OMG, when will Hollywood get a clue?! (Or, Aliens sucked.)

Alright, I am going to lead with this: don't go see the new alien movie. If you have to see it, wait to pirate it. YES, really, I am endorsing theft. I am hopeful that when Hollywood starts losing money, they will be forced to come up with better scripts. Granted, I should have known better to see this movie. I mean, ever since Cameron gave us 'Aliens' the studios have tried to milk the Alien franchise for all its worth, and every subsequent movie since has just been absolute garbage, and I have seen every single one, thinking, oh, 'well, this next one can't be as bad as the last one...' OMG. It can! It is. And I don’t understand why?! When will Hollywood executives wake up and discern bad from horrid? I am still upset Firefly only got one season, and that was good writing, but if they cancel good writing, why isn’t quality control catching this and blocking? Better, why don’t actors and actresses say “No, this script sucks. Call my agent when you hire a real writer, who has actually watched Aliens and any other Cameron film!” 

 

Why did I see it? I saw the trailer. I believe the trailer was completely misleading. I am certain there were things in the trailer not in the movie. The trailer had a very different feel. They even used a sample of the John Denver song in the trailer, and didn’t use it in the movie. (Did Denver’s people say you can’t use it until you come up with a good script?) The movie did try to suggest it was in there with this ‘garbled communique’ but I couldn’t tease out the medoldy, where one of the characters supposedly could because he is a country boy and knows his songs!? I was born in Texas and my dad was country and I was a music major, and my spider sense goes off if I even hear two notes in a trailer borrowed from another movie, and I am telling you, I didn’t hear it, but for just that scene… I could suspend disbelief and say, they were hearing things on set that I couldn’t in the theatre.

 

But let’s go back to where the movies started going south. Opening scene, dialogue between artificial intelligence and human. It’s rehashed existential question which added nothing to the idea. Beautiful room. Okay outfits. I decided to accept. Jump to next scene, we have an external view of a spaceship, no apparent solar system nearby. All the engines are lit up, suggesting its moving. (That what thruster engines do, right? Moves you through space?) Internal shot, android (our friend artificial intelligence?) is going through what looks like a daily routine of checking systems with the onboard computer “mother” which is probably also artificially intelligent. Why then, would ‘mother’ need to ask ‘android’ for permission to unfurl solar sails, or have android push a button to make it happen? “Mother” should be able to do that all on her own. In fact, ‘Mother’ claims she needs the sails put out to collect energy. WHAT?! There were at least three active engines! Those are power plants. You need solar cells/sails? When you have active power plant? More on that, there is dialogue that suggest they are making jumps, and the whole journey is taking like over seven years. So, why run the engines at all? You probably don’t have the fuel to go seven years of continuous burn. There is no other contextual evidence that they have hyper drives and are making interdimensional jumps. Where is the continuity director and why isn’t he killing this badly written tech babble?

 

At this point, I leaned over to my friend, who I dragged at gun point to see it with me, and asked, “WHY? Do they need a plot contrivance to show off tech to make the movie look like it’s going somewhere when it is not, or do they require a subcontext for damaging the ship?”

 

Guess what happens next. Stellar explosion hits the sails and wrecks the ship. OMG. Please tell me I am not going to predict this entire movie! To add insult to injury, there is contrived dialogue about who is at fault for a stellar event. No really. The new captain in command wants an explanation for a supernovae. Umm, Sir, did you not take astronomy course before you were given your stellar-pilot’s license. The android points out the randomness of such events, but then says, “I can’t be held responsible for solar flares.” A supernovae is not a solar flare. OMG! Who is writing this? A high school student?

 

And the tech babble only gets worse from here. Every piece of equipment fails to operate as designed and there is a stupid, inaccurate explanation for why and how to fix it and nothing ever gets fixed, but nothing ever seems as bad as they make it. Like the ‘communication failure.’ Was it the storm? Or was it the equipment? Was it both? And yet, they continued to hold full conversations during this supposed communication block?

 

Oh, and before I jump ahead, why is the acting captain and the first officer on the same drop ship when they knew it was risky to go down before they dropped?! You don’t put both commanding officers in the same boat, so to speak. Someone has to stay and watch the ship, because ‘mother’ isn’t going to protect them. (Well, she does try to block a dangerous thing from happening, but then refused to block bad android from harming the crew and colonist.) And when the real captain was burning in is sleep pod, and they were trying to open it… I got really confused. One, given the intensity of that fire, do you want to open it and expose flames to more oxygen? Given how small the sleeping capsule is, why didn’t the flames extinguish due to no air? It had air supply? Okay turn off the damn air to the pod! No more fire, then resuscitate your man. Just saying. Basic firefighting knowledge works in space, too.

 

Can you tell I am bit sore? Alright, first guy to get infected says he is going to go ‘relieve’ himself, but what he really wanted was a smoke. Maybe that should get a pass. I didn’t see any no smoking signs on the ship, but I bet, ‘staying together’ means staying together. Anyway, fast forwards. The crew get their butts handed to them by the precursor aliens. No, really. Multiple deaths, their drop ships gets blown up, and out of nowhere, first android with long hair arrives to save day. He all but said, “If you want to live, follow me.” I am like, why does the android have long hair? If it has biology, doesn’t that mean it’s susceptible to the same bioweapons that make the aliens? Just saying. And, now, all of a sudden, it cuts its hair so it can resemble its brother? No foreshadowing there, eh. Anyway, bad android goes off, good android goes to find it. And one of the girls says “I need to go freshen up.” 

 

REALLY! Got a hot date? You just got your asses kicked and you are going off alone? OMG. Given what they just face, they should be sufficiently intelligent to know they aren’t safe. I mean, I presume we don’t pick morons to be in control of ships designed to spread humanity throughout the galaxy. Here is a line that would have worked for me: “I got to pee. I want you, you, and you, to come with me and you can watch me wipe, but I am not going alone.” That would have been smart and funny. You know why Cameron’s movie was successful? It was scary and funny. “Why don’t you out her in charge then.” That was funny.

 

Okay, this next bit is disturbing. It creeped me out. There should be all kinds of riotous noise coming from the LGBTQ2A community, but since they’re not, let me. The pipe scene was gay. Not gay, like not heterosexual, and definitely not happy gay, but bad gay. Creepy, bad. And badly constructed. It was as if a heterosexual who hates gays and was looking for a reason to make an evil gay scene and force it down our throats kind of creepy. The scene with the pipe and the helping each other finger it, OMG. Stupid. The lines didn’t even go with it. So I said to my friend, “What is this? Bad android is either going to kiss his new version of self, or ram the pipe down his throat.” And, doesn’t good robot have any boundaries? Guess what, not at that moment, but bad android kisses good android and then rams flute down good androids neck. OMG. And it was not even a good kiss. There are lots of good kiss scenes for LGBTQ2A audiences, and I like those scenes, but this was not that and should not have been in the movie. This felt like an agenda, like someone pushing something, the same way the remake of willy wonka was pushing something not right.

 

Okay, back to the other group. “She has been gone a long time” You think?! You’re now th captain why did you let go alone in the first place, you moron. So, Captain goes in search of missing girl and finds bad android talking to alien that killed the missing girl! Captain kills alien. Robot throws a hiss fit. Captain threatens android? Really? It’s a machine. Cap it! Be done with it. What? You’re going to follow it back? Even with all the evidence in plain sight captain willingly goes and looks into an egg, even as it opens for him. Look closer. And then is surprised an alien face hugger is on him. This is horrid writing. This is not scary. This is bad. Bad bad bad.

 

Did you see the new Guardians. There is a scene in that movie where the spaceship is crashing through a forest, presumably a 100 mph, but lets just say very fast, with a character trailing the ship on a tether bouncing off trees and lives to laugh about it. I didn’t like that scene. I could, however, step back and say, oh, Guardian is a comic strip made into a movie, give them some leeway. I tell you that so you can understand when in the same kind of seen, first officer is hanging from a tether trying to kill the alien that was underneath the ship, and she is being swung under the engines that have open flames of thrust, and the ship drags itself across the top of several structures, and she comes out unscathed. I cannot in good conscious give that scene a pass.

 

The movie continues to get worse, predictably, stupidly, awfully worse. And you know for a fact that bad android is now on the ship. And there is some evidence the crew were suspicious. But it has a simple solution. Good android would understand if the crew says, “We need you to power off and let us dissemble you.” That’s called duty. It would be the appropriate action given the circumstances. Bad robot, of course, would find some peculiar diatribe to explain that is a bad idea, and then maybe, maybe you could get some movement forwards with a descent plot line, but not enough to sell this movie.

 

Now that I have written this, I am hoping I can let it go, but I have a bad taste in my mouth. I am having flashback to bad, bad scenes. Do award PTSD to movie victims? Why can’t we just get Cameron to come in and fix this problem? Really. Pay him whatever he wants. Let him make everything after his movie a dream sequence. HOLLYWOOD! I am tired of bad movies. And I am tired of all the remakes you push because you have outsourced everything, your common sense, your soul, your writers. Actors and Actresses! Stand up for yourselves. You should have a say in the product you’re participating in. Weaver, you definitely have clout and could have rejected 3 and 4. I imagine, in hind sight, your fans would have supported that with a letter campaign. Remember when HOLLYWOOD redid “The Poseidon Adventure?” They killed or eliminated Gene Hackman’s character. Gene’s character was the most crucial element for plot movement in that movie. You can’t do that movie without Gene’s character! He was essential. He was air! He was a maverick preacher who had vision and compassion and stood out as holding common sense. A movie without him, is a boat without a rudder. No moral compass. And I am not pressing morals, per say, but Cameron has it, and that’s why his movies stand out as something significant. This alien movie seemed as if it was written by some bitter, anti-moralists trying to shove something down society’s throat and not even having a good point, but the really sad part is, a lot of people signed on board for it, it wouldn’t exist without a lot of help, and it got through filter after filter established for blocking bad movies and wasting studio money. How many bad aliens movies, that never make budget, are going to get pushed through before you guys get a clue?

 

Signed, angry movie fan.