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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An above average novelization, but flawed, October 14, 2003
Most novelizations of films are little more than breathless descriptions of what happened on screen. They had more of a place years ago when people did automatically buy videos or DVDs, and once your favorite film left the cineplex, you might not see it again for years...so the novelization would let you "relive" the film. That's not necessary anymore, so the only function they can have is to fill-in information that might have been left on the cutting room floor.A.C. Crispin makes a sincere effort with "Alien Resurrection", and it doesn't read too badly. It does fall short of a real novel in it's dramatic structure and characterization. She makes a token attempt to fill in backgrounds, even first names, for characters who in the film often are killed off before we get a chance to know them. (Personally, I think this is a flaw in the movie, as we can't possibly care about the death of a character we have barely been introduced to.) Since the novelization came out at virtually the same time as the film was released, I am guessing that it had to be written before viewing the finished film and that it is largely based on older versions of the script and maybe rough cuts of the movie. There are numerous deviations from the finished film, none of them cosmically important but if you enjoy certain bits of dialogue -- especially some of the very humorous throw-away lines -- it is disconcerting to see them stated differently or clipped or just dropped entirely. What I was hoping for WAS that the novelization would fill in some of the critical information gaps in the film -- especially Call's motivation in joining the smuggler crew of the Betty and heading out to the Auriga to destroy the alien breeding experiment. This is confusingly told in the film. If Call is so concerned about the Betty crew, why doesn't she do something to prevent them from ever kidnapping the cryo-sleepers BEFORE they reach the Auriga? Why does she allow all the cryo-sleepers to be impregated and killed? Wouldn't it have been simpler for her to have joined the crew of the Auriga and sabotaged the experiement from within the military? Anyways, I will have to live with the ambivalence (or Joss Whedon's slightly wobbly, undercooked script) because the novelization provides no real answers. Still, most novelizations I have read are complete and utter dreck and this one definitely is not. I think it's a serious attempt to create a companion piece to the film. I just wish the author had stuck with the details a little more clearly.
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by Alan Dean Foster
by Alan Dean Foster
by Marc Cerasini
by Michael Jan Friedman
