Entry posted by Jean Valjean
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They're both so perfect. One is the perfect horror movie, and the other is the perfect action movie, which also manages to stay pretty horrifying at many times. Aliens is one of those movies that is in contention for being the best sequel of all time, because it's so good. I love how it evolves Ripley.
Both films manage to do something incredible. I think that one of the hardest things to ever do is to come up with a legitimately scary horror movie that gives you nightmares. Alien is arguably the only horror movie to do that. Although personally, I actually find Aliens to be even scarier. Aliens managed to do something almost just as rare, to come up with an action movie that had just the right amount of acting, just the right acting, just the right effects, just the right tone, just the right music, just the right cinematography, just the right editing. You do a side-by-side comparison with other actions films, and you'll see that others simply don't nail the style that James Cameron somehow perfected so early on in his career. He managed to master the feel without even being stylized, which is what really impresses me. Alien is a work of art, but it's stylized, and I think that sometimes it's a little bit easier to great a magnificent work of art that's distinguished from everything else if you stylize it a bit.
For those reasons, I used to prefer Aliens. However, I've noticed that I actually tend to watch the original Alien more, and just appreciate the film making that went into it. It's interesting to think that it was actually Ridley Scott's second film, and his first to gain any recognition, so he wasn't a prestigious director at the time. I also just love the original H.R. Giger design of the alien. It's just so entrancing compared to the aliens in Aliens. It's also so mysterious, and if you ignore Prometheus and Covenant, you can marvel in the additional horror of how little you know about it, how mysterious it is, and get a tingle from the theme that there are some places, far enough out in space, where man simply isn't meant to go. There's an element of H.P. Lovecraft cosmic horror to that. I think that that's why it's my favorite.
But I still love Aliens. The queen is simply so good, and like everyone else my heart melts for Newt.
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