Guest Review: Alien3 (1992)

By ScottDS

Chapter eight of David Hughes’ book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made is titled “Alienated.” It charts the hellish development of the film that became Alien³. The final version that appeared in theaters in the summer of 1992 was a compromised product that its director has since disowned. In 2003, fans were treated to the “Assembly Cut” which best approximated the director’s original vision. While I think the theatrical version is merely okay, I love the Assembly Cut. It’s flawed but brilliant in its own way.

An escape pod is launched from the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco after it experiences an onboard fire. Aboard the pod are the cryotubes housing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Hicks, Newt and the damaged android Bishop, all in stasis. The pod crash lands on Fiorina “Fury” 161, a “double-Y chromosome” prison colony inhabited by the scum of the universe. Ripley is the sole survivor of the crash and superintendent Andrews has sent for a rescue team to evacuate her. A heartbroken Ripley, with the assistance of sympathetic doctor Clemens (Charles Dance), examines Newt’s corpse for signs of alien infection. Andrews and the inmates – all of whom embrace an apocalyptic millenarian religion – participate in a funeral for Hicks and Newt. Meanwhile, an alien bursts out of a dog owned by one of the prisoners (a cow in the Assembly Cut) and starts attacking people one by one.

Ripley hooks up Bishop’s (Lance Henriksen) remains and we find out that there was indeed an alien aboard the ship. After scanning herself, she finds out that she’s pregnant with a queen alien. Ripley asks Dillon (Charles Dutton), the leader of the prisoners, to kill her. After all, the alien won’t kill Ripley as long as she has an embryo inside her. Dillon promises to do so after she helps them kill the alien. After a prolonged bait and chase, they lure the alien into the foundry where the molten metal causes the alien to literally burst. The Company arrives and, wary of their intentions, Ripley sacrifices herself by jumping into the furnace. The facility is quickly closed down and the film ends with Ripley’s “last surviving member” log entry from the end of the first film.

If you look up the phrase “development hell” on Wikipedia, you will find this definition: “...a period during which a film or other project is ‘trapped’…” You might as well find the poster for Alien³ right next to it. This film went through draft after draft over a period of many years. Some versions featured Ripley and no Hicks or Newt, while others featured Hicks and Newt but no Ripley. Cyberpunk author William Gibson penned a version featuring the Weyland-Yutani Corporation pitted against a rival Socialist culture who encounter the alien. Near Dark writer Eric Red and future Pitch Black creator David Twohy also wrote drafts. At one point, future Die Hard 2 director Renny Harlin was attached to the film but later walked.

Eventually, producers David Giler, Walter Hill, and Gordon Carroll sought out Australian director Vincent Ward. Ward’s idea remains one of the great unfilmed stories. It took place on a wooden planet (literally) populated by an order of Luddite monks. They believe the alien to be the devil, and Ripley’s presence a threat to their celibacy. This story was somewhat more introspective, with Ripley reflecting on her life (or lack thereof). “The Name of the Rose in outer space,” as one critic put it. Needless to say, Ward eventually left after seeing his vision slowly wither away due to money and studio politics. Giler and Hill, at the request of Sigourney Weaver, decided to write the final draft themselves.

Hired to direct was a young music video and commercial wunderkind named David Fincher. Fincher had little time to prepare and had to film on sets that had been constructed for Vincent Ward’s version. He had to supervise re-writes, assist with creature designs, and basically act as his own producer. Remember, this was his first movie – he wasn’t even 30 years old yet! He faced opposition – much of it quite arbitrary – from the studio at nearly every turn. In 2003, DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika supervised the construction of an “Assembly Cut.” (Fincher refused to be involved, hence the lack of “Director’s Cut” title.) This version best approximates the last cut Fincher supervised. It’s 30 minutes longer than the version people saw in theaters 11 years earlier.

This is where I come in. I saw this version before I ever saw the theatrical version… and I LOVED IT! It was dark, it was disturbing, it was beautiful to look at – one of those movies you could frame on your wall. There were one or two dramatic visuals that, when combined with the music, kept me up at night. It’s the best acted of all the Alien films. The tone is pure melancholy. Too many movies aren’t as enjoyable as they could be because the tone is inconsistent. (That’s not to say a dark tone always = enjoyment!) Fincher let’s you know exactly 15 seconds in that you’re f---ed. Why 15 seconds? Because that’s when composer Elliot Goldenthal takes the familiar Fox fanfare and corrupts it, ending it on an unresolved note.

To be fair, the film is conceptually flawed and no amount of re-cutting can fix it. Its tone is perhaps too melancholy, especially after the happy ending of Aliens. And unlike the superior firepower of that film, this film features no firearms at all, thus forcing the inmates to “improvise.” The bleak opening title sequence no doubt alienated many people who couldn’t believe that Hicks and Newt were killed off, thus rendering the previous film completely pointless and inspiring no confidence in this film whatsoever. Most of the characters are interchangeable – 99% of the cast consists of bald British guys with thick accents! Oh, and asking us to sympathize with a bunch of rapists and murders… probably not a good idea. And I still have no idea how the alien got aboard the Sulaco. Also, for a horror film, Alien³ isn’t really scary, but you know what? As someone who hates “Gotcha!” scares, that works for me. The mood is scary enough!

But I still enjoy it. The movie is Alien³, not Aliens 2. The religious element gives this film an extra dimension that the other films lack. Some people felt it was all a bit too nihilist, though I think fatalist might be more appropriate. Still, Fincher gets points for trying to make something bigger and meaningful and not just a generic sequel. As I said above, the acting is excellent. Charles Dance and Charles Dutton play Clemens and Dillon, respectively. Clemens is understated while Dutton goes big. Clemens is the prison doctor and provides some necessary exposition, as well as a temporary love interest. Unfortunately, he’s killed off much too soon. Dillon makes for a charismatic leader and, in the Assembly Cut, is introduced in group prayer. His Malcolm X glasses are a nice touch, too.

The late Brian Glover plays Superintendent Andrews and he just commands the screen. He has the tired look of someone who’s been at this job too long. His factotum Aaron is played by Ralph Brown. This character suffers somewhat from conceptual problems. Fincher saw him as a working-class hero while Giler and Hill saw him as the comic relief. The prisoners refer to him as “85” (his IQ) but this doesn’t gel with anything else. The one character that benefits the most from the Assembly Cut is Golic, played by Paul McGann. (McGann was the Eighth Doctor and played Lt. Bush in the Horatio Hornblower TV movies.) Golic is crazy and sees the alien as a fiery angel of death.

At least that’s how it was supposed to be. In the theatrical version, Golic sees his friends killed and is confined to the sickbay. We never see him again and at the end of the film, we’re left wondering what happened to him. In the Assembly Cut, Golic escapes from the sickbay. Ripley and the others have managed to secure the alien in a storage facility… only for Golic to come along later and free it, asking “What do you want me to do next?” He’s quickly killed by the alien, who then escapes. The studio brass felt that capturing the alien diminished its power, but Fincher and editor Terry Rawlings (who also edited the first film) felt this only hardened the suspense – it’s only a matter of time before the alien wreaks havoc again. They were overruled. The chase scenes are exciting, to a point – unfortunately, things get a bit repetitive and I can only assume that Fincher would’ve made some trims had he decide to participate in the new cut. And most of the time you can’t tell who’s who and you don’t really care for any of these people anyway.

Elliot Goldenthal’s longing score is certainly the most avant-garde in the Alien canon. Some parts are more, uh, conceptual and not as pleasant to listen to apart from the film, while others sound more religious in nature. (The title track uses text from Agnus Dei.) The cinematography is beautiful. Fincher has one of the best eyes in Hollywood and he’s ably assisted by the late Alex Thomson B.S.C., who had to step in for the late Jordan Cronenweth A.S.C. whose Parkinson’s Disease rendered him unable to complete the job. The live-action creature effects are great, but the visual effects are a mixed bag. The model work is fine… but there are wide shots featuring the alien in toto. In actuality, this was a rod puppet photographed in front of a bluescreen and composited into the shots. None of these shots have aged well – the alien sticks out like a sore thumb, obviously pasted in after the fact.

Today, it’s sequels, prequels, reboots, oh my! But the template, for the most part, remains the same. I give Fincher and Co. credit for going somewhere different with this universe. Yes, it would’ve been more entertaining had they continued with James Cameron’s action-oriented style. Instead they made a more contemplative and thoughtful movie. Flawed? God yes! But it’s interesting and also serves as a cautionary tale: have a script!

David Fincher, by the way, has since redeemed himself as well. While he gets acclaim and awards for Benjamin Button and The Social Network, personally I think 2007’s Zodiac might be his masterpiece.

“Nobody ever gave me nothing! So I say f--- that thing! Let's fight it!”

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Film Friday: Alien Resurrection (1997)

Poor execution will ruin a great concept every time, and no film highlights that better than Alien Resurrection. Alien Resurrection is a film that must have looked fantastic on the drawing board, but it fell apart completely because of the lousy, lousy choices made throughout the production. Observe.

Imagine this. . . even though Ellen Ripley died at the end of Alien 3, the government found a way to secure her DNA, only it had mixed with the alien inside her before it was secured. Now the government is running illegal cloning experiments to try to recreate the alien so they can study it and turn it into a weapon. But the government’s experiments get discovered, and an android is sent to sneak aboard the ship on which the experiments are being conducted and destroy the alien and the DNA. To sneak on board, the android will hide among the crew of a ship that is delivering kidnapped humans to the lab. Those humans are to be exposed to the alien. Once on board, however, things go wrong and the alien gets loose.

That sounds like a pretty darn solid film, doesn’t it? Now add Joss Whedon as the writer, that’s the same Joss Whedon who did such fantastic work on Buffy, Speed (uncredited), and Firefly, and who co-wrote Toy Story. Add producer Walter Hill, who rarely misses. And add a cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Dan Hedaya (Usual Suspects, Clueless), perennial sci-fi favorite Brad Dourif (Dune, Lord of the Rings), and Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman. Not too shabby.

All told, this sounds like all the makings for a heck of a movie, doesn’t it? Well, not quite. See, a great concept also needs solid execution, and this thing had anything but solid execution.

Interestingly, the “production” itself was fine. The sets are nicely done. The actors did their parts. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s camera work is competent, though hardly inspired. The effects were probably some of the best in the series. Yet the film stinks. And the reason the film stinks is because of a series of horrible choices made along the way.

Let’s start with the way they used the actors. Brad Douriff is wasted. He has less than two minutes of screen time. Ron Perlman is solid as always, but the film doesn’t focus on him until near the end, choosing instead to give equal time to each of the pirates. Hence, he’s largely wasted as well. Wynona Ryder is not credible as an android come to kill anyone. Sigourney Weaver’s character has lost all of her energy. She’s not spunky Ridley anymore, she’s super-monster killing-machine Ripley, and that makes her uninteresting. Also, the director seems incapable of deciding if she’s siding with the monsters or the humans, so her expressions are largely incomprehensible. Then there’s Dan Hedaya. . . yeah.

See, Hedaya is the first clue that something is seriously wrong here. He’s the general in charge of the facility. That means, he’s the guy who sets the tone for the “army guys” (I guess the Colonial Marine Corp went out of business). And what tone does he set? He’s un-funny comic relief. That’s right, he slouches around the facility like a caricature of a villain. He also does a lot of what appears to be physical humor, except it’s not clear it’s meant to be funny. For example, to enter secret rooms, he needs to breath into the security panels, which is ludicrous looking and reminds one of Bill Shatner in Airplane II who “shushes” the doors. When he goes to hit a button to activate a grenade, rather than just hit it, he does this cartoon-like routine where he holds the button as far away form himself as possible, as if the button will explode. And when he blows up an escape pod containing several soldiers, he does this laughably stupid looking salute, followed by the very tired routine of turning his eyes to the side as he realizes the alien is standing behind him. Was this parody? You can’t have a serious film where an important character acts like he’s in a cartoon.

Then you look at the writing. The scenes barely connect. Indeed, they feel more like vignettes strung together by walking scenes. Basically, they had a great idea in principle but never used it as more than back-story for a slow-motion chase film.

Beyond the lack of plot, the dialog is exceedingly poor. Indeed, Alien Resurrection includes one of the worst moments of exposition ever, as one of the soldiers explains to us who Wynona Ryder’s character is. See, exposition is a dangerous thing. There is an old rule in writing called “show, don’t tell,” because the best story telling involves letting the audience see something for themselves rather than just being told what the should know. Exposition flies in the face of that, and is therefore a dangerous thing to include in any event. And when exposition is too obvious, it makes the audience groan because they see it for what it is. It is not natural conversation, it is a character speaking directly to the audience to tell them exactly what they need to know.

In this case, the soldier (whose name is as irrelevant and as forgettable as the rest – another sign of horrible writing) first tells us that he has no idea who or what Wynona Ryder could possibly be, even after it’s revealed she’s a robot. Total blank. Then he says, “Wait a minute, I remember everything now!” This is perhaps the most ham-fisted way to say, “I am about to engage in exposition!” There should be a red flashing light whenever this phrase is uttered on film. Then he basically tells us Ryder’s entire backstory in excruciating detail. And how does he know all this? Because, he tells us, the story of the group of robots to which Ryder belongs is basically a passion of his “but I never thought I’d actually meet one!”

Now think about this. Ryder is a part of group that appears to be something he has a passion for studying. He knows everything about them. Yet, he doesn’t remember that he knows anything about them until it’s his turn to speak. This is a bizarre moment and it’s indicative of the writing here. When something needs to happen, it does. When some bit of information needs to be passed along, it is simply spoken after an “oh yeah.” There is no subtlety. There is no attempt to provide information through the story or to let it come naturally out of the dialog. That’s poor writing.

All of this conspires to make me wonder if someone, most likely the director, didn’t decide that he wanted to make this film a parody and just missed the mark. Each of these moments seems like it is intended to be humorous or poke fun at the way these films normally work, only none of them rise to the obvious level of making you laugh. It’s almost like the director wanted a comedy but no one else did, so you end up with an unsatisfactory and strange mix.

And in any event, the bigger lesson is that even when you have an excellent concept, it’s very easy to squander that with poor implementation.

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Film Friday: Alien (1979)

Alien is one of my favorite horror movies. It’s also one of my favorite science fiction movies. This is a film which does everything right in both genres, and that’s really impressive. It’s also really rare. And what makes this film work is what Ridley Scott doesn’t show us. Let’s talk about this classic film.

Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien is the story of the crew of the commercial towing vessel Nostromo. They are returning to Earth with a cargo of twenty million tons of ore. As the film begins, the crew is awoken from stasis when the ship detects lifesigns on a nearby uninhabitable planet. They are required to investigate. On the planet, one member of the crew has an alien creature break through his helmet and attach itself to his face. It appears to die, but as the crew is about to find out, they now have an alien problem.

The Perfect Horror Movie

What makes a film the perfect horror movie? The obvious answer is that it scares you. But there’s more to it than that because there are three different types of fear. The first is shock, such as when something jumps out at you. Horror movies need this to give the film a pulse. Alien does this extremely well. In fact, Alien is full of surprises and Ridley Scott often manipulates the level of surprise by teasing the audience with false tension, which he releases right before landing the real surprise. This catches the audience right after they’ve let their guard down and makes these shocks all the more effective.

The second is akin to dread or instinctual fear. This is achieved by putting the audience in a position where our natural instincts cause us to feel uneasy. Examples of this include our fear of the dark, fear of being in tight spaces or being trapped, fear of being in spaces that are too large for us to monitor and control, and fear of the unknown. These are harder to achieve on film because it requires pulling the audience into the film. But once again, Alien does this perfectly. In fact, the ship is perfectly designed for this. It is far too vast for the crew to monitor and control, yet at the same time, wherever the crew is at the moment feels confined, with no easy escapes. What’s more, Scott was smart enough to never show you enough of the creature to take away the mystery or to let you get accustomed to it. Thus, the full extent of the threat itself remains unknown, and that scares us.

The third is a true sense of terror. This is the kind of thing that sticks with you and makes you shiver days later. This is the Holy Grail of horror and few films achieve it, with Jaws and The Exorcist being notable examples. One would think Alien couldn’t really achieve this because its subject matter isn’t something to which we can related. Indeed, while any of us can imagine being eaten by a shark or possessed by something demonic, few of us think we’re going to end up fighting aliens in deep space. But Alien cleverly gets around this problem by giving the audience moments to which they can relate. For example, having the alien burst out of Kane’s chest is something humans can imagine because it fits right in with any number of urban legends about creatures laying eggs inside someone. This lets the audience relate to the horror, and the strength of this vision has been proven by the fact everyone continues to talk about that moment thirty years later.

This is why Alien is such a phenomenal horror movie, because it hits on all three types of fear. Few films manage to achieve this, and those that do tend to be remembered as classics. Alien is one of these elite few.

The Perfect Science Fiction Movie

Not only is Alien the perfect horror movie, but it’s also the perfect science fiction film. The most critical aspect of any science fiction film is that it presents a world the audience can believe is real. Too often, the worlds presented are shallow or make no sense. They include technological changes that would remake society, yet society hasn’t been remade. They present a world without laborers and people who own no personal effects. They talk about the elimination of money, yet still show people having jobs. And sometimes, they’re just dated, where our own society is now more advanced. Alien falls into none of these traps.

Despite the entire film taking place on only one ship and involving only seven people, Alien gives us an incredibly rich and detailed glimpse of their universe. Indeed, Alien tells us everything we need to know about their society. They have blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, and bosses. The interaction between the computer and the crew tells us that society very much remains a society which humans run, it is not automated. The suits at corporate still run the world. The crew worry about money and their contracts. They talk about food and grouse about work. They still think about sex and haven’t been “pair bonded” or some crap like that. The Nostromo is crawling with personal knickknacks. Their clothes are dirty. Their equipment is used. This is a real world, and we can visualize it, and these are real people with real lives, not science fiction prop-people.

Moreover, we get tantalizing glimpses of the rest of the universe. We see there are aliens in this universe, as we see two species – the alien itself and the alien corpse on the ship where they find the alien. We discover there are robots, and they look just like people. We know from the Nostromo that the universe is crawling with advanced spaceships. How do we know? To us, the Nostromo would be stunningly fantastic, but to her crew, the Nostromo is a piece of junk. It is a tired, common workhorse of a spaceship. That tells us there must be larger, more modern vessels ferrying people, exploring space, or even defending worlds. We know all these things without ever seeing them.

And that is the key point: what makes Alien such great science fiction is actually not what Ridley Scott shows us, it’s what he doesn’t show us. He shows us the usual things every science fiction film shows us: aliens, computers, and spaceships, but he never shows us too much.

We see enough of the alien to understand its more terrifying aspects, such as its acid blood, its murderous instincts, and its being impervious to extreme atmospheres. We are even given a hint of its life cycle. That makes this creature very real to us. But beyond that, we really only get glimpses and little real knowledge. That make the creature real and yet simultaneously keeps it a mystery. This results in a very satisfying creature because we feel we know it, yet we don’t know enough about it to disbelieve it. To the contrary, we know just enough to leave us hungry for more.

The Nostromo is the same. Spaceships often feel fake because they are designed for the sleek visual or built like mazes to accommodate the horror plot. . . cough cough Event Horizon. The Nostromo isn’t. It is built for a genuine task and its design is ergonomic. The part where the crew lives is bright and well lit. Its style and shape make sense. All of this makes the ship real to us because this is very much a ship that real people would take into space. Yet, at the same time, we know nothing about the ship’s size, shape or technology. This lack of knowledge actually helps us believe the ship is real because we don’t have anything to criticize and thus we can’t poke holes in the design.

This lack of knowledge also keeps the film from feeling dated. Consider the computer. While the computer interface feels somewhat dated, Scott does enough to make us think we aren’t seeing “the whole picture,” so we never get a chance to compare the supposed capabilities of this computer with our own. Moreover, since the Nostromo is a piece of junk, we know the computer is not the high end. All of this prevents us from laughing at the film when our own technological achievements surpass those in the film. Had Scott tried to show off how great this computer was, the film probably would be dated by now.

These were brilliant choices. By focusing on the personal relationships of the crew, while only teasing us with glimpses of the science fiction and leaving the rest to our imaginations, Scott lets the audience fill in the blanks and build the world in their heads. This makes the film remarkably adaptable because everything outside of the story itself can change with tastes and time. Thus, it will never grow stale and it will never grow old. This is a perfect formula and it’s amazing so few science fiction (or horror) films have grasped what Scott does here. And the key to what Scott has done is to give us just enough to make everything seem real, but absolutely nothing more.

Interesting.

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Film Friday: Paul (2011)

I’m a fan of Simon Pegg’s work. Shawn of the Dead was incredibly witty, clever and funny. It was a brilliant homage to zombie films. Hot Fuzz wasn’t quite up to Shawn’s standards, but was still well done and had great moments. Paul is flat. It also suffers from a giant liberal sucker punch.

** spoiler alert **

Paul is the story of two nerds from Britain, Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), who run into a real alien, Paul (Seth Rogen), while touring the American southwest. Paul has been on earth for decades and has run away from the government. Pegg and Frost decide to give him a lift. Soon they pick up Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a Christian fundamentalist. The rest of the movie is a slow motion chase as they take Paul to a rendezvous point to be picked up by his own people.

Why Paul Doesn’t Work: The Sucker Punch

Let’s start with the sucker punch. Most of what people call sucker punches aren’t. For example, interpreting two groups of penguins helping each other as a message promoting collectivism and the United Nations is downright paranoid. And others are too weak to matter, like making an oil company a generic villain. But genuine sucker punches do bother me, and this film has one. Here’s why.

Paul was marketed as a comedic homage to science fiction, and no mention was made that this film would attack Christian fundamentalists, but it does, and it’s mean-spirited about it. Right after Pegg and Frost pick up Paul, they run across Kristen Wiig. Wiig plays an ignorant, closed-minded Christian fundamentalist who fights with the nerds over the issue of Creationism. Shortly thereafter, Paul implants his knowledge of the universe into her mind. Suddenly, she realizes there is no God and that she’s been wasting her life trying to be moral. For the rest of the film, she drinks alcohol, smokes dope, swears every other word, and become hypersexual. She also expresses disdain for other fundamentalists, whom she now views as stupid.

These are direct attacks on the beliefs of fundamentalists and on their intelligence. There is nothing good-natured about these attacks. Indeed, substitute “American Indian” for fundamentalist and then ask yourself if it would be considered good-natured for an American Indian character to suddenly realize that their beliefs are stupid, to adopt the exact opposite behaviors associated with Indian culture, and then to denigrate other American Indians for being stupid. Odds are, that wouldn’t go over too well, would it?

Further, Wiig’s father is presented as the typical Hollywood trope for fundamentalist Christians. He is a hateful man, who dominates and terrifies his daughter. When confronted with anything of which he disapproves, he literally reaches for his shotgun and his Bible. He is, of course, murderous.

None of this was good-natured. To the contrary, it is denigrating and insulting. None of this was necessary for the plot either. But more importantly, none of this was anything audiences would have expected from the topic of this film or the marketing of this film. That’s what makes this a genuine sucker punch. And so you know it was intentional, both Pegg and Frost are atheists who told the BBC they wanted the film to explore atheism.

Why Paul Doesn’t Work: The Humor

Sucker punch aside, this film is just flat. In many ways, Paul seems like the kind of film Judd Apatow would make if he were smarter. Indeed, despite the really broad topic Pegg and Frost have chosen with Paul, it is in essence an Apatow film with almost all the jokes being about swearing, being gay, or having sex. Further, the jokes are generic and are carried on FAR too long.

Swearing: About 90% of the jokes in Paul involve swearing. And I don’t mean that swearing is used to convey the joke. Instead, the fact that someone is swearing IS the joke. For example, it’s supposed to be funny that Paul swears. And the first couple times it is. But it soon becomes part of his character and just isn’t funny anymore. Yet, they keep treating each swear like a punchline.

Kristen Wiig swears too. In fact, she swears constantly. Here the joke is that being freed from her religious stupidity, she is now free to swear, which she does with reckless abandon. But, and this is supposed to be the funny part, she’s not good at it, so her swearing is awkward. This may have worked in theory, but it was very poorly executed. Wiig doesn’t come up with clever or creative lines, nor does she do anything interesting like speak hidden truths or say the inverse of what the rest of us would say. She just randomly tosses out words, e.g. “ok, penis milk.” It’s just not funny. Moreover, they never stop this joke. She swears in every sentence for the last 70 minutes of the film and it becomes tedious.

Compare this with Debra in Dexter. She has a lot of problems including inappropriate swearing. But the way Dexter handles it is hilarious because of the timing, the word choice and the reactions of those around her. Her outbursts are sporadic and so far over the top of what is appropriate that you literally can’t stop yourself from laughing. Wiig’s swearing, by comparison, is constant and without purpose. She might as well be adding a random word in every sentence.

Sex Jokes: Besides the constant swearing, Paul is largely a collection of sex jokes. Indeed, this isn’t the kind of film where you learn about an alien culture or get a new view of human nature. Instead, you get a series of jokes about anal probes and alien genitalia. You also get awkward jokes about sex with nerds, and you get a steady stream of gay jokes. Some of it’s funny, but it hardly lives up to the promise of an homage to science fiction.

Weak Referential Jokes: Finally, where this film does rise above Apatow’s work is in its homage to science fiction. Indeed, Paul is strewn with references to science fiction like a cowboy bar band playing the Star Wars cantina music, the use of lines like “boring conversation anyway” after a telephone gets shot, Blythe Danner punching Sigourney Weaver and saying “let him go, you bitch!”, and Paul sitting in the Raiders of the Lost Arc warehouse. In this regard, this film is very much like Shawn of the Dead where the references are well set up and used appropriately and creatively. The film also trusts its audience enough that it doesn’t try to point these references out.

That said, however, this film is way too shallow in this regard. Indeed, whereas Shawn of the Dead was tightly written, this film wanders and abandons the homage for large stretches as they revert to the sex and fart jokes. For example, the opening is great, as they begin at Comic-Con and they briefly lampoon many of the excesses and oddities of nerd culture. But this lasts only two minutes. Then they switch to gay jokes. Then there’s another brief montage of alien-conspiracy culture as they drive an RV through the southwest, which ends in gay jokes. At this point, you’re about five minutes into the film and beyond this point, the science fiction jokes become scarce until the ending. There certainly are references to specific science fiction movie moments throughout, but they aren’t the focal point anymore. Instead, the film becomes a chase film with occasional references to science fiction mixed in between the swearing jokes, the sex jokes, and the atheistic proselytizing.

That’s why this movie didn’t work for me. Whereas Shawn of the Dead was an incredibly smart movie which distills zombie films to their essence, Paul is a stupid Apatow-like comedy disguised as something smarter and with an obnoxious sucker punch running throughout.

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Film Friday: Galaxy Quest (1999)

Galaxy Quest is not the greatest movie of all time. Nor is it the greatest comedy of all time. But it is a very enjoyable movie, and it’s a great parody. Why? Because Galaxy Quest follows two golden rules for making an effective, memorable, and long-lasting parody: the film stands on its own merits without relying on the material it’s parodying, and it respects its subject matter.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Galaxy Quest’s plot is rather ingenious. A group of aliens (the Thermians) from a world where untruths of any kind (including fiction) are nonexistent, come to Earth to get the help of a group of actors. The Thermians think the actors are space heroes because they’ve been receiving old broadcasts of a science fiction show starring the actors, and they don’t realize these shows are fake. . . a point brought home brilliantly when the Thermians express sympathy for the plight of Gilligan and the castaways. For their part, the actors are a washed up group of never-has-beens who now appear at science fiction conventions to make a living. They agree to go with the Thermians because they mistakenly think this is an acting gig. Once in space, they discover a spaceship that looks and functions just like the ship they “crewed” in the television series. Only, this time, the bad guys are real. What could go wrong?

Standing On Its Own Merits

The key to an effective parody is making sure the film stands on its own merits. This is because many people won’t be familiar enough with the original material to get the nuances of the parody, and because of watchability. If a movie doesn’t tell an effective story, then it’s not enjoyable. And parodies that offer nothing more than a collection of gags strung together with a plot that copies what they’re parodying (like Meet the Spartans) feel lazy and derivative and give the audience little to enjoy except the punchlines. It’s one step above doing the parody as a stand up routine.

Galaxy Quest stands on its own merits. Indeed, even if you never heard of Star Trek before seeing Galaxy Quest, you still could enjoy this film because it deals with themes with which we can relate. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) plays Commander Taggart. He’s self-absorbed and obnoxious, and he thinks his fake rank matters. Who hasn’t met this guy? Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) plays Dr. Lazarus, the ship’s second in command. He’s saddled with a character who has a catchphrase everyone constantly wants him to repeat: “by Grabthar’s hammer. . . you shall be avenged.” He desperately wants to be remembered for something else, but that isn’t going to happen. Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) plays Lt. Tawny Madison, whose role was blatant sex symbol. You’ve also got the child actor who grew old, though people expect him to still be a kid, and the guy who never really belonged but has been wedged into the group (“Guy” -- played by Sam Rockwell (Moon)). These characters give us a group of petty, jealous, former friends who are stuck together working science fiction conventions, where they meet fans they've come to despise. We can relate to these themes, even if we’ve never seen William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy or a single episode of Star Trek, because we’ve all shared their pain or known people like them. . . people who are trapped in the past.

Moreover, despite the constant references to Star Trek, nothing in the story requires you to know anything from the show to get the jokes. For example, you don’t need to know the Thermians are based on the episode “By Any Other Name” from the original Star Trek to laugh your rear off when the device that makes them appear human fails just as Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub) is making out with one of them, or that James Kirk always lost his shirt in fights to laugh when the actors roll their eyes when Taggert loses his shirt. These are funny moments in and of themselves and don’t require us to connect dots to the prior show. Also, as the story progresses, the actors put aside their squabbling and realize why they used to like and respect each other. Their cynicism vanishes and gets replaced with honor, self-sacrifice and love. These are classic themes of redemption that we all understand and which draw us in without needing any knowledge of the prior material.

Since the premise is strong, the acting is appropriate, the writing is funny, and the themes are things that make us happy and to which we can relate, and none of this requires any knowledge of the parodied material, Galaxy Quest wins us over on its own merit. Compare that with Meet the Spartans or Epic Movie where half the scenes require you to specifically remember the original material for the joke to work.

Good Natured and Respectful

The second thing Galaxy Quest does right is to remain good natured and respectful of its subject matter. This is important with parodies because parodies walk a fine line between fair and unfair humor. Humans have a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to humor and they don’t think it’s funny to laugh at misfortune, cruelty, or traits that cannot be helped. Parody plays dangerously close to this line. And too often, parody devolves into snideness or ridicule and what starts as tweaking the original for its indulgences, morphs into condescension, nastiness, hypocrisy, and petty attacks.

When Star Trek went off the air the cast set about ripping each other apart for the next thirty years. There were nasty books, cast members who wouldn’t speak to each other, Nimoy declaring Spock dead, an allegation of rape against a producer, and a whole host of nastiness that absolutely tarnished the image of these people, people we wanted to see as a tight group of friends. This is the stuff of parody and Galaxy Quest couldn’t ignore it because it’s become part of Star Trek lore. But exploiting this nastiness would cause the audience to feel revulsion rather than humor. Likewise, if Galaxy Quest played into the nasty stereotype of Star Trek convention attendees, as fat creepy losers, then it would cause outrage rather than humor.

Galaxy Quest solved this dilemma brilliantly by remembering why fans love Star Trek: because it offers a hopeful vision of the future where we’ve overcome the very problems being parodied. Galaxy Quest used this vision to inform its story, (1) by redeeming the actors by having them overcome their animosities and salvaging their friendships, (2) by redeeming the show itself by using the same mistakes, bad special effects, and bad logic that we laugh at throughout the film to save the Thermians at the end of the film, and (3) by redeeming the nerds at the convention by having Justin Long, the one person who truly believed in the show, be the one person who could save the day (he also isn't the typical pathetic Hollywood nerd). In effect, after poking fun at the show’s indulgences, the film tells us these indulgences are ok after all, that we were right to like the show, and that nerds can be pretty cool people.

Galaxy Quest even carries this redemption theme into how we view the Thermians. When we are first confronted with the question of what would happen if a society with no concept of untruth or fiction ran into us, we laugh at their naïveté. This is the same thing The Invention of Lying did. But unlike Lying, which condescends until the final credits, Galaxy Quest eventually tells us there's something kind of nice about a world without lies -- a view the film reinforces when the squabbling cynical actors finally overcome their own flaws by becoming more open and truthful.

Conclusion

So what we have in Galaxy Quest is a movie which stands on its own merits rather than trying to ride the coattails of the original, and a movie which pokes fun at all the problems associated with Star Trek, but does so in a way that never feels unfair or cruel and which never insults you for being a fan. That’s a pretty good parody. Plus, it’s just a fun film.

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Film Friday: Ghostbusters (1984)

Everyone likes Ghostbusters. It’s one of those rare comedies that has held up through the years and never gets old no matter how many times you see it. There is a reason for that. Just as interesting, much of what makes this movie so enduring almost didn’t happen. Ghostbusters should be dubbed the “Accidental Movie.”

** spoiler alert **

The Critics Blow Another One

Ghostbusters was generally well received by the critics, though they considered it light fare. Said the New York Times, “Its jokes, characters and story line are as wispy as the ghosts themselves, and a good deal less substantial.” Newsweek called it “summer nonsense.” And The New Yorker said that besides Murray, “nobody else has much in the way of material, and since there’s almost no give-and-take among the three men, Murray’s lines fall on dead air.” Yet, despite these assertions of vapidity, Ghostbusters struck a chord with the public. It spent seven weeks at number one and eventually became the highest grossing comedy of the 1980s. Even today, it is often ranked on “best of” lists. AFI ranks it as the 28th best comedy of all time. IGN named it the greatest comedy ever. Entertainment Weekly voted it the funniest movie of the past 25 years.

The Secret To Comedic Endurance

So what gives Ghostbusters its staying power? The answer is simple, though not intuitively obvious. What makes a comedy successful over the passage of time and repeated viewings is not the jokes, but the strength of the story and the relationship of the characters. Indeed, many of the best comedies could have been written as dramas, with the humor edited in later.

The Ancient Greeks, who invented comedy as a written form, did not think of comedies as particularly funny. To them, a comedy was simply a story with a happy ending. Today, a comedy must provoke laughter. But there are many ways to get laughter and modern comedies come in many forms. Some are stand up routines, some are slap stick. Some are parodies or satire and some can best be described as simply not-dramas. Most of the comedies with staying power fall into the last category for the following reasons:

Humor is fleeting and difficult to achieve, because humor is based on emotion. To get another person laughing, you need to find a way to activate the correct emotional state. Sometimes that can be done by telling jokes. Sometimes it requires the surprise of slapstick. Some prefer intellectual humor, while others enjoy seeing discomfort. What one person finds funny, another may find insulting or boring. Thus, finding the right trigger to bring on the emotional state of humor is very difficult. Moreover, what we find funny changes as we age. Further, because humor is often based on shock or surprise, e.g. revealing the unexpected, it loses its impact the more it is seen. Thus, not only is it difficult to accurately target the funny bone, but it gets harder and harder with each passing viewing to keep hitting that funny bone.

Consequently, the more a comedy relies on pure humor, e.g. jokes, to attract an audience, the more difficult it will be for the film to gain any longevity because the jokes will get stale, leaving nothing else worth watching. This is particularly true where the humor is referential to current events or then-existing social norms. Cartoons, stand-up routines, and parodies typically fall victim to this, as do gross-out films and films that are little more than disguised sketch comedy.

But the "not-drama" comedy can avoid this fate becaue that form of comedy treats the story and the characters as paramount, and only interjects humor carefully where appropriate to serve the story. Because this type of comedy relies on the story and the relationships of the characters to attract the audience, rather than the jokes, the audience can still enjoy the movie just as much as they did initially, even long after they have stopped laughing at the jokes.

Ghostbusters Is A Story/Character Based “Comedy”

Ghostbusters is such a comedy: It is driven by the plot and the characters, not the humor. In fact, if you remove one or two lines from a handful of scenes, cut out a few seconds of recognizable comedic acting (like the slapstick manner in which they flee the ghost librarian), and change the Stay Puft Marshmallow man and the green slimer into something more menacing, Ghostbusters becomes a drama or even a horror movie.

Indeed, all the elements are there for Ghostbusters to be an effective dramatic movie about four men who hunt ghosts for a living. It is only through the addition of a handful of humorous lines, the inclusion of brief moments of easily recognizable comedic acting, and the choice to add a level of ridiculousness to the final confrontation that the drama disappears seamlessly into a comedy. And since we enjoy the movie because we like the story, because we like the relationships built by the characters, and because we enjoy the world they have created for us, rather than because we are waiting to see a series of jokes executed by the actors, we can re-watch this movie over and over.

And if you think this isn’t a dramatic movie first and foremost, consider the scene where the Ghostbusters are called to the Mayor’s office, where they confront Peck. With the exception of Bill Murray, nothing in that scene tells you this movie is a comedy. The scene is heavy and dark, and the characters act just as they would if they were in a drama. Even when Murray smarts off, the other characters don’t react in any of the traditional comedic styles, they react in a realistic manner, just as one would react to someone who has told the truth, but in an insulting way. Thus, the humor is delivered, but the dramatic tension of the scene is maintained. In other words, you get to laugh, but you never lose your place in the story.

Ghostbusters also deals with some very heavy, i.e. “dramatic”, themes, the types of themes that can’t be handled in a pure comedy. Specifically, consider the discussion between Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd regarding God, Jesus and Revelations. No jokes are made during that discussion and the issues aren’t raised as set ups for future jokes. This is a true dramatic moment, which gives the viewer context for the multitude of ghosts suddenly appearing. If this scene was transferred directly, without change, into a John Carpenter movie, this would be considered the payoff scene that sets up the terror about to be unleashed, no one would recognize it as coming from a comedy.

Even the effects are often much scarier than one would expect for a comedy, and the soundtrack is scored as a drama, a concept that gained notoriety after John Landis asked Elmer Bernstein to score Animal House as if it were a drama. Bernstein scored Ghostbusters as well.

The Character Relationships Are More Dramatic Than Comedic

The character relationships also are more like a drama than a comedy. In a more joke driven comedy, like Beer Fest, the characters must all have unusual traits that come into play to make various scenes work throughout the movie. Their reactions are exactly what is needed to make each joke work.

In Ghostbusters, by comparison, the characters act realistically, i.e. as they should when confronted with events around them. The humor is then woven into the dialog, as appropriate, rather than having the scene built for the humor. And what this does, is it allows us to respond to the characters on an emotional level, something you cannot normally do in a humor-driven movie.

For example, we feel comfortable and welcomed by the ease of the relationship between Ramis and Aykroyd, and by Aykroyd’s childish innocence. We feel inspired by Ernie Hudson’s discussion of faith. We long for the slowly developing romance between Murray and Weaver to pay off. And we pull for the oblivious, but good-natured Rick Moranis. These are the types of responses you don’t get in a more joke-based movie. Ask yourself, which character in Airplane makes you feel welcomed or inspired? Do you really care about the romance between Striker and Elaine?

The Accidental Movie

This is why Ghostbusters has been so successful, because it is first and foremost the story of five or six characters, who happen to be involved in the business of hunting ghosts. It is that story and the relationship of the characters that keep viewers coming back, the jokes are secondary.

Thus, it is interesting to learn that the things that make Ghostbusters tick almost weren’t part of the movie. For example, as just noted, the realism of the story is what connects us to the movie. But the original concept for the movie was not very realistic. Aykroyd’s original concept called for the Ghostbusters to act as a sort of SWAT team, traveling through time in a flying car to fight ghosts. But because this would have been too expensive to shoot, Reitman brought in Harold Ramis to re-write the script and bring it into modern times. If CGI had existed at that point, Ghostbusters would have been a very different movie.

Further, when the movie was originally written, Aykroyd wanted John Belushi instead of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy instead of Ernie Hudson, and John Candy in place of Rick Moranis. Belushi died, opening the door for Murray, and, frankly, probably saving the film. Murray and Belushi are hardly interchangeable, and I have never seen evidence that Belushi could carry off the leading man role that Murray delivered so perfectly in Ghostbusters. Indeed, compare the “romance” between Belushi and Carrie Fisher in The Blues Brothers against Murray’s romance of Weaver, and you can see how a key element of the film would have changed.

Similarly, replacing the understated and dignified Hudson with the scene stealing Murphy (who rejected this project to shoot Beverly Hills Cop) would have killed the triangular dynamics established by the writers between the three original Ghostbusters. Likewise, John Candy, who was to play a straight-laced conservative neighbor of Weavers', cannot deliver the “little guy” character that Moranis so brilliantly gave the audience. Moranis' character was vital because he put a heart into the possession scenes, and he humanized what was happening. Candy's more outlandish style would have yielded very different results. Fortunately for us, Candy refused to commit, and in stepped Moranis.

Ramis also did not originally intend to play Dr. Spengler, until they could not find anyone better. And many of the names considered, like Christopher Walken or John Lithgow, again would have seriously changed the chemistry that became so important to the film. Have you ever seen a movie in which you felt Walken was someone you wanted to befriend?

Any of these changes could have dramatically changed the tenor and feel of this film. Thus, ironically, much of what has given Ghostbusters its longevity could well be considered an accident. Fascinating.

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