Poll
32%
45%
11%
13%
Alien 3, for its artistry and heavy metaphors. I really liked the scene where as Newt and Hicks were cremated, the alien was simultaneously being born. Great parallelism. I tried to like Aliens, but the problem is that it lessens the impact the alien has, except of course for the queen. In the first movie it was one single alien that took down the whole crew, but in Aliens they were wiped out left and right very easily, almost like an after-effect. I was glad to see in Alien 3 the terror that one single alien can do was brought back again.
The sequels are a curious thing. Because each was made so many years apart - 7, 6 & 5 years respectfully - there was a wholesale change in creative teams, apart from the producers. Heck, even the four different directors were of different nationality: Ridley Scott (British), James Cameron (Canadian), David Fincher (American), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (French)
Each one is unique and has strengths. I would consider Aliens the best sequel. But for me, the original is still the best of all. It set the mold, the look. We were discovering it all for the first time - jumping back in our seats because we didn't know where it was going. The Egg. The Facehugger. The Chestburster. And the Alien fully grown, which looked like every child's nightmare brought to life. It was so scary to look at, for several years the studio didn't even release pictures of it, letting people's imaginations do it for them.
And also because the first film, by Ridley Scott, followed the Alfred Hitchcock rule of what makes great terror: Less is More. ( It also worked for the first Jaws film) The Alien was given such short glimpses in the dark, making our minds work overtime. Because what it planted in our minds can be even more frightning than what is on the screen. It has the best claustrophobia - remember how Ripley is forced to go through the same hallway where the Alien is, to get off the ship only minutes from self-destruct?
Everything after that, the filmmakers couldn't duplicate the same scare. You could even say nothing new was added, expect perhaps the Queen Mother. They could only make it bigger, with lots more guns and explosions. By the time of Alien: Ressurection, the creatures were running around in brightly lit areas like velociraptors, thanks to CGI, which misses the point of what makes them scary. It's not fear of dying - it's dying in some nightmarishly cruel way by that thing of great hostility. Remeber in the first film, how it's implied it raped Lambert with it's tail as it killed her. That horrific sense of body invasion - along with the first chestburster scene - was never duplicated in the following films.
ALIEN is my choice it just blew me away the look & feel of the film and that classic chest burster scene it was out of this world. I also enjoyed the 2003 Director's cut as well. Aliens was a great sequel by lowering the dark horror element for high tension and action. Alien 3 Directors cut is a much better version than the normal version. Alien Resurrection heck that was strange the underwater scene was a good touch.
Alien was by far the best... I first watched it when I was ten, and it still creeps me out.... as an aside, for several years, when Aliens was being broadcast, the Leicester mercury would run the following blurb....
ALIENS Ripley once more faces the alien menace, but this time she has the help of a team of hardened, battle hungry space museums..."
I finally got a chance to see that infamous deleted cocoon scene from "Alien", and is there anyone else who thinks that would be the worst way to die, probably even worse than having a chestburster. At least with the chestburster it's a fast death, but imagine slowly being mutated into one of those head crabs, and practically being aware of it all the time.