Probably the best of the first four novelizations.

A while back I decided to punish myself for some reason by reading through the novelizations of the first four Alien movies for reasons I won't go into here. I generally dislike novelizations -- at least I dislike them unless they add something to the experience of the movie. Too often they simply sweep you through the movie and don't even bother to stop and provide good descriptions (relying on the fact that you already have the visuals in your head). What I'm really looking for, of course, is more detail about the world and some of the internal dialogue of the characters. Alien 4: Alien Resurrection really came through on that score. Here's the good and the bad.

The good. You get some internal dialogue from the characters and from the aliens themselves! You also get a look into the world of an artificial human, two actually - an android and a semi-human clone. I especially enjoyed the sub-plot surrounding the artificial human (android). The reading by Hope is generally good and Crispin's writing is fine too. There are a couple of things going for the movie that really translated well into the novelization - the spooky atmosphere and the huge variety of interesting characters.

The bad. Well, there's not much negative worth saying. The book does indeed suffer some of the typical problems of a novelization - lazy description, for instance - but not as much as was the case with Foster's novelizations (Alien and Aliens). You also don't get a lot of extra plot detail that wasn't apparent in the movie, but you get a little.

Overall, I'd say it was a satisfying read.

7 people found this helpful

Fan freaking tastic story

I really like that I have not seen this movies in such a long time. The books made the stories come back to life for me. Not only that but also brought to focus many things that I may not have noticed while just watching the movie. Yet again, the book out does the movie, and this is a novelization!

For book four, Ripley is dealing with something completely different. They have cloned her (how they got her out of lava from book three is not really talked about, but somehow they were able to) and they also cloned her alien baby. OF COURSE THEY DID! I mean why not clone this horrific alien that eats people, bleeds and spits acid, and can survive the apocalypse like huge, carnivorous cockroaches? Makes sense to me! Well, they do and it's Ripley that is left with the implications of having to choose between races.

I loved being able to hear the alien's thoughts. The narration and audio did a fantastic job of bringing this hive like creature to life. I talk about cockroaches but in reality, it's like they are bees. Carnivorous bees that want to do a lot more than just pollinate flowers! It was amazing getting a feel for who they were and how they thought. I did not know until the very end which way Ripley would choose. The narration just made it all the more intriguing to listen to.

I would definitely recommend listening to this. The narration by William Hope is incredible. And, although I would have loved to hear it with a full cast, the story and the narrator really leads this into a great direction. Fans will love this even more than the already fantastic movies. The voices were easily discernible, even when they are in terror, or like when another android goes on the fritz. I loved listening to that portion, although it did freak me out a little!

In short: Fan freaking tastic story. Even better than the movies.

Audiobook was purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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23 people found this helpful

How the French Say....It Sucks..

So. I love the Alien series. I grew up watching these movies. (see my Alien 3 review) The unique, bizarre, grotesque and horrid look and feel of the the first and 2nd movies really stuck with me when I was younger. When I think sci fi horror, the alien theme and "look" of the movies is what really comes to mind. As much as I love other settings like Star Wars and Star Trek, their pretty, glamous, new and shiny worlds just lack the gritty, realism that the alien franchise has captures and run with.
Anywho I've vouched for myself enough. So let me just state off the bat, this book is a piece of garbage. I'll compare this directly with the Alien 3 novel. Alien 3 was a horrible movie. But the novelization of it, was so well written, that you wouldn't have known it. THIS waste of paper, is not the same ilk. It, in all seriousness feels as though it was written by a teenage boy, for his teenage friends. As though they watched the movie, remembered parts that stuck out, elaborated on those scenes and everything else is swept by with such random disregard. You can really tell this is a novelization of a motion picture. And perhaps this is the fault with some movies, or scenes. They just don't lend themselves well to writing. Or let me correct that... some movies or scenes take actual skill to turn them into cohesive writing that doesn't sound like it's directly pulled from a movie scene. Skill that Mr. Crispin, does not possess. The writing (not the story necessarily) is told in a very flat, "This happens, that happens" method. No elaboration, no metaphoric use of the English language, nothing in excess. Emotion doesn't even come through very well. Plus I really detest the character that Ripley has become. Her new "all knowing" god like attitude is just cheesy and cliche. What made Ripley so amazing, in the first two movies, is that was was a normal woman. Put in extraordinarily scary and bad scenarios which she used her creativity, and instinct to overcome. The last two movies, made her into this omnipotent matyr where she no longer relied on herself for survival, but was seemingly given super powers that gets her out of her messes.

What this does is reduce the credit that she's given as a person, and just overall makes me not care about her anymore. The author doesn't nothing humanize her, and just makes her into a walking robot. Seriously, Call the actual robot ((Oh i'm sorry, "Artificial person) has more emotion that Ripley.

I wasn't a fan of this movie by any stretch. But the book offers absolutely zero redeeming factors that the novelization of Alien 3 provided. It made a crap movie, into an absolute crap book. At least with the movie, I got to see Wionna Ryder... :\

5 people found this helpful

Decent, not exceptional.

Great narrator and performance. Script parallels the movie, but drones on in too much detail towards the end.

1 person found this helpful

Better than the movie

As an audiobook it was more enjoyable than the movie. when you get to know people's thoughts

bad narration

loved the story been a fan since the beginning but this narrator is just the worst 😕

Didn't like the movie but this brings it new life.

The Josh Wedon movie was too yellow, gross, and creepy so I had been disappointed with how the franchise had gone, but this book brought more humanity into it and redeemed the story.

I Loved It, Now To Watch The Movie

Lots of twists and turns and connections with the Aliens come to light. I really enjoyed the book and I hope the movie us just as good. I really don't know why I missed seeing it in the 90's as I had seen all the others as they were released.

Good backstory, but drags in spots

loved getting more back stories on the characters, but the story really drags in spots. 3 hours in and struggling to continue with the book.

Its an interesting science fiction story

Extremely graphic story. The human to robot connection seemed forced. This is a great story that is worth the read.