Dark Horse Comic review: Aliens series one to three

So after the release of Aliens Darkhorse picked up the comic rights to the franchise and made series which picked up 10 years after the events of Aliens and left us with a scared Hicks and and an emotionally scared Newt. The comics written buy Mark Verheiden were dark edgy and got the vibe off the movies right off and then some expanding the universe 10 fold. Then in 1992 Alien3 came out and in an effort to remain in line with fox continuity They changed Hicks to Wilks and Newt to Billie when the books were reprinted. You can if your lucky still get early editions where the named are changed. For this review Im going to keep the movie names and give you the title of the collected graphic novels.

Aliens Book one: Outbreak
Taking place some 10 years after Aliens the story begins with a deep space salvage crew encountering a xeno on board wrecked ship and is slaughtered. Hicks who has been in and out of the USCM stockade due and bars because of been shunned from the other marines is brought to the high brass. He told they used the info from the attacked ship to find the xenomorph homeworld.Before he goes he decides to vist Newt and learns she's going to be lobotomized. Rather then let that happen to her he smuggles her onboard the ship for the mission. Meanwhile a rival company to Wayland-Yutani bring backs an infected crew member of the salvaged ship and cause's a wide spread outbreak on earth.
Mark Neilson art style has dated badly and the story is kinda all
over the place. While not shit its not the best its not too bad either
so if your a fan check it out.







Aliens Book two: Nightmare Asylum
Taking place after Hicks and Newt escape a now infested earth one to land on a planet ruled buy a power mad General Spears who breeds xeno's with a mad scheme to train them and use them to take back earth. This of course makes Hicks relise that Spears is nuts. Spears while weary of them keeps them alive because their experience of the bugs.Newt still comes to terms wth the loss of her lover she had in the first book and Hick trys to lead an uprising to stop Spears plan.

This book is wicked..the story wicked, the action wicked...the art work buy Den Beauvais fantastic.
This is a vast improvement from the the last book. and is a must for an Aliens fan.

Aliens book three: Female War

So after Spears attempt failed which causes Ripely to come out of hiding joining up with Hicks and Newt and formulates a plans to lure the high Queen to one city drawing the rest of the hive and nuking it.
Ripley's departure and absence is explained well and does make a number of nods to the movies. He relationship is with Newt is strained and Hicks doesnt trust her which is far more intresting then the main story. 

The art work buy Sam Keith who worked on Sandman and while intresting I did not think it was ideal for the story. With a silly plot and odd set of stylized art work it not the most impressive of the books but still needed for completion sake for an Aliens fan.

So if your going start collecting comics those three books are a good starting point. All three can be found in Aliens Omnibus volume one.

Alien Art attack.

Check out yet another amazing piece of work from Aga Romanska....it is wicked.

You can check out more from this talented young lady here. https://www.facebook.com/ArtsyStuffOfAga
or mangakapoof.tumblr.com.

Ridley does what Ripley could not....killing the Alien!

So the final nail in the cinematic existence of the xenomorph was hammered in today when Scott made it clear their would be no xenos appearing in Prometheus 2 or 3 or any other movies in that universe for that matter. Now I like many people were let down with Prometheus but the thing that kept me clinging on was the explanation of the existence of the xeno in the next movie and not to think the creature which appeared at the end was indeed the starbeast its self.  The Story will focus more on the Jockeys....well thats cool and all but I was always told ne school to finish one fucking maths question before moving on to another......what he did was give a wrong fucking answer and hoped no one would notice.....well we fucking did.

Dont get me wrong I see whats he means buy staying theres not much he can do with it but still for fuck sake at least give us a bit more then a third rate cocktease at the end of the movie with a wicked looking rod puppet.

Christ I hope Alien Isolation is good or Im going to be a SAD fucking Panda.

For more infor on this clusterfuck check out this site here. http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2014/09/25/ridley-scott-has-had-enough-of-aliens-iconic-xenomorph-that-beast-is-done/
Cheers to Char for supplying me with the info.

Shlocktober

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery....well we'll find out in the lead up to Halloween in something I like to call Shlocktober on both the my Aliens and Savage Cinema blog I'll be reviewing some of the best and worst Alien and predator copy cat movies of all time. These include
Night Beast
The Deadly Spawn
Galaxy of Terror
The Borrower
The Relic
and a whole host of others.

Interview with Adam Smith creator of the Wayland- Yutani Archives site

The following is an interview with the wicked Adam Smith creator of the epic Aliens fan site The Wayland Yutani Archives.

Martin: Which of the Aliens franchise was your favorite and why?    

Adam: I always struggle with this one mainly because I cannot just pick one Alien movie.  I love the first three Alien movies equally as all three movies are masterpieces.  I still class the series as a Trilogy.

Martin:Who's your favorite character from the movies.

Adam: Parker.  When I first watched Alien he was the first character I related to as he reminded me of a couple of people  I knew who were older than I.  That gave me my first sense of realism in the film.  Even while growing up and in various job's there was always a Parker type of character there.  Yaphet Kotto absolutely nailed that part.

Martin: Where would you like to see the Alien franchise go considering the mess that was Prometheus?

Adam: Well to be honest, they should just leave the series alone. It ended with Alien 3 and should have stuck with that. Ever since Alien Resurrection I've had nothing but disappointment.

Martin: What prompted you to create your alien blog?

    Adam: Back in 1997/98 my former friend of mine and I began working on a web site called 'The Weylan-Yutani Files'. The site was constructed with Yahoo Geocities and was to be about the filmed and unfilmed scenes from the first three movies. A lot of research went into it. Not long after the site was published me and my friend had a fall out. He changed the password to the site and removed it. All my research material gone. In 2009 I spoke to an old friend who mentioned the old site and said I should try again. So, I discovered blogger and started work. Instead of just focusing on deleted material I began adding other things no matter how small. Personally I'm not happy with it, but I still keep it regardless.

You can check out more from Adam on this awesome site here. http://weyland-yutaniarchives.blogspot.ie/

Alien vs Predator ten year anniversary Blue Ray review

So its been ten years since the big disappointment of this movie hit me. When I first saw it in the cinema my brain was making excuse's for the movie. It was bloodless and had cardboard characters. Sure the scope was grand and it took some wicked elements from the comics and other movies but it was still and epic let down.
Regardless I bought the special edition DVD but I still had major issues with the uncut version. So after 10 years and watching the uncut version in high definition is it any bit better. Does the movie deserve a 2nd chance.

Well there one or two extra scenes with team before the entering the temple....it flesh's them out slightly mainly the merc's and Max Straford. They also added digital blood and gore. In some scenes it works in others it can tell been done with computer. As when it first came out the effects and set pieces a top notch and the ADI work shop was on the top of the game with the creatures and monsters. While the predators still look like linebacker footballers their still its an awesome design and the look of the xeno's had improved from their messy shitty color scheme in Alien Resurrection.

So do I still think the movie has gotten better over time....no christ no but I do think its not as bad as people myself included once siad it was.  I still think the movie is still way off the mark but its only real sin is it's an action/adventure rather then a horror/sci-fi and setting it on present day earth was the last nail in the coffin.