Xenomorphs have been scaring us shirtless since the late 1970s, becoming one of the most iconic franchises – and an inspiration for countless science fiction/horror crossovers – in the 1980s and the 1990s. Ridley Scott tried his hand in big-screen horror for the first time with Alien after winning over the hearts of the Cannes jury with his big screen debut “Duellists” in 1977. And he created something of lasting value, a franchise that would’ve been a waste not to continue – even if the later iterations of the story were far behind what the fans would’ve expected from it (Alien3 was considered a failure by many while Alien Resurrection was called outright “bad” by an equally large group of people). When Scott took back the reins for the Alien series, people expected it to be reborn, to scare us shirtless once again. Instead, it has taken a different path: first, it explored our origins and next, it explored the Xenomorphs’ origins on the screen. And, since people expected far more blood, gore, dismemberment and screams, the films mostly failed to win over their hearts.
Prometheus was promoted ahead of its release as a brand new Alien movie – then failed to deliver for most people (although personally I liked it), with only one creature even remotely resembling a xenomorph ever showing up in the movie. In the post-credit scene. Next, Alien: Covenant went on to explore the story of David, the artificial person that became a bit too human. This time, the movie has far more scares and a lot more blood and gore but it seems this still wasn’t enough. While it does look wonderful enough to be a potential favorite in early Oscar predictions for 2017 (in the visual effects category), it will be the end of the modern-day Alien story arc, as its sequel has been reported to be canceled by Fox late last year.
Why do I feel sorry for this? Well, first of all, because it was necessary. The two modern-day Alien films – Prometheus and Alien: Covenant – were a bit like the prequel trilogy was for Star Wars: although most fans hated them, they too agree that they were necessary to tell the whole story. The story arc started by Prometheus explores not only questions buried deep in human nature but also tells the story of how the Xenomorphs we all grew to love have appeared, ending decades of speculation. And second, while both of them were bad Alien films, they were good science fiction movies – and this is hard to come by nowadays (before you argue, superhero movies and space operas are NOT science fiction, they are simply fiction).
If Alien: Covenant would’ve managed to attract more viewers to the US movie theaters, Scott would’ve been let to finish his work on the “David” story. Unfortunately, in our world guided by profits, this probably won’t happen. And this is truly something to be sorry about.
Covenant killed me, and I’m not a huge fan of the franchise. The first half was basically Prometheus again, and the second half was just setting up Alien, so you could see exactly where it was going.
Agree that they’re not terrible films, but when you’re putting the new ones in the overall Alien Cannon, they’re redundant.
The sad thing about the Alien franchise is the amount of potential that it immediately ignored. Alien leaves a lot of questions unanswered What is the Space Jockey? Why does it have a cargo of xenomorph eggs? What else is on the Space Jockey”s ship? How did Weyland-Yutani know about the SJ”s ship and the potential of its cargo? How intelligent is the Xenomorph and does it have a culture? Alien is a Lovecraftian narrative that suggests a much bigger and weirder and more terrifying universe. Aliens is story about soldiers fighting giant bugs. It”s an awesomely well told story about soldiers fighting giant bugs but it swerves away from cosmic horror in favor of scifi action. Alien 3 and 4? More giant bugs. I have fondness for the films because I have a fondness for Ripley. The first four films are about Ripley and her bad luck as an exterminator. Prometheus could have been about that bigger weirder more terrifying universe that the previous sequels ignored. It didn”t need to be a sequel. Weyland-Yutani had a vast and ancient starship at their disposal and all they cared about were the Xenomorphs? We could have had a story about careful and intelligent scientists investigating the Space Jockey”s ship and meeting their doom in spite of all their care and precautions. Instead we got the Engineers dumb Space Gods who were destroyed by playing God. Or something. Sigh.