The original Alien, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O’Bannon, came out in 1979. The film was a landmark in science fiction media and is still relevant today, as over 40 years later, FX has announced that they will have an Alien television show taking place on Earth. Fargo’s Noah Hawley will be its showrunner, and Ridley Scott has a role in the show as an executive producer.
There have been so many sequels and prequels to Alien, that at this point, practically every mystery portrayed in the original 1979 film has been answered. However, what would happen if the alien were to find its way to Earth (and not just to interact primarily with Predator) is a question that has not yet been answered. Because almost all the Alien movies take place in space, the question on everyone’s mind is just how this series will fit in with the timeline of the rest of the Alien franchise.
In the words of Hawley, this series is set to take place “not too far into the future.” Potentially, this could mean that the show will be a prequel to all the existing films. Prometheus, chronologically, is the first film in the franchise, taking place in 2089. The corporation that all the characters in the various films work for, was started in 2012. Perhaps the television show might take place during the corporation’s early years, depending on just how far into the future the show is set.
Another unanswered question is just how the corporation is aware of the existence of the alien in the first place. In as early as the original film, the android, Ash, describes how the alien is the perfect organism. Also revealed in this film is the knowledge that, to the corporation, the crew is expendable, but the creature is not. Perhaps the Alien series will be able to answer this question as well.
However, if the show is a prequel to the original film, it may feel somewhat to the viewers as though it almost negates everything that transpires in the existing films. How do any of them really matter, if prior to all of them, the aliens had already been on Earth alongside the humans? Reasonably if the show does take place in a future that really is not far off at all, it will have to end with the aliens becoming extinct on Earth for any of the other films to make sense chronologically.
The premise of aliens being on Earth is an interesting direction to take. In the original film, the android aboard the ship, despite being highly advanced technology himself, comes off as jealous of the creature. It is able to reproduce so easily with the presence of humans and is practically unkillable. What hope does the human race have? The creature’s blood is even molecular acid. To be fair, that does seem like it would be slightly less problematic on Earth than it would be in a spaceship, albeit dangerous nonetheless.
There are a variety of different directions that this upcoming show could potentially go in. It is unclear at the moment if the show will take on more of a horror theme as the original Alien does, or if it will be more action-focused as its first sequel, Aliens, is. Aliens is considered by some to be even better than its predecessor. It was this role that got Sigourney Weaver nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress in the 1986 Academy Awards. This was impressive, as even still today, science fiction movies rarely get Academy Award acknowledgment in categories other than special effects. However, Alien will always beat Aliens in its originality.
In 1979, when the movie came out, no one had ever seen anything quite like the alien creature before. The movie is reliant on its audience being shocked and afraid of the creature because it is so unlike anything on Earth. Watching the movie today, the audience doesn’t feel the same way because the alien has become part of the ethos. Even if a person has never seen the original Alien film, or any of the films, they know what the alien looks like. The creature has been recreated and parodied so many times that the Alien film does not have the potential to be as scary as it once was.
H.R. Giger is the man to thank for the creature design of the alien. It is arguably, the aspect that sells the movie and what makes it still relevant today. While working on the film, Giger had mailed drawings of his ideas for the alien to the United States, but the subject matter of the drawings was so odd and unsettling, that the customs officers stopped them from going through. They are said to have asked if the drawings were photographs (they had been made on large photographic transparencies). In response, Giger later said: “Where on Earth did they think I could have photographed my subjects? In hell, perhaps?” Today, it seems like a silly question, but it does give valuable insight into what it was like to first see the alien creature in the movie theatre in 1979.
Subsequently, it seems impossible that the show will manage to be as unique as the original Alien, but the notion of the series taking place on Earth might be original enough in comparison to all the previous Alien films. Earth is rarely shown in the entirety of the franchise. But in the face of androids who are indistinguishable from humans, cryogenic sleeper pods, massive spaceships with skilled crew members, only there for a boring, tedious, time-consuming mission… life on Earth must be incredible and unimaginable in its technological capabilities. And perhaps this highly advanced technology will be the only hope for humans to stop the aliens. This originality in conjunction with the action present in Aliens, could result in an incredible television show.
There is a theory that exists in media studies that horror movies tend to reflect the fears that are present in a society when the films are released. In light of what the world is today, the show certainly has the capacity to engage with what society is afraid of in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fears of what will happen if it spreads, and what if there is nothing that modern technology can do to stop it, are ones that absolutely will exist in response to the alien being on Earth within the scope of the show, and thus perhaps that will make this iteration of Alien the most culturally important since the original.
The show is currently in development, but a release date is yet to be announced.
![\"IT電腦補習](\"http://itteacheritfreelance.hk/test/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo2-2.png\"){kind=logo}
www.itsec.hk
www.itsec.vip
www.itseceu.uk
Leave a Reply