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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


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.