The Alien franchise is a successful action, horror, and sci-fi media franchise. The franchise is based on the horror, sci-fi 1979 movie titled Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. The brilliance of Ridley Scott’s movie spawned a massive franchise. This monstrous franchise contains three more sequels, two prequels, over twenty-three video games, over seventy comic books, over thirty-six novels, and a web series.
The franchise depicts a lot of frightening encounters between humans and extraterrestrial life forms called Xenomorph or simply Aliens. All media in the franchise were set in the future, which allows the creators to portray humans as a space-faring species. The series depicts space journeys that last for years, which is why they introduced cryosleep.
The franchise also described humankind to have originated from the sacrifice of a member of an elite humanoid species called the Engineers. This humanoid’s death sparked the origin of humankind. The Engineers developed the Aliens with the sole purpose of exterminating humans by implanting larvae in their host’s body.
Even with the terrifying Xenomorph on display throughout this franchise, the real antagonists were the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. This evil company continuously puts the characters in harm’s way in the interest of financial gains. Thus, they always choose capturing and studying Xenomorphs over eradication of the infestations.
Exploring the movies where, in space, no one can hear you scream.
ALIEN (1979)
Ridley Scott directed the first installment, which evolved into a renowned media franchise. This movie can easily be anyone’s favorite because of the brilliance in balancing action, sci-fi, and horror. In addition, Ridley Scott excelled at displaying real emotions on the screen. The movie was set in the futuristic 2122.
The movie started when a commercial cargo spaceship named Nostromo received what they perceived to be a distress signal from an unknown spaceship. To check out the ship, one of the Nostromo crew discovers eggs on the ship, one of the eggs cracked open, and an alien life form attached itself to man’s face and rendered him unconscious. The rest of the crew members broke quarantine rules to recover the man. The alien parasite died, and the man seemed fine until an alien creature bursts out of his chest. The creature quickly grew into an eight-foot-tall creature. It continues to hunt and kill the rest of the crew in a gruesome manner, with Lieutenant Ellen Ripley as the sole survivor.
ALIENS (1986)
Directed by James Cameron, Aliens is majorly based on action with little horror display. The movie was set in the futuristic 2179, depicting fifty-seven years after events on the Nostromo.
The movie started with a savage team looking for space treasure but found Ellen Ripley in a cryosleep shuttle. She woke on a medical spacecraft. She then recounted her experience on the Nostromo to her employers, The Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who did not believe her. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation had already created a terraform and colonize program, which they use to colonize planetoids.
After losing contact with one of their terraforming colonies, the company sought Ellen Ripley’s help in locating the colony headed for LV-426. With a promise to restore her space flight license and destroy the Xenomorph, Ripley accepts the offer. The company sent her to accompany a squad of colonial marines with sophisticated weapons aboard the military vessel USS Sulaco.
On arrival, they discovered the remains of the terraforming colony with only a little girl, Newt, as the sole survivor. Xenomorphs engaged and quickly outnumbered the scouting party. Only Ellen Ripley, Newt, and a handful of marines were able to escape from LV-426.
ALIEN3 (1992)
David Fincher directed the third installment of the Alien movie franchise. The movie immediately followed the incident that happened on the USS Sulaco.
The movie began with the USS Sulaco on fire and on course to crash. All the survivors tried to escape using the escape pods. Unfortunately, only Ellen Ripley’s escape pod survived the crash. Ripley’s escape pod landed on Fiorina “Fury” 161, which is a prison colony. Unknown to her, accompanied by a “facehugger” from the USS Sulaco traveled along Ripley.
The parasite quickly merged with an animal and spawned a dog-alien. The Xenomorph wreaked havoc in the prison and killed both prisoners and wardens alike. Ellen Ripley, while trying to kill the Alien terrorizing the colony, discovers that an Alien Queen was growing inside of her.
ALIEN: Resurrection (1997)
This is the fourth and final sequel of Alien movies. Jean-Pierre Jeune directed the fourth film while Joss Whedon wrote the script. This movie depicted events that occur in 2381, two hundred years after the incident on Fiorina 161.
In this movie, the army tried to clone Ellen Ridley multiple times with the intention to extract the ALIEN Queen who had changed the original Ripley’s DNA. Thus, once they created a successful clone, the United System Military (USM) surgically removed a xenomorph queen to breed for scientific study. The USM also hired mercenaries to kidnap humans, which the Aliens used to reproduce. The Aliens eventually escaped, and Ripley 8 and the mercenaries decided to destroy the vessel before reaching its destination, Earth.
ALIEN vs. Predator (2004)
After the lukewarm reception of ALIEN: Resurrection in theaters, the franchise searched for a new angle to spark interest in the series. While James Cameron had plans to create a 5th film in the franchise, when he heard that the studio wanted a crossover film, he abandoned his plans. To him, a crossover film would remove all validity from the series. Thus, when the producers heard a pitch from Paul W. S. Anderson, who recently had remarkable success with his Resident Evil films, Fox signed him on to direct and partially write the script.
Controversially, the film depicted that the Xenomorph series had been present on earth both in the past and in the present day. Within the context of the film, the Weyland Corporation first encountered both title creatures in this film. For, Charles Bishop Weyland, who Lance Henriksen once again portrayed, wanted to cement his name in history by claiming the discovery of the pyramid that a heat bloom uncovered in the Antarctic.
Thus, Weyland organized an expedition that required the expert guidance of Alexa “Lex” Woods (Sanaa Lathan). To cement validity to his claim, he also brought in an Italian archaeologist (Raoul Bova). While he had the forethought to hire armed security for his expedition, none of them were prepared to fend off 3 Yautja, otherwise known as Predators, and a swarm of Xenomorphs.
By the end, only two made it out of the Pyramid, Lex and Scar, a member of the Yautja trio. While Lex returned to humanity with the respect of the Yautja, Scar soon succumbed to a Xenomorph that burst out of his chest after boarding his ship.
ALIEN Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Since Alien vs. Predator proved to be one of the greatest financial successes from either series up to that date, 20th Century Fox quickly greenlit a sequel film. This time, Fox chose Colin and Greg Stause, who had made a pitch for the first film, to direct. While the brothers had a successful visual effects career, especially with their company, Hydraulx, AvP: Requiem was their directing debut. Thus, it is no surprise that the visuals of the film are some of the best elements present.
More controversial than the first Alien vs. Predator film, the sequel featured an entire American town that Xenomorphs eventually overran, originating from the crashed remains of Scar’s rescue ship. Since a major motivation in the ALIEN franchise had been preventing the species from reaching the earth, this film’s choice to feature an early 2000s earth location defied the set universe. Thus, fans from both series completely wrote off either of the Alien vs. Predator films from the cannon.
The main star of Requiem was the Predalien, who had previously existed only in video games and comics. Unfortunately, all other characters on the screen were generic and flat. Even the Yautja hunter who challenges the Predalien is unremarkable. Unsurprisingly, one of the most memorable moments from the film is a scene where the Predalien orally implants its young into the bellies of pregnant women.
Thankfully, this film both nuked the Xenomorph-infested town and the ALIEN vs. Predator line of films. When the ALIEN franchise did return to the silver screen, it also returned with its roots and original director.
Prometheus (2012)
Prometheus is the first prequel of the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott returned to the franchise to direct. Prometheus occurred in 2093, eighty-six years before the events of the first movie Alien.
This movie shows Archeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway, who, to discover the origin of mankind, had discovered a star map left by extraterrestrials. After securing funds from Sir Peter Weyland, Elizabeth Shaw, and Charlie Holloway, accompanied by the Android David 8, began an expedition on USCSS Prometheus to investigate the distant system shown on the map. They arrived on the LV-223 and a found remains of an ancient kind of species called the Engineers, and their attempts to make biological weapons in the form of the Xenomorph targeted at humanity. The explorers were surprised by their findings, and only Elizabeth Shaw and David 8 survived their encounter with the Xenomorph.
ALIEN: Covenant (2017)
Alien: Covenant is the latest Alien movie and the second prequel. Also directed by Ridley Scott, the movie was set in 2104, eleven years after what happened on the Prometheus.
A colony transport spaceship, USCSS Covenant, which consists of thousands of colonists led by Daniels, discovered a signal sent by Elizabeth Shaw after their ship suffered catastrophic damage. They traced the signal to a verdant world where they found David, who is now the sole survivor of the Prometheus.
The same mutagens from the Prometheus attacked the crew from the Covenant. However, they spawned new varieties of Aliens. Later, the crew discovered that David had been cultivating his kind of Aliens by experimenting on the corpse of Elizabeth Shaw. David managed to get on board the Covenant disguised as the vessel’s Android, he returned all the crew members to their cryo-stasis and began traveling to Origae-6.
OTHER MEDIA IN THE ALIEN FRANCHISE
Apart from the movies, the Alien franchise consists of a web series titled “Alien: Isolation – The Digital Series”.
Alien: Isolation – The Digital Series (2019)
The web series debuted in 2019 as an adaptation of the video game “Alien: Isolation.”
The web series centers on Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, who, after fifteen years of her mother’s disappearance, started looking for clues into what happened to her mother aboard the Nostromo. She eventually finds herself trapped on the Sevastopol Station, with some traumatized and terrified survivors and a Xenomorph.
Additional Media
There are also comic books in the Alien franchise. The major producing company for the comic is Dark Horse Comic, having produced almost seventy comics so far, with five comics made at movie adaptations and about sixty-four comics with the original storyline. There are also Aliens comics produced by other comic companies.
There are novels in the Alien franchise, with about eight movie novelizations, nine Alien comic novelizations, one video game novelization, and eighteen novels with an original storyline.
The video game section of the Alien franchise has twenty-three action games featuring gunplay and a lot of shooting.
The success of Dark Horse’s comics, especially the Alien vs. Predator story lines, influenced both the video games and the movies. Thus, fans of the franchise can find influences from all sources.
Final Thoughts
The Alien franchise is one of the best movie franchises in the world. Although its movies link together, they have a complete, distinctive storyline when separated. With the brilliance of exceptional, award-winning directors like Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and Jean Pierre Jeunet, the franchise stands out. With rumors and talks of the third prequel in the Alien franchise with Ridley Scott once again at the helm, fans all over the world can expect nothing short of a genius innovation. There are also talks of the introduction of an Alien television series.
About the author
Author: Chris Ingledue
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Bio: I am the founder and owner of Wheeljack’s Lab pop Culture and Toy Shop. My vision has always been to reunite customers with their favorite childhood toys and pop culture, triggering fond memories, and reigniting their imaginations. Every day, I work in the “lab” where it’s Christmas 365 days a year. I scour the internet, like when we had the Sears Catalog of yesteryear, for the next great treasure. Then, I await the arrival of the postman as if he were Santa Claus himself and helping collectors worldwide with their own versions of Christmas. Every day as a vintage toy buyer is an absolute joy!