Dear George Lucas,
Watch AVP. From that, learn the right way to ‘foreshadow’ events in ‘later’ movies that you’ve already filmed; you’re doing it wrong.
A coworker won some free tickets to a Thursday night screening of AVP, couldn’t go, and gave me the tickets. I wasn’t actually planning on going to the film in theatres, but hey, free tickets.
Very very glad I went (with Dave, which Jackie arranged by… well, Dave retells it all over here).
Might even go again. It was fun.
I’ve always enjoyed the Alien movie franchise in all of it’s incarnations — it’s the sort of thing that just suits me, I guess. I think that AVP makes a fine addition to the list, being much more ‘fun’ than Alien3, with a better ending than Alien Ressurection (though I like that movie’s first 2/3rds perhaps a bit better), and with some really great homages to Alien, Aliens, and both Predator movies.
I went in with only moderate to low expectations, having no real interest in the concept for the movie and left feeling like I’d had a good time.
Very very vague spoilerishness ahead.
Stuff I liked:
* Excellent echoes of some ‘bits’ and scenes from other movies — the briefing of the crew in the big cargo bay, Lance Henriksen’s bit with the finger-space pen tap, the mining crew, the name of the polar ice-breaking ship, and even a line here and there, but twisted, flipped and turned on its head… great stuff.
* Tying in the ‘mythology’ of both franchises really well — the tribal influence and ties to ancient cultures with the Predators was particularly unexpected and worked really well.
* A good story, quite well executed.
* The unexpected things where ‘this’ is foreshadowed clearly and ‘this’ is not REMOTELY what happens.
* The Predators. Total badasses.
* The Pyramid — great set, great idea, really well done.
* A lot of spoilery stuff I won’t get into.
I wish:
* It had been longer. The movie does what it does very well, considering that it’s not a smidge over 90 minutes… I want a director’s cut DVD with about 20 or 30 minutes more footage. Really, it deserves it. That said, the cutting on this thing to make it all fit in 90 minutes shows off some serious editing kung-fu.
* I hadn’t been sitting in the third row of seats.
I think:
* That Dave’s right about the main archeologist — kind of an exposition machine.
* That the green screen work had been a skosh cleaner in places.
All in all, I recommend this movie as follows — I would have felt my money well spent if I’d paid nighttime prices for the tickets, and would certainly go again on a Matinee. Take what you know of my preferences and draw your own conclusions.
My actual review is here. Though it’s pretty spoilery — the brief synopsis is visible on my main page.
I think I nitpicked away at it more than you, though I certainly don’t regret the investment in time or gasoline, and am indeed looking forward to the Extended Edition DVD. Don’t expect I’ll go back and see it in the theaters, though.
Thank Jackie for the invite. :-)
It was all right. It started off better than it finished. Or middled. But it was fun to watch.
Did y’all catch the X-Files in-joke? The ship was named Piper Maru, after the ship that first found the black oil in an episode of the same name. The Piper Maru was named after Gillian Anderson’s daughter. Yes, I am a huge dork.