VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[LaGoosh]

2134 for me.

I love the first act of 1, especially the space ship exploration/space jockey stuff and the initial mystery of the facehugger. However the third act of Aliens, basically everything from the facehuggers/Ripley & Newt attack onwards is basically as good as cinema gets for me. Pure action, thrills, scares and adrenaline. Simply unbeatable.

3 is an interesting one because it feels so different from the first 2. It's brutal, grim and depressing. It feels like a German or Russian art film a times.  But it's also pretty boring and lacks any real excitement or tension. I think killing off Hicks and Newt is a pretty horrendous way to start the film. You basically lose the audience before the film has even got going. I will give them credit for going in such a different direction though.

4 is just awful. Clone alien Ripley playing basketball? Get the fuck outta' here.

I haven't seen Covenant or Romulus. Prometheus is a beautiful movie to look at it but story wise it's a mess, filled with complete idiots being dull.

Edited September 4, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Devon Malcolm]

Aliens was my favourite film of all time for donkeys' years until it was recently replaced by The Nice Guys. It's just the complete Hollywood film and still one of the rare examples of a sequel going in a notably different genre direction to an original to success degrees.

The director's cut is my favourite version as well. It doesn't have anything necessarily essential to the story in it but the bits that are added are really good.

[Chest Rockwell]

I am pretty sure it was you that got me to watch Aliens. I loved it, but still haven't bothered to watch any of the other ones. Guess I better get around to watching The Nice Guys then, huh?

[LaGoosh]

22 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The director's cut is my favourite version as well. It doesn't have anything necessarily essential to the story in it but the bits that are added are really good.

I hate the scene where Hicks and Ripley share first names so much. I like the bits with Newt's family at the start though. But generally, I tend to think theatrical cuts are usually better than the director's cuts and if anyone hasn't seen Aliens I would recommend the theatrical cut first. 

[Merzbow]

The one cut to stay away from is the latest 4K mess, Cameron loves his AI upscaling that still just doesn't work well.

[Devon Malcolm]

6 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I hate the scene where Hicks and Ripley share first names so much.

In fairness, yeah, I'm not that keen on that scene either but I can at least see the logic of it.

And if we're talking about rare cases where director's cuts are superior to originals, Blade Runner is the shining example of that, getting rid of that awful voiceover.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

The most controversial different cut of a film for me is Legend (Tom cruise, not hardy) I think i prefer the European cut but the fact that there's two completely different soundracks means you could never make one perfect version.

The worst director's cut is the Warriors

[WeeAl]

20 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Been on an Alien binge and my new and correct rankings are:

3 > 1 > 4 > 2

I don't know if it was because it was "The Assembly Cut ' or anything but I adored almost everything about 3, the cast is outstanding and the grim hopeless atmosphere just pulled me right in. Adding back in most of the religious elements was a great idea, I'd kill the a legit Fincher cut but it seems like he hates everything about his time dealing with execs etc and has shut down all talk about the film.

Who let this madman in? 

I'm no huge lover of the franchise or anything like that, I would say I've seen Alien and Aliens twice and all the others once. But Alien/Aliens are two genuinely great movies.

From my memory, the rest (3 right through all the variations thereafter) range from mediocre at best, to dog shit at worst. Of the first 4, the third installment is the one I disliked the most. 

I'd go 2-1-4-3. 

I haven't seen the most recent one. Romulus, is it? But Prometheus, Covenant, etc provided nothing to make me want to watch the latest release. 

[LaGoosh]

29 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The worst director's cut is the Warriors

Genuinely a crime against cinema. 

I think the term "directors cut" is usually misused and just means the original film with some deleted scenes put back in rather than genuine creative re-imagining or "fixing". There's the few exceptions like Blade Runner or the Donner cut of Superman 2 where the film is dramatically changed but for the most part they are worse than the original cuts. Also you get some unclear ones like The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen which isn't a directors cut but the additional 10 minutes of scenes (which were cut by Friedkin) massively improve the film and change the tone of the ending. The weirdest was the 30th anniversary cut of Night of the Living Dead which had brand new scenes filmed years later (with no involvement from Romero) inserted in and they were completely mental and made no sense.

I've heard some people recommend to first time viewers to watch the extended editions of Lord of the Rings rather than the theatrical cuts and that's fucking insane to me. Scenes are usually cut for pretty good reasons! The additional scenes are a fun addition for collectors but a lot of them are boring and go nowhere.

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Chest Rockwell]

Donner cut of superman 2 would be definitely better but the world spinning backwards stuff ruins it. Warriors one is indeed a total abomination.

[Devon Malcolm]

46 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The worst director's cut is the Warriors

Walter Hill is one of my favourite directors of all time but he's out of his mind thinking that version is better, as is anyone else.

[Carbomb]

31 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Donner cut of superman 2 would be definitely better but the world spinning backwards stuff ruins it. Warriors one is indeed a total abomination.

That's the first Superman, no? 

[gmoney]

It's in the Donner cut as well. I think the 'Donner cut' is not worthwhile, to be honest. Maybe if it'd been released at the time, but it's a diverting 'what if' I suppose. Superman II is already excellent anyway. 

[Carbomb]

Ah, I see. I don't think I've ever seen any other versions of Superman II than the original. Glad I didn't now. Never liked the world-spinning thing, and II is for me the best Superman film ever.

Anyway, don't want to incur Devon's wrath, so my contribution is that I have a love-hate relationship with the opening sequence of the extended TV edit of Lynch's Dune - am always a junkie for more stories, and I like the craggy-voiced, 80s-style narrrator, but I feel like the original film felt a bit "sleeker" without it. Sometimes it's best just to trust that the audience is happy to go along with what's put in front of them instead of being spoonfed.

[Merzbow]

I'd say you should probably expect most people to have read the book because Dune was massive around then wasn't it? But then David didn't even read them himself.