This is just a warning. The Aliens movies are all rated R and they're a little violent...
And they're a little intense. So the video footage I'm including here... is a little bit of both.
So if you're squeamish... Maybe watch something else.
Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic.
Today we’re summarizing and explaining the franchise known as Aliens.
Some highs, some lows, and some interesting facts.
It was 1979 when the first film Alien hit theaters.
It was directed by a relative newcomer by the name of Ridley Scott, who is now considered
to be one of the best in the science fiction genre, and by some even one of the best directors ever.
He had other hits such as Gladiator, Blade Runner, Legend, Black Hawk Down, American
Gangster, and the Martian.
Alien was his first big theatrical hit, though it took time to be seen that way.
It was mixed critically, with a lot of major critics being unimpressed.
Fans latched onto it though and that cult following was able to secure a future for
the franchise.
So let’s back up and summarize what this first movie was essentially about.
It’s a small-scale story about seven people on a spaceship that discover a moon, which
has a huge batch of alien eggs on it.
One of these eggs gives birth to the iconic alien known as a facehugger, which basically
gives birth to an alien that hatches out of a human’s stomach.
This intense sequence of the alien bursting from this man's chest was cited as one of the most
memorable scenes in Hollywood history.
This alien is what we call a xenomorph, which is basically the species of the alien.
They need hosts in order to reproduce and what species they use as a host determines
what the xenomorph looks like.
Which we’ll get into later.
The first movie really focuses on the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver.
Ripley, to this day, is seen as one of the most iconic female leads in science fiction.
She is the sole human survivor of the first Alien film.
Though the movie didn’t do extremely well, there was eventually a sequel, called Aliens.
It was directed by another relative newcomer James Cameron, who was only allowed to direct Aliens
if his first big Hollywood picture did well.
That movie, called The Terminator, did just fine and Cameron went on the direct Aliens.
This movie saw the return of Ripley, as she led a team of marines back to this distant moon.
She wants to destroy them, knowing what they can become, but some scientists believe they
can study and sample these aliens.
Things don’t go well, which is surprising, and Ripley again has to save the day, this
time going head-to-head with an alien queen, the one responsible for laying all those eggs.
In retrospect, both of the first two movies are beloved, each scoring in the mid to high
90 percents on Rotten Tomatoes, also launching the careers of both Ridley Scott and James Cameron.
Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards for the second film,
helping to legitimize science fiction as a genre worthy of recognition.
Following this, Sigourney Weaver wanted to be finished with the franchise but a huge
salary brought her back for Alien 3, which saw Ripley and some facehuggers crash land
on a prison planet, where the xenomorphs could feast on inmates all day long.
It was the first major film directed by David Fincher, who is now known for films like Fight
Club, Se7en, The Social Network, and Gone Girl.
You’d think a stellar director like this would make a great alien film, however the
studio executives were very pushy about certain beats in the movie and even made changes in
post-production without Fincher’s input or approval.
Fincher: I'll say this...
If the movie is great, I'm gonna get too much credit.
And if the movie sucks, I'm gonna get too much blame.
My first movie, it's fairly well known, was a disaster.
I stupidly felt that the people who were financing it had more to lose than I did, if it was bad.
And I sort of allowed myself to be steered into this communal making...
Then when the shit hits the fan... all of a sudden everyone scattered... and you're the guy.
Standing there, like "Wait. Who has a suggestion NOW?"
I'm gonna take the blame, if I'm gonna take the brunt of it, I'm gonna make the decisions.
Narration: You’d think it’d be over after that but a fourth movie was made, bringing Ripley back
yet again, but this time she is a clone of the original Ripley.
This film, Alien: Resurrection, is set 200 something years after the original films.
This film was received a tad bit better than Alien 3 but is still very underwhelming compared
to the original two films.
At this point, the franchise was essentially dead, so Fox licensed out the Aliens out to
various comic books and videogame companies, resulting in a mashup with the other big alien
franchise, Predator.
The Aliens vs Predator comics, published by Dark Horse, were well-received and eventually
led to the live action mashup of Aliens vs. Predator in 2004.
While critically disappointing, it did well enough to get a sequel in the form of Aliens
vs Predator: Requiem in 2007.
This movie was also disappointing.
I thought they both were entertaining, though missed so many opportunities to make an incredible mashup.
Earlier, I mentioned that xenomorphs change based on the host, so these movies introduced
us to what a predator-born xenomorph would look like, aptly called a predalien.
Now, this is where the franchise attempts to reestablish itself.
Director Ridley Scott returns for a movie called Prometheus, which for awhile wasn’t
marketed as a tie-in to the Aliens franchise.
It slowly revealed itself to be a prequel, the origins of everything we’ve seen in
the other movies.
It was ambitious, though critics and fans were both very divisive on their feelings of it.
It asked just as many questions as it answered, though the standout was Michael Fassbender’s
performance as the android David.
In the movie, we don’t see a xenomorph as they appear in the other movies, but we do
see aliens that look like ancestors to the xenomorphs we know and love.
The latest film, a sequel to Prometheus and a more direct prequel to Alien is slated for
2017, with the title Alien: Covenant.
A few cast members will be returning, including Fassbender.
This is said to be the first of three new movies catching us up to the Alien film.
Okay.
Phew.
What an up and down roller coaster.
Now that we have the basics of the films, let’s talk about some cultural impact.
The original two films are nearly perfect, consistently rating in the best of the best
among science-fiction and horror genres.
I’m not traditionally a fan of horror but I found them to thrilling in all the right ways.
The tagline for the original Alien was “In space, no one can hear you scream.”
It’s hard to imagine that these masterpieces could devolve into the b-movie mayhem that
is Aliens Vs. Predator.
Even the solid video games of the past devolved into what is considered one of the worst videogames
of all time, Aliens: Colonial Marines.
There was an upswing to this, the sequel Alien: Isolation which was divisive but usually more
positive than negative.
So with the games getting a little better and Prometheus pleasing some fans, do you
think there’s hope for the franchise?
Do you think Alien: Convenant, under the direction of Ridley Scott, can redeem the franchise completely?
Or do you think the mythology has gotten too complicated and too convoluted to be saved?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching!