I WAS TROLLING the various blogs of friends whose opinions I value—even if I don’t always agree with them—but then I got bored and read Angry Rabbit’s (ET) instead. Her latest entry is a combination “Alien: Resurrection” script worship and “Alien: Resurrection” movie review. This has been a continuous point of debate between myself, ET, and other familiars. Mainly because I refuse to concede that Joss Whedon is the Mark Twain of the 21st century, or something like that.

Now, I’ve seen “Alien: Resurrection,” the movie, something like, 15 times. There’s a VHS copy of it at my parents’ house in Miami. I’ve been a huge Jean-Pierre Jeunet fan ever since I saw “The City of Lost Children” seven years ago. I plan to buy all his movies on DVD. I’ve been looking forever for import DVD’s that contain all the award-winning short films and commercials he made subsequent to “Delicatessan,” along with his former collaborator, Mark Caro. Heck, if Jeunet would be willing to take me on as an apprentice for two/three/ten years, I would move to France, work for free, and get by busing tables or selling my ass to sailors. Because it would be an invaluable experience (Apprenticing for Jeunet, not making a man-whore out of myself.) The man is THAT talented.

And yet, “Alien: Resurrection” is easily Jeunet’s worst movie. Having now read Whedon’s script, I can’t say for sure if it is the worst thing Whedon has written, but I would certainly hope so. Amazingly, certain people, like ET, actually LIKE the script. I appreciate it only because it eventually ends. ET, meanwhile, lauds it for different reasons:

“Even though it's a first draft, the script works. I admit that I haven't read a lot of screenplays, but I'm familiar enough with Whedon's work to have an idea of what he's trying to do. All the Whedon trademarks are there: strong females, terrific group dynamics and witty dialogue. The script aims for a feel that's reminiscent of Aliens, and in the hands of a director like James Cameron, could've been another good action entry to the series.”

WHERE DO I BEGIN? Okay, Whedon’s screenplay has one great conceit, and I can only pray that it’s his: Ripley comes back as a human/alien hybrid. That’s a great idea, even if, in my opinion, it makes Ripley into a comic book superhero (capable of Wonder Woman-type monster bashing with her bare hands), rather than anything remotely accessible. Putting that aside, where are the “terrific group dynamics” of this screenplay? The crew of the Betty? This hapless bunch of xenomorph fodder is even more one-dimensional than the hapless bunch of xenomorph fodder that ultimately inhabits the finished film. The only difference is that there’s more of them in Whedon’s script.

St. Just? Rane? One gets eaten, the other one carries guns. Yeah, there’s a real depth here that would make Victor Hugo applaud. I don’t know if it was Jeunet or Whedon who decided to consolidate Christie and St. Just into the same character, but one of them had to go. Otherwise, Christie’s only purpose is to say the exact same lines Elgyn would have said, if he hadn’t been killed already.

Seriously, what are these wonderful group dynamics that Jeunet failed to explore? Four drunks around a table instead of three? Because the rest, as far as I can tell, is still in the movie. So the blame for me finding them totally uninteresting belongs strictly to Whedon.

And furthermore, since I found the central characters uninteresting to begin with, it might have been a good thing that Jeunet, who’s known for casting actors with interesting faces (I believe Fellini also did this), directed this personality-devoid dreck. Lord knows I wouldn’t have remembered them for any other reason! As for witty dialogue, where and how? Get this, folks: The corporation Ripley used to work for, it got bought out… by Wal-Mart! Get it? Because Wal-Mart is an evil corporation bent on taking over the universe! Guffaw, guffaw! Someone should change Whedon’s last name to Wilde. I kept waiting for someone to mention that United Military is now ruled by the immortal Emperor Schwartzeneggar.

See, if Whedon was really trying to be witty, he would have expanded the Wal-Mart/Corporation angle. In fact, Wal-Mart could have been the ones to clone Ripley (They’re expanding into real estate and auto sales, I hear, so wouldn’t genetics be inevitable?) That would have been witty. And then the movie could take place in a giant spaceship that resembles a shopping center. So much better than a single throwaway line!

When ET says that Whedon’s dialogue is witty, perhaps she refers to all the colorful sexual references. “We are fucked up our pink asses!” “Get out your socket wrench. I think Call just needs a change of oil.” Hey, if Joss Whedon wanted his characters to talk like horny mid-20’s Gen X-ers, he should have written them as Gen X-ers in their 20’s, instead of characters in their 30’s and 40’s. Characters that talk their age is the WRITER’S responsibility, NOT the director’s!

And while we’re on the subject of directors, I don’t know who the “perfect” director for Whedon’s “Alien: Resurrection” script would have been. But I suspect that if ET could have chosen him/her, that person would also have been named Joss Whedon. Don’t for a moment think that if James Cameron had signed up to do it, he would have adapted Whedon’s script verbatim. No friggin’ way! Cameron, like Jeunet, is a genuine auteur, NOT a director. Yeah, “Aliens” was full of firefights and explosions. But Cameron wrote the screenplay, and he would be the first to tell you that “Aliens” is not about cool action sequences; it’s about the relationships between mothers and their children. Ellen Ripley gets back the daughter she lost. She journeys into hell and back to rescue her child. In hell, she confronts another mother, the xenomorph queen, who is equally protective of her children. THAT’S why “Aliens” is a great movie. At its heart, it has relationships we can all understand. I’m not sure if Joss Whedon tried to create a similar dynamic between Ripley and Call when he wrote the first draft of his 120-page ammo fest. If he had been trying, that makes the screenplay all the more sad, because the end result is unclear at best, and uninteresting at worst.

In fact, while I was reading the scene where Ripley has to convince Call to crash the starship’s computer, I couldn’t help wondering if Whedon was trying to write a PARODY of those mother/daughter scenes we see in commercials all the time. You know, where they try to sell douche and stuff. Call is the teenage girl who feels ugly and uncomfortable with her body. Ripley uses wry humor and her strong maternal presence to show Call that she’s not alone. I kept expecting her to break out into Lou Reed’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” Unfortunately, that would have been too French.

You know, ET claims to be familiar with the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but never remarks on how “Alien: Resurrection” is consistent with the man’s themes and obsessions. “The City of Lost Children” had giant fleas and Siamese twins, and a brain in a water tank. The man does grotesques. And he lights them very well. Likewise, in “Alien: Resurrection,” one can sense how fascinated the director is with the xenomorphs. They are much more expressive in their movements in the film than in the screenplay.

I would guess that Jeunet’s fascination for the villains explains why I found the death of the hybrid so tragic. After all, he just wanted his mom. Then his mom killed him. I think it would also explain why the director changed one of the scenes ET liked so much: The early scene where it looks like the alien is about to attack the scientists, but hits a glass wall instead. No! You leave that out! The aliens are supposed to be lethal killing machines. You never undercut them! You always take them seriously! You make them look like clowns in one scene, and the tone of subsequent movies becomes less and less serious. The next thing you know, you’ve got “Batman and Robin” on your hands.

Instead, Jeunet has Brad Dourif looking through the reverse side of a glass window. Pull back into the darkness, slowly revealing an alien… then another… then another. It’s a great shot.

Now, you may be thinking: Phil, you seem to think Jeunet did a competent job with “Alien: Resurrection.” Does that mean you disagree with ET that “A:R” was a mismatch between writer and director? Not at all. I totally agree that this was a case of the wrong director with the wrong writer. And the perfect solution would have been firing Joss Whedon immediately, and allowing Jeunet to assemble his own script.

Like a wise man once said to me, “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.” Auteurs always impart their own vision to a film. The best movies in the “Alien” franchise have always allowed auteurs to strut their respective stuff. I find it interesting that ET never mentions the first “Alien” movie, which was both the best “Alien” movie, and the brainchild of Ridley Scott. Like Jeunet, Ridley Scott is a man whose ability to create bold cinematic visions often saves what are otherwise uninteresting films (“Black Rain” and “Hannibal” are two examples.) Scott conceived of “Alien” as a haunted house movie in space, something that had never been tried before. More importantly, he wanted the visual style to be based on the European heavy metal comics he enjoyed. This was also something that made the 20th Century Fox execs nervous. Most importantly, Scott was intensely involved with every aspect of Dan O’Bannon and Walter Hill’s script, even if he never wrote a single word. Bottom line: “Alien” was not the result of a screenplay typed up in California by one person, and then directed by someone totally disconnected with the writing process. It germinated, evolved, and flourished out of the creativity of a single person: Ridley Scott.

The formula only broke down with “Alien 3.” The goddamned producers started with Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2”) working with William Gibson. But Gibson’s vision was too expensive, so they commissioned David Twohy (“The Fugitive,” and the upcoming “Chronicles of Riddick”) to write the screenplay. Then Harlin dropped out. Next they approached the awesome Vincent Ward (“Map of the Human Heart,” “What Dreams May Come”) to write and direct. I’ve read Ward’s screenplay, and it would have been spectacular. Think “The Hobbit” in space. But no, that was too elaborate. In desperation, the producers tried to bring Walter Hill back. Hill agreed to write and direct. Then he decided he didn’t want to direct.

What did fans ultimately get? David Fincher directing what was rumored to be a bare-bones story by Hill, but without a screenplay. THIS IS WHY THE “ALIEN” MOVIES SHOULD ALWAYS FEATURE A SINGLE CREATIVE VOICE! This is why after Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) dropped out of “A:R,” and Jeunet was hired, they should have paid Whedon off and let the Frenchman do his own writing. The man can do creepy shit. He could have made a wonderful, unique addition to the “Alien” franchise. Or at least a great fantasy film. But he never really got to make HIS “Alien” movie. Instead, he had to make his version of Joss Whedon’s screenplay. In the end, he was an auteur forced to stoop, so low his head was no longer in the clouds where it belonged.