Aliens or Terminator: Which franchise should have stopped after two?

[samsnee]

Alien and Aliens. Terminator and T2.

Two of the greatest original/sequel movies ever.

And two franchises that didn’t know when to die.

But which one has gone more off the trails, and sequels are trash? For the sake of discussion, sequels like Alien vs Predator, and tv shows like Sarah Connor Chronicles aren’t included.

Aliens franchise:

Alien 3 tried to take it back to its roots with a single alien in a confined space. And while Fincher’s direction is admirable, the tension and sense of dread wasn’t there.

Alien Resurrection was pure trash.

Prometheus had a lot going for it. Ridley Scott back at the helm. A strong cast. Budget to support the vision. And was a complete misfire and only muddled the mythology with how the Engineers were handled.

Alien: Covenant. I have not seen this movie. But by all accounts it was worse than Prometheus.

Terminator franchise:

Rise of the Machines: T2 closed the loop and ostensibly prevented Skynet from being created. Any storyline to try undo that would be a Sisyphean task. While the T-X, killing Sarah offscreen, and some of the early 2000s humor did not work, that ending was brilliant.

Terminator Salvation: The movie more known for Bale yelling at the lights guy than anything else. We finally get a future war and it looks nothing like we were promised. Instead of focusing on John Connor, we get sidetracked with Marcus who has the charismas of a paper bag.

Terminator Genisys: The weird spelling in the title wasn’t the dumbest thing in this movie. That would be making John Connor the bad guy.

Terminator Dark Fate: I enjoyed it. Basically a mash-up of the first two movies, it wasn’t the most original. But was good to see Linda Hamilton back and Arnold can play the Terminator in his sleep.

I’m going to give Terminator a slight edge of still being watchable. None of the sequels are amazing but a couple have their moments.

Aliens had the benefit of having Ridley back in the director’s chair, creating high expectations. But with that comes even greater disappointment.

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

 

[samsnee]

I mean, yeah. Both undoubtedly haven’t done great. But which one has fallen further?

 

[Sithborg]

Bad sequels don't necessarily negate the potential of a franchise. A successful second movie actually says you can try to make more.

Continued annoyance of lack of SCC on these lists, though it is actually good.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The Terminator sequels after T2 never live up to John Connor's legendary status and in some cases they drag him through the mud.

The Alien sequels do less damage imo.

 

[Brother Jack]

Terminator was a finished and complete story after the second one. Cameron closed the loop so well that any movie that's come after has had to work around it somehow, all of them unsuccessful.

Alien by its design is not serialized in the same way. It does follow a progressive continuity but boiled down each installment is fundamentally the same story just told in different ways with different genre trappings and aesthetics. Scott made a monster/horror movie, Cameron turned into sci-fi action. I have a soft spot for Alien 3 even though Fincher disowns it and Resurrection I don't think is bad either. I'd say it has fared much better as a franchise even though Scott's recent films have muddied the water quite a bit.

 

[Scorpio]

I actually like all 4 of the original alien movies. They all vary in quality but i genuinely enjoy watching them and they all offer something unique which is what I love.

Prometheus and Covenant are very meh though

 

[Vaibow]

I always felt growing up that the alien, was the main thing about the movie, alien. It was a horror movie in space. It scared me. The sequels kinda tarnished the legend in the sense that we saw move it and it diluted as it went along.

Terminator, was ripe for sequels - doesn't mean the sequels were fresh though.

 

[TheVileOne]

Terminator. It was all about having Schwarzenegger and Cameron on board together. Without that you have a pile of urine.

 

[Captain Tired]

I mean, they should both have stopped after the second film. That much is obvious. But even with me having a soft spot for Rise of the Machines, I'd still say Alien 3 (especially the Assembly Cut) is a much superior third entry in its respective film series. And even beyond that point, from the fun popcorn absurdity of Alien Resurrection to the gloriously epic visuals of Prometheus, there are still faint glimmers of greatness to be found here and there. Whereas with the Terminator series, I genuinely find there to be nothing of of any real worth after T3. T3 has proven to be my cut-off point.

 

[titansupes]

Terminator, even though DF is much better (no where near the level of the first two of course) than people give it credit for. T2 wrapped everything in such a perfect little bow that to continue the story (in anything other than a 90's made Future War prequel with Cameron and Biehn) means actively undoing it. Just not a great platform to launch from.

Alien, as much as its sequels haven't lived up to the first two, doesn't have that intrinsic problem. It more of an issue of execution than anything.

 

[The Joker]

Definitely Terminator.

 

[Erik20]

Terminator has 3 (4?) sequels all in their own continuity that each tell you the previous movie doesn't count. (Basically everything created after T2) I don't think you can top that.

Now with Dark Fate they ruined John Connor and Skynet forever since they used all the original actors and acted like this is the "real" third movie. You can't do that again.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

They both should've stopped, but I'm going to pick Terminator for the bevy of reasons posted above. I'm still pissed about John Connor in Dark Fate.

 

[henzINNIT]

For me? Neither. I like Alien 3 and Terminator 3 enough to be content that they exist.

Alien is probably the greater disappointment, just because it actually had some real talent involved. But it still largely disappointed. Terminator sequels didn't generally get great directors after Cameron departed. McG was never going to deliver a good film.

 

[NotNickFury]

Terminator by far.

That being said, even though I haven't watched it, I've heard that The Sarah Connor Chronicles was pretty good.

 

[metaphysician]

Alien. At least Terminator gets the Sarah Conner Chronicles. Alien doesn't have anything equivalent; *all* its post-2 stories are varying flavors of crap.

 

[samsnee]

For me? Neither. I like Alien 3 and Terminator 3 enough to be content that they exist.

Alien is probably the greater disappointment, just because it actually had some real talent involved. But it still largely disappointed. Terminator sequels didn't generally get great directors after Cameron departed. McG was never going to deliver a good film.

That’s how I feel about it. If Cameron actually came back and directed the Terminator sequels and they still sucked, then they would be worse.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

Most definitely Terminator. The magic of those films had to do with both Cameron and Arnold. Salvation did something different in wanting to solely focus on John Connor and the future war, but a shame it wasn’t a success as I actually enjoyed that movie and sequels had so much potential. After that they tried & failed to reboot and even brought back Arnold, but the films were a mess. Shows that Terminator should have just ended with T2

Aliens can still be good. I personally enjoyed Prometheus and Covenant but they both could have been so much better. Both Aliens and Predator are movie franchises that have so much potential and endless possibilities. But somehow studios find a way to screw it up. I really hope the upcoming Aliens series is good. I also hear they’re doing a Predator movie that is suppose to take place in the past. Hopefully now that these IPs are under Disney they can do a better job producing good quality entertainment

 

[Mysteryman]

Dark Fate is almost 3 years old
Th SH forum for it is still active.
Do we have an active Alien thread?

 

[chamber-music]

Terminator. I feel like the franchise was done after Judgement Day and everything after the first two was just more weaker variations of the first two films.

Alien franchise could of had more better instalments if they worked on some of the ideas a bit more or took things in another direction. The Aliens being rogue biological weapons created by the Space Jockeys/Engineers wasn't a bad idea to me but how they played it out in the prequels wasn't well thought out.

 

[Lily Adler]

Ah yes the James Cameron curse...

 

[psylockolussus]

Aliens.

I feel like with the right hands, Terminator has more potential for several films.

The faceless Alien creatures all look the same and I couldn't care less who gets killed in the movies.

 

[Marvolo]

Neither should have stopped at 2. Both had a lot of room to grow. Still do. The problem is they didn't grow.

T3 should have been a new story with a new cast of characters. Maybe showing the fall of civilization and the early war. Or the machines going further into the past to enslave humans earlier could have been fun and increased the horror element. Or a film set 100 years after machines took over, and the machines have colonized other planets in the solar system and are using humans as slaves and workers. Could have introduced humans that were loyal to the machines and replacing their body parts with cybernetics. Make a trilogy culminating in a solar system war. Humans win, but the machines flee the solar system leaving the threat of their return in case Fox wanted to make more films at some point in the future.

As for Alien, that universe hasn't been explored nearly enough. We know very little about human society in the Alienverse. We know very little about xenos in the Alienverse. Just like Aliens expanded on the Xeno by introducing the queen later films should have introduced other Xeno forms and more intelligent xenos. Could have went full Lovecraft. Or they could have made it an anthology franchise. Different alien types and stories not connected to any characters in previous films.

 

[samsnee]

Dark Fate is almost 3 years old
Th SH forum for it is still active.
Do we have an active Alien thread?

People use that forum to discuss Terminator in general not just that movie. There’s a Neil Blomkopf Alien thread that gets resurrected every now and then.