Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Tue May 23, 2017 6:02 am
Regardless of whatever problem the space marines might have encountered in Aliens, they clearly thought that they were going into a battle/kill 'em all situation, and not one that involved chemical/viral outbreak. I mean, Bill Paxton spends a solid 5 minutes detailing all of the cool guns and stuff they were going to use. And, since Aliens was meant to be a commentary on the Vietnam war, the actions of the space marines parallel nicely with the actions of the US Army going into that war. Sure, not being prepared for chemical/viral outbreak is a solid criticism of Aliens within terms of plot and/or world building, but it's not a criticism that involves contradictions in character set-up. All of the characters in Aliens are shown to be predisposed to mishandling the situation in a certain way, and they proceed to mishandle that situation in that exact way. Their actions don't contradict the characters that they were set up to be from the beginning. They were set up to be stupid "shoot first, ask questions later" characters, and nothing they did contradicted that role unless the situation around the characters made them realize the error in their ways. It's solid character writing with wonky world-building and a silly, simple plot. And all of this is plainly laid out from the beginning, so most audiences are either signed up for that from the beginning, or they reject it outright from the beginning. No one is disappointed half way through.
Prometheus, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. Its plot and world building is nearly flawless, but their characters do things that seem to contradict the types of characters they were set up to be from the beginning. They're set up to be people of science. They're supposed ask questions before taking action or even before making assumptions. They're meant to act slowly, carefully, and methodically. They're believed to make all of the proper measurements before deciding the next possible course. And then, without reason or precedent, they throw all of that in the wind as soon as they get on this dangerous looking planet. If audiences were expecting that scientific and methodical approach to be played out for the rest of the film by the main characters, then tough cookies, son. This is an Alien film where stupid characters do stupid things no matter how smart the film tried to convince you they were just a few minutes ago. As a result, you end up with a fair chunk of audiences that became disappointed half way through the film. "We were promised methodical character actions in an Alien universe," they postured. "Why didn't we get it?"
Now it just depends on who hates which problem the most, or who's more forgiving about any of these problems. Clearly some people see that almost all of the Alien films have issues, and just enjoy the films for what they are. And that's fine. Others were more character-focused, and any of the issues involving plot or world-building are glossed over so they could enjoy the solid character writing. And that's also fine. (A very slim amount of the audiences might even hate the world-building of the ones with more solid character writing, and that's fine too.) But, in this sense, this means that the least "problematic" Alien installment within terms of over-all consistency is still the original Alien film. And if you want to hold the rest of the franchise to that standard, be my guest. But that'll mean there has never been an Alien film as good as the original. And if "not as good as the original" is a reason to hate something, and if that's true of all Alien films, then maybe one should just ignore the Alien franchise from here on out.