David Thomson on The Alien Quartet (Bloomsbury Movie Guide No. 4)
This pocket book details many different aspects of the Alien films - the different directors, the making of the films, the themes, the actors, the tensions on the set, indeed everything anyone could... This description may be from another edition of this product.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0747538034
ISBN13:9780747538035
Release Date:January 1803
Publisher:Bloomsbury
Weight:0.72 lbs.
Dimensions:1.9" x 10.0" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
2 ratings
The most unusual and obsessive film study I have ever read
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
I was familiar with Mr. Thomson as a prominent film scholar, but had no idea that he had such a deep fascination with the Alien films mythology. His intellectual interest and cunning insights into the four Alien films make repeated viewings more rewarding, and his fanciful thinking might threaten to take you on some theoretical wanderings of your own. The portions of the book dealing with Ridley Scott and James Cameron's respective contributions are, not surprisingly, more interesting and rich than the latter half of the book dealing with the mostly uninspiring third picture and the entirely misguided fourth entry. You can feel Thomson's disinterest in these later films as his passion tapers off into re-writing their plotlines and wondering what might have been; he's right, they're bad movies that they sully the good names of the first two pictures. A must read for any serious student of contemporary big-budget cinema, like it or not: this is what film writing should be like. Always superbly written, consistently insightful and fresh -- a whole new introduction to one of the greatest nightmares ever filmed.
Wrong - but fascinating
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
This is a work of criticism and focuses on all four Alien movies. I disagree with the author's analysis - especially his assessment of Alien Resurrection - but I found his theories very interesting. It certainly made me examine why I think that the quartet works so well, which I believe is the greatest strength of the book. Because I disagreed with Thomson I found myself examining my own views more closely than I ever have before, and this led me to a greater appreciation for the films. I thank Thomson for this, and this is the reason the book gets five stars.To say that the book spends 80% of its time rehashing the plots is doing it disservice. True, it goes through each film in great detail, but it analyses as it does so. It's written for a general reader rather than a student of film in an engaging style.If you want a behind the scenes look at the movies or interviews with the people who made them this is the wrong book for you. If you want to read someone's personal thoughts and, in doing so, come to a better understanding of the quartet then buy this.
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