The Movies that Made Us (series): Some really interesting facts in these

This series discusses movies that most people are familiar with even if they haven't seen them. You really should see them though because they are some of the most famous movies of the 70's, 80's, and 90's such as Aliens, Back to the Future, and Pretty Woman.

Instead of just walking you down the path of glory and film-making, this series instead focuses on the trial and tribulations that the people in these films had to go through in order for their product to finally make it to market. Most of the films they talk about had BIG problems and many of them were nearly not made because of these problems.

src

Currently there are 3 seasons of varying length and while every episode has a similar setup, they don't follow a particular script. They involve stats that you probably didn't know as well as interviews with some of the key players that were involved in the films.

The one I watched most recently focused on one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time, Aliens.

src

Despite the fact that the first film, Alien did very well this 2nd installment nearly didn't get finished for a wide variety of reason and problems that included drug addiction, infighting with the crew, budget arguments with producers, and the main factor being that unlike the first film, this one needed to have many different aliens all at once whereas the first one, as the name would suggest, only had one.

src

CGI was in its infancy when this film was made, so while having an army of Aliens crawl towards you would probably just involve a phone call to a computer graphics studio these days, it was a lot more complicated back in the 80's. They had to use creative lighting, camera tricks, lots of smoke machines, and people stuffed inside of very hot suits for hours on end. This lead to a lot of problems with the crew and seeing as how they had no idea that this would become one of the most iconic sci-films of all time when they were doing it, it is easier to understand why tensions were hot among the cast and crew.

Not to do too much of a spoiling but at one point the entire crew walked off the set due to an argument with director James Cameron who had been firing people left and right. It was only through the efforts of star Sigourney Weaver that they agreed to come back and finish the movie.

src
_{to convince the producers that the "queen" would be possible to recreate on screen using just puppets, the prototype was a simplistic machine made primarily out of black trash bags}

When you watch this film today, it still stands up for the most part in a special effects sense and it is just crazy to me that they managed to make the entire film for under $20 million. It ended up being a pretty damn good investment on their part as the film managed to rake in nearly ten times that amount before they even factor in DVD sales, Netflix contracts, and of course the wide range of collectibles that this film inspired.

I found this particular film's interior workings to be pretty amazing but the other films they focus on are just as interesting and they all seems to have one particular theme in that at one point or another, virtually all of the films were close to being cancelled due to some problem or another.

Should I watch it?

While the above trailer focuses on season 1, the format is the same in a way through all of them. Unlike a lot of other documentaries about films I feel as though they did a good mix of splicing in sections of the actual films, mixing that in with some of the people involved, some good comedy, and of course a wealth of stats that you probably didn't already know.

While it might be a bit nerdy, I am one of those guys that likes knowing obscure facts about various famous films and if you watch this, you will definitely get some of that. I blazed through each of these seasons in a day or two because they are very well done and easy to watch. It's one of the better series available on Netflix right now in my opinion.