Tuesday 8 October 2013

When Will The Xenomorphs Next Invade the Big Screen?




Soon there will be no one left To Hear...You...Scream.
At this point it should come as no surprise to anyone that I am a massive fan of the 'Alien' Franchise, This is after all my Third article focusing on this film series (Following my Alien Resurrection Review as well as the very first review I posted Aliens - Ah I have come a long way, but at some point im going to have go back, I can do better now.) 

But in recent years the franchise has been struggling due to disappointing sequels (Personally I prefer Alien 3 The Directors Cut -*Obviously* over Alien Resurrection, I know that many of you may disagree, like much of this article it all comes down to personal preference) followed by some truly terrible crossovers which saw to major Sci-Fi franchise's come together only to produce  little more than a visually impressive but mindbogglingly stupid and emotionally empty monster mash up and a sequel that takes two of the biggest Sci-Fi Icons and reduces them to B-Movie Material - I am of course talking about the Alien Vs. Predator Movies (I swear one day I will go into full detail on why I hate those two movies so much but for now our focus is elsewhere).

The end result saw both franchises racing to distance themselves and re-establish themselves as the greats they once were (and this is where things get complicated). While Predators chose to celebrate it's roots in an all-out homage to the first installment while upping the violence, action and stakes, the eventual return to the Alien series with the 2012 Prometheus instead chose to take the Alien out of the Alien Series. 

I'm A Stranger Here Myself. 
Like any good joke the set up was perfect: Ridley Scott the mastermind behind the film that started it all returned to direct a prequel that suggested answers to the many of the overlooked issues of the original, but all we found were more questions, questions we hadn't even thought to ask yet (personally I blame Damon Lindelof).

The biggest problem with Prometheus is that while the film moves away from established Alien territory  it fails to introduce enough new material to stand on it's own and instead is forced to fall back to insinuating that the Xenomorphs would be making an appearance, the pile of engineer corpses, the mural on the wall that clearly shows Xenos, The fact that the Hammerpede had acid for blood the sticky substance between David's fingers are all used to hint at the fact that the Double-Jawed Monsters might be lurking somewhere but all the set up is ultimately meaningless as the only connecting strand to the Xenos we get has nothing to do with the build up and has no real impact on the story save for being and ending sting to placate fans. 

And the while you could say that I should have gone in a little more opened minded the films trailer seemed to be engineered (Sorry) for the sole purpose of drawing comparison between Alien and Prometheus from the shot of Acid burning through the space suits helmet, the cry of "Cut it off" - Kind of a give away.

Make no mistake I enjoyed Prometheus, I really did and I can easily see just what Ridley Scott was hoping to achieve with Prometheus greatly expanding upon the scope and scale of the 'Aliens' universe and proving that there is much more depth to the world than first appeared, while at the same time both distancing itself from and discrediting AVP. 
Art: The Deacon in Prometheus
But as Prometheus 2 inevitably advances, leaving any notion of the Xenos behind in order to expand upon the elements that were introduced but not explored and becoming more Engineer  focused with Ridley Scott himself claiming that a Prometheus sequel would be even further removed from Alien than the first installment I am left to wonder when (if ever) I will see the Aliens that I have come to know and love on the big screen again? and what form they might take from now on? or is this the end of the line for the chest-bursting monstrosities? 

I sincerely hope not as there is still so much potential for the series,

Game Over, Man.
The varieties of the Xenos continues to diversify, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem finally brought the Predalien to the big-screen but there are hundreds of different subspecies across Alien's expansive media of books, comics and video games and I am still hoping to see the Praetorian make the leap to film one day and while even though the 2013 video game Aliens: Colonial Marines sucked (And boy did it) it did give us interesting new Xenomorph varieties such as The Crusher, The Boiler and The Raven which would be great additions to the screen one day. 


The AVP relationship may have broken down but they did create somthing beautiful together - The Predalien
There are still so many great concepts that could be adapted to make fantastic stories for Alien Movies

  • A Planet-wide infestation that follows the outbreak as it develops growing from the discovery of the eggs to the forced abandonment of the planet as humanity is overwhelmed and a small group of survivors attempt to escape off-world before it's too late.
  • Reuse Aliens: Colonial Marines's starting point in exploring the Marine expedition sent to discover the fate of the Sulaco, Even this limited starting point could be adapted into a follow up to Prometheus that sees the crew sent to investigate the fate of the Prometheus encounter the Deacon (Avoiding its inclusion at the end of the film from being utterly pointless, this may even allow the answers to Aliens unresolved issues). 
  • Hell, You could even reboot the AVP series only this time set it in the future and do it well. (Although I suspect this is probably the least likely option as both franchises go through their awkward breakup stage and avoid one another). 
I know that the series has made several missteps in the past but the franchise still has so much to offer the world of film that it shouldn't simply be cast aside an abandoned, by all mean carry on Prometheus's crazy plot-hole ridden narrative, I have nothing but high hopes and expectations for its sequel but all I ask is that cinema doesn't forget where this story began - In a pulsating egg, in a crashed derelict spaceship, on a desolate wasteland of a planet, in the blackness of space, where No One Can Hear You Scream.

.....And while we are on the subject - When Will I Get A Predators Sequel?