Alien-Ate

TMBTM, I could kiss you flat on the mouth for this! Alien is my favorite movie of all time, and the whole original trilogy means a lot to me, but Resurrection is a blight on this series. Because I'm such a fan of the rest of them, though, I keep compulsively watching it, and it gets worse every time. With your edit, you have finally given me a version of Alien 4 that I can enjoy. You cut every single thing I was hoping you would. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. God bless you. The basketball scene, while still in the movie, plays like the small character-building scene that it should be instead of a forced set-piece. The aliens no longer have an argument among themselves before breaking out of their cell (My understanding is that they have a hive mind, so this never made any sense and made them feel more like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park). Poor, miscast Dan Hedaya is barely in the thing! The color correction, toned-down music, and less frenetic cutting amps the tension significantly. The SFX work is terrific and subtle (when it needs to be). Everything was just spot-on.

And that ending! WOW! Kudos for going with this bold choice. It works so much better that the theatrical ending that I really feel like the way you re-worked it should have been the way it played in the first place. You nailed it.

This review is gonna be harsh, but I'm not going to blame the editor for this. Okay, I'll blame him for the ending, as it somehow managed to accomplish the impossible task of being even more ludicrous than the original. But with that exception, I'm not gonna blame TMBTM. He did what he could to try and fix this film. It's still bad, but it's not "as" bad. It's mediocre.

The reconstruction of the first act is fantastic. I'm not sure how TMBTM did it, because it conveys most of the same information that the original cut did, and yet it made the characters more interesting. I guess it goes to show that timing is everything.

Unfortunately, the rest of the edit goes in a downward slope after that strong beginning. There are still plenty of scenes that make no sense, and I'm not sure if it's even possible to cut them out. The underwater sequence is the scene that bothers me the most. In that one sequence, we get two poorly done character deaths, Christie's ridiculous geometric shooting skills, and a nonsensical plot twist revolving around Call. And while I respect the fixing of one of those deaths, it still doesn't change the other three problems.

The fact is that this is an edit of Alien: Resurrection. It's still going to be flawed. If you choose to watch this, keep your mind wide open. It's still nothing when compared to the first two Alien movies, but if all you want is a less cringy version of A:R, then give it a watch. Just don't expect Citizen Kane. You're bound to be disappointed if you do.

9 out of 10.
I’m probably in a minority that never hated the original version of Alien Resurrection, but I have to admit to never actually missing any of the footage TMBTM excised to create this fan edit. I also found the change of direction at the finale to feel completely natural, and I didn’t notice where there were new fx added until I watched the featurette. I’m impressed. The film moves along at a much faster pace now but never feels like there’s anything missing, there’s no obvious jarring video or audio edits, to my eyes, drawing your attention to themselves, and as much as I liked the surreal touches in the original, I never felt like they were missed. I watched the AVI and would say the video and audio quality was as good as the format can deliver, so no disappointments there. I liked this fanedit a lot. It won’t replace my original version but it’ll probably get watched as much, if not maybe a little more

As with all TMBTM films the visual and audio editing are flawless. Unless you know what has been cut you'll never notice something is missing. Picture quality is what's to be expected from DVD quality.

As for the narrative and enjoyment I'm a little torn. I'm not a fan of the original by any means, and anything that helps strengthen the story is a win. But, as TM2YC pointed out, by cutting out the more ridiculous things only highlights how nonsensical it all is. There were also a few instances where the pacing felt just a tad rushed.

The big change was the ending. While I see what TMBTM was going for it just didn't work for me. Maybe it was fine for others, but I just couldn't buy what happened to Ripley. I don't want to spoil it for others so I'll leave it at that.

Is the edit worth your time? Definitely. While not perfect it is better than the original. I think that this is just one of those films that is impossible to fix in a satisfactory way due to the how the original film was put together.

The Alien series is one of my favourite series of all time but unfortunately Resurrection was only ever an ok movie to me. I'm such a fan of the rest of them and I know just how good they can be so I had to check out your edit, you have finally given me a version of Alien 4 that I can enjoy and that is now a worthy addition to the Alien series. You cut out all the unnecessary scenes and dialogue which helps speed up the pace of the movie, also the color correction, toned-down music and the SFX work is excellent and wouldn't be noticeable to anyone that hasn't seen the original. I also found the change of direction at the finale to feel completely natural and again wouldn't be a noticeable edit to a first time viewer. So thank you Jerick for making Alien 4 into how it should have been and a worthy addition to the Alien series.