To me, Aliens (1986) was a sequel that got everything right. It never tried to be as scary as the original, taking only the elements that it needed and built them around a bombastic, sweat inducing roller coaster ride of suspense. Cameron knew his strengths - his ability to create compelling action set pieces - and stuck closely to them.
Underrated storywise, Aliens was razor sharp, (mostly)linear storytelling, gradually building in tension and suspense. It was a murky, used world that you wanted to revisit. A mechanical beast every bit as ugly as the titular character of the ‘alien’.
Since then the franchise has regurgitated often forgettable sequels. The degrees of sucess with them varying from interesting and flawed (Alien 3) to silly and forgettable (Alien ressurection).
When Ridley scott decided to come back and create a whole set of prequels I was very interested in where the story could theoretically go. With ‘Prometheus’ the story was at least sounded interesting, a deviation of sorts from the standard alien fare, asking many questions but giving very little in terms of answers. This, unfortunately, seems to be the hallmark of Damon Lindelof’s writing style, heavy on mysteries that never get answered in a satisfying way.
The movie proved to be a visual feast for the eyes. Scott’s eye for visual storytelling and production design has never wavered. His movies are always interesting to look at. And Prometheus was no exception, given a glossy retooling, tossing out the ‘used’ aesthetic of the original alien movies. The weakest element was ironically the story and certain characters; it never felt fully cohesive often grasping at concepts and ideas, never commiting to answer them.
Which, given the setup it was a surprise to many that the tone of the next prequel changed quite a bit. Gone are the engineers and the search for the answers to mankinds existence. Alien: Covenent was a reluctant step back to the alien mytholgy. It felt like Scott wasn’t as invested in telling this tale. At times painting by numbers, giving us obligatory, half hearted scenes, while pretty to look at, felt a little hallow. It wasn’t remotely scary or apart from the opening forty minutes, particularily suspenseful. Not that it was bad, it wasn’t. It was just a little underwhelming.
“I still think there’s a lot of mileage in Alien, but I think you’ll have to now re-evolve. What I always thought when I was making it, the first one, why would a creature like this be made and why was it traveling in what I always thought was a kind of war-craft, which was carrying a cargo of these eggs. What was the purpose of the vehicle and what was the purpose of the eggs? That’s the thing to question — who, why, and for what purpose is the next idea, I think.”
Cut to: 2020 and Scott has signed on to make another prequel tentatively called Alien:awakening. Given the recent take over of Fox by Disney it will be interesting how adult in tone a new Alien movie will be. As a fan of the original series, it would a huge disappointment to have a sanitised, pg version. This would surely put a final nail in the coffin of the franchise.
As it stands Alien: Covenent made a lot less than Prometheus worldwide. Given the pressure on filmmakers to hit that magic 1 billion box office of Marvel movies it becomes more of a question of how sanitised the story will be to fall into fiscal line with other releases from Disney.
On another pertinant note: is where Ridley Scott headed with the prequels still interesting and can he make a final installment thrilling given we know where they will eventually end up?