The Alien Franchise

[ralfy]

"How The New Alien Movie by Fede Álvarez Can Succeed"

https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/features/1286616-how-the-new-alien-movie-by-fede-alvarez-can-succeed

https://twitter.com/fedalvar/status/1651263216624738306

"FX's Alien Series Is Slithering Towards a TV Near You"

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a36940045/alien-series-fx-plot-release-date-cast-explained/

[Newt]

Hmm.  I am trying to be cautiously optimistic.  We shall see.

[ralfy]

Aliens: Dark Descent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens:_Dark_Descent

In the year 2198, on the moon of Lethe, the USS Otago prepares for a shakedown. Meanwhile, at Pioneer Station, a shuttle, the Bentonville, drops off cargo. A mysterious infiltrator releases its contents: deadly Xenomorph aliens, which begin to massacre the crew.

Full game with no commentary (13 hrs):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtGigbzfPI

Cut scenes with some game play to graft them together (it's like a movie) (4 hrs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOVXH4EeGqE

Cut scenes movie (still like a movie, but gaps between scenes might be noticeable) (less than 2 hours)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uCReoyjZaA

[ralfy]

Alien: Isolation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Isolation

In 2137, 15 years after the events of the original Alien film,[2] Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, learns that the flight recorder of her mother's ship, the Nostromo, has been located. The flight recorder was retrieved by the salvage ship Anesidora, and is being held aboard Sevastopol, a Seegson Corporation space station orbiting gas giant KG-348 in the Zeta Reticuli star system. Christopher Samuels, a Weyland-Yutani android, offers Ripley a place on the retrieval team so that she can have closure regarding the fate of her missing mother.

Gameplay, no commentary (8.5 hrs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pvaw3tqgaw

"Movie" version (cut scenes with a few gameplay events for continuity; it's like a movie) (5 hrs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L2xYzu724E

All cut scenes version (less than 2 hrs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbp-01epFmk

[FatFreddysCat]

There are no Alien films after 1986.

Yes sir, it's a wonderful fantasy world I live in.

[Neville]

I might be in a minority here, but I like the newer Alien films. I definitely could do with more David and more Engineers and with less screeching creatures, which have been done to death by now.

However, it seems we're back to square one again. At least they could get some inspiration from the Dark Horse comics, some ofthem are really good.

[ralfy]

The first movie uses horror based on the creature not being fully revealed in the end.

The second could no longer use horror because the creature was fully revealed, so it used action. Its main problem involved flaws in Ripley's actions and the plan to recover the alien, etc.

The third could not use either, so it used the equivalent of detective fiction, and mixed with political thriller. I think many didn't like it due to lack of tech, but the communication between the prison staff and the company is something that should have been considered in the second movie.

One unused script of the third movie, which was turned into an audio drama by Audible, involves Hicks and Bishop contending with, I think, the military, the company, and a Communist group fighting over control of the alien (Ripley and Newt remain in hibernation).

The fourth focused on the political thriller with intrigue. I can't remember much about it except that it was too weird and over-the-top.

What I was imagining for the third movie involved the four surviving and recovered by the government that operates a large space city (with port areas, offices, recreation spots, labs, military camps, an underworld, etc.) together with eggs left by the queen alien onboard their shuttle. From there comes political intrigue, fights between political factions, etc., as the infection spreads. This combines elements from the third and even fourth movies and allows for a lot more

About the prequels, I saw only parts of them and didn't like them for the ff. reasons:

The blue-collar ethos of the first few movies was lost, and everything looked nice and clean. It's probably because the producers were expecting that most would-be viewers had never heard of or seen or remember the first few movies, which is why they became more like reboots rather than prequels, e.g., the first prequel borrowing the alien discovery storyline from the first movie and the second prequel borrowing from the second, with the female protagonist even having short, black hair and wearing a white T-shirt, a crew member named Tennessee and alluding to Dallas from the first film, and so on.

The natural quality of the dialogue was lost, too, like the scene between the Nostromo crew arguing about getting what shares they should get, and the grunts goofing off.

More important is the point that the main action takes place much later, and seen especially in the second movie, where it takes place more than halfway through in the movie. In contrast, I'm reminded of one recent nu-Trek movie where spectacle takes place immediately, like a stinger in a James Bond movie.

Given such, I don't know what will happen in the upcoming movie and TV show, but I hope it won't be similar to what happened to various Hollywood movies that keep emphasizing snarkiness for the sake of being woke, mostly teenagers, and spectacle.

[chainsaw midget]

The big problem, I had with the prequels where that they decided to give the aliens an actual origin as a manufactured weapon rather than just being some nasty bugs that were out there in space.

[Neville]

That's always a problem with long-running series, the need to explain everything. They couldn't do that without taking away some of the creature's mystery.

It's especially bad when it comes to horror, because nothing is as terrifying as what you are imagining. I once compared horror storytelling to a poker game. It's not what you have in store, it's what the viewer thinks you have in store. And nothing you reveal at the end is going to be as effective.

[chainsaw midget]

That's a very nice way of phrasing it.

[ralfy]

Also part of milking a franchise for what it's got. That's why the same's been taking place for other franchises.