Pity for the Monster - The Convergence (Spoilers !)

Rating: 9/10 (25 June 2009)

Alien is one of the rare cases, when follow-ups worked and brought up films as good as the first. Perhaps due to the fact, that every sequel was made by another great director and had another Ripley character growing more and more adapt to the superhuman forces involved here. And that there was some kind of development of the alien species. Perhaps also due to the co-production of S.Weaver, who might protect her Sgt. Ripley against decay.
Alien is hard SF and hard SF is about possibility alone, neither about reality as the crime genre nor about myth as fantasy and horror. It is not at all the task of SF-authors to make real predictions - do you think they'd not work as engineering inventors or in policy, should they be capable of that ? No SF classic describing a nearer future as "1984", "Brave New World", "20.000 miles under the sea" has come only near to reality.
That is why hard SF is about possibilities. And the reader/spectator has to accept superluminal transit, for example. Attempts to fill the gap must inevitably fail by the missing scientific qualifications of the authors. In "Solaris" the alien is sending tormenting hallucinations to men - so far no problem - and Stanislav Lem tries to elaborate them as "neutrino bundles". That is ridiculous - in my view the only flaw of this masterpiece, but a severe.
Fortunately there is nothing like "neutrino bundles" in Alien 4. But unfortunately there are essentials of the plot too far from possibility. To pick out only one: The DNS Ripley 4 is made from could not have withstood the heat of the fumace in Alien 3. At the good end the plot has a marvellous outline and the length of IMDb's quote list proves the quality of the dialogue. A good part of its laconic humour comes from Ripley 4's alien nature and is quite appropriate. Nevertheless these holes are the main reason for me not to give a 10.
Slightly off-topic: For me Alien 1 is fine, but the poorest of the series. The only feeling it gives us is an always identical mixture of disgust and fear. It has a very very well done rhythm of terror and it has Sgt. Ripley, but these are the only extraordinary features - too poor for a masterpiece.
The Ressurrection is using constants of the former sequels: Powerful Ripley against claustrophobia, militarism, feasibility obsession of degenerate scientists and against haunting aliens. Birth, spaceships with the flavor of lube, little colours.
This Ripley 4 is no more human at the beginning and S.Weaver is playing the alien and her development of what we call humanity extremely well letting us never forget Ripley 4 is post-human. The salvation of her misbred precursor models is showing her first tears and very moving.
And as Ripley 4 is more alien, the aliens make a move towards us. We never learned, what might be in the alien's minds. Alien 1 even let the question open, whether this species is intelligent or not, at least since Alien 3 we have learned it is. Here we are told of extreme abilities of that intelligence. And the reprieving of Sgt. Ripley in 3 was a first step to the Newborn recognizing Ripley 4 as his mother here (who is in fact his physical grandmother).
Thus this sequel 4 is consistent further development of the former. It is consequent to enrich the story with elements of the initial contact genre adding something to the series i always missed (there is another initial contact - that of the scientists to Ripley 4). And it is completely in the anti-militaristic line to overcome the terror that these simultaneously insectoid and lizard-like beasts are spreading - in a sense we spectators are reliving the process Ripley's feelings at them are going through.
The Newborn is an Alien Queen's creation in direction to mankind. The Queen apparently has understood the small child pattern. But creation under pressure and possibly the Newborn is misbred. Any remarks on his guise should be made with this possible narrative intention of misbredness in mind.
That scenes with him led me to the hope, he might survive tamed by Ripley 4. And to pity with his death. That is an equally logical and amazing climax of the whole series. Pity for this ugly and deathly monster - an extraordinary experience impossible with anything else than a great movie.