The Alien franchise began with a spray-painted beach ball with rubber claws. The creature was first featured in the 1974 horror comedy Dark Star, a creation from director John Carpenter, concept artist Ron Cobb, and screenwriter Dan O’Bannon. O’Bannon had the wherewithal to make a horror film about a stowaway alien that looked real. He caught the attention of fellow screenwriter Ronald Shusett, who was at work on Total Recall. Together, they wrote one of the best horror and science fiction films of all time.
Many sequels and prequels followed in the wake of the 1979 success of the first film Alien. It launched the career of Sigourney Weaver in her first leading role on film as Ripley. It propelled the momentum of the ominous threat that was the Xenomorph from the horror genre into the 1986 action-packed sequel Aliens. Close encounters with the alien were the crux of the series for so long, director and screenwriter Noah Hawley has decided to produce a TV series based on the Alien films. The future for the crew of the Nostromo and the Weyland-Yutani company needs to come out of stasis one last time and meet a proper ending now more than ever.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
A Freak Accident From Space
20th Century Fox
The making of Alien was an organic process. Many influences from science fiction made the Xenomorph we know today. H.R. Giger’s deeply disturbing and surreal artwork gave us the living nightmare from space. EC Comics, Forbidden Planet, Planet of the Vampires, and The Thing from Another World, were inspirations for the atmosphere and plot points in the original film. The amalgamation of horror and science fiction came together like a beautiful, twisted freak accident.
The goal for Ridley Scott was to transcend the fear of “a man in a rubber suit” and to replace it with a vicious visage that played with what the audience thought it saw. The imagination is a tool for terror. It can think up the most terrifying thing possible, and it will all be true because the fear is believable. After the Chestburster gives executive officer Kane (John Hurt) gastrointestinal distress, it runs off faster than we have time to see its form. When the crew goes looking for the monster, engineering technician Brett finds the crew’s pet cat, Jones, and meets the full-grown Xenomorph face-to-face in the dark. Scott revealed the creature and its figure in pieces to let the audience decide what awful beast it could be.
In Space, No One Can Hear You Sequel
Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the Xenomorph doesn’t stir up any more fear than it does animosity. That’s why James Cameron wisely made an action sci-fi thriller for Aliens. Ridley Scott was responsible for the fear, the presence of a hidden threat and its tense absence. James Cameron responded to that fear by fighting instead of flying. Ripley proved her survival skills in both films and became one of the most resilient protagonists in cinema.
When Ripley returned to Alien 3, fans felt betrayed. The departure from the team-building, chosen family of the space marines from the first two films was sorely missed. The third installment went for a nihilistic approach in an almost celibate, pacifist prison, killing off the characters audiences were attached to from the get-go. The final straw came when Ripley sacrifices herself, Terminator 2: Judgment Day-style. Next to the Xenomorph, Sigourney Weaver still represents the franchise and its persistent hold on hope-filled survival. The neglect of this theme in Alien 3 led to subsequent films, crossovers with the Predator franchise, and prequels with mixed receptions.
Xenomorph Send-Off
The Alien movies have come to represent the corporate greed of Weyland-Yutani as well. With all these sequels and fans’ desperation for loyalty to the original films with a fresh, new take, the cycle of economic and creative differences has handicapped and continues to handicap the franchise. Hawley created the TV shows Fargo and Legion, character-driven shows that prove he can do the Alien universe right. Interesting enough, the show will take place on Earth, an idea that was scrapped from previous film scripts early in the franchise.
Episodes and a place on Earth might give Xenomorphs the breathing room they need to reach new ground. The scope may be too broad and forgo the claustrophobic and atmospheric tone of the original films. Prometheus has already explored the history of humanity and the apocalyptic birth of the androgynous Xenomorph. Alien: Covenant introduced Neomorphs and Protomorphs to suggest cross-breeding between human and alien species (like Alien Resurrection did) or an Invasion of the Body Snatchers situation. The mystery surrounding the Xenomorph species is just about spent, Sigourney Weaver has shown interest in reprising her role if she likes the script, and sabotage has befallen expansion and development efforts in space due to special interest more than once. Either through television or one last legacy sequel, the Alien franchise needs a concrete ending to its endless conflict with man, nature, and self. Something better than Scott’s first draft of a decapitated Ripley.
