in the final cut. Especialy the line "I'm not afraid to dream anymore. 'Cause when I wake up its always worse".

On Quadrilogy you can see how the basket ball scene with Ripley, who is meeting the other characters in the movie for the first time while shooting some hoops on a basket ball court, was recorded. In the movie you see Ripley slowly walking away from the basket while holding the basket ball. With her back against it she throws the ball over her shoulders and hits the basket right in the center ("swish"). Seeing this scene, it is hard to believe that no special effects or crafty editing was used by director Jeunet. Sigourney Weaver, training for months on this particular shot, committed herself to do the scene for real. Jeunet, afraid of being on the set for a very long time doing take after take, tried to talk her out of it, saying he could edit the frames to make the whole throwing sequence. Weaver insisted on doing the shot. Of course she did it, throwing an incredible shot, on her very first attempt, leaving the co-actors, who expected to be there for quite some time, in complete astonishment. Some actors were even briefly 'out of character', posing additionial editing problems for Jeunet. Again, director Jeunet, was worried about the editing of this incredible sequence, but this time his problem was how he would make it believable to the audience that the whole sequence was done in real time with no fabrications.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Alien: Resurrection ]

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