The Alien franchise

Alien (1979)

Rating: B

Dir: Ridley Scott
Star:  Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton

Probably the first surprise in this is the opening credits, which say, “Starring… Tom Skerritt”. Wait, what? It’s easy to forget, there was a time before Sigourney Weaver’s name was tied so intimately with the Alien franchise, to the extent I’m somewhat hard-pushed to think of other work she has done. Seriously: I just looked through her filmography on the IMDb, and I doubt more than two or three of them rang any bells: the one about the gorillas, the one where she was a paranormal investigator, and Avatar. Otherwise, crickets. She was nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars in the same year (1988) – the former for the one about the gorillas – so I guess she was doing something right.

The other thing which stands out about Alien now is, it’s a bit like Monty Python‘s TV series. By that, I mean, at its best, both are great… but, boy, is there a lot of easily forgotten filler. Here, it’s easy to remember certain scenes, most obviously, John Hurt’s last meal, which is right up there with the blood-test sequence from The Thing as genre landmarks. However, I’d forgotten just how much slow creeping around dimly-lit corridors this contains. It’s well-photographed slow creeping around dimly-lit corridors, to be sure. This is Ridley Scott, who could deliver well-photographed paint drying. Yet, for anyone who has seen this a million times before, so knows who and why gets to the end, it’s not particularly exciting.

The other big plus is the monster, among the, if not the most iconic in SF. Getting H.R. Giger to design the creature was a master-stroke, and the film does a real good job of rendering true his visions. Not just the alien, though it is obviously the pinnacle. The set with the “space jockey” – the corpse of the ship’s former pilot – also looks hugely impressive, and worth noting, Giger air-brushed the entire thing by hand. The entire movie is a demonstration in how well-executed practical effects age a great deal better than crappy CGI. Although having said this, the scene where the chest-burster whizzes away into the ship’s interior, never fails to provoke a hearty chortle. Guess they couldn’t afford legs.

In terms of the movie’s impact, it’s a little like Night of the Living Dead. There’s no arguing ground was broken and its influence on the genre (genreS, really) is unquestionable. Yet I’d argue it only set the foundations on which others built better edifices, not least James Cameron. Though we’ll get to the sequel in more detail later this month, there’s a case to be made this is the franchise where the second entry didn’t just surpass the original, it was superior by the greatest distance. [Other potential candidates include Mad Max and The Evil Dead] Not that Alien is bad, by any means. It’s just, in comparison to Aliens, it seem obvious to me the first film doesn’t make the most of the monster at its core.

This article is part of 31 Days of Horror.

Aliens (1986)

Rating: A+

Dir: James Cameron
Star: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen

As we mentioned when we reviewed Alien earlier this month, “There’s a case to be made this is the franchise where the second entry didn’t just surpass the original, it was superior by the greatest distance.” What’s notable, too, is the radical change in direction taken. Given the great, and thoroughly deserved, success of its predecessor, the safe thing would have been for the sequel to revisit familiar territory, and pit a single alien against an unprepared group of humans. Instead, the forces on both sides are radically ramped up. Rather than one alien, there is now a whole horde. But on the side of mankind, we have an apparently well-trained force of professionals who are, to quote Hudson, equipped with “tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes. We got knives, sharp sticks…”

Italics used advisedly, because all the sharp sticks in the galaxy won’t be enough. For, while Alien was a haunted-house movie in space, so Aliens is a war movie in space: the saga of a struggle against an enemy which may not have the technology, yet more than makes up for any deficiency in their sheer ferocity. Yet, it’s still also sci-fi, horror and action: I’m not sure any other film has managed to span so many different genres, while doing each of them justice. And even in the extended special edition, there isn’t a wasted moment, something which cannot be said for most movies over two and a half hours in length. From the moment Ripley and the Marines step onto the surface of LV-426, it feels as if anyone can die at any time.

I can’t praise the performances here highly enough. Not just Weaver, though she’s clearly the glue which holds the entire film together. The quality runs all the way down to Henn as Newt, in what may be the best ‘one and done’ acting career of all-time. You can’t watch her tell Ripley, “Don’t go! I have scary dreams…” without feeling all protectively maternal. In between, we have the Marines, including the glorious sight of nice Jewish girl Jeanette Goldstein nailing the character of Latina badass Vaaquez. It’s proof that casting the right person for a role is far more important than casting the right ethnicity for a role.

Though H.R. Giger was not involved with the sequel, there’s logic to the way the species has been developed and enhanced here. It’s in sharp contrast to subsequent sequels, which felt as if things were made up as they went along. The dialogue is no less smart; few films are as memorably quotable, and if you can’t find a line from Aliens for every occasion… try harder. I’m saddened by the fact that the man responsible for this (and The Terminator franchise) is now apparently dedicating the rest of his film-making life to making Avatar sequels. The only one I want to see would be Alien vs. Avatar…

This article is part of 31 Days of Horror.

---

[2009 review] Arguably the finest action-movie ever, from the moment the platoon of marines lands on LV-426, accompanied, somewhat unwillingly, by Ripley (Weaver). She returns to the planet which led to the horrors in Alien, only to find things are about a thousand times worse – since, rather than one alien monstrosity, there are now about a thousand. A series of events leads to them being trapped on the planet, with a fusion reactor about to level the entire area, and an apparently endless stream of creatures closing in on the dwindling band of survivors. Yet just when safety is within reach, Ripley voluntarily ventures back into the heart of the monsters’ lair, seeking Newt (Henn – who had never acted before, and has never done so since), a surrogate for the daughter lost during Ripley’s 57 years in hypersleep between the two movies.

When you read some of the stories of production, it’s a miracle the finished product came out the way it did. Biehn, for example, wasn’t cast until a week into shooting, there were innumerable clashes between Cameron and the crew, and six weeks before the theatrical release the musical score hadn’t been written. Yet the movie is a near-perfect blend of science-fiction, action and horror, populated by a host of brilliant characters. Leading these is, of course, Ripley, who has become the standard all future action-heroines seek to emulate (though I note it’s almost two hours into this movie before she touches a gun). Hardly less memorable are the soldiers, who are given personalities that come over in about two brilliantly-written lines of dialogue, such as Bill Paxton’s Private Hudson, who arcs from the self-proclaimed “ultimate badass” to, basically, whimpering in a corner, saying it’s “Game over, man! Game over!” This is key to the impact; you feel a sense of loss when even relatively-minor characters bite the big one, and this happens frequently.

The pace is kept relentless by Cameron, and in some ways, this feels more like a ‘Nam flick, with the technologically-superior forces getting their asses kicked by a “primitive” enemy, which makes up for any deficiencies in numbers and hard-core intensity. Yet, the relationship between Ripley and Newt gives the film a strong emotional heart, rarely seen in the genre [I’m thinking Leon is the most obvious descendant there, and we’ll get to that one in a few weeks]. Stan Winston does a fine job of taking HR Giger’s creation and running with it, notably with the Alien Queen, the egg-laying stuff of nightmares. Approaching a quarter of a century later, CGI hasn’t come close to matching the emotions this generates – and neither did any other director who has tried their hand at the Alien mythology.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Rating: C

Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Star: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon

This fourth installment in the franchise makes some nods in interesting direction, such as trying to tame aliens, but in the end opts to stick mostly to running around darkened corridors as usual. The big twist is that Ripley, conveniently reborn thanks to cloning techniques and a $12m pay-cheque, is now part-monster, and revels in the role with a cheerful perversity that is the film’s best feature. And if you thought she was tough before… [Oddly, though stronger and quicker than ever, she can’t RUN any faster. Fortunate for the plot, that]

Neither as bad as Alien 3, or as good as the first two, this is passable entertainment with gore and black humour, though not enough of either to be truly memorable, with even Winona Ryder forgettably feisty — neither lingerie-clad nor wielding a Really Big Gun…

Prometheus (2012)

Rating: B-

Dir: Ridley Scott
Star: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba

Scientists discover indications, from widely disparate primitive civilizations, pointing to humanity having been visited – and perhaps, created – by an alien race, called ‘The Engineers’. Decoding their source, a spaceship, funded by the Weyland Corporation, is dispatched to what is believed to be the Engineers’ home planet. The expedition includes archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace), android David (Fassbender), Weyland employee Meredith Vickers (Theron) and the ship’s captain. Janek (Elba). On arrival, they find evidence that the Engineers were there, but aeons ago, and there’s nothing apparently left of them now except for long-dead corpses.

There are, however, a large number of storage cylinders, from which is seeping a dark liquid. Assuming you’re aware that this is something of a prequel to Alien, I probably need not say too much more about how things progress from there. Let’s just say, the supposedly-dead planet is nowhere near as lifeless as it seems. It’s likely this foreknowledge which makes the first half feel overly long: the audience is well ahead of the characters, who have to learn all the stuff which the viewers already know. It’s almost a repeat of Alien in this sense: one of the reasons why Aliens was superior, is that it could discard much of the exposition, since we already knew what we were facing.

While there are some variations on the theme here, the basic principles remain, and the movie would have been better off arriving on the planet sooner into the 124-minute running time than it does. That said, this is a Ridley Scott movie and, as always with his work, even if the storyline isn’t progressing, it’s still visually stunning (even in 2-D, rather than 3-D, as filmed). The second half is considerably more interesting, with a couple of genuinely squirm-inducing sequences and an escalating sense of chaos and despair. The film has been accused of being over-complex or too cerebral. I can’t say I found it to be either, and as a muse on what it means to be human, it’s a long way short of Blade Runner. Then again, so are almost all movies, so don’t hold that against this.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Rating: C+

Dir: Ridley Scott
Star: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride

First off, I have had the hardest time convincing myself this film is not called Alien: Convent – even when typing it into Google to find showtimes near me. As typo go, however, it’s not a bad idea: Perhaps a follow up to the third installment, set on the planet run by a religious order. Or a musical, featuring songs like My Favorite Chestbursters and How do you Solve a Problem Like a Xenomorph. Hey, if they can do Evil Dead: The Musical…

To be honest, went into this expecting not very much. I am reliably informed that I saw Prometheus. I reviewed the damned film, anyway, and apparently quite liked Prometheus. I cannot, however, remember a single thing about Prometheus. It was even on TV this weekend, and subsequent to seeing Covenant, we watched half an hour of it, with absolutely no bells being rung at all. I mean, I remember bits of the horror – and not in a good way – that was Alien: Resurrection. But it’s as if my memory of Prometheus had been entirely wiped, which did not augur well for Scott’s latest flogging of a dead extraterrestrial.

The end result is… okay. It feels a little bit too much like a retread of its predecessors, particular in that once again, the characters are entirely oblivious to the concepts here. Yes, I know this all takes place before the events of the original, but when you see someone leaning over to look into a pod that has just blossomed open… It brings out my inner black woman, and I have a strong urge to wag my finger and yell, “Nuh-uh! Don’t do it!” at the screen. It’s the same, abandoned spaceship > facehugger > chestburster routine we’ve seen for close to forty years now, with an ending nicked from Aliens, the creature hitching a ride as the spaceship lifts off.

Scott does offer some variations on the theme: the spineburster, for example (shown above), was a nice touch. And his eye for visuals is every bit as good as ever. There’s no-one who can paint with film in quite the same way. It’s just too introverted an alien movie for my tastes, by which I mean, the dynamic shifts from human vs. alien, to being human vs. human, and the monster instead becomes just a tool towards an end. It ends up not being much more than Chekhov’s gun with acid blood: you know it’s going to go off in the third act.

At least Prometheus could be artistically justified, on the grounds of Scott taking his baby back after the varying treatment inflicted on it by Messrs. Cameron, Fincher and Jeunet. This seems on considerably thinner ice, and I’m unconvinced this is a universe truly in need of any further exploration. Especially if it’s going to consist of films, which serve mostly to remind viewers just how great both Alien and Aliens were.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Rating: B-

Dir: Fede Álvarez
Star: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced

a.k.a. Dumb Young People in Space. No, really: I think the last time I saw so many stupid teenagers in orbit was probably Jason X. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it is in line with the franchise getting back to its horror roots, something I am inclined to encourage. The last few entries seem to have been increasingly concerned with building some kind of Alien Extended Universe, forgetting that what made the first two movies such cultural touchstones was much simpler: icky monsters. Let’s face it, excluding the Predator crossovers, none of the directors post Aliens have had much love for horror, least of all Ridley Scott. The genre is much more in Álvarez’s wheelhouse, and it shows.

This takes place between Alien and Aliens, beginning on another Weyland-Yutani colony, manned largely be indentured servants. Keen to get out is Rain Carradine (Spaeny), an orphan who has ‘adopted’ a broken android, Andy (Jonsson). Her chance comes when her friends discover an abandoned spacecraft in orbit, and decide to salvage cryonic stasis chambers from it. Naturally, in the process they accidentally thaw out a batch of face-huggers, because it was actually a WY research facility. This was researching the alien creatures for possible use to create ‘better than human’ employees for the corporation, when things went wrong, in exactly the way you would expect. For the Dumb Young People in Space, they’re about to go considerably wronger.

It is very referential to the first two films in the franchise, a mixed blessing. The presence of the late Ian Holm – or, at least, a CGI version thereof – as android science officer Rook, gives the film some much needed gravitas. He’s the only character that feels old enough to vote, in contrast to the original film, where Sigourney Weaver was the “baby” of the bunch. Its characters went all the way up to Harry Dean Stanton in his mid fifties: Ripley would be the space Mom of this bunch, serving up orange slices to the kids. The most direct references are a mixed bunch: Rook saying, “I can’t lie to you about your chances. But you have my sympathies” works. Andy coughing up, “Get away from her, you… bitch”? Not so much.

This is a shame, because Jonsson otherwise delivers the film’s best performance, beginning as almost an android imbecile, before a dubious “upgrade” on the ship adjusts his outlook significantly, shall we say. I suspect the visuals will work better in the cinema than at home, because Álvarez takes the gloom and darkness to almost industrial levels. There’s barely a shot in the entire film involving daylight, which always feels like a bit of a cop-out. Not that you really need to see the aliens, because I doubt many will be watching this without previous experience of the franchise. The brain can fill in the shadows as needed, and there are some “WTF?” moments of Giger-esque invention. You’d still be better off watching #1 and #2: such a conclusion should not come as any surprise.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Rating: D-

Dir: The Strause Brothers
Star: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz, Johnny Lewis

Christ, this is awful. The first hour, in particular, may be the biggest heap of steaming drivel to receive a theatrical release in the past year, being incoherent, pointless and – the most unforgivable crime of all – dull. We are expected to be thrilled by the sight of an alien bursting out of someone’s chest, as if that is not almost thirty years old, or suddenly (and for no point at all) switching into the infra-red view of the Predator’s vision. This is what passes for exposition in the majority of the film: a series of scenes which serve no apparent purpose in advancing the storyline, occasionally interrupted by others which grind the movie to a halt to introduce us to the characters. Not that they should really bother, since cast-wise, we have a bunch of no-names and no-talents, in roles of startling tedium: an ex-con (Pasquale), his annoying kid brother (Lewis), the local sheriff (Ortiz) and a returning GI (Aylesworth). Must have taken them minutes to come up with those concepts.

Things do pick up marginally towards the end, with an actual storyline emerging, as the human survivors have to make their way through a blacked-out town, to an evacuation point. Though the question arises, is there any actual ‘evacuation’ planned, or is that simply polite military-speak, for ‘sanitation through nuclear weaponry’? That does at least generate some tension, though the inexperience of first-time directors, Greg and Colin Strause, shows badly as they don’t have a clue what to do with it. The movie lumbers from one uninteresting set-piece to another, with hardly any moments to distinguish it. You could take the previous seven entries [Four for the Aliens, two for the Predator, plus one together], chop them up in a blender, extract ninety random minutes, and you’d have something better than this tiresome nonsense, and probably more coherent too.