Review of Alien³ (1992) by Mitch S — 11 Sep 2014

Alien is the greatest sci-fi movie ever made. There will never be another movie like it. It pushes the envelope of sci-fi as far as you can go in so many ways - Giger's fanastic alien design, production, choreography, script, pacing, story-telling, imagination - it is hard to imagine a better sci-fi movie like it today. Most people agree, as I see a 97% rating.

I also think Alien needs to remind the kids today why piling on fancy computer graphics and pretty young actors does not make a movie great. That is why so many recent movies in this genre fail, including Scott's Prometheus. Alien is great because a group of very creative, artistic, and imaginative people came together and organically made a movie that makes us not only believe in the dystopian space world they conceived, but more so in the very personal psychological terrors still waiting to be found in our imagination. Great movies pull in great casts and actors of all ages and talents, real artists like Giger, and visionary directors like Scott. Today's movies fail utterly because they are gutted of all those qualities. In addition, most are just big "video games" and layers of CGI and pretty visuals. That is why movies made today in this genre are soulless, compared to Alien. They are soulless because we have lost the respect for creative people and artists and the connection with stories that reflect both the imperfection of the human struggle and the stark reality of good story-telling that's glossed over and buried today by slick, sleazy commercialism in computer driven movie making.