One engrossing new character and some strong production design cannot justify a shockingly limp rehash that serves mostly to remind you of other 'Alien' movies.
The Alien movies are such a fascinatingly unique phenomenon ; a series of movies that had no business becoming a franchise but somehow did anyway because of how ridiculously lucky Fox got with some of their early hiring decisions. Alien's development was one lucky break/genius decision after another: turning a derivative Dan O'Bannon story into a one-of-a-kind "truckers in space" script from Walter Hill; using Swiss weirdo, and Hollywood neophyte, HR Giger for the creature design; casting unknown theater actor Sigourney Weaver as Ripley; and deciding to go with Ridley Scott, then known primarily as a commercial director, when Hill backed out of directing. No one, not even Alan Ladd, realized its genius decisions were genius decisions at the time they were made.
Then, Fox caught lightning in the bottle again with Aliens, when they decided to let up-and-coming, but still unproven, James Cameron write and direct the sequel. Then they did it AGAIN when they decided to give Alien 3 (a criminally underrated movie) to up-and-coming, but still unproven, music video director David Fincher.
Then their luck ran out, and the franchise has been muddling around ever since. Their best chance to develop it into something coherent was with Alien 3, which (if you wanted to make a franchise) should have been a much more direct sequel to Aliens, playing up the humans v. aliens combat angle, rather than the nihilistic dead end that we got. But who was thinking about movies as franchises in 1991?
In theory, I'm outraged that it's fan service. But since Alien is my very favorite Hollywood franchise, I'm fully ready to be serviced. Why should Marvel fans get all the fun? And I was actually bummed we wouldn't get a resolution for Covenant's cliffhanger, so if it does it I'm there.
That being said, I hated Fede's Evil Dead remake because it was too slick and lacked personality. It's the idiosyncratic nature of these movies that make them cult classics.
The Alien movies are such a fascinatingly unique phenomenon ; a series of movies that had no business becoming a franchise but somehow did anyway because of how ridiculously lucky Fox got with some of their early hiring decisions. Alien's development was one lucky break/genius decision after another: turning a derivative Dan O'Bannon story into a one-of-a-kind "truckers in space" script from Walter Hill; using Swiss weirdo, and Hollywood neophyte, HR Giger for the creature design; casting unknown theater actor Sigourney Weaver as Ripley; and deciding to go with Ridley Scott, then known primarily as a commercial director, when Hill backed out of directing. No one, not even Alan Ladd, realized its genius decisions were genius decisions at the time they were made.
Then, Fox caught lightning in the bottle again with Aliens, when they decided to let up-and-coming, but still unproven, James Cameron write and direct the sequel. Then they did it AGAIN when they decided to give Alien 3 (a criminally underrated movie) to up-and-coming, but still unproven, music video director David Fincher.
Then their luck ran out, and the franchise has been muddling around ever since. Their best chance to develop it into something coherent was with Alien 3, which (if you wanted to make a franchise) should have been a much more direct sequel to Aliens, playing up the humans v. aliens combat angle, rather than the nihilistic dead end that we got. But who was thinking about movies as franchises in 1991?
In theory, I'm outraged that it's fan service. But since Alien is my very favorite Hollywood franchise, I'm fully ready to be serviced. Why should Marvel fans get all the fun? And I was actually bummed we wouldn't get a resolution for Covenant's cliffhanger, so if it does it I'm there.
That being said, I hated Fede's Evil Dead remake because it was too slick and lacked personality. It's the idiosyncratic nature of these movies that make them cult classics.