Alien-Ate

Excellent work done by TMBTM here. He couldn’t quite save this movie in my eyes but it’s a heck of a lot better. As far as his editing skills on this I would easily rate 10/10 (watching the doc on your visual effects work was quite fascinating). Sadly, the movie itself is still such a phenomenal snooze-fest, although his unique ending was pretty sweet.

I give it an 8/10. Great execution/editing, but the film isn’t worth watching again.

Year Later Jedit: Upped the A/V and narrative score.

Spoiler maybe:

This is a hard one to review or rate for me. I love most of the changes to the film, but I can’t ignore my intense dislike of the original film. My problems with it are soaked right into the fabric of the film in a way that no edit could wash out completely. TM and I talked several times about the difficulties of editing this film, especially the ending. The original finale is very weak, and the absurdities ruin whatever little good actually was there. TM has made a clever (if potentially controversial) change to the entire last section of the film. I don’t know if it’s better, but it’s certainly bold. And that’s kind of what the film needed, a big bold decision that Fox would almost certainly never have allowed. The film can now properly be the self-contained bastard stepchild of the Alien trilogy that it always was at heart.
Ellen Ripley is dead and gone. Ripley 8′s story starts here, and more importantly it now ends here, as it should be.

I usually rate on my enjoyment level of the film, regardless of other contributing factors like source material and so on. But this time I feel compelled to rate on the more ephemeral reactions I had to the edit. Clever, bold ideas. New effects to tell the changed story. Joy at some of my most hated elements from the original being gone. And in one case, the same kind of in-joke injected approach to editing that I try to do myself. Let’s see how many people spot it.

The film will probably never rate better than a low 6 for me, but I have to give the edit a strong 9 out 10.

P.S. TM, thanks for taking my feedback in the spirit it was intended rather than being insulted by it.

This was definitely a different take on the film and actually quite a great idea.

The editing was good, but unfortunately lacked character development, for the crewmembers.
The audio work was good, and didn’t change in levels too much. Was hardly noticeable.
What you where trying to do here though with Special Effects as well as footage from other films was very impressive, and creative. I can’t really knock ya for trying here, some of the effects where really well done and I know roto-scoping that queen from AvP was a big pain. The only thing I have to say is the colors in the composite where a little off so you could really see on those sequences what you where adding, but it was such a creative and large Endeavour to go about, we can’t really knock ya for attempting FX of these levels.

Very well done and definitely a creative take on Alien 4 which was a pretty horrible movie to begin with.

I would love to see an edit that does away with the whole Flesh Alien thing.

though alien 3 wasn't perfect it was a fitting end to ripley, unfortunately a film studio can never leave a franchise be and so ripley is now back from the dead. with alien 4 were in friday the 13th territory the franchise doesn't offer us anything new, the aliens are less scary. you could call this alien 4: a new chapter luckily this is were the sequels ended but unfortunately for us the alien films would continue with the AVP films and would get even worse.

it's always interesting when a editor takes a film that most of the fans consider to be a poor entry in the franchise and look to improve the film. and on a whole this edit succeeds in doing so though i won't get carried away by saying the edit can now stand alongside parts 1 and 2.

as others as mentioned the cuts made are on the whole flaws i did feel they were one or two moments in which the cuts were obvious but nothing to spoil my enjoyment. this is the second time i've seen the edit and when i first saw it the new ending past me by. so seeing it again i knew what to except. it's really well done but i don't think it improves the film, but it's certainly a really good alternative whenever you wish to return to the film.

for me we the audience don't know which side ripley is on at the start. this is obviously a new ripley to what we've seen before but as the film progresses i felt ripley more human side was starting to take over. with this version she openly gives herself up (as with the original) to seemingly become a monster to which she seeks to kill the crew that she's been helping to stay alive. as i said i think this is nicely done but i'd prefer to watch the cuts made with the original ending

i also don't fully understand why the footage from AVP was used, couldn't ripley have gone into the womb of alien queen from part 4 then be reborn and kill the queen? again it's nicely executed but i come away thinking why was it played out in this way (note it has been a while since i saw alien 4) because it's now ripley killing the queen alien and as i mentioned she's now seeking to kill the remaining survivors i'm left feeling a little confused regarding the character of ripley

overall this is what i'd expect from a TBTM edit technically it's of a very high standard with an ending that you either love or hate. i think the cuts improve the film up until the ending, though nicely done i say i prefer how the original played out.

By only looking at the other reviews have I only found out that Ripley was the Alien Hybrid creature, so unfortunately I don't think the narrative at the end was clear enough. But that was my own honest experience, as watching Call shouting for Ripley left me completely confused.

Otherwise the edit is brilliant as the cuts and audio are flawless and by watching it (apart from the end) you would think it was the proper cut of the film. I think removing some snippets of the film was a good idea such as removing the scene where Call originally opens the door from the other side as in the original film it feels a bit dull because we hardly sympathise with the character at all throughout...if anything, Call is a bit of a brat and gets in the way, so I'm glad you trimmed her down throughout. Another part I seem to remember being removed was when the general looked at a piece of his brain when he's been killed by the Alien, yeah, that definitely had to go. I think you may have shortened the swimming scenes, which helped with the suspense.

Personally I think you could have removed the Alien Hybrid altogether....yes, it would have been slightly anti-climatic, but it would have shortened and improved the film somewhat. I think we all hate that stupid Hybrid and for the Alien Queen to be so soft and go unguarded just didn't make sense for me in the original film. Perhaps that could be a future edit for someone to do?