(Spoilers ahead)

I love the Alien franchise to death, but let's be brutally honest here: out of six movies (excluding Alien vs. Predator, whose canonicity is dubious), only Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and James Cameron's Aliens (1986) are widely acclaimed. The other movies are... divisive, to say the least. Many people consider Alien 3 a decent movie in its own right, but others (including myself) cannot forgive it for summarily killing off Newt, Hicks and Bishop, thus voiding Ripley's heroic actions in Aliens. Alien Resurrection is considered by most to be the weakest installment of the original four, a fact often attributed to creative differences. As a sucker for space horror, I still enjoyed the prequels Prometheus and Alien Covenant, but I agree with those who say that those movies screw up the series' mythology and timeline.

So imagine you are a studio exec, or a director who is given huge amounts of artistic freedom. How do you deal with the questionable directions the series has taken? Where does Alien go from there?


Some possibilities:

Bring back Sigourney Weaver as Ripley for a continuation of the original series where Resurrection left off. Perhaps she can act as a mentor figure to a new protagonist, a bit like Han, Luke and Leia in the latest Star Wars trilogy.

Soldier on with the controversial prequels and hope they can be led somewhere good. I think there should at least be a third movie to wrap up what we could call the "David trilogy", though my hopes that it can fix the damage to the overarching mythology are low.

Create an alternate continuity wherever the series went wrong. (For example: Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop awaken from hypersleep after the events of Aliens. Any movies made after 1986 are ignored.)

Full reboot. Not a fan of this idea, as I feel the first two Alien movies really don't need to be revisited or replaced; they are damn near perfect.

For my part, I would favor a noncommittal, middle-of-the-road approach: create a new series that takes place between the years 2179 (events of Alien 3) and 2379 (Alien Resurrection). Whole new cast of characters stumbling upon the xenomorphs. Female protagonist, because at this point it's safe to say that it's part of the series' brand. The events of Alien and Aliens may be referenced (e.g. characters reading a case file about the Nostromo incident or the disaster of Hadley's Hope), but the events of Prometheus, Alien Covenant and Alien 3 are neither acknowledged nor explicitly contradicted. The usual suspects (Weyland-Yutani) are still involved.

I think I would make it a TV series, instead of a film series.


.

To me the series ended at alien 3, i'm one of the people who liked that one. It's bleak and has a decent sendoff for ripley IMO. I'm not as big a fan of the directors cut though. Some bad CGI and wonky changes in there.

I am curious to see what happens next with David, but Ridley Scott is getting old and he seems scatterbrained. Maybe they should just lay this series to rest. Honestly i'd rather see a sequel to Alien Isolation, since that game captured the feeling of the originals better than anything else has.

I like the little shorts they did for the anniversary.

The universe is a big sandbox. You have people doing people stuff. Poking at the universe, trying to make a living. Little people scraping along, big corps doing what they can to boost profits. Governments trying to keep order, and power.

Into that little slice of life, you toss a few eggs of mayhem and death.

Watch the fun.


All the movies follow the same pattern.

Happy people existing, spend time to get to know them and get attached.
Exposure/infection/outbreak.
WTF PANIC!
<people die here>
We have a plan!
<plan fails, more people die>
last surviver(s) make a break for it
Blow it out the airlock.

You can basically just pick any happy little colony and spin it up. Random Joes? 1 and 3. More organized with military/security 2 and 4.

I loved these movies, even the ones after Alien 3 but you're right, some of them were pretty terrible. I read someone else once describe the aliens films as unique because each one is told in a different way. Horror, action film...err...prison film...etc. It helped make some of the later films more palatable. But honestly, regardless of the story, they just need to do a good job with relatable or interesting characters more than anything else. I didn't mind some of the Alien V Predator films because they looked cool, but man, the characters were just dull and lifeless. There are a bunch of great...actually...good...books out there that would work well. If it was me, I'd go with a new angle and tell the story from the Earth Wars books I think they are called. Those had some cool ideas in them and they go into Earth being infested and how it was mishandled, as well as cults etc so there is something interesting and a bit different there. Or, the ones where they go to an Alien homeworld and harvest their royal jelly...those were a pretty fun story to read, even if there were crazy over the top. But yeah, Alien movies fail when their characters are boring or pointless. Without those story arcs, they're just guns and gore porn really. (Although I still watched all of them...)

Nowhere. I'm a much bigger fan of telling complete stories and walking away. Any attempt to rehash them, reboot them or 'alternate continuity' is automatically a failure.

If there's room for new stories in the same setting, that can be a thing, but 'rescuing' for the sake of rescuing is pointless.

Probably the 'best' way to springboard off of Alien is to have a Weyland-Yutani (or competitor) crew do something that doesn't involve Xenomorphs or Precursors or whatever in any way at all.

A character driven story about a resource race on a struggling colony could be interesting, or claim jumping, or whatever. I can't think of much for the setting that isn't just 'Space Western,' but I'm not sure that's me or the limitations of the setting

I am going to defend Alien 3 and the death of Hicks and Newt.

If you REALLY love Alien and Aliens and the character Ripley then you should know that Ripley's character arc is defined by loss at the hands of the company in pursuit of their monster. Alien sees her lose her whole crew (every person she knows that we are aware of). Aliens opens with a recap of that and the stripping of her rank along with a massive loss of her time and life. The directors cut adds in the loss of her daughter.

Ripley's victory over the company comes in Alien 3. She takes from them the only thing they wanted by killing off their last samples. Her speech in 3 is perfect. They don't care about us. They think were crud. The first time it was crew expendable. The next time it was marines, the same. You think they give a feth about a bunch of lifers who found god at the ass end of the universe? They will kill you just for knowing about it. feth them.

Lets say hicks and Newt survived, yeah? How much impact would have been sucked out of that speech because of them walking around? Ripley's story is about loss. And her victory is about sticking it to them in the last and only way she ever could. Newt and Hicks have no lasting place in Ripley's story and their place in it was long done by the credits of Aliens. They would have only taken away from Alien 3 by being around.



That being said, you save Alien franchise at this point by moving as far away from LV-426 and Ripley as possible. You don't need to keep going to the same planet and Ripley's story is done.

Have a band of rebels fighting to free their homeland from invaders. They succeed and the invaders retreat. Everyone celebrates, someone wanders off to pee and vanishes. Rebels realize something is stalking them and try to survive the onslaught. It gets down to the final survivor who challenges the Xenomorph out in the open. As it approaches, they hit a button and a larva bursts out of the chest of the alien, killing it. It then rushes into a box beside the last survivor, who radios for pickup to let us know that Weyland-Utai has successfully weaponized the things.

 Nevelon wrote:
I like the little shorts they did for the anniversary.

The universe is a big sandbox. You have people doing people stuff. Poking at the universe, trying to make a living. Little people scraping along, big corps doing what they can to boost profits. Governments trying to keep order, and power.

Into that little slice of life, you toss a few eggs of mayhem and death.

Watch the fun.

I agree. It's a big universe. No reason to keep going back to the well, except for thematically (weak governments, awful corporatism, hideous monsters).

I love Sigourney Weaver, and it's time to let her go. No, no more remakes or rehashes or family members or anything like that, please, that tie into the original 4 movies. Beyond the fact it just sounds like a bad idea for me, look at the Terminator franchise. Continuing to keep hitching it to the same wagon has yielded nothing but ever diminishing returns. That story has been dead since the 90s.

I do want to see a sequel to Covenant, though. I want to know what ultimately happens with David, he's an unexpectedly compelling character - usually evil robots are so... poorly fleshed out. I also rather liked Covenant in general, honestly; it was one of the better entries in the franchise, which unfortunately is a bit of a low bar.

Any movie from here on out should solely be an exploration of how group X deals with coming across xenomorphs. No need to explore other characters. The franchise was kind of shot in the foot by Prometheus, so I'd simply do self contained movies set in that universe. Maybe have a movie where NOTHING the protagonists do works and they all die, showing a set up to a mission like Aliens 2.

So although I really dislike Prometheus for being a really dumb movie, I never thought it messed up the continuity too much; the Space Jockey’s are still weird and ineffable, even if the relationship with the xenomorphs is now clarified and I always thought that Weyland Yutani must have had some encounter with them beforehand, to have either sent the Nostromo to LV-426 deliberately or, more likely, have stuck standing orders in all of their ships & androids to investigate if they came across any sign of either race.

I also like the idea that it shows how futile W-Y’s idea of weaponising the xenomorph is; even it’s own creators couldn’t keep control.

Covenant, on the other hand, is a bit better made film that absolutely craps all over the continuity. Instead of the xenomorphs being this ancient, mysterious creation, sat waiting on LV-426 for aeons having destroyed their own creators in a grand act of hubris, some wonky android thought them up. A few years ago. And destroyed a vastly superior alien race at a whim, but not his own creators (who he hates). And then planted them to be found? With the corpse of a species he already genocided, in a different way? What?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don’t really know where you go from here; I would still like to see a “proper” version of Aliens vs Predator, as I think the original graphic novel/novelisation had a good core idea, but they used too many bits of it in the first AvP film and the Predator series has also gone back off the rails recently, all though not as badly.

All good things come to an end, at least it should have. Keep trying to milk it only make it worse imo. the difference between a good show and a great show its the length and execution, one too many season or 30 minute too long in a movie only weakens it.

Also the frightening thing about Aliens is gone, best leave it to video games like "isolation' to bring that fear factor back, in a 2 hr movie its unachievable. Maybe a spin off show or a new story set in the franchise.

Honestly? I'd rather franchises this old not be continued, particularly science fiction ones.

A lot of these classic films which were huge hits were essentially catching lightning in a bottle. I don't mind a trilogy of films if they're spaced a couple years apart. The tech, the filming, the actors are normally reasonably consistent. But picking up a popular franchise 20-30 years later so rarely works. More often than not the director (if it's the same) has lost that style or enthusiasm. It's painful to watch Scott's original interviews in the extra features on the ALIEN film and then see him do all of the things he said NOT TO DO in his later movies like Prometheus/Covenant etc.

I hate when movies like Prometheus etc. showcase tech that is far beyond that which featured in films which chronologically took place afterwards...often because CGI is cheaper than practical effects. It ruins the feel of a film for me. Likewise with the interjection of modern politics or themes which taint the movie's feel.

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Why is the answer to fix something always "let's make a desperate attempt to do more!".

Just let it go and it'll still be a huge success to those who enjoy it.
Just making more desperate content to keep it afloat does what it's doing now.

You'll end up with more garbage. Trying to get nostalgia points like they did with that star wars trash.

Its dead. Let it stay dead. We don't need to keep resuscitating dead horses.

 Elbows wrote:

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Fury Road?

 Elbows wrote:
I hate when movies like Prometheus etc. showcase tech that is far beyond that which featured in films which chronologically took place afterwards...often because CGI is cheaper than practical effects. It ruins the feel of a film for me.

In this specific example, you're comparing the technology available on what is functionally a notch above a garbage scow piloted by space truckers, and a vessel carrying Peter Weyland and his daughter. How well would the cheapest tugboat you can buy today compare to the most expensive yacht available in 1990?

Without a reboot (do not want), it’s hard to see how follow up movies would be much different to Resurrection.

In-Universe, it’s accepted Ripley drove the Xenomorph’s extinct (presumably the explosion on Hadley’s Hope took out the crashed ship).

So....where else do they go?

As for the excellent comment above about Alien3? Resurrection kinda followed that, with them taking Ripley’s humanity. Kinda.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Fury Road?

That was going to be my reply!

Though Mad Max works as the connections between each film are tenuous at best. They're more like standalone films which share a universe and a character rather than connected stories.

Resurrection is an episode of buffy the vampire slayer that was written by hack director Joss Wheddon. Thats why all the characters have signiture weapons and shticks. They all have one defining shallow character trait.

Ressurection is only fine (and barely that) because it doesnt even have actual aliens in it. They are human alien hybrids.

That bejng said. It wasnt WY that did that. It was the military. Ripley 8 isnt Ellen Ripley and they dont share an arc. Ripleys story well and truely ends with 3.

Are the alien comics not canon? There are some good stories in there, whether they'd work as a film or not is another matter, a series though it could work.

It's a bit of a terminator/predator situation with the films after 2 (even alien 3 suffers) that they felt they HAD to introduce something new. No, no they do not they should always expand the current narrative with such franchises, they should not create new narratives.

Alien resurrection is a fine example of what I think they should do above narratively speaking, they just executed it so poorly it is a joke. The Weyland Yutani organisation was always the 'other' villain of the franchise, by them experimenting/cloning specimens they keep it in universe (yeah it's the military, but you just know WY have a finger in that pie, it stinks of it). Promethius also does the same, however that is truly a case of opening a box that should have remained sealed as it added to the narrative to keep it secret/ambiguous a bit like the idea in 40k of not revealing who the missing primarchs are, little slithers of information here and there to keep the theories flowing, but not revealing it (I'm talking about the engineers if people have lost my train of thought here).

Anyway, as for a suggestion, a series, maybe even animated based on the earth wars and the lead up to it would be cool I think.

Gonna have to agree with some here, it ended with Alien 3 (which I actually liked haha),Prometheus was an interesting idea what was not too bad and covenant was pure trash made by idiots for idiots and the sad thing is none of us are idiots and even those that like it still are not idiots and notice its glaring flaws..

Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Aliens is a struggling franchise run by people who do not know what to do with it or do not like the things that made it great, if there must be a reboot then I think it needs to embrace its horror roots and go big on that aspect.

I enjoyed Alien 4, but I always view it more as a fan-service film than a serious part of the legacy. It was also a shift again away form horror and more into an action film and it delivers in spades in terms of action. The only real mind boggling nuttyness was how they got Ripley back, otherwise much of it was fairly fiathful to its own lore

The films that came after I feel didn't really do justice to the source material. AVP was a bit of a mess; meanwhile the Prometheus films just failed to deliver.



Persoanlly I'd love for them to go back to the comic series that came out after the first film and explore concepts such as the war against Aliens; the Invasion of Earth; the invasion of the homeworld of the Aliens; the attacks on different worlds where you see Aliens using other biology (shark aliens) to evolve and adapt.

There'sa wealth of stories there which run the gauntlet from horror to action and they all stick within the same storyline and setting. They even expand on the idea of Aliens having a homeworld and coming from somewhere, whilst many of the post Alien 1 films keep trying to tie everything to a single ship and single instance of events.




I agree its a franchise with people in charge who don't "get" the franchise and who would even be better to just make "no name" films of their own stories than keep bolting them into aliens.


Alien could do a reboot, it would be hard to top the original, but they could reboot it. Personally I'd love to see a new actress take on the role of Ripley as she was done originally. She was always a more serious female role model lead and she got away being tough without appearing like she's putting on an act.

I wouldn't. some films should not be franchises, some should stand alone as a trilogy, and not have more movies pumped out.

Brian have you read any of the comics?

https://www.comixology.co.uk/search/items?search=aliens+omnibus&subType=COLLECTIONS

There's even a sale on right now for them, they are well worth a read

-Guardsman- wrote:
How do you deal with the questionable directions the series has taken?

Kill David off.

Offscreen.

 ValentineGames wrote:
Why is the answer to fix something always "let's make a desperate attempt to do more!".

This is the way.

"Everyone that has tried to reboot X franchise has failed, now watch as I try to reboot X franchise and find a whole new way to fail!"

Half the Alien comics involve the protagonist soliloquising about how they're all nihilistic now and there's no good in the universe because they've 'seen the face of death'.

Which ties into the original Alien 'the universe is bigger than you think' themes, but a bit too on the nose, spoiled by comic book writers imagining they're deep.

Honestly, if anything, it's about time the moviegoing public was introduced to one Herk Mondo.

Leave it as done.
Find something else to turn into movies.

It doesn't need to be rescued. Just watch the ones with Weaver in it and pretend that the sequels never happened.

Soft reboot. It’s the only way to be sure.

Go back and make the original DH Aliens: Earth War following on directly from Aliens and ignore eveything that came after it - especially Promethius just for the sheer unending stupidity of the scientists

Then make the original Predator Graphic novel and tie it in to Predators.

Other than letting it rest, the only thing I can think of would be to make a low budget in-universe documentary, Horror at Acheron. Start by making a History Channel-style mil-spank documentary out of the Colonial Marines TechnicL Manual and sprinkle it in with cheesy z-grade (and amusingly inaccurate) re-enactments of the events of the first two movies in the Ancient Aliens docu style.

Why rescue it? The first 2 films were pretty much perfect, the 3rd serviceable, the 4th pretty bad and from here on out it's been a train wreck. Just like the Terminator franchise it's best left alone at this point. There's no need to continue something just for the sake of it, especially when it was already damn near perfect anyway. Are we so creatively bankrupt that we can't create new, original stories?

They cant capture the horror of the Alien anymore. Its done and gone with, everyone knows what what it looks like.
They need to lean hard into that.
No more exploring how they where made or gak, it doesnt matter, they are here, and they will feth you up.
MAke it an action film, pure and simple

 Eldarain wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Fury Road?

Maybe? But we're possibly stretching the "sequel" idea a bit. I think there have been plenty of completely decent "reboots", but I'm more unimpressed with people trying to continue on a storyline 30+ years later. The whole Mad Maxx thing is kinda/sorta/maybe a trilogy, but the links between the films are sparse/weird.

PS: Fury Road is a very good movie and is how you should reboot a franchise if you're going to do it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They cant capture the horror of the Alien anymore. Its done and gone with, everyone knows what what it looks like.
They need to lean hard into that.
No more exploring how they where made or gak, it doesnt matter, they are here, and they will feth you up.
MAke it an action film, pure and simple

Nah, you can still use the Alien for horror. Just because you know what it is doesn't mean it can't be terrifying. It is just a different kind of terrifying.

Before it was fear of the unknown.
Now it is known and part of that is knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it.

What they need to stop doing is having the Alien in plain sight. The presence of the Alien needs to be felt in every scene, like it could be anywhere, without needing to show it. This is where the new sleeker, shinier designs of the ships in the more recent films really work against it.

Picture a hallway with nice smooth walls and ceiling, all shiny and white and futuristic, evenly lit with nice friendly white light. Now picture a hallway with thick pipes running down one side of it, the ceiling is a mass of wires and tubing, the light is dim, yellow and flickering, filling the gaps between those pipes with deep shadow.

Which of those hallways seems like the Alien could be in there without you knowing? The possibility of the Alien is what ratchets up the tension, and that tension is what makes the scares effective.

To answer the question of the thread title, I just want a full sequel to Alien Isolation. That game is up there as one of my absolute favourites and I want to see more of it.

If you have a writer and director talented enough to make the already-established and about-as-dangerous-as-a-tiger aliens scary again, why wouldn’t you give them a smaller budget and the chance to make a new IP instead of risking franchise burnout on a tired IP?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They cant capture the horror of the Alien anymore. Its done and gone with, everyone knows what what it looks like.
They need to lean hard into that.
No more exploring how they where made or gak, it doesnt matter, they are here, and they will feth you up.
MAke it an action film, pure and simple

Moviebob has a good line that sums up the franchise.

They made a monster movie and for a sequel they asked, what if there were more of them and one was bigger? That's pretty much all you can do with something like this.

One route is to lean into the title. Stop making the movie about Xenomorphs and more of an anthology horror franchise of a universe full of nasty things that want to kill us, loosely connected by corporations throwing its workings out on alien worlds seeking profit.

I feel like trying to make the xenomorohs scary again is about as valid as the Bullet Ball guy trying to recapture the magic he had with his ex-wife by staging a rousing game of Bullet Ball.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If you have a writer and director talented enough to make the already-established and about-as-dangerous-as-a-tiger aliens scary again, why wouldn’t you give them a smaller budget and the chance to make a new IP instead of risking franchise burnout on a tired IP?

While that could work if they just want to make a generic horror film set in the current day, it would be a harder sell if they wanted to make a sci-fi horror film as the main costs of that genre over other horror genres (set design and construction, effects etc.) will be largely the same between a new IP and an existing one.

There is no reason that making an Alien film has to be a huge budget production, providing you are able to reign in the story. An Alien on board a ship or a space station and confined to that location allows you to reuse sets with some modifications between scenes (a corridor is a corridor, many of the rooms will be similar in design and just need a change of furniture etc.)

For example the first Alien had a budget of somewhere between $8m and $14m. Adjust that for inflation and we get somewhere between $29m and $50m. Sure it's not cheap but it also isn't extortionate and even if it cost double the upper end of that it would still be cheaper than Prometheus or Covenant.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They cant capture the horror of the Alien anymore. Its done and gone with, everyone knows what what it looks like.
They need to lean hard into that.
No more exploring how they where made or gak, it doesnt matter, they are here, and they will feth you up.
MAke it an action film, pure and simple

Nah, you can still use the Alien for horror. Just because you know what it is doesn't mean it can't be terrifying. It is just a different kind of terrifying.

Before it was fear of the unknown.
Now it is known and part of that is knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it.

But you can stop it? It isn't an unstoppable juggernaut of pure destruction- just an alien bug that wants to breed. There aren't any more variations of blowing it up or blasting it out an airlock that are actually interesting, though.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I feel like trying to make the xenomorohs scary again is about as valid as the Bullet Ball guy trying to recapture the magic he had with his ex-wife by staging a rousing game of Bullet Ball.

The Alien isn't scary. The situation of being trapped with it is.

A man dressing up in his mothers clothes isn't that scary, being trapped in his basement as he is coming down the stairs with a kitchen knife is.

A man in overalls with a Shatner mask isn't scary, him being in your house, potentially in every shadow, is.

The situation makes the fear, not the monster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They cant capture the horror of the Alien anymore. Its done and gone with, everyone knows what what it looks like.
They need to lean hard into that.
No more exploring how they where made or gak, it doesnt matter, they are here, and they will feth you up.
MAke it an action film, pure and simple

Nah, you can still use the Alien for horror. Just because you know what it is doesn't mean it can't be terrifying. It is just a different kind of terrifying.

Before it was fear of the unknown.
Now it is known and part of that is knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it.

But you can stop it? It isn't an unstoppable juggernaut of pure destruction- just an alien bug that wants to breed. There aren't any more variations of blowing it up or blasting it out an airlock that are actually interesting, though.

Sure, if you have weaponry that can hurt it and can lure it to an airlock. What if you can't do that? What then?

You’re just making more arguments for another movie with less baggage. The situation that makes the alien scary makes anything scary, even the naked guy from Sunshine. Naked guy also costs a lot less. And low budget sci fi is really easy: Upgrade cost 5-10 million dollars and looks fantastic.

The Alien franchise is sitting where the Terminator franchise sat when Dark Fate came out—the third best movie in the franchise and also a franchise-ending financial failure. There’s your next aliens movie: Weyland Yutani taking a bath on xenomorph overproduction.

The situation makes the fear, not the monster.

Not strictly true, in fact, not true in any sense.

If it were, then a regular bloke walking down the stairs with a knife trying to stab you would be sufficient, but it just isn't. If it was only the situation we wouldn't need monsters.

Let’s face it, it’s a combination of the situation and the monster.

TBH I think Alien Isolation proves that the Xenomorph itself can still be scary.

Honestly, I'd pretend everything outside of Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 (Directors Cut, not the theatrical cut) never happened, just doesn't exist (even if they weren't all awful). Assume Ripley is no longer available as a character.

Then take that universe, and explore new dystopian cyper-punky scifi stories within and the consequences (or lack thereof) following Ripley's story.

Without promethius the space jockeys tech and civilization still lays undiscovered. There is a huge story there with large lumbering biotech elephantine men.

The jockeys themselves are alien enough and potentially terrifying. Its not a bug monster hunting you. Its a hyper intelligent race thats happy to put you on a disection table and see what makes you tick.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Other than letting it rest, the only thing I can think of would be to make a low budget in-universe documentary, Horror at Acheron. Start by making a History Channel-style mil-spank documentary out of the Colonial Marines TechnicL Manual and sprinkle it in with cheesy z-grade (and amusingly inaccurate) re-enactments of the events of the first two movies in the Ancient Aliens docu style.

This, I'd definitely watch!

 Azreal13 wrote:

The situation makes the fear, not the monster.

Not strictly true, in fact, not true in any sense.

If it were, then a regular bloke walking down the stairs with a knife trying to stab you would be sufficient, but it just isn't. If it was only the situation we wouldn't need monsters.

besides, the unknown monster works just fine even if you know what it's capable of, everyone knows EXACTLY what a great white shark is, and what they're capable of.. didn't make Jaws less scary

Plus you can play with things when you know the threat. Like kids playing with a fake sharkfin sticking out of the water. You can build tension around something that seems totally innocent.

For Alien perhaps someone gets a really bad couch or even cancer/extreme coughing resulting in bloody coughs. Fans would be "Ohh its the alien its the alien" and already getting wound up. Then you made Dave, who otherwise wasn't having any problems, chestburst.

With a soft reboot, I think it would be wise to stay away from the Space Jockey/Engineers altogether.

I more-or-less like Prometheus and have some sympathy with Covenant but I don’t think there is a much of a future for the franchise down that path.

Rather, an exploration of the setting implied by the first two movies seems to me to be the right path — something where the corporate dystopia is emphasized again.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

The situation makes the fear, not the monster.

Not strictly true, in fact, not true in any sense.

If it were, then a regular bloke walking down the stairs with a knife trying to stab you would be sufficient, but it just isn't. If it was only the situation we wouldn't need monsters.

besides, the unknown monster works just fine even if you know what it's capable of, everyone knows EXACTLY what a great white shark is, and what they're capable of.. didn't make Jaws less scary

Yes, for one movie. Unless you remember Jaws three and four very differently than I do.

Yeah, Fake Outs are in the drawer marked "cheap tricks" alongside jump scares.

But then sequels are diminishing returns, especially with horror and horror-adjacent movies, once that initial mystery is exposed a lot of the threat and suspense evaporates. Subsequently film makers resort to bigger and more ridiculous ideas in order to try and maintain that initial level, or, anathema to any creature feature, try and explain the mythos.

Which is why we have such a vast catalogue of terrible horror sequels, even when the first movie or two were decent, and why we're having this discussion in the first place.

 Azreal13 wrote:

But then sequels are diminishing returns, especially with horror and horror-adjacent movies, once that initial mystery is exposed a lot of the threat and suspense evaporates. Subsequently film makers resort to bigger and more ridiculous ideas in order to try and maintain that initial level, or, anathema to any creature feature, try and explain the mythos.

Which is why we have such a vast catalogue of terrible horror sequels, even when the first movie or two were decent, and why we're having this discussion in the first place.

Alien sits with a bunch of other "franchises" that are done to death: Saw, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Star Wars... etc …
Do we REALLY need another Matrix movie? No.

These sequels, prequels, and spinoffs are mostly just a cash grab and a sign that creativity isn't being funded. The first Star Wars movie might have a hard time being made today because producers just want their "return on investment".

And apparently, beating a dead franchise is more financially sound these days.

I'm with all those who said it's best to let the franchise lie. I love Alien as well, but there's just not much more than they can do with the xenomorph we haven't already seen. I'm of the opinion that if you're going to reboot a franchise, you should take it in an entirely new direction and not just retread old ground, which is why Prometheus gets a lot of slack from me. Yes, it has characters doing very stupid things - this is possibly the most common horror trope that there is, but it did something right in not just reskinning the first 2 movies. I personally found David to be a very compelling character, and touching on the themes of where we come from/what our purpose is, etc. and juxtaposing that with David interacting with his creators in real time was brilliant.

I agree with Manchu though, there's not much of a future with the franchise down this particular tangent. That's okay, though. Stories should be allowed to end. They need to.

Potentially interesting thought.

The Colonial Marines.

They’ve clearly met other alien species. Hence ‘just another bug hunt’.

Given the size of their warship, there’s very few soldiers aboard. And their drop ship is packing near ludicrous levels of firepower.

Why? What else have they encountered? Has their been a war, or just some genocide on potential colony planets?

I want to know. And that in itself could be a new and interesting tale set in the Alien universe.

They fought the not-Viet Cong consisting of ethnic Arcturians? If I recall, the technical manual makes it sound like they never encountered another sapient species, and mostly fought against the kinds of less-capitalistic human enemies you might expect in a Reagan-era sci fi movie.

Edit: I had always believed that the Arcturian poontang joke was a reference to similar kinds of racism during the Vietnam war. I felt Aliens was very post-Vietnam in sensibility. But wiki fandoM claims arcturians are some kind of nonsapient alien monkey...

U.S.S. Sulaco is, according to a fan Wiki (yes, I know) 385 metres long.

Yet seemingly it’s compliment, at least what we see of it, is less than a Platoon.

Now, it could be that only a single squad plus support staff were awakened from cryo sleep, and in fact it housed many more soldiers.

But, to my admittedly limited knowledge, that’s not really covered at all?

Surely Apone’s troops can not possibly be its full compliment? Come to think of it, where were the Naval Crew? Those actually piloting the ship? Limited manpower is one thing, but not leaving anyone ‘topside’ in case of emergencies does not strike me as sound military design?

Oh god. I’ve overthought Aliens, and possibly ruined it for myself. Perhaps for you too, dear reader. I apologise.

 Manchu wrote:
Soft reboot. It’s the only way to be sure.

I would do this.

Alien and Aliens are good. Prometheus... I didn't like it, but there's material there to work with.

Alien 3, Resurrection, and covenant can go die in a ditch. I don't even dislike Alien 3 that much anymore, I just don't think there's really much in that heap worth bothering to save. There's a lot of comics in the franchise I guess, and so many crossovers among them. Some of them were pretty good but I doubt many of them are particularly memorable cause I don't remember them much XD


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
U.S.S. Sulaco is, according to a fan Wiki (yes, I know) 385 metres long.

Depends on how much we want to think about it.

Realistically, practical space ships are massive but actually have very little space for personnel or equipment. A lot of their mass is given over to the engineering needs of interstellar travel. So, it's maybe not totally unrealistic that a ship that big has such a small compliment. The lack of an actual crew is the weirdest part. I always assumed the Sulaco was heavily automated and could fly itself, but that seems short sighted in practical terms. I imagine the 'real' answer is that the project didn't have the budget and didn't want to burn screen time on characters who wouldn't matter in the story.

There is the famous technical guide that had info about the Sulaco and Colonial Marines, but I don't know what it actually says.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 helgrenze wrote:

Do we REALLY need another Matrix movie? No.

We don't, but the Wachowskis? Well, one of them at least.

I feel like the project is really just ego. They've been at this for 25 years and have two food movies to their names and a bunch of mediocre projects. I think you can see how Jupiter Ascending bombing hard did not go over well for either of them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

They’ve clearly met other alien species. Hence ‘just another bug hunt’.

I always interpreted that line to mean "wild goose chase".

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

They’ve clearly met other alien species. Hence ‘just another bug hunt’.

I always interpreted that line to mean "wild goose chase".

It could be taken either way. I think that its either a "Wild Goose Chase" or that the aliens they've met before were all much lower life forms and much weaker. Ergo new colonists get scared by new critter, but it turns out to mostly be just a squishy big/pest that is easily destroyed and no threat to actual soldiers, just unarmed colonists. I'd argue that if it was the first Xenos encountered there'd be far more attention and far more "OMG its actual aliens" which the soliders don't really show. It's more surprise that the Xenos can be that much of a threat to them. They also come VERY well armed for a "Wild Goose Chase". So I'd argue its more likely that the Aliens are simply a higher and far more deadly lifeform than humans have encountered, but that they have encountered other life.

I see where you’re coming from...but it seems oddly specific,

As if they or they’re contemporaries have seen action to find ‘big ‘orrible Killy thing with big teeth like that!! Yet only found relatively disappointing native fauna?

Either way, I feel there’s mileage in it - if only to explain just why The Company was so interested

Thought, genuinely? Let’s treat both AvP films as canon?

They neatly explain the overall interest. And why ship computers would wake their crew to respond to certain sensor readings.

Could it be that Colonial Marines were referring to false positives?

Think I’ve unruined it for myself!

Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure...

Honestly, though, I REALLY wish Hollywood would give up on the reboots and mindless sequels. I mean, we all love going back to a familiar story and characters, but come on... There are a lot of creative writers out there. Can’t we came up with new stories to tell and not just endless reboots and sequels?

Inidaan Jones 5? Star Wars 9? Now many DC universe reboots (although Joker did a great job of telling a new story in an “old” universe)? Terminator. Jurassic Park. Transformers. The just just keeps going... Let them be. Move on with new stories to tell!

Grognard hat off...

Valete,

JohnS

I echo your sentiment, if not exact picks of films to refer to (each to their own!)

But given I’ve gone off on one about exploring the background of the CMC? That might prove more fertile ground for exploring established movie universes.

I’ll even go so far as to suggest that’s exactly what Marvel got right with the MCU. A single thread ran through them, which lead to Thanos’ plan.

But each entry is still its own thing. Spin offs without feeling like spinoffs.

Alien and Predator could both do with some of the same.

As someone said earlier, and they were entirely accurate, Alien depends upon the unknown factor for the audience. And it’s hard to up the ante without resorting to ‘this time, instead of a face, it’s got four arses’ type stuff.

Because narratively, you simply cannot recreate the claustrophobic feel of Alien. Or take apart the ‘sod it, I’ll just get a gun, OH NO’ feel of Aliens.

This is why I rate Resurrection over Alien3.

Now I’m not calling either of them bad, or brilliant. Just that Resurrection at least tried to do something different, where Alien3 felt like a shonky remake of Alien.

Neither quite succeeded, that’s true. But I’ll take an ambitious mess over a safe mess any day of the week.

The less said about Prometheus and the other one the better. There’s very much such a thing as explaining too much,

It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

Eh, if you're going to do both KOTOR and the events leading up to it (Mandalorian wars, rise of Revan and Malik) then you have to start with adapting the game. If you do the lead up first then the twist of KOTOR is ruined.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It's not as if there aren't enough stories out there in the world that have never been told on the screen.

They could do some wonderful things with 40k. I also think there are many many many stories to be told from star wars still, the rise and fall of Revan and Malik would be outstanding, they could leave stop the series with Bastilla storming the bridge and boom, straight into KOTOR, if they really wanted to make some money they could remake KOTOR also to continue the story. (I know this is off topic and discussed in another thread but there is crossover).

In comparison, the Alien universe is just not as rich in history, but stories could be told, they should not be a film though.

Eh, if you're going to do both KOTOR and the events leading up to it (Mandalorian wars, rise of Revan and Malik) then you have to start with adapting the game. If you do the lead up first then the twist of KOTOR is ruined.

The game has been out long enough not to be concerned by the twist. It's a bit like the VII remake - the twist that cloud is not in fact a soldier first class is already known going into it.

Anyway - You quite simply never show Revans face in the film/series, you always have him/her with the mask on.

Also, you do NOT need to re do the game, It was just a suggestion to bring more cash out of the film (series would be better though) if they wanted to.

As already mentioned by several people, you don't, you instead make a completely new movie that people will ask "How do we make more movies like this" in 30 years...

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I I personally found David to be a very compelling character, and touching on the themes of where we come from/what our purpose is, etc. and juxtaposing that with David interacting with his creators in real time was brilliant. .

David is really interesting character in the first film and I even liked his mad scientist version in the second.

The problem for me is how deeply uninteresting and annoying the humans are in the first one - the relationship between Davd and Charlize Therons character could have been ineresting but they did not with it or indeed her for the whole film, instead focussing on the gibering idiots running around the alien base.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I I personally found David to be a very compelling character, and touching on the themes of where we come from/what our purpose is, etc. and juxtaposing that with David interacting with his creators in real time was brilliant. .

David is really interesting character in the first film and I even liked his mad scientist version in the second.

The problem for me is how deeply uninteresting and annoying the humans are in the first one - the relationship between Davd and Charlize Therons character could have been ineresting but they did not with it or indeed her for the whole film, instead focussing on the gibering idiots running around the alien base.

Yeah, i would fully agree with this. They could have done some interesting stuff with them for sure. Total wasted opportunity.

Yup.

Both suffer heavily from ‘smart people doing stupid things’.

I mean, had they shown the scientists in Prometheus being massively excited? OK, I could get the odd lapse of judgement.

Overall it just feels somewhat contrived.

I cant stand any more reboots or cashing in on people's nostalgia with some series. Just release the first 2 or 3 in theaters for a limited time and maybe remaster them. Then let the series die with whatever remaining dignity it has left.

Video games might be another story though. Dear God stay away from another movie though. Alien movies don't work out well now.

Reboot. At this point it's just gone too far into the sadly common pit pit of "Hey, let's make it new and surprising by ignoring what made it great in the first place and throwing in things that make no sense in the current continuity!"

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup.

Both suffer heavily from ‘smart people doing stupid things’.

Another issue with a few modern films/remakes is the Starwars situation where you've got clearly very immature/stupid people in positions of extreme power. It works for a character like a sith lord; but I always found it so jarring that the commander for the whole First Order was basically not much more of a teenage kid in behaviour. Basically trying to shoe-horn in the "oh we have to have comic relief" aspect.

Smart people being really stupid often exists because if they were actually smart then the writer/director can't get the story to where they want it. I think sometimes it happens when a big chunk of story gets cut and suddenly what was several scenes of justification gets axed in one fell swoop for timing. So your logical argument goes out the window so you have to bring in a fast, daft, idea in order to keep the ball rolling. Otherwise you've got to re-write the whole script all over again.

There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

To begin with, you won’t find me arguing that Prometheus (much less Covenant) is as good as Alien!

But I will say, with regard to Prometheus, that the entire venture of visiting LV223 is compromised by its origins in hubris and selfishness. The scientists are not really the best of the best; they are weirdos willing to throw themselves into an extremely dangerous situation with very little info. They are the people Weyland settled for after more responsible, thoughtful, well-adjusted people turned them down.

So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

Honestly, I feel like that in itself (while an apt description) is such a ham-fisted way of shoving the message down the audience's throat the film still deserves condemnation even if you were willing to chalk up the bizarre behaviors of the characters to theme. I think the much more straight forward explanation is the film was too wrapped up in it's own 'deepness' for its own good.

Yeah Bob, you’re on the right track.

LoH, not gonna argue, Prometheus radiates pretension. But the weird rage over “smart people doing dumb things” says more about the people feeling it than the movie IMO.

I think that's more something about modern cultural consumption than anything specific to Prometheus. We're in a weird place where people can make money inventing conspiracy theories about works of fiction, generating 40-60 minute Youtube videos about how "awful" such and such is. And there's an audience that'll watch it. Prometheus I think ran headlong into that, not so much because "smart people doing dumb things" but because the film itself has so much oddness to it. It was like canon fodder for the way things are on the internet.

 LordofHats wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, basically imagine Elon Must taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

Honestly, I feel like that in itself (while an apt description) is such a ham-fisted way of shoving the message down the audience's throat the film still deserves condemnation even if you were willing to chalk up the bizarre behaviors of the characters to theme. I think the much more straight forward explanation is the film was too wrapped up in it's own 'deepness' for its own good.

I’m not defending the film, but I am interested in hearing other takes. Frankly, most of what I remember from my initial (and only) viewing was a crushing sense of disappointment (mixed with vindication/schadenfreude). I think it was about the scene where Charlize ACTED! at bad grampa that I stopped even caring if the characters were dumb or not because it was that moment when it became clear to me that the film was a disjointed mess more interesting in setting up thematic hooks than in paying anything off. I felt the plot and characters inconsistencies flowed from that fundamental flaw, which kind of raised my qualms from “that action was dumb, and that one, and that...” to “what was he even trying to say with this scene?”

I think it was Tolkien or Lewis or I-dunno-someone who said that stories can’t work on a deeper level if they don’t first work on the surface level. To me, Prometheus attempted depth at the expense of surface and failed at both.

 Manchu wrote:
The scientists are not really the best of the best; they are weirdos willing to throw themselves into an extremely dangerous situation with very little info. They are the people Weyland settled for after more responsible, thoughtful, well-adjusted people turned them down.

From where are you getting this? I don't recall an in-universe reference to this, though of course I may have missed it.

Regardless of if they were smart people doing dumb things or riding the first peak in the Dunning-Kruger chart is almost irrelevant to the many, many problems with Prometheus, of course.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Frankly, most of what I remember from my initial (and only) viewing was a crushing sense of disappointment (mixed with vindication/schadenfreude).

Very much my experience as well. Honellty I think 'crushing disappointment' is the most accurate description of the film. Everyone could see the potential for a great movie in it. It had all the right parts. They just weren't mixed right.

LoH and Bob, I have been all over the place on Prometheus but the turning point for me, in terms of starting to really like the film over the last two years or so, is realizing that the relevant cypher is Mary Shelly rather than Greek myth, or even the Alien franchise for that matter.

Ouze, it’s mostly implicit to the exposition. But Fifield and Milburn have a conversation around the issue.

In that case, the stitched-together-monstrosity of the plot is a feature and not a bug?

Shrug?

I think it’s a pretty solid film that has been raked over the coals mostly because (1) it was marketed as something it isn’t and (2) it’s pretentious.

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

This is definitely an issue. For a perfect example you just have to look at the BBC show Sherlock. A Sherlock Holmes adaptation (or at least it claims to be) where the intelligence of Holmes is turned into a superpower and the mysteries are solved using information acquired off-screen or pulled out of thin air so the viewer can never solve the mystery with the information given on-screen in case they solve it before Sherlock does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant. They land on a completely unknown world and go for a walk without full protective gear. They have absolutely no idea what kind of flora and fauna inhabits that planet!

If the crew of a space salvage hauler had protocols in place to avoid contamination coming aboard their ship then why the hell does a colony ship not have anything like that?! No oversuits which can be disposed of/decontaminated? Just wandering around in your clothes, picking up who knows what to trudge back onto your ship.

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant.

Ridley Scott in general has this bizarre thing where his movies tend to be heavy handed in presenting very simplistic notions in ways that feel completely out of touch with their setting. A lot of his big movies have this problem. Gladiator, Robin Hood, Prometheus, Kingdom of Heaven, and Covenant. He presents these really heavy handed themes, makes a convoluted plot line with lots of coincidence and contrivance, and often times produces a film where the values and pursuits of the characters feel completely out of place with what's actually going on around them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Well the problem is, to write a smart character, you have to be well......smart. you cant just say they are smart, they have to show it. Problem is, Writers are not always smart(Im using this in a very loose context, more along the lines of books smarts kinda people, nerd basically) people
Its like when people write manipulative characters with no way to know how to BE manipulative

This is definitely an issue. For a perfect example you just have to look at the BBC show Sherlock. A Sherlock Holmes adaptation (or at least it claims to be) where the intelligence of Holmes is turned into a superpower and the mysteries are solved using information acquired off-screen or pulled out of thin air so the viewer can never solve the mystery with the information given on-screen in case they solve it before Sherlock does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There is another issue, smart people may not be as smart as they (or we) think they are.

Yeah but sometimes they are blatantly stupid in films or don't even seem to have basic proceedures that we'd know would be in place.

Eg in Alien 1 when the alien first infects someone Ripley is all for leaving the crew member isolated and without medical aid to prevent infect. She gets overrruled and we later find out that it wasn't just because of an appeal of sympathy but a plot to ensure that a sample was collected. That presents a logical sensible policy and reason for it being countered on two levels (one in the moment and one behind the scenes). A silly argument would be them pulling the crewmember back on without any mention or hint of containment or risk of infection of the rest of the crew etc...

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant. They land on a completely unknown world and go for a walk without full protective gear. They have absolutely no idea what kind of flora and fauna inhabits that planet!

If the crew of a space salvage hauler had protocols in place to avoid contamination coming aboard their ship then why the hell does a colony ship not have anything like that?! No oversuits which can be disposed of/decontaminated? Just wandering around in your clothes, picking up who knows what to trudge back onto your ship.

This. For Prometheus too. The lead scientists being over-enthusiastic and crossing lines to prove their theory I can buy. David running really unethical experiments because no-one thought to install an inhibitor &/or serious Daddy issues with his creator(s) I can buy (and really like). The Space Jockeys having an issue with one of their failed / abandoned experiments turning up on the door step I can buy. But scientists who seem to have no comprehension of quarantine or decontamination protocols? Nope, stupid. Particularly when they have overwhelming evidence of a previous containment breach emergency. And a supposed biologist who deliberately advances on an unknown creature making an obvious threat display? Nope, stupid. Etc, etc.

That's not from some over-hyped "takedown" on Youtube, that was my initial reaction, whilst watching the film in the cinema, with no prior knowledge. LIke I said, Prometheus has a lot of solid, interesting ideas that are totally ruined by sheer Hollywood silverscreen dumb-assery.

But scientists who seem to have no comprehension of quarantine or decontamination protocols?

I will say I'm amazed this is the thing we're using most often as an example when the movie has a geologist with cool 3D mapping probes that build a full map of the interior of the structure and he gets lost. I can write off a lot of the things characters did as conceits common to science fiction, but that one has always boggled my mind in how it managed to make it through the editing process without anyone saying "this is really fething stupid yeah?"

 LordofHats wrote:

Which is a huge issue I have with Covenant.

Ridley Scott in general has this bizarre thing where his movies tend to be heavy handed in presenting very simplistic notions in ways that feel completely out of touch with their setting. A lot of his big movies have this problem. Gladiator, Robin Hood, Prometheus, Kingdom of Heaven, and Covenant. He presents these really heavy handed themes, makes a convoluted plot line with lots of coincidence and contrivance, and often times produces a film where the values and pursuits of the characters feel completely out of place with what's actually going on around them.

I have to say I think the extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven is an excellent film, with some nice subtleties layered under the big stuff; I think it's quite well recorded that there was quite a bit of studio intereference in the theatrical cut to make it more "palatable" (& Scott was not happy about those changes).

Robin Hood is really weird, because he couldn't seem to decide whether to do a light-hearted action romp (i.e. resurrecting swashbucklers the way Gladiator brought back swords n sandals epics) or whether to do a more thoughtful dramatic piece about Magna Carta, freedoms and responsiblities, etc. (i.e. sort-of a thematic sequel to Kingdom of Heaven). I actually think either of these would have been good to great films, but trying to do both in one project was an awful, ridiculous mess.

I don't mind Kingdom of Heaven, though I would say it highlights Orlando's main weakness which is that he's not a lead actor. He lacks a sense of gravity to himself and his acting. He always feels like he's still playing that joint second lead of an elf.

I really must see the extended directors cut. We've seen films - like Aliens 3, get torn apart in the editing and cutting phase only to come to new life when the Directors cut appears.

 LordofHats wrote:

But scientists who seem to have no comprehension of quarantine or decontamination protocols?

I will say I'm amazed this is the thing we're using most often as an example when the movie has a geologist with cool 3D mapping probes that build a full map of the interior of the structure and he gets lost. I can write off a lot of the things characters did as conceits common to science fiction, but that one has always boggled my mind in how it managed to make it through the editing process without anyone saying "this is really fething stupid yeah?"

That was one of the things that I was thinking of as part of my "etc, etc."

I think it boils down to; people doing bad / stupid things because they're scared or greedy (ref. Burke in Aliens) works. People doing bad or stupid things because the plot requires them to do what no sane human would doesn't. It puts you in to bad slasher flick tropes (why don't we all split up and wander around alone in the dark?)

I think part of it is the require us to somehow suspend our disbelief to stupid decisions
They think that because we can accept aliens and robots and ancient aliens creating mankind we can accept people doing stupid things.
But we have no frame of reference to those stuff so we can accept it, or we can accept bad/faulty./ fake science for a good story with characters, but we cant accept people doing stupid stuff.
like Jurassic World. I can accept a super dino hybrid. What i cant accept is people being dumb enough to thing going into the cage before confirming where its tracker is think its a good idea.

 Overread wrote:
I don't mind Kingdom of Heaven, though I would say it highlights Orlando's main weakness which is that he's not a lead actor. He lacks a sense of gravity to himself and his acting. He always feels like he's still playing that joint second lead of an elf.

I really must see the extended directors cut. We've seen films - like Aliens 3, get torn apart in the editing and cutting phase only to come to new life when the Directors cut appears.

If you're talking about the director's cut of KoH, then yes! For starters it explains that Bloom's character had actually served as a military engineer in numerous conflicts, which makes all of his preparations for the siege make a lot more sense; this is a smart guy with a bunch of previous experience and some knowledge of strategy, rather than "blacksmith who promised he'd try real hard".

 Jadenim wrote:

I have to say I think the extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven is an excellent film, with some nice subtleties layered under the big stuff; I think it's quite well recorded that there was quite a bit of studio intereference in the theatrical cut to make it more "palatable" (& Scott was not happy about those changes).

Oh, I like several of those movies.

I'm not saying this is a "makes the movies bad" thing, but it comes up in Scott's work quite often. Sometimes it works, like Gladiator. Sometimes it produces some bizarre whiplash, like Robin Hood.

One bonus of this big shift toward films direct to home services is that perhaps, with no time limits, we won't see cinema groups cutting films as much. We'll get the "directors cut" first time not the third time with the special DVD 5 years later that "fixes" most of the original films issues.

A streaming service hasn't got to make films fit a specific time frame so that they can maximise bums-on-seats in the cinema per day. I

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Now I’m not calling either of them bad, or brilliant. Just that Resurrection at least tried to do something different, where Alien3 felt like a shonky remake of Alien.

To be fair, Alien3 is more of a resolution to Alien than a remake, and where Alien is a basically IT! The Terror from Beyond Space and Planet of the Vampires, David Fincher's film has its own identity as Black Narcissus and the labyrinth of an ancient greek monster.

Where the other film's are about surviving the horror, Alien 3 is about how each character bows out. Alien3 deals with faith, guilt, loss and death. Its said that one of the intended endings for Scott's Alien is that Ripley is killed at the end. As Terminator 2 was an opportunity for Sarah to blow up Cyberdyne before its created( an idea from the original Terminator ), Ripley finally accepts her part in the Alien story as the final victim of the doomed crew of the Nostromo.

Its quite brave in that the new cast of characters are those that we feel deserve to die, yet are somewhat elevated above the usual teenage fodder of typical slasher movies. On the one hand they are the scum of humanity, but on the other they can be somewhat comical at times.

...its a shame about the production of the film because its a bit like Dune in that despite it's failings, the cast, crew, director and contributers manage to leave their mark on the film and the result is a flawed film with heart. I was disappointed that Hicks and Newt were killed off in such cruel circumstances, but the funeral scene - which also serves as the birth of the creature - always makes me well up inside. Charles Dutton's prayer for Hicks and Newt is a wonderful performance, and the suffering of the dog is sad. Elliot Goldenthal - like Brian Eno - provides a musical cohesion that the film itself is lacking. David Fincher, like David Lynch, was born to be a film maker and even with his hands tied behind his back, still manages to make contact with us visually and atmospherically.

In someways, the first three Aliens movies can be seen as a classic Odyssey. In Alien the crew of the Nostromo could be returning home from Troy, in ALIENS the soliders are confident in their abilities to win against any task the universe can throw at them despite the grave warnings, while Ripley arrives in a foreign land in Alien 3 and is stripped of all hope and must face her death in Hade's underworld with the damned.

Alien Ressurrection...is one I shall ponder in another post. But at the end of the day I love all four films.

I still don't get why in the Directors Cut of Alien 3 they cut the dog scene for the bull - the dog scene was full of tension and an "ick" feeling and the suffering of the dog; the bull scene was just bland. It lacked any gravity and it also left the missing dog an unresolved matter, whilst a random dead cow wasn't out of sorts for the steadily failing colony of prisoners. Also the alien dog fits it for size; if it really came from the bull you'd have expected twisted horns and a MUCH bigger size to the critter as it clearly had no lack for food.







Alien Ressurection I like to view as a fan-service-film. It did some new things for the franchise in terms of things like the hybrid and I think that it also attempted to bring some of the sexual element of the alien design that was Giegers source, into the franchise. Through both Ripley and also the slightly mad scientist (who gets to talk about butterflies before losing his head).
It also took advantage of a lot of CGI and animatronics for its age and let us really get to see the aliens fighting rather than skulking. It was the action fan-service film from a horror series. I tihnk the only thing that makes me go "eh ok that's a stretch" is the whole "we cloned you and the alien from blood" part. Other than that scenes like the clone storage room and such were fantastic and dark scenes. Indeed it showed us more of the dark science side than the previous 3 films. The previous 3 films hinted at this dark side to the science, but we only directly see it through one character in each film, whilst in the 3rd they only appear at the very end and fail to achieve anything.

In the 4th we get to see what kind of experiments and ideas could have been possible (even though its not the original company).

I think it stands the test of time well as part of the original series and whilst its a bit of a stretch in getting Sigorney back into the story, it works. It's got more charm and faithfulness to its roots than the more recent attempts.

I think something that might be sorely lacking in this thread is the Talk about probably the best alien media to have come out in the last several years.
Isolation. Isolation works because even though the alien is known and shown in its full glory, its a direct threat to the audience, in a way.
I think that might be another way to go about it, Video games could be another route to go. and possibly maybe Books.
Could there be chose your own adventure type books, like call of cthulhu solo adventures.

Print media for Aliens has been going since the first film - comics. They are still publishing new comics (Dark Horse too so they are generally good).

 Manchu wrote:
Ouze, it’s mostly implicit to the exposition. But Fifield and Milburn have a conversation around the issue.

Yeah, I wound up re-watching it after this posting and I see where you are getting it from; that exact conversation.

I also caught something else I missed which reinforces that this is an exception to the "older movie has better tech continuity error" that was mentioned - Charlize Theron's character mentioned that Weyland spent more than a trillion dollars on the Prometheus project. So in this specific case, it does make sense that the tech and accommodations in this movie are better than in Alien, which is 30 years afterward.

I hated Prometheus when I first saw it, and I still don't know that I like it - it's got a lot of problems. I do respect that at least Ridley Scott was trying to do something big with it thematically, even though he maybe overextended himself.

I had initially liked it more right after seeing Covenant, but i ALSO re-watched that. While I still definitely like Covenant, which is not a great but not a bad movie, I also see now how some of the things he was trying to explore got abandoned in favor of a more (I'm guessing) commercially viable plot.

Although I still am deeply fascinated with David's arc, overall in-universe making the Xenomorphs an engineered weapon kind of cheapens them a little. That is a very worn trope and I liked it better when they were hideous monsters without explanation, just a little something from the dark corner of the universe where mankind probably shouldn't be wandering.

 Ouze wrote:


Although I still am deeply fascinated with David's arc, overall in-universe making the Xenomorphs an engineered weapon kind of cheapens them a little. That is a very worn trope and I liked it better when they were hideous monsters without explanation, just a little something from the dark corner of the universe where mankind probably shouldn't be wandering.

Word. I think not knowing where the xenomorphs came from and why they are the way they are was a big part of what made them scary in the first place. Taking that away robs them of their mystique. Leaving that out still leaves the door open to thinking they're bio-weapons whilst also letting you speculate they could be something else which is just more fun.

Don’t sweat it overmuch guys, Prometheus and Covenant don’t necessarily explain the origins of the xenomorph. David comes up with something quite similar but notably distinct from the species we saw in the original film. They remain mysterious.

That said, while I would be up for a third movie concluding David’s story, Prometheus and Covenant seem to be their own thing in contrast to Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3, which is the series we are talking about going forward with.

I always liked the weird headspace the old Giger pseudo-mystical artwork gave to the first movie. It made it feel like there was a vast mythos involving the aliens and the jockeys and who knows what, and we were only seeing the tiniest glimpse of its nearest corner. No specifics could ever live up to the promise.

The nearest comparison I can think of is the line from Ghostbusters where Vinz Clortho just starts summing up what he considers the highlights of Gozer’s travels. We have no scale or specifics on what the Voldronaii are or why they had to be rectified, what a torb is when not large and moving, who the Meletrex Supplicants were, etc., but man does it really get my imagination working. The lamest thing ever is whatever comic book illustrated torbs and sloars as, essentially, dinosaurs.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:


Although I still am deeply fascinated with David's arc, overall in-universe making the Xenomorphs an engineered weapon kind of cheapens them a little. That is a very worn trope and I liked it better when they were hideous monsters without explanation, just a little something from the dark corner of the universe where mankind probably shouldn't be wandering.

Word. I think not knowing where the xenomorphs came from and why they are the way they are was a big part of what made them scary in the first place. Taking that away robs them of their mystique. Leaving that out still leaves the door open to thinking they're bio-weapons whilst also letting you speculate they could be something else which is just more fun.

See, I see that as an eventual problem of giving fans want they want, fans will inevitably come up with theories and and such to explain this stuff. and then they want explanation. Then it never holds a candle to what they want.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:


Although I still am deeply fascinated with David's arc, overall in-universe making the Xenomorphs an engineered weapon kind of cheapens them a little. That is a very worn trope and I liked it better when they were hideous monsters without explanation, just a little something from the dark corner of the universe where mankind probably shouldn't be wandering.

Word. I think not knowing where the xenomorphs came from and why they are the way they are was a big part of what made them scary in the first place. Taking that away robs them of their mystique. Leaving that out still leaves the door open to thinking they're bio-weapons whilst also letting you speculate they could be something else which is just more fun.

See, I see that as an eventual problem of giving fans want they want, fans will inevitably come up with theories and and such to explain this stuff. and then they want explanation. Then it never holds a candle to what they want.

To be fair, and while I agree in large part with the sentiment that the mystery adds a lot of the flavor, the explanations the studios end up going with are so stupid and off the mark that it's pretty much not what anybody wanted, or simply didn't know what they wanted to make themselves. Looking at the Prometheus, they wanted it to function as a prequel without actually directly being a prequel movie and instead be able to stand all on its own, and while it does that, they way they structured the story in order to accomplish those goals makes it a really stupid (if functional) prequel. Had they left the Xenomorphs out of it entirely and just let it go on its own, or had they committed to really making it a direct prequel, I think it would have been better received. Even keeping that premise of being a not-prequel, there were better ways of handling that origin story. There were a lot of ways to make that work, and they went out of their way to choose a silly one

Sir Ridley wanted to make a movie meditating on the themes of Frankenstein. To get the financing, he had to agree that Fox could market it as an Alien movie. The same thing happened with Covenant but hit even harder there (where the final act feels like someone else directed it).

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think part of it is the require us to somehow suspend our disbelief to stupid decisions
They think that because we can accept aliens and robots and ancient aliens creating mankind we can accept people doing stupid things.
But we have no frame of reference to those stuff so we can accept it, or we can accept bad/faulty./ fake science for a good story with characters, but we cant accept people doing stupid stuff.
like Jurassic World. I can accept a super dino hybrid. What i cant accept is people being dumb enough to thing going into the cage before confirming where its tracker is think its a good idea.

The muscle men aliens were pissed to have created a race of stupid, effeminate gaks that can't do anything right. That's probably why he killed all those people and tried killing humanity. Humanity wasn't 'special' (except in the short buses way on a galactic scale) just some rejects expected to get weeded on earth for stronger, more adaptable and smarter species.

 Ouze wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Ouze, it’s mostly implicit to the exposition. But Fifield and Milburn have a conversation around the issue.

Yeah, I wound up re-watching it after this posting and I see where you are getting it from; that exact conversation.

I also caught something else I missed which reinforces that this is an exception to the "older movie has better tech continuity error" that was mentioned - Charlize Theron's character mentioned that Weyland spent more than a trillion dollars on the Prometheus project. So in this specific case, it does make sense that the tech and accommodations in this movie are better than in Alien, which is 30 years afterward.

I hated Prometheus when I first saw it, and I still don't know that I like it - it's got a lot of problems. I do respect that at least Ridley Scott was trying to do something big with it thematically, even though he maybe overextended himself.

I had initially liked it more right after seeing Covenant, but i ALSO re-watched that. While I still definitely like Covenant, which is not a great but not a bad movie, I also see now how some of the things he was trying to explore got abandoned in favor of a more (I'm guessing) commercially viable plot.

Although I still am deeply fascinated with David's arc, overall in-universe making the Xenomorphs an engineered weapon kind of cheapens them a little. That is a very worn trope and I liked it better when they were hideous monsters without explanation, just a little something from the dark corner of the universe where mankind probably shouldn't be wandering.

I think this is why they’re such disappointing films; there is real potential for something great in them. David is a fascinating character, with a great arc and a wonderful performance by Michael Fassbender. If they were just dumb, stupid films we wouldn’t care and they’d have just been dismissed and forgotten.

On the tech thing, I picked up a wonderful piece of head-canon recently; Loading Ready Run are doing a streamed Alien RPG (currently on hiatus due to “the Event”) and were using the idea that the FTL technology in the universe isn’t able to cancel out entropy. So if you travel 150 light years, even if it only takes you 6-months, you still accumulate 150-years of entropy, so the ships have to be built out of this big, solid, simple tech in order to work; delicate high-tech stuff generally wouldn’t survive. I don’t know if it come from the RPG source book, or if they made it up, but I love this idea.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

The nearest comparison I can think of is the line from Ghostbusters where Vinz Clortho just starts summing up what he considers the highlights of Gozer’s travels. We have no scale or specifics on what the Voldronaii are or why they had to be rectified, what a torb is when not large and moving, who the Meletrex Supplicants were, etc., but man does it really get my imagination working. The lamest thing ever is whatever comic book illustrated torbs and sloars as, essentially, dinosaurs.

Yup. The Noodle Incident can be a great hook to ignite fan speculation provided you limit its use so the audience doesn't feel like all the cool stuff has happened off screen

 Overread wrote:
I still don't get why in the Directors Cut of Alien 3 they cut the dog scene for the bull - the dog scene was full of tension and an "ick" feeling and the suffering of the dog; the bull scene was just bland. It lacked any gravity and it also left the missing dog an unresolved matter, whilst a random dead cow wasn't out of sorts for the steadily failing colony of prisoners. Also the alien dog fits it for size; if it really came from the bull you'd have expected twisted horns and a MUCH bigger size to the critter as it clearly had no lack for food.

Not sure, but the dog scene is indeed better.

 Jadenim wrote:
and were using the idea that the FTL technology in the universe isn’t able to cancel out entropy. So if you travel 150 light years, even if it only takes you 6-months, you still accumulate 150-years of entropy

Wait. I'm probably getting something wrong, but is that like treating parsecs as a measure of time?

I don’t think so; parsecs are a real unit that Lucas misunderstood/misused. Entropy is a real concept that must always increase (second law of thermodynamics?)

Of course we won’t know whether the concept is nonsense until we can travel faster than light, but I find it a neat, plausible explanation for why a film set several hundred years in the future has self-aware androids and 1970’s computer screens(!)

I'm just struggling to figure out how six months of travel = 150 years of entropy. Unless the entropic effect isn't subject to time dilation. But then that's speeds slower or equal to lightspeed. Is FTL in this case actually FTL, or some kind of hyperspace handwave like most settings...?

According to the technical manual it’s a tachyonic view of the universe, much like Saxton’s take on Star Wars hyperdrive. There is a reverse time dilation effect, where the farther from light speed a ship is in the ftl direction, the “slower” time passes. So, a trip that seems to take a short amount of time from a ‘normal’ frame of reference takes a hundred years subjective time.

 Vermis wrote:
I'm just struggling to figure out how six months of travel = 150 years of entropy. Unless the entropic effect isn't subject to time dilation. But then that's speeds slower or equal to lightspeed. Is FTL in this case actually FTL, or some kind of hyperspace handwave like most settings...?

Ah, I think I see what’s got you, it’s not the six months, it’s the 150 light years = 150 years of entropy. I.e. you can’t break the second law of thermodynamics by skipping time in FTL. I think. Maybe.

 Jadenim wrote:
I don’t think so; parsecs are a real unit that Lucas misunderstood/misused. Entropy is a real concept that must always increase (second law of thermodynamics?)

Of course we won’t know whether the concept is nonsense until we can travel faster than light, but I find it a neat, plausible explanation for why a film set several hundred years in the future has self-aware androids and 1970’s computer screens(!)

I mean, the concept is nonsense because it involves travelling faster than the speed of light.

But as far as handwavium goes it serves its purpose. Most people are somewhat aware of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, though often misinterpret it and apply it to situations where it does not apply (such as climate change deniers claiming renewable energy isn't renewable, ignoring that the second law applies to isolated systems and the earth is not an isolated system as it has an external source of energy in the form of the Sun) and if you asked them what entropy is then you won't get any answer. And most people have a somewhat passing familiarity with Special Relativity.

So you have two somewhat commonly known physical laws and mash them together to get something which sounds plausible to the viewer. Which at the end of the day is good enough for a film like Alien where most people really don't care about the details of the FTL travel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
I'm just struggling to figure out how six months of travel = 150 years of entropy. Unless the entropic effect isn't subject to time dilation. But then that's speeds slower or equal to lightspeed. Is FTL in this case actually FTL, or some kind of hyperspace handwave like most settings...?

Ah, I think I see what’s got you, it’s not the six months, it’s the 150 light years = 150 years of entropy. I.e. you can’t break the second law of thermodynamics by skipping time in FTL. I think. Maybe.

Well, the issue with this is that when you are dealing with time dilation you are also dealing with length contraction, so the distance actually travelled by the ship will be less than 150 light years.

 Lance845 wrote:
Without promethius the space jockeys tech and civilization still lays undiscovered. There is a huge story there with large lumbering biotech elephantine men.

The jockeys themselves are alien enough and potentially terrifying. Its not a bug monster hunting you. Its a hyper intelligent race thats happy to put you on a disection table and see what makes you tick.

Imo, there is a way to "rescue" Prometheus/Covenant. . . We don't exactly know where/when on the timeline they start off, only that they are "before" the first Alien film. . . . So, to "fix" the mistakes of those 2 movies, you start off where Covenant ends: David, a lunatic robot has made off with Engineer tech on a colony ship. . . . Have the engineers show back up with their own bioweapon again, on the planet where David has landed, but this time, you have Xenomorph vs. David's pets, and by the end of it the horror of what they've wrought leads to a ship escaping, with a crash landing on a barren/uninhabitable planet right before the credits. Based on various opening scenes in Prometheus, the "bio-weapon" is a bit like Kali - in that it is both creator and destruction, depending on use. David's theft and corruption of this stuff is a grave threat to Engineers, but as they have previously been set up as "evil", they need to enact an over the top solution to the problem.

Of course, part of the terrible nature of the xenomorphs is that they cannot be controlled. . . One of the major elements of Resurrection (or was it 3?) was that they had them in prison cells and were trying to learn how to control these ultimate predators. I also think one of the enduring "facts" prior to Prometheus, is that ALL xenomorphs look the "same" wherever they've been encountered. . . And frankly, having the Engineers work their space-magic to create an over the top version of their creation virus specifically to counter a bastardized version of their creation virus ought to lead to the "one xenomorph" appearance, and I think it would make far more sense than the idiocy we see in Alien v. Predator.

I liked the idea that they took useful aspects of their hosts to make them different dependant on the DNA they obtained.

So the dog form Alien in A3 was different to the human form Alien and the Predator form alien

And then you have the ones in the Stormwatch finalie where they infect superpowered people and gain powers from the dead powered hosts!

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, basically imagine Elon Musk taking the Ancient Aliens Documentary Scientists on an expedition to find Space El Dorado?

Am I the only one that thinks that sounds like the pitch for a comedy. It'd be a totally different genre of film then ofc.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Without promethius the space jockeys tech and civilization still lays undiscovered. There is a huge story there with large lumbering biotech elephantine men.

The jockeys themselves are alien enough and potentially terrifying. Its not a bug monster hunting you. Its a hyper intelligent race thats happy to put you on a disection table and see what makes you tick.

Imo, there is a way to "rescue" Prometheus/Covenant. . . We don't exactly know where/when on the timeline they start off, only that they are "before" the first Alien film. . . . So, to "fix" the mistakes of those 2 movies, you start off where Covenant ends: David, a lunatic robot has made off with Engineer tech on a colony ship. . . . Have the engineers show back up with their own bioweapon again, on the planet where David has landed, but this time, you have Xenomorph vs. David's pets, and by the end of it the horror of what they've wrought leads to a ship escaping, with a crash landing on a barren/uninhabitable planet right before the credits. Based on various opening scenes in Prometheus, the "bio-weapon" is a bit like Kali - in that it is both creator and destruction, depending on use. David's theft and corruption of this stuff is a grave threat to Engineers, but as they have previously been set up as "evil", they need to enact an over the top solution to the problem.

Of course, part of the terrible nature of the xenomorphs is that they cannot be controlled. . . One of the major elements of Resurrection (or was it 3?) was that they had them in prison cells and were trying to learn how to control these ultimate predators. I also think one of the enduring "facts" prior to Prometheus, is that ALL xenomorphs look the "same" wherever they've been encountered. . . And frankly, having the Engineers work their space-magic to create an over the top version of their creation virus specifically to counter a bastardized version of their creation virus ought to lead to the "one xenomorph" appearance, and I think it would make far more sense than the idiocy we see in Alien v. Predator.

Unfortunetly, the derelict ship on lv-426 has the pilot fused to his chair and fossilized. But Promethius and Covenant take place like... 100 years before alien. Not long enough for anything to happen and have that ship crash land. Remember also that WY KNOWS about the derelict ship before the Nostromo gets there. They are off course, and as they find out later WY sent them there. No matter how you slice it the time line is all fethed.

Honestly it just doesn't tie in well at all. Even the director got all "well its not really a prequel its just sort of similar" before it came out. Which I think suggests he realised (somewhat late?) that the story just didn't mesh well with the original series at all.

Thing is I think it also takes some of the alien inflence out of the picture by making it all the result of bumbling humans. Before we assumed that the ship had crashed purely from Xenos activity of perhaps several different species. What led it to crash; who the creature in the seat was; what was going on etc.. was all a mystery.

Were the a biological weapon that went wrong; were they prisoners; was it an infested ship being taken over; was the space jockey even part of the species at some stage; heck based on the ships very organic design was it an Alien ship or a fully corrupted one. In Resurrection we get one scene where Ripley falls into what looks like a bed of infestation that moves under her. We also saw tunnels made in Alien 2 around the hive. Alien 2 and 4 also showed that aliens were quite a lot smarter than simple hunting instinct. We are presented with the idea that, if left to their own devices for long enough, they could master technology (perhaps taking over other races or even their own). It's something that gets left behind a lot because most Alien stories don't have the hive lasting all that long before its discovered and destroyed (sometimes taking its attackers with it).

Nothing that happens in Alien Resurrection can be taken as actual alien behavior or normal alien biology. Those aliens were human/alien hybrids that had vast differences in their biology and capabilities because of the part of them that was Ripley from the cloning process. Including who knows what kinds of mutations that resulted in gak that was neither alien nor human inherently.

The only thing that Prometheus/Covenant really imposes on the franchise is the existence of the Engineers. Everything else is speculative.

 Manchu wrote:
The only thing that Prometheus/Covenant really imposes on the franchise is the existence of the Engineers. Everything else is speculative.

I think Manchu does have a point here.

As disappointed as I am in Prometheus as a film, it did have worthwhile ideas for a franchise film. It's probably worth salvaging its good points cause it did have them. Covenant on the other hand was mostly garbage, but Covenant also had no real ideas whatsoever except the burning passion to produce the world's most drawn out auto-robotic flute scene

 LordofHats wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The only thing that Prometheus/Covenant really imposes on the franchise is the existence of the Engineers. Everything else is speculative.

I think Manchu does have a point here.

As disappointed as I am in Prometheus as a film, it did have worthwhile ideas for a franchise film. It's probably worth salvaging its good points cause it did have them. Covenant on the other hand was mostly garbage, but Covenant also had no real ideas whatsoever except the burning passion to produce the world's most drawn out auto-robotic flute scene

I think the biggest flaw in both of those films is that neither is a story that needed to be told. We’ve known about the Engineers since the first film we don’t need them to be explained further, same goes for the xenomorphs. I think Scott and the Alien universe would have been better off focusing on interesting stories within the Alien universe instead of trying to tell revealing stories. We didn’t learn a whole lot about the xenomorphs or the Engineers in the first 4 films and that didn’t prevent them from being enjoyable and enriching the universe of the films. The setting is very interesting and popular and fertile ground for captivating stories. It reminds me of Star Wars. I think SW benefited far more from The Mandalorian than it did from the sequel trilogy. The Alien universe would reap similar benefits from a similar treatment.

Neither movie is about the Engineers or xenomorphs; they’re both about David.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The Alien universe would reap similar benefits from a similar treatment.

Have you seen these?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZugR0wc7bM3KbeVySz4Xv2QuFKQFGXD

 Manchu wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The Alien universe would reap similar benefits from a similar treatment.

Have you seen these?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZugR0wc7bM3KbeVySz4Xv2QuFKQFGXD

Those are great and also demonstrate that the Alien is not spent as a force of horror as long as it is done right.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Go back and make the original DH Aliens: Earth War following on directly from Aliens and ignore eveything that came after it - especially Promethius just for the sheer unending stupidity of the scientists

Then make the original Predator Graphic novel and tie it in to Predators.

I had read that a script was written which followed the premise of Earth War - had gone on some years where Hicks is a washed out security guard, Newt is in a mental asylum. Some mad fool is trying to bring Aliens to earth, the two get wind of it and try to stop him. But, it didn't feature Ripley and Fox were convinced that the franchise hung on Sigourney Weaver, so the script got shelved.

It's actually not a bad read (I haven't read the graphic novel) and I like to imagine that that was the true story of what happened, rather than the film they released as Alien 3