The Alien/Predator/Aliens vs. Predator Thread

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, 505thAirborne said:

I hope this is good and makes up for that horrible Covenant movie. 

Me too.

IMO, that we're seeing plenty of the xenos in the trailers isn't a great sign... that's a pretty good indicator we're headed more into the slasher flick territory of Alien 3, Resurrection, and Covenant than the horror of the original and Isolation game.

[sh9000]

New poster.

[electric indigo]

I like the color palette in the trailer, I thinks it's going back to the first movie, and a nice change from the blue-green-grey of Scott's latest movies. Space scenes look good, too; the pacing could be a mix of Alien & Aliens.

[TangledThorns]

 

Looks to borrow from ALIEN, ALIENS, and Isolation. Hopefully it can stand on its own.

EDIT: Showed my wife the trailer and she has no interest in seeing it. GIrls in my past relationships never care or liked any of the ALIEN films either even though it has strong female characters. What gives? lol

Edited June 5 by TangledThorns

[Hikuro]

On 6/4/2024 at 5:27 PM, TangledThorns said:

 

Looks to borrow from ALIEN, ALIENS, and Isolation. Hopefully it can stand on its own.

EDIT: Showed my wife the trailer and she has no interest in seeing it. GIrls in my past relationships never care or liked any of the ALIEN films either even though it has strong female characters. What gives? lol

My ex didn't care about anything space or alien related in any form. It took a trip to Dark Horse headquarters where they got the Xenomorph on display to get her to change her tune. Then We sat down and watched the original quadrilogy and Prometheus before we broke up. And a couple years after she asked me to go with her for a special halloween screening of ALIEN. So I can safely say she became a fan. 

[electric indigo]

New Romulus bits

 

[TangledThorns]

ROMULUS could be the best ALIEN film since ALIENS however all those other films as well made as they were did set a low bar.

[Thom]

12 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

ROMULUS could be the best ALIEN film since ALIENS however all those other films as well made as they were did set a low bar.

...what other films..?

 

 

Edited July 13 by Thom

[TangledThorns]

10 hours ago, Thom said:

...what other films..?

 

 

The sequels.

[Thom]

9 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

The sequels.

My poor attempt at sarcasm.😄 In my head-canon, there is Alien, Aliens, Prey and now (if it's good and not crap like Prometheus/Covenent) Romulus.😉

 

EDIT - Prey is not really Alien except for a few mediocre cross-overs.

Edited July 13 by Thom

[Pontus]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

My poor attempt at sarcasm.😄 In my head-canon, there is Alien, Aliens, Prey and now (if it's good and not crap like Prometheus/Covenent) Romulus.😉

Thanks, I wasn't even aware of Prey.  Just looked it up and I think I have to watch that... in the Comanche dub of course!   Although, I would include the original Predator as the only other part of my own head-canon of the franchise.  Thus I also don't consider it part of the Alien canon.

My wife and many others don't like to include Aliens3 as part of the canon, and some don't include Resurrection, and although I can understand that perspective, I really don't agree.  I rather liked 3, and I don't see why it needs to be written off simply because they killed off all the characters they saved in Aliens.  I happen to appreciate it when film makers aren't afraid to kill of established characters because it's more realistic than happily ever afters.  Crap happens, especially with xenos around, which I feel is a stronger established characteristic than human survival.  Xenos will live.  You'll die.  That's cannon.

Resurrection, I can sorta agree with tho, as it was a bit silly.  But the cast, acting, and direction were top notch even if the writing and premise were a tad sus.  

I came out of the theater after watching Prometheus very confused and po'd.  But it was only the confusing nature of the black goo that had me so.  Otherwise, the movie was well made, and I came to appreciate that it had me asking questions and consulting with others online as well as having extraneous internet media that helped fill in things.  After reading some conversations online, I was hopeful for some further explanation in the next movie...

THEN THEY CUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OUT OF COVENANT!!! 🤬 WTF!  I didn't catch that one in theaters, and thankfully so because at least I got to see the deleted scenes on the DVD which were THE MOST IMPORTANT PART to give closure to the confusing BS of Prometheus, as well as being the scariest part of the entire franchise that would have made it the greatest addition to the franchise since Aliens!

Spoiler

So, from the interviews that I read about, they asked for clarification about the black goo and what they planned to cover in future films.  Aparently, the xeno featured in a crucified position on the wall of the chamber in Prometheus was actually the engineer's creator, and its blood was given to them to seed the universe with life including Earth (which is what the Engineer who seeded Earth drank).  But the engineers having only a limited amount of it (and being skilled at genetic manipulation) tried to duplicate it and failed.  However, what they did create was a potent mutagen that could destroy entire planets.  This helps explain the confusing BS in Prometheus quite well for me.

Then along came David, a fourth generation creation, (and as was described in the deleted scenes of Covenant) who discovered that the black goo was a random mutagen because it was actually an uprogrammed and unfocused genetic programming device.  HE is the one who learned how it worked and discovered that he could create the perfect being with it.  DAVID is the one who created the xenomorphs. 😱 When I saw that... chills! THAT's what they should have focused on, and I feel they could have gone a lot farther with that line if they did. 

That establishes a potent premise that was there unnoticed through the entire series, that nobody even intended, and was writing GOLD that they finally picked up and totally failed to run with; The engineer creator disappeared or perhaps was killed through unknown circumstance (which would also make good watching to explore); The engineers wanted to kill their creation because they feared us (perhaps due to similar experiences on other worlds); We created artificial life that we came to fear (David) and put in place strong controls over; That artificial life created the xenos which is an even more perfect lifeform... that's a scarier, more nuanced and overarching, multi leveled intelligent premise than any scary creature BS.  And the fact that it came around to resemble the original creator is something they could have really done something with.  Sigh.

So yeah, I totally agree that Prometheus and Covenant were crap.  Crap that could have been SO F'n GREAT which just makes them so much worse. 😥

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Pontus said:

I rather liked 3, and I don't see why it needs to be written off simply because they killed off all the characters they saved in Aliens.  I happen to appreciate it when film makers aren't afraid to kill of established characters because it's more realistic than happily ever afters. 

I’d agree with you if that happened in the second movie, but it just felt cheap that they did everything off screen. As it is , it feels like the end of the second movie was totally pointless. It’s like it totally undoes a perfect ending with an imperfect beginning of the next film. It’s definitely a better movie than the sequels and prequels that followed 

 

3 hours ago, Thom said:

My poor attempt at sarcasm.😄 In my head-canon, there is Alien, Aliens, Prey and now (if it's good and not crap like Prometheus/Covenent) Romulus.😉

Prey was great, but I try to pretend that Aliens and Predators never mixed franchises. Even with that Queen Skull at the end of the second movie. It just makes things better to think of them as totally separate 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

My poor attempt at sarcasm.😄 In my head-canon, there is Alien, Aliens, Prey and now (if it's good and not crap like Prometheus/Covenent) Romulus.😉

👍

Same here, though I count Alien: Isolation among the good ones.  It may be a video game, but it comes far closer to what made Alien the horror classic than any other title that the franchise has produced.  It didn't just make the xenomorph scary, it made it pants-soilingly terrifying again.  For that, I'll forever count it among The Good Ones.

3 is a mess and Resurrection is more like an SNL parody than anything.  I prefer to treat them like fever dreams after a particularly ill-advised late night pizza binge.

 

35 minutes ago, Pontus said:

THEN THEY CUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OUT OF COVENANT!!! 🤬 WTF!  I didn't catch that one in theaters, and thankfully so because at least I got to see the deleted scenes on the DVD which were THE MOST IMPORTANT PART to give closure  the confusing BS of Prometheus, as well as being the scariest part of the entire franchise that would have made it the greatest addition to the franchise since Aliens!

They cut that material for a number of reasons... the main one being that it sounds cool but doesn't actually make sense or work in context.

Spoiler

In Alien, the Engineer derelict that the crew of the Nostromo discover on LV-426 in 2122 had supposedly been there for many thousands if not millions of years with a bomb bay (yes, a bomb bay according to Ridley Scott) full of xenomorph eggs.

In Prometheus, David (full name "David 8") is a David 8-series 8th Generation synth whose model entered service in or around 2078 based on the Happy Birthday, David viral promotional short for the film.  He started experimenting on the mutagen aboard the Engineer ship after his genocide of the Engineer population on Paradise in 2094.  His first xenomorph was born ten years later in 2104 during the events of Alien: Covenant... just 18 years before the events of the original Alien in 2122.

If Weyland's personal David 8 is the creator of the xenomorphs, then the derelict on LV-426 is impossible... it's an Engineer-designed and Engineer-crewed bomber carrying a payload of xenomorph eggs David 8 didn't perfect until 10+ years after he wiped the Engineers out, and it's been on LV-426 for many times longer than the David 8 series or the corporation that created it existed (44 years and 110 years respectively at the time of Alien in 2122).

The pseudo-religious angle about the Engineers worship of the Deacon was also cut from Prometheus in the early draft stage of the script, so there wasn't any proper buildup to it.

[Pontus]

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They cut that material for a number of reasons... the main one being that it sounds cool but doesn't actually make sense or work in context.

Lol, I don't think "making sense" was really part of their thought process.  I thought it made perfect sense in context.  Care to discuss why you think it didn't?  I'm not arguing, just trying to get a different perspective and perhaps understand their choices better.  I also haven't seen it in a hot minute, so I probably need to refresh before I discuss further.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, Pontus said:

Lol, I don't think "making sense" was really part of their thought process.  I thought it made perfect sense in context.  Care to discuss why you think it didn't? 

TBH, I kinda thought I already had... the aforementioned continuity snarls.

Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are only separated from the events of Alien by 28 and 18 years respectively.  The derelict on LV-426 has supposedly been there for thousands and thousands of years.  Unless David time traveled, the xenomorph eggs in that derelict Engineer bomber are at least several millennia older than David is.

The derelict was also piloted by an Engineer, and David killed all of the Engineers on Paradise between the events of Prometheus and Covenant ten years before his first successful xenomorph was born.  By the time he had xenomorph eggs, there were no Engineers left on Paradise to pilot a ship carrying them, so that bomber has to predate David's genocide of the Engineers in 2094 and thus predates the creation of David's xenomorphs by over 10 years.

(For what it's worth, the novelization of Alien: Covenant also comes right out and says that the Engineers created the xenomorphs, not David.  David created his own strain of them by replicating the process the Engineers used.)

 

5 minutes ago, Pontus said:

I'm not arguing, just trying to get a different perspective and perhaps understand their choices better.  I also haven't seen it in a hot minute, so I probably need to refresh before I discuss further.

I'm inclined to suspect the main reason that Alien: Covenant's writing team dropped the idea was because it was building on material that'd been cut from Prometheus's script well before filming ever started.  Material that was probably cut from Prometheus because the studio was worried it would offend Christian viewers.

Spoiler

Excerpts from earlier drafts of the Prometheus script that've ended up in circulation pointed to the movie's religious themes being even more prominent originally.  The point of contention reportedly being that the Engineers had walked among and guided Humanity through the centuries until something Humanity did offended them so badly that they concluded the whole species had to go ASAP.

That something was the 1st Century execution-by-crucifixion of Yeshua bin Yosef (AKA "Jesus Christ").  In Prometheus's early drafts, Yeshua bin Yosef was a normal person the Engineers took and educated to be their emissary to Humanity with a goal of correcting Humanity's development and steering them back towards a harmonious society.  His execution was The Last Straw that saw the Engineers decide to send a bomber to perform a hard reset on Earth's entire ecosystem... with Humanity and Earth only being spared by a payload handling accident that killed most of the bomber's crew.

 

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In Alien, the Engineer derelict that the crew of the Nostromo discover on LV-426 in 2122 had supposedly been there for many thousands if not millions of years with a bomb bay (yes, a bomb bay according to Ridley Scott) full of xenomorph eggs.

Personally, it’s one of those things that were better left completely unexplained. When I first saw the movie long before Prometheus, I thought maybe it was the ship of some unknown race and somewhere among its travels had accidentally picked up one of the face huggers that eventually found the navigator. I kinda thought maybe after bursting out of its chest had eventually grown to lay those eggs.

of course that thought never really explained the field over the eggs. It had to have been transporting the eggs for a purpose of some kind, but I never thought of it as a bomber with a horrifying biological weapon. 
 

Unfortunately, finding out the reason to the mystery wasn’t nearly as interesting as the mystery itself 

[Pontus]

@Seto Kaiba, see I hadn't even considered that (that the derelict was already there, although I think it's conceivable it wasn't there for thousands of years), and am clearly not as up to the literature as you, so thank you.  I guess it didn't make sense that xenos were created solely by David as I thought.  I wish movie creators would be more respectful of the franchises they're taking over.  The older I get, the less I want to even watch things because of this.

[Seto Kaiba]

28 minutes ago, Big s said:

Unfortunately, finding out the reason to the mystery wasn’t nearly as interesting as the mystery itself 

Yeah... once you get past a certain point of building up a mystery, no explanation will be satisfying.

It's probably for the best that we'll never learn why the Engineers created the xenomorphs, or what they weaponized them against.  The idea that there's something out there that scared the godlike Engineers badly enough to create incredibly deadly parasitic biotechnological horrors as weapons is more than a bit creepy in its own right.

 

 

25 minutes ago, Pontus said:

I wish movie creators would be more respectful of the franchises they're taking over.  The older I get, the less I want to even watch things because of this.

I think part of it is that Prometheus, at various points in its development, changed how close its relationship to Alien was.  

Fox announced it as an Alien reboot in '09, then changed their story to calling it an Alien prequel, then around '10 started to diverge from a prequel to a quasi-unrelated story set in the same universe as Alien.  Then, after that did OK but not great, Scott's plans to not even bother with xenomorphs in "Prometheus 2" in favor of focusing on the monster that was AI were overruled based on audience feedback from Prometheus and they had to crowbar the xenomorph into Covenant somehow to appease the crowd.

[sh9000]

Total Film.

[Big s]

They didn’t call him big chap for nothing 

[Thom]

12 hours ago, Pontus said:

Thanks, I wasn't even aware of Prey.  Just looked it up and I think I have to watch that... in the Comanche dub of course!   Although, I would include the original Predator as the only other part of my own head-canon of the franchise.  Thus I also don't consider it part of the Alien canon.

My wife and many others don't like to include Aliens3 as part of the canon, and some don't include Resurrection, and although I can understand that perspective, I really don't agree.  I rather liked 3, and I don't see why it needs to be written off simply because they killed off all the characters they saved in Aliens.  I happen to appreciate it when film makers aren't afraid to kill of established characters because it's more realistic than happily ever afters.  Crap happens, especially with xenos around, which I feel is a stronger established characteristic than human survival.  Xenos will live.  You'll die.  That's cannon.

 

I love the ending of Aliens. Ripley won her 'happy ending,' having a chance to be a mom again and maybe with a love interest as well. But then the opening of A3 just crapped all over it, robbing that ending off its power and meaning. For me, that was the first of many disappointments of that installment. I wish Weaver had just let it lie rather pushed for Alien 3. And I know, it's more realistic, but this is my escapism.😜

10 hours ago, Big s said:

Prey was great, but I try to pretend that Aliens and Predators never mixed franchises. Even with that Queen Skull at the end of the second movie. It just makes things better to think of them as totally separate 

They have yet to pull off a good crossover. Until then, yeah, best they lay separately.

 

[Raikkonen]

This film is from a depleted Hollywood drudging along on fumes. 

The first film was a hit as it was the first grounded space horror where the audience only saw the originally designed alien at the end, and that mystery was already 70% of the ticket's sales. 

The second film worked as they multiplied the terror of the first filmed in a caged action film during the 80s peak of shoot and run films. 

The third... they tried so hard to be different in milking the cow that just dripped expired milk.

Prometheus? Prequel? Reboot? Ego desperation? Writers on drugs? That finale where Charlize kept running straight all while the giant ship plummeted on her, was the perfect metaphor of this franchise's end. 

Covenant... Ridley's attempt to justify Prometheus's lore ended up as a limping zombie with no bite. 

And now this? A reimagining of the first film for the 'Tik Tok' generation... ??? Why??? We all know how the alien looks likes, how it's going to start, unfold, and how it's going to end. 

(PS, then there's the AVPs, B-grade fanservice.) 

Edited July 14 by Raikkonen

[TangledThorns]

I'll still go see it. ALIEN can be salvaged, perfect example is the Isolation game which Romulus seems to draw inspiration from imho.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Thom said:

I love the ending of Aliens. Ripley won her 'happy ending,' having a chance to be a mom again and maybe with a love interest as well. But then the opening of A3 just crapped all over it, robbing that ending off its power and meaning. For me, that was the first of many disappointments of that installment. I wish Weaver had just let it lie rather pushed for Alien 3. And I know, it's more realistic, but this is my escapism.😜

They have yet to pull off a good crossover. Until then, yeah, best they lay separately.

 

That's why I cut off at Aliens.
As far as I'm concerned:

Spoiler

Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop all made it back to Earth. Hicks recovered, Bishop was rebuilt and Ripley adopted Newt, Ripley continued a relationship with Hicks, and the three went into business for themselves.

Basically, they all earned a happy ending and also trust each other enough to be family at this point.

BTW:

Spoiler

Who wants to see a face hugger vs Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)?

 

Edited July 14 by pengbuzz

[Big s]

50 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Who wants to see a face hugger vs Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)?

Scorpion “Get over here!”

Facebugger “Already on my way “

[Thom]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

That's why I cut off at Aliens.
As far as I'm concerned:

  Hide contents

Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop all made it back to Earth. Hicks recovered, Bishop was rebuilt and Ripley adopted Newt, Ripley continued a relationship with Hicks, and the three went into business for themselves.

Basically, they all earned a happy ending and also trust each other enough to be family at this point.

IMO, better than the movie. 😉

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

  Hide contents

Who wants to see a face hugger vs Scorpion (Mortal Kombat)?

 

Facehugger - 'Awe, he wants a hug!!'

[pengbuzz]

8 minutes ago, Thom said:

IMO, better than the movie. 😉

Facehugger - 'Awe, he wants a hug!!'

Scorpion:

[Thom]

8 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Scorpion:

HaHa!!

[Raikkonen]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

  Hide contents

Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop all made it back to Earth. Hicks recovered, Bishop was rebuilt and Ripley adopted Newt, Ripley continued a relationship with Hicks, and the three went into business for themselves.

Basically, they all earned a happy ending and also trust each other enough to be family at this point.

 

[Bolt]

5 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

This film is from a depleted Hollywood drudging along on fumes. 

The first film was a hit as it was the first grounded space horror where the audience only saw the originally designed alien at the end, and that mystery was already 70% of the ticket's sales. 

The second film worked as they multiplied the terror of the first filmed in a caged action film during the 80s peak of shoot and run films. 

The third... they tried so hard to be different in milking the cow that just dripped expired milk.

Prometheus? Prequel? Reboot? Ego desperation? Writers on drugs? That finale where Charlize kept running straight all while the giant ship plummeted on her, was the perfect metaphor of this franchise's end. 

Covenant... Ridley's attempt to justify Prometheus's lore ended up as a limping zombie with no bite. 

And now this? A reimagining of the first film for the 'Tik Tok' generation... ??? Why??? We all know how the alien looks likes, how it's going to start, unfold, and how it's going to end. 

(PS, then there's the AVPs, B-grade fanservice.) 

So this is a re imagining and not another chapter in the franchise?

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

 

Spoiler

 

 

😠

Edited July 14 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

This film is from a depleted Hollywood drudging along on fumes. 

Pretty much everything on the CY24 release schedule could be described that way.

Alien: Romulus is just the latest attempt to soft reboot a boomer-centric horror franchise after a string of piss-poor sequels.  Like what they did to Halloween in 2018.

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

The second film worked as they multiplied the terror of the first filmed in a caged action film during the 80s peak of shoot and run films. 

No, they didn't multiply it... they diminished it.  

The xenomorph was scary because of how unknown and unseen it was in the original film.  Aliens was a competent action-focus spinoff of a horror movie that diminished the fear invoked by the monster by making it both a known quantity and easily killable.  It's a wonderfully tense action movie, but there xenomorphs invoke no terror because they're simply very dangerous predatory animals in the movie.  

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

The third... they tried so hard to be different in milking the cow that just dripped expired milk.

The third might as well have been called Alien 3: Troubled Production, going through a bunch of different concepts based on Aliens before settling on trying to pivot back to horror and ended up a borderline remake of the first film but worse in every way.

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Prometheus? Prequel? Reboot? Ego desperation? Writers on drugs? That finale where Charlize kept running straight all while the giant ship plummeted on her, was the perfect metaphor of this franchise's end. 

Executive meddling combined with a creative team that really, truly, desperately DID NOT want to be working on an Alien prequel.

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Covenant... Ridley's attempt to justify Prometheus's lore ended up as a limping zombie with no bite. 

Executive meddling combined with a creative team that really, truly, desperately DID NOT want to be working on an Alien prequel again.

They just wanted to be left in peace to do their unauthorized Blade Runner spinoff, but the executives said "No, you have to have a xenomorph in this one Ridley."

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

And now this? A reimagining of the first film for the 'Tik Tok' generation... ??? Why??? We all know how the alien looks likes, how it's going to start, unfold, and how it's going to end. 

And now this... a soft reboot set between Alien and Aliens that allegedly wants to try to pivot back to horror (again) and try to make this lurching zombie of a franchise relevant to audiences who don't have to pop tylenol for their back before standing up when the film ends.

The horror aficionados, meanwhile, are just looking at this and saying...

 

6 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

(PS, then there's the AVPs, B-grade fanservice.) 

The true successors to Aliens, IMO.  After you've diminished your horror movie monster to the level of a dangerous animal all that's really left on that course is gratuitous splatter horror like Alien vs. Predator that's all about spectacle rather than invoking fear.

Alien: Isolation is, IMO, the one true successor to Alien in that it returns the xenomorph to being an unkillable, unknowable menace that the protagonist is stuck living on borrowed time in an expansive-yet-claustrophobic space with because it's in no hurry to finish the job.

 

 

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That's why I cut off at Aliens.
As far as I'm concerned:

  Hide contents

Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop all made it back to Earth. Hicks recovered, Bishop was rebuilt and Ripley adopted Newt, Ripley continued a relationship with Hicks, and the three went into business for themselves.

Basically, they all earned a happy ending and also trust each other enough to be family at this point.

 

 

We're talking about a horror/action series set in a proto-cyberpunk dystopia... happy endings are the very picture of "We don't do that here."

[pengbuzz]

13 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Pretty much everything on the CY24 release schedule could be described that way.

Alien: Romulus is just the latest attempt to soft reboot a boomer-centric horror franchise after a string of piss-poor sequels.  Like what they did to Halloween in 2018.

 

No, they didn't multiply it... they diminished it.  

The xenomorph was scary because of how unknown and unseen it was in the original film.  Aliens was a competent action-focus spinoff of a horror movie that diminished the fear invoked by the monster by making it both a known quantity and easily killable.  It's a wonderfully tense action movie, but there xenomorphs invoke no terror because they're simply very dangerous predatory animals in the movie.  

 

The third might as well have been called Alien 3: Troubled Production, going through a bunch of different concepts based on Aliens before settling on trying to pivot back to horror and ended up a borderline remake of the first film but worse in every way.

 

Executive meddling combined with a creative team that really, truly, desperately DID NOT want to be working on an Alien prequel.

 

Executive meddling combined with a creative team that really, truly, desperately DID NOT want to be working on an Alien prequel again.

They just wanted to be left in peace to do their unauthorized Blade Runner spinoff, but the executives said "No, you have to have a xenomorph in this one Ridley."

 

And now this... a soft reboot set between Alien and Aliens that allegedly wants to try to pivot back to horror (again) and try to make this lurching zombie of a franchise relevant to audiences who don't have to pop tylenol for their back before standing up when the film ends.

The horror aficionados, meanwhile, are just looking at this and saying...

 

The true successors to Aliens, IMO.  After you've diminished your horror movie monster to the level of a dangerous animal all that's really left on that course is gratuitous splatter horror like Alien vs. Predator that's all about spectacle rather than invoking fear.

Alien: Isolation is, IMO, the one true successor to Alien in that it returns the xenomorph to being an unkillable, unknowable menace that the protagonist is stuck living on borrowed time in an expansive-yet-claustrophobic space with because it's in no hurry to finish the job.

 

 

We're talking about a horror/action series set in a proto-cyberpunk dystopia... happy endings are the very picture of "We don't do that here."

Which is why  it's perfect to end the franchise with.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, pengbuzz said:

Which is why  it's perfect to end the franchise with.

It's a franchise... a happy ending just means they have to force a Happy Ending Override when they come back to make Alien N+1: the Search for More Money.

Like what happened after Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

[Raikkonen]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

No, they didn't multiply it... they diminished it.  

The xenomorph was scary because of how unknown and unseen it was in the original film.  Aliens was a competent action-focus spinoff of a horror movie that diminished the fear invoked by the monster by making it both a known quantity and easily killable.  It's a wonderfully tense action movie, but there xenomorphs invoke no terror because they're simply very dangerous predatory animals in the movie.  

There's many variations of fear, terror, scary and etc, which also depends on what switch it hits on a individual bases. 

Aliens went for the terror of "No where to run" instead of the "No where to hide" like in Alien. In fact, Alien is closer to the haunting genre more than horror. 

As a kid, Aliens however for me for was more terrifying with the constant chasing and claustrophobic environment.  

As for the rest, undoubtedly there was medding from procedures with the usual coked up delusional expectations with yesterday's deadlines, but still doesn't change the fact that everyone was involved once the failures were baked. All from a directing, writing and producing level to blame. 

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Alien: Isolation is, IMO, the one true successor to Alien in that it returns the xenomorph to being an unkillable, unknowable menace that the protagonist is stuck living on borrowed time in an expansive-yet-claustrophobic space with because it's in no hurry to finish the job.

I get what you saying considering how the game unfolded, but IMO games shouldn't be official prequels/sequels to movies/series. 

7 hours ago, Bolt said:

So this is a re imagining and not another chapter in the franchise?

Well, they're calling it a sequel to Alien and a prequel to Aliens, but... it really is a Alien re-imagining for a new audience. Scavenger crew boards another ship where they encounter a unknown species, and each are killed off except for the female protagonist. It's all there in the trailer.