The Alien Franchise

[thecolorsblend]

I'll give it a shot. Looks interesting.

[The Joker]

Interesting video speculating on how the film apparently takes place after ALIEN, but before ALIENS, and the idea of Big Chap possibly being brought back.

[The Dark Knight]

Really hope that's true. Not just because it would be cool to have that connective tissue to the first film, but in how it would again demonstrate how insanely resilient the Aliens are. No way a Predator could withstand that level of punishment and still clinging to some form of life. Given its close proximity to Isolation I'd love to see any references to that story. I'm happy to include that in official canon, and I hope I come to say the same for Romulus.

[The Joker]

Unfortunately, I've never played "Alien Isolation", so I am not super-familiar with that story line, but I get the idea about the Alien being resilient being something that "Romulus" can take aim at. In doing so, that sort of direction would honestly give even more credence towards Ash's admission of having high regard of the Alien itself as the "perfect organism".

I have no idea how good "Romulus" will wind up being, but theoretically "Romulus" could provide something of a 'satisfying' Alien cinematic trilogy if it actually comes out good.

For simplification purposes. 

Alien: Introduction to Ripley, the Nostromo crew, the 'planetoid' (LV-426) and the Big Chap Xenomorph.

Alien Romulus: Continues the story of the Big Chap Xenomorph as (it is found and awakened? Reverse engineered?) and attacks a young crew of space colonists.

Aliens: Returns to the story of Ripley as she is also found, brought back to LV-426, where she goes on to confront the Alien Queen (mother of Big Chap).

That's probably being too optimistic, but it's a thought that could work out given just how satisfying the new film will wind up being? Especially considering how you would be hard pressed to find fans of the franchise whom do not have misgivings about "Alien 3" and "Alien Resurrection". I do hope that Fede Alvarez, given the story's time frame between "Alien", and "Aliens", was at least cognizant of Ridley's Scott's directorial style and tried to follow suit to some extent (at least for the beginning and end sequences ... kinda like what was originally done for Batman Forever with filming Burtonesque opening and closing scenes) in order to make it blend in with "Alien".

This was something James Cameron noted on his commentary track for the "Aliens" DVD, as he says that he obviously wanted to put his own stamp into the franchise, but also was familiar with Ridley's style of directing, and shot the scene of Ripley and Jones the Cat being found in the escape shuttle using long lenses. As Cameron wanted "Aliens" to blend right from "Alien" if one wanted to do a double feature. Which makes all the sense in the world, cinematically.

Here is the quote:

"I went to school on Ridley [Scott]'s style of photography, which was actually quite a bit different from mine, because he used a lot of long lenses, much more so than I was used to working with." - James Cameron   

[The Laughing Fish]

Unfortunately, I've never played "Alien Isolation", so I am not super-familiar with that story line, but I get the idea about the Alien being resilient being something that "Romulus" can take aim at. In doing so, that sort of direction would honestly give even more credence towards Ash's admission of having high regard of the Alien itself as the "perfect organism".   

I definitely recommend you to check out Alien Isolation whenever you can. It takes place around twelve years after the first film and you play Ripley's daughter investigating a distress signal at a space station, who is also trying to find out what happened to her mum. The game contains audio recordings of all the characters from the first film, but trying to find all of them is a challenge. If you get the complete edition, you can play DLC mini-games that recreates key events from the first film e.g. Ripley's dramatic escape from Nostromo.

Tonally, Isolation more inline with Ridley Scott's vision than James Cameron in terms of scenery and atmosphere. As such, the game lives up to the spirit of that film as a survival horror game and weapons don't come into the game until you're about two-thirds into it. The only time it resembles Cameron's Aliens is the moment when you investigate deeper into the space station, where a huge hive nested there and you have Facehuggers popping out everywhere.

As for Romulus, it looks good. It may not reinvent the wheel compared to what we saw before, but that's alright as long as it has that gritty suspense.

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

Based on the trailer, this looks like generic slasher fare to me. I hope there's more to it than that.

[thecolorsblend]

Based on the trailer, this looks like generic slasher fare to me. I hope there's more to it than that.

That's fair and reasonable.

But the way I look at it, for better or worse, the Prometheus movies didn't burnish the Alien property as well as they were probably expected to. So, the name of the game with Romulus looks to be making a "safe" Alien movie that plays the hits and checks all the boxes.

Also, there HAD to be the temptation to name the lead character Ripley. So, a new female protagonist is a pretty brave choice under the circumstances.

Plus, the movie was originally supposed to be straight to streaming. Instead, it's getting a theatrical release. I choose to believe that the release changed because someone saw a lot of potential in this film and decided it was worth releasing to theaters. So, there's a good chance that Romulus might be the kick in the pants the franchise should've gotten back in 2011.

Finally, I don't find anything in the trailer to be bothersome. This actually looks like it could be pretty good.

[Silver Nemesis]

It's a shame certain quarters responded so negatively to Prometheus. For all that film's flaws, no one can say it was a safe retread. You can tell Ridley Scott took the backlash to heart by the way he retreated into a more familiar formula with Covenant. Romulus looks like more of the same. It might be good, but I'm sceptical. I was hoping the trailer would get me fired up about the plot and characters, but instead it just recycled familiar iconography from the earlier films. It even reuses the 'in space no one can hear you scream' tagline. I've got a feeling we're in for a creatively-unambitious nostalgia-heavy Force Awakens type of affair, but I could be wrong.

These guys sum it up well.

Did you ever get around to watching Covenant, colors? And if so, what did you think of it?

[thecolorsblend]

I enjoyed Alien: Covenant quite a lot. Now, I didn't think Prometheus was terrible. Parts of it were a little wtf but no big deal. It's a pretty big expansion on the Alien mythos up to that point. But you could just as easily argue that being yet another Ripley Vs. Xenomorph film didn't do Resurrection any favors. So, maybe it was high time for something new?

Prometheus was definitely something new.

As for Alien: Covenant, it does feel a little like a course correction. But overall, I simply don't have a lot of criticisms of it. I thought it delivered the goods where it needed to while still somewhat continuing the ideas and storyline set forth in Prometheus. All things considered, Covenant is a pretty good compromise.

In fact, I can't help wondering if a big part of my warm reception to the Romulus trailer is due to my generally high opinion of Prometheus and Covenant.

I'm willing to give Romulus a chance, let's say that.