I guess they don't leave out the boarding school bit then. Nice.

took forever for anything to happen and when it did? eh.

It takes even longer for anything to happen in Aliens !

Aliens is by far my favorite. amazing cast and great dialogue along with some awesome explosions! who could ask for more?

APPARENTLY ME. I AM AS SURPRISED AS YOU. Also, I completely forgot Paul Reiser was in that movie. Also, great dialogue?

Aliens is great sci fi action, but Alien is great and innovative sci fi horror.

Exactly. Guess I'm giving points for innovation.

by great dialogue i obviously mean great one-liners and quips. plus, Alien doesn't have Vazquez so it automatically loses 1,000,000,000 awesome points.

by great dialogue i obviously mean great one-liners and quips.

Oh, it's definitely more quotable. I smiled at the "Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" bit because I had thought that was from Aliens, but I didn't remember it.

One thing that unfortunately hindered my viewing experience was that the DVD started skipping during the first alien attack. Everything was crazy and they were coming out of the goddamn walls, man, and Ripley took charge and BZZRRRTTTT grrraaargh. The next ten minutes were toast, and I spent like half an hour trying to find the movie online so I could watch them correctly, which sort of killed the momentum I had just been appreciating.

I was amused at how even though both movies felt so different, they also feel similar. Cameron uses some similar shots of empty spaces to acquaint you with the environment, and he pulls the exact same trick of "Oh good we escaped in our ship and blew up the alien OH SHIT IT HITCHED A RIDE AAAAHHH." Not to mention the fact that Weyland-Yutani are assholes.

Michael Biehn had a pretty good time with James Cameron in the '80s, huh. Way to have major roles in two classic sci-fi franchises, dude.

Another weird note: apparently the scene where Hicks and Ripley exchange first names is only in the Special Edition? So did people who saw the first two movies when they came out know her first name? Was it in the credits, or did they refer to her as Ellen outside of the film?

Alien doesn't have Vazquez so it automatically loses 1,000,000,000 awesome points

Vazquez is cool and shit, but Alien has Ripley. And she set a standard for the female action hero that most people don't miss even today. She's just...a chick and an awesome dominating hero. She's not macho or teetering about on high heels, she's just kicking ass and taking names. She's an early indication that being a hero doesn't have to say anything about how butch or femme you are. It's just what choices you make and what you accomplish.

Michell Rodriguez has made a career off of updating Vazquez (and I'm irritated they're both Hispanic, like the audience needs the ethnicity for some strange reason--I got into a weird argument online with a woman who said you could only really be a crazy-cool badass action heroine if you were Latina. WTF? Who knew that was coming?), but way too few people have been following in Ripley's path.

Vazquez is cool and shit, but Alien has Ripley

To be fair, so does Aliens. And I think she's a more interesting, developed character in Aliens.

And she set a standard for the female action hero that most people don't miss even today. She's just...a chick and an awesome dominating hero.

I'm with you on this one. I was surprised by how it was never really a thing at ALL that she was a woman (given that she was supposed to be a dude initially, that makes sense). And also that she was not necessarily SUPER BADASS. She felt like a strong female character, not a Strong Female Character. Nowadays, it seems that in order to be a female action hero, you have to be able to punch everyone in the face and shoot lots of guns while wearing hot dresses. Not that I MIND that, but you're right about how Ripley is different.

To be fair, so does Aliens

Unremarkably, so do Alien 3 and 4.

However, I rank the introduction of Ripley in Alien as way more satisfying to me than the subsequent introduction or continued appearance of any character in the series. First seeing Ripley trumps meeting Vasquez in my books.

And she was more different in Alien from the pack than she was in Aliens, which is why I like as I do. Aliens gave more room to flesh her out, but her appearance in Alien worked for me partially because she wasn't as fleshed out. I mean, she wasn't explained. This was an extraordinary situation, sure, but it's not as big a deal yet that she be the one that hauls their asses out of the fire. It's not going against anyone's expectations but ours. By Aliens, we already know how cool she is.

I mean, she wasn't explained. This was an extraordinary situation, sure, but it's not as big a deal yet that she be the one that hauls their asses out of the fire.

I agree; that was very cool.

To radically change the topic, for some reason I am watching Just Married with Brittany Murphy and Ashton Kutcher.

It's amazingly awful. Offensively so. They make light of rape and spousal abuse (but it happens to Ashton's character! So who cares? Men are barely even federally rapable!) and everyone's pretty horrible.

Christian Kane is in it, and he plays a wuss and a ponce. Knowing how personally he seems to take his roles, this must have chapped his ass.

For some reason (free Showtime On Demand this weekend), I am watching Blue Valentine, and man, that was a bad choice. I mean, it's a good movie, but I have a party to go to later, and now I feel bleak.