Alien: Resurrection

200 years after the death of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, military scientists decide to bring her back to life by cloning . The first seven attempts are unsuccessful - the DNA of Ripley and the alien queens are constantly mixed during cloning with the corresponding result. Finally, during the eighth attempt on the Auriga space military research ship under the command of General Martin Perez and researchers Jonathan Gediman and Mason Rene (who conceived the whole thing), scientists are able to create seemingly normal Ripley and Alien Queen clones without mixed DNA . The Queen is removed from Ripley, while Ripley herself is left alive. However, even in Ripley No. 8, few Alien genes are found - in a short period of time, she demonstrates excellent learning ability, instant reaction, physical strength and some abilities, in particular, her blood contains acid. Nevertheless, Ripley’s memory is almost not restored, and from the past she remembers only the fact of danger from the side of Aliens.

The Alien Queen is developing rapidly under the control of scientists and soon begins to lay eggs. By this time, space pirate mercenaries under the leadership of Frank Eldzhin were delivering “cargo” - captured suspended animation capsules with miners-miners (at the same time they themselves do not know for what purposes they deliver them). Scientists use them as carriers for Alien embryos. Mercenaries stay on a warship for a couple of days to rest. At this time, out of infected people, individuals of Alien drones appear. Anali Call from the pirate team enters Ripley’s cell, declaring his goal - to destroy Ripley and the queen, but discovers that the queen is no longer in her. The military, having discovered its activity, declares Call a terrorist. There is an armed clash between the pirates and the military, the pirates triumph, capturing the soldier Di'Stefano and Dr. Ren. At the same time, Aliens in one of the cells find a way to escape to freedom - Two Aliens kill the third Alien, and his blood-acid burns through the floor of the room. Through the hole formed, individuals leave the cage, grabbing Dr. Gediman.

A general evacuation is announced. The Alien enters one of the rescue ships, it is blown up by General Perez together with the soldier with the help of a well-aimed throw of a grenade, while they themselves became the prey of another Alien.

After the military escapes, the pirates try to get to their ship. Alien kills Elgin, but then Ripley appears and destroys the monster. It turns out that "Auriga" in emergency circumstances automatically leaves for the port, which is located on Earth. Walking with the mercenaries, Ripley accidentally discovers a laboratory where the results of seven previous unsuccessful projects to clone her are located, and destroys them. They also find Larry Purvis - the only one alive from the group of miners captured by the pirates, inside which the Alien is developing, and decide to take it with them to freeze him on the ship. In search of a way out, the pirates dive into the flooded kitchen, they are attacked by Aliens. Survivors are trapped. Having deceived Call, Dr. Ren shoots her with a pistol and moves to the pirate ship. Call frees the pirates from the trap, it turns out that she is one of the androids of the last generation. At the request of Ripley Call, he is directly connected to the Aurigi main computer and gives the computer the task of destroying the ship, but there is not enough energy. Then Call changes the task - the ship must crash from a collision with the earth's surface in an uninhabited area.

Ripley senses the queen approaching, and she is captured by Aliens. The Queen moves on to the second phase of reproduction inherited from Ripley’s human DNA - live birth. A monster appears, vaguely reminiscent of man. It takes Ripley for her mother and kills the queen. Dr. Gediman, who is also here, is the victim of an enraged monster. Ripley flees. Wren infiltrates the pirate ship, taking Call hostage. Purvis, sensing the awakening of the monster, grabs Ran, Alien pierces the miner’s chest and Ran’s head. At the last moment, Ripley manages to board, but the humanoid monster also enters the ship, where he kills Di'Stefano. Ripley, using the trust of a monster, deliberately damages her hand, sprinkles blood and acid on the porthole, sucks the monster into space through the hole formed. "Auriga" explodes from a blow to the ground. A pirate ship enters the earthly atmosphere. Call and Ripley admire the panorama of the Earth from the porthole, and when Call asks Ripley what to do now, she smiles and answers that she does not know, because she feels "stranger" here.

The film involves more than 30 actors, not counting extras actors.

The version, which was first published on DVD in the collection "Alien Quadrilogy", is 7 minutes longer than the theater version due to both additional scenes and alternative ones.

• Alternative beginning: instead of images of Ripley's prototypes (distorted by special effects in the form of Alien mucus), the viewer sees fanged jaws similar to those of Alien, after which the camera moves back and it becomes clear that this is an ordinary fly, which is then crushed by a person sitting in one of the compartments " Aurigi ”and merging with its outlines as the camera (the whole scene is shot in a single plan) continues to move back.
• When the doctor sutures Ripley an incision, she turns the manipulator out, and with it the operator’s hand;
• Upon receipt of money by Elgin for the delivery of cargo, General Perez tells Elgin what is forbidden to do on his ship, and the dialogue between Perez and Elgin is also extended. Elgin tells the general about Vriss's interest in Call;
• Dr. Carlin Williamson shows Ripley a picture of a girl. At first, Ripley smiles, then an expression of regret appears on her face (probably she recalls Newt or her daughter Amanda);
• Dialogue between Vriss and Call in Betty's cargo bay;
• The dialogue between Elgin and Hillard is extended in the scene where Elgin reports the access code - “EATME”;
• The dialogue between Di'Stefano and Christie about the last weapon in the scene when the characters of the film were about to swim through a kitchen flooded with water;
• The dialogue between Ripley and Call in the chapel is extended - Ripley says that in the past there was a girl next to her, whose name she now does not remember;
• Alternative finale: Betty lands on Earth in the area of ​​ruined Paris, where Ripley and Call have a dialogue similar to the one in the theatrical version.

David Geeler and Walter Hill were categorically against any continuation of Alien's history (probably due to the negative that accompanied the production of Alien 3 ), but 20th Century Fox was not too happy with the box office of the third part. Although with a budget of $ 60 million, the film raised a hundred million more, the studio management was counting on larger fees. The fourth film was put into production only because Fox decided that they could still “break the bank” if the new film in the atmosphere of horror and fighting would be the same as the first and second parts, respectively.

Script

As a screenwriter, the studio chose Joss Whedon . It is not known whether this was Whedon’s personal idea or whether he recalled the words of David Giler, which he had said shortly before the premiere of “ Alien 3 ” (Giller then joked that if they want to continue the series, Ellen Ripley will be cloned in order to remain the main character), but the main character written by him in 30-page draft was Rebecca “Newt” Jordan, who was cloned 200 years after the events of “ Aliens ” and “ Alien 3 ”. But when he brought his developments to the studio, she asked to rewrite the whole concept under Ripley, since Sigourney Weaver (before that she repeatedly stated in all interviews that she would never return to the role of Ripley) agreed to participate in the fourth part - this contributed to how a fee of $ 11 million, and the post of co-producer and the promise of Fox to make any concessions to the actress. In September 1995, Weedon presented his revised script to the studio, which was not much different from the final version:

• In the opening scene, Ripley’s dream was shown in which he and Newt were in a wheat field and a flock of carnivorous insects attacked Newt. Before this, Newt uttered her phrase from the second film “ Mom always said that monsters do not exist ” (in the final version, the phrase sounds off-screen, but with a different message).
• The Betty team consisted of eight people, not six: there was a certain Raine (an unremarkable character with a couple of remarks, the whole characteristic of which was that he was very skinny) and Saint-Just is an Asian killer with two hidden in sleeves with pistols (Whedon wrote this role with the expectation that actor Chow Yunfat would play it). Both characters died during the plot.
• Ripley had a dream where she had sex with Gadiman, after which her tongue turned into the Alien’s jaw and she killed the scientist. Later this episode was replaced by another, no less erotic, where Gadiman kisses the camera glass directly opposite the Alien's face.
• The Aurigi Security Service was armed with energy weapons, whose charges could not penetrate the skins of Aliens.
• General Martin Perez died just like the newborn Alien dies in the final version.
• In addition to Di'Stefano, the Betty team, Ripley and Dr. Ren were accompanied by two more soldiers from the Auriga crew, who also died during the story.
• There was a long scene where the heroes had to go through the room in which the three Aliens were hiding. The team tries to lure them into a chamber with liquid nitrogen and freeze, but they understand the catch, and then Ripley suggests using Call as a bait. Call against and then Ripley against her will pushes her into the room to the Aliens. This attracts the attention of the latter, they chase the Call and get into the chamber where liquid nitrogen is released onto them, after which Johnner breaks the frozen Alien figures with shots.
• There were three Aliens in the underwater scene.
• Rain died in the underwater scene, Hillard remained alive.
• Christie did not fire a bullet along a geometric path to destroy face grabs.
• There was an episode where the team rides in an elevator, for which the Alien clings from below. Rising up, Ripley shoots with a shotgun at the cable, after which the elevator falls down and crushes the rest of the Aliens.
• Another long episode where the heroes fall on the upper deck of the ship, which is a mile-long garden, and, in order to save time, they sit in some kind of wheeled car. During the trip, they stumble upon a huge field of hemp, where they are attacked by Aliens. Here, Hillard died, and Saint-Just was injured in the leg and remained to cover the retreating, who have to urgently run away, because the blood of one of the dead Aliens eats up the lining and depressurization begins.
• The newborn Alien had four arms and was eyeless, about the size of a Queen with white skin and red veins along his head. Like the rest of the strangers, he had an internal jaw, and in addition, claws on his head, which he used to hold the victim and drink her blood.
• Ripley shot all the Aliens in the hive after the Newborn killed the Queen.
• The Betty undocked from the Auriga a few seconds before entering the earth's atmosphere.
• The final battle with the Newborn had five options. In four of them, the action took place on Earth in the following locations: in the maternity ward of the hospital, in a giant landfill, in a snowy forest and in the desert. The option "in the snowy forest" ended with the same Ripley phrase about the fact that she feels like a stranger.

Having approved the script of Whedon, the studio began to search for the director. This immediately caused problems, because there were not a large number of people wishing to shoot the fourth part: Danny Boyle , Peter Jackson , David Cronenberg and Brian Singer were offered the post of director, but they all refused, without showing interest in the project. The candidacy of Jean-Pierre Jeunet liked the studio because of his surrealistic film “ City of Lost Children ” . At that time, Zhenya had just finished writing the Amelie script and at first also wanted to refuse, saying that she couldn’t make a movie “in Hollywood,” but the studio assured him that this was exactly what was needed to resurrect the franchise. Wife got complete freedom of action both in terms of filming, and in picking the crew. So, he took Darius Hongji as the main operator and, thanks to his patronage, the actors Ron Perlman and Dominic Pinon who starred in The City of Lost Children got into the film. Since Zhenya practically did not know English at that time, he had to use a translator and sign language to communicate with the English-speaking members of the group. In parallel, Weedon was given the task of rewriting the script, making it less costly. The character of Saint Just was expelled during the casting period, as Chow Yunfat rejected the offer.

Filming

As mentioned above, Sigourney Weaver agreed to withdraw due to the fact that Fox promised her complete freedom of action. To begin with, the actress asked that the shootings take place in the USA (the previous three films were shot in the UK), because the shooting period coincided with participation in a theatrical production. Also, the actress liked the costume that Hillard was supposed to wear.

Books

Since Alan Dean Foster had a fight with the producers while writing a novelization for the previous part of Alien 3 , when he was asked to write a novelization for the fourth film, he refused. As a result, it was the only film in quadrology, the novelization of which was written not by him, but by Anne Carol Crispin . Unlike the previous three novelties, which came out a month before the movie premiere, this part was released on November 27, 1997, the day after the movie premiere. The publisher was Warner Aspect (a division of Warner Books). Like Foster, Crispin used almost all the scenes that later went into the extended version only, but she took the final from the rental version. In 2014, another Taitan-Bucks publishing house, which by that time had transferred all rights to publish printed materials about Aliens, released the second edition of the novelization with a small editorial revision.

This fourth part was the only one that was not translated into Russian until 2019, when it was published by the AST publishing house in the second edition (the translation was made by Denis Priemyshev and Alisa Tugusheva).

In 1993, four years before the release of the film, Marina Naumova and Gleb Kireev, under the single pseudonym Alex Rivenge, released their alternative fourth part of the Alien 4: Contact saga, in which Ripley enters the world of Aliens.

Despite the large-scale advertising campaign, the film received mixed reviews. In particular, the absurdity of the plot, excessive grotesque , unsuccessful copying of the concept of the second part and the lack of an atmosphere of hopelessness were criticized; however, dynamics and special effects were noted. Even the film’s screenwriter Joss Whedon was extremely dissatisfied with the film, saying in a 2005 interview that Zhenya made a film that is impossible to watch. A negative assessment was given by Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times ^[6] .

In North America, the premiere took place on November 26, 1997 and at the end of the first week, box office receipts exceeded $ 16 million. Total collections in the United States amounted to $ 47.7 million, which is the worst result among films from the Aliens series. At the international box office, the picture brought 113.5 million dollars. ^[7]

Sigourney Weaver in an interview with LA Times admitted that she considers the story of her heroine incomplete: “I feel that the fans want to see how this story ends. And I can imagine that we really will finish it. "

The actress had ideas about how to develop the image of Lieutenant Ripley - a frightened girl in the first part, a warrior in the next two and a mutant in the fourth film. “If we shot the fifth part, I have no doubt that the human side of the personality would prevail over it,” Sigourney explained, hinting that there would be something to tell in the new picture. In 2015, information appeared that director Neil Blomkamp was starting to shoot a new film about Aliens, although at the same time, information flashed that Blomkamp's plan would ignore the third and fourth films ^[8] . However, in 2017, Ridley Scott said that the production of the fifth part of Alien Neil Blomkamp had stopped at the idea stage. However, the creator of the franchise noted that Sigourney Weaver may return to his role in the future. ^[9]

• 1997 - Bogey Awards.
• 1998 - 6 nominations for the Saturn Award : best science fiction film, best director (Jean-Pierre Jeunet), best actress (Sigourney Weaver), best supporting actress (Winona Ryder), best special effects (Petof, Eric Henry, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr.), Best Costumes (Bob Ringwood).
• 2004 - Saturn Award nomination for Best DVD Collection.

• Tagline : " Beyond salvation ."
• In 1997, Terry Bisson wrote the eponymous novelization of the script by J. Whedon .
• In the first version of the script, there was a scene which took place in the botanical garden aboard the Charioteer. Ripley drove the jeep, while the rest of the passengers fought off many xenomorphs - the episode went after the scene in the chapel, but before the appearance of the Newborn. However, it was never removed due to budgetary restrictions.
• Nigel Phelps designed the Betty design with a jack hammer . It was assumed that the "Charioteer" would be a vertical structure, but this idea was abandoned due to the complexity of the development and construction of the scenery.
• Ron Perlman nearly drowned during the filming of the underwater scene. When trying to get to the surface, he hit his head on a rain installation and lost consciousness, however, he was pulled out by the nearby crew members.
• The Charioteer computer is called the Father. In Alien (1979), the computer was called Mother . In both films, there are similar scenes in which the characters shout at “Mother” and “Father” for the fact that the cars do not respond to their orders.
• When the film was in theaters, the name of the artist G. R. Giger as the author of the design of Aliens was absent in the final credits. When the picture was released on video, this was fixed.
• Since it was a difficult task to somehow return the character of Sigourney Weaver , an early version of the script suggested that Ripley wakes up aboard Sulako and realizes that she dreamed about all the events that happened in the previous film.
• Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to include a scene in which a mosquito bites Ripley and literally dissolves in the air because of her blood. As a result, he abandoned this idea, finding out how much time and money it would take to render.
• Sigourney Weaver’s fee was greater than the entire budget of the first Alien.
• Dr. Ren's role was specifically written for Bill Murray with the goal of reuniting him and Sigourney Weaver on the set after Ghostbusters (1984).
• Winona Ryder agreed to participate in the film without reading the script. She stated that she would play any role, even if her character was destined to die in the very first scene.
• Sigourney Weaver really made an incredible throw from behind. To achieve this, she needed two weeks of exercise under the guidance of a basketball coach - at the end of the course, on average, she hit the basket once out of six. During the filming, the actress threw the ball on the first try, being 6 feet (about 183 cm) beyond the three-point mark. During the installation, Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted to remove the scene from the film, as the audience could consider everything too implausible, but at the request of Weaver they saved it. The actress calls her cast one of the most beautiful moments in life after the wedding and the birth of a daughter.
• During preparation for the filming, it turned out that not a single model of the Alien Queen in full size has been preserved. Fortunately for the producers, one of the fans found a copy.
• At the final editing stage, the studio wanted Ripley and the queens to precede the episode due to the fact that it could be interpreted as a love affair. However, the scene was saved after Sigourney Weaver threatened not to participate in the film’s advertising campaign.
• During the filming, Jean-Pierre Jeunet almost did not know English.
• The director wanted to further film how the Newborn is chasing Ripley while fleeing Betty. It was planned to show it fully created on a computer, but the idea was not destined to be realized due to financial constraints.
• The budget of $ 50-60 million was much less than what the director and screenwriter hoped for, so the scenery was less ambitious. As a result, the film uses a lot of close-ups.
• The studio planned that John Hodge would write the script for the film, and the director would be Danny Boyle , but both refused to join forces to create the film Life Is Worse Than Normal (1997).
• Also, the candidacy of David Cronenberg was also considered at an early stage in the development of the project.
• “Alien: Resurrection” was the first film of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in which he did not have to share the director’s chair with anyone else.
• The first frame of Ripley’s clone, looking like a little girl, was created on the basis of children's photos of Sigourney Weaver, which she shared with the special effects team.
• Initially, Jean-Pierre Jeunet wanted the main villain to be made a woman. However, the producers rejected this idea, believing that the film already has two main female characters.
• For the illusion of a labyrinth of endless corridors, only two decorations were made.
• When filming a flooded kitchen, milk was specially added to the water, since it was too transparent. The scene itself was filmed for three weeks in a purpose-built water tank at the 20th Century Fox studio, and only a week was spent filling it. The actors went through a whole series of preliminary trainings, but Sigourney Weaver missed most of them, since at the same time she played in a play on Broadway.
• Clearly allocated eyes were specially added to the design of the Newborn to dissuade those who assured that Aliens could not see.
• To release a special edition of all four films on the Alien Quadrilogy DVD, Frantic Films was commissioned to add insect teeth to the beginning of the film that resembled Alien's famous jaws.
• Initially, Ripley’s costume should have been different, but when Sigourney Weaver saw Kim Flowers vestments, she demanded that her character be dressed the same way.
• In many ways, Sigourney Weaver agreed to star in the film because of the scene where Ripley 8 destroys her seven failed clones.
• Ron Perlman independently performed the trick when his character hangs upside down on the stairs and shoots with two pistols.
• Initially, David Giler refused to make the fourth film.
• The film crew was faced with the problem of finding a place for filming. The fact is that at the same time " Titanic " (1997), " Star Troopers " (1997) and " Jurassic Park: The Lost World " (1997), which involved almost all the free pavilions, were filming.
• The face of the Newborn was supposed to resemble Ripley, but the authors of the film had to abandon this idea, since in " Person " (1995) this approach to creating the monster was already used.
• In the Alien Resurrection comic, unlike the movie, Ripley’s blood is dark green. Also in the comic book Aliens did not set a trap at the exit from the pool.
• The secret code is EATME, but if you add these letters and separate them in the right place, you get EAT ME, that is, EAT ME.

• Alien 4: Resurrection on the Internet Movie Database  
• Alien 4: Resurrection on the allmovie website