Alien Revisited: Looking back on the franchise so far

Ash Walker • 19 Aug 2024 Features

“They mostly come at night. Mostly.”

In space, no one can hear you scream. So goes the iconic tagline for 1979’s sci-fi horror classic, Alien. And while that may be true, audiences down here on Earth certainly shrieked loud enough for studio executives to take notice, and over the past 45 years we’ve seen a host of sequels, prequels and spin-offs, for better or worse.

Now, with Alien: Romulus - the highly-anticipated latest entry in the long-running franchise - now in cinemas, we’re taking a look back at what came before.

Alien (1979)

Credit: Alien Trailer HD (Rotten Tomatoes Trailers, YouTube)

The crew of the Nostromo, a commercial space tug on its way back to Earth, wake from cryo sleep after detecting a distress call from a nearby moon. On landing they find a derelict spacecraft, filled with large, slimy eggs - which, in hindsight, should have been a huge red flag.

Mistakes are made, faces are hugged, chests are burst and eventually the crew - including Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley - finds themselves adrift in the vastness of space, with nowhere to run, as a horrifying alien killing machine works its way through them, one by one.

And what an alien it is.

Designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, the ‘xenomorph’ is a beautiful, grotesque biomechanical horror - a creature that feels well and truly alien. It’s part insect, part shark, part Freudian nightmare; it’s sleek and dripping with slime and its life cycle is absolutely disgusting. It’s one of the most iconic monsters ever put on screen.

Alien is, rightfully, regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. It’s a masterclass in tension, dripping with atmosphere, and is still genuinely scary all these years later.

Aliens (1986)

Credit: Aliens Trailer #1 (Rotten Tomatoes Trailers, YouTube)

Aliens is that rare sequel that manages to be just as good as the original - or, arguably, even better.

Instead of just repeating what had come before and turning out another slasher movie in space, incoming director James Cameron - replacing Ridley Scott - went bigger in every respect: more characters, more action and, crucially, more xenomorphs. A lot more.

57 years later, Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the Nostromo incident, wakes from cryo sleep to discover that the barren moon where it all began - the one with all the eggs - has been colonised by terraformers. Ripley, correctly, tells everyone that this is a bad idea, but of course they don’t listen.

They do, however, send a squad of gung-ho space marines, with Ripley in tow, to investigate why the colonists have mysteriously gone quiet all of a sudden…

While it’s still got its scary moments - the facehugger scene in particular - Aliens is a distinct tonal shift away from the out-and-out horror of the original. This is, undeniably, an action movie. In fact, it’s one of the greatest action movies ever made.

It’s packed with killer set-pieces and instantly quotable lines - “Game over, man! Game over!” - but Cameron’s real masterstroke is in expanding the xenomorph mythology, and introducing the alien queen. Building on Giger’s iconic designs, this is a gargantuan, spider-like beast that throws down with Ripley (strapped into a bright yellow power loader mech) in perhaps the movie’s most legendary scene.

An undeniable classic.

Alien3 (1992)

Credit: Alien 3 Official Trailer (JoBlo Movie Network, YouTube)

A famously troubled production, the third entry in the series takes things back to basics, with decidedly mixed results.

After escaping the xenomorph queen, Ripley’s ship crashes on a grim, desolate world that’s home to a maximum security prison. Of course, she inadvertently brings something else with her, which proceeds to slaughter the inmates.

Considering the mess behind the scenes - a multitude of wacky scripts, a whole slew of directors - this is honestly not as bad as it could have been. Particularly the Assembly Cut, which is apparently much closer to director David Fincher’s original intentions than the version released in cinemas.

But compared to the glorious heights of the previous two movies, Alien3 doesn’t even come close. It’s grim and bleak and everyone looks pretty much identical with their shaved heads.

With the use of early CGI, it also has some of the least convincing creature effects so far, and let’s not forget that it commits the unforgivable sin of killing beloved characters Hicks and Newt, off-screen. Shameful.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Credit: Alien Resurrection Trailer #1 (Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers, YouTube)

The Alien franchise loves to switch genres between films: if the first movie was a haunted house slasher in space, the second was a guns-blazing action extravaganza and the third was a grim and gritty prison thriller, the fourth, Alien Resurrection, must be… a wacky comedy adventure?

With a script by Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, the quips are dialled up to eleven, and with direction by quirky French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the man who directed indie darling Amelie, this film has a tone so heightened and cartoonish it’ll give you whiplash if you watch it back-to-back with its predecessor.

That’s not to say Alien Resurrection is bad. All things considered it’s actually a pretty fun film, with a cast of likeable rogues, including Winona Ryder’s android Call and Ron Perlman’s brutish mercenary Johner. It also gets points for managing to bring back Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, who died quite dramatically at the end of Alien3, in a way that almost makes sense, if you squint.

200 years after Ripley took a swim in molten steel, she’s alive and well on the military research vessel USM Auriga. But this isn’t the Ripley we know and love - she’s a clone, grown from tissue samples taken from the original Ripley while she was infected with a xenomorph embryo.

Either by accident or design, she’s now something of a hybrid. She has enhanced strength, speed and reflexes, and, of course, acidic blood. But Ripley isn’t the only thing the scientists have cloned, and soon we’re back in familiar chest-bursting territory.

A fun - if fairly silly - romp, bolstered by a great Weaver performance, decent effects and a nice ensemble. Big thumbs up in particular for the underwater sequence. Big thumbs down for the genuinely disturbing human-xenomorph abomination that pops up at the end. True nightmare fuel.

Alien vs Predator (2004) & Alien vs Predator 2: Requiem (2007)

Credit: AVP: Alien vs Predator Official Trailer #1 (Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers, YouTube)

Born of an easter egg in Predator 2, where a xenomorph skull can be seen in the trophy room of the alien hunters’ spaceship, these films are all about fan service.

They’re also pretty disposable: both AvP films are generally considered not to be part of the true Alien or Predator canons, given how they tend to contradict established timelines. So if you’re doing a rewatch before Romulus, you’d be forgiven for giving them a skip. It might even be a good idea.

The first film is the best, telling the story of a group of scientists/soldiers investigating a mysterious ruin in the Arctic. Turns out this ruin is a sort of training ground for young Predators, where they can test their mettle against a captive xenomorph queen and her offspring. It’s big, dumb fun, with lots of disposable characters and a cool setting.

The same can’t really be said for the sequel, which transposes the action from an ancient alien temple to… suburban Colorado. It’s only really notable for finally showing us what a Predalien - that’s a xenomorph incubated inside a Predator - would look like.

Turns out it’s basically just a slightly taller xenomorph with dreadlocks.

Prometheus (2012)

Credit: Prometheus Teaser Trailer (20th Century Studios UK, YouTube)

It’s easy to forget now just how much of a big deal this movie was when it was first announced. After years of diminishing returns, it seemed like the Alien franchise was pretty much done for, but then along came Ridley Scott - the guy who started it all back in 1979 - to right the ship.

Prometheus promised huge things: not only the return of Scott, but a prequel exploring the origins of the xenomorphs… and maybe even the origins of mankind. It was going to be big, cerebral sci-fi that also brought the series back to its horror roots. Enough to get any genre fan excited.

And then the movie came out.

What we got instead was a supremely messy, overlong film that felt like it was cobbled together from a grab-bag of disparate ideas. Following an ancient star map, a group of scientists discover a lost, deserted planet that may hold evidence that humanity was created by a race of aliens called Engineers.

Turns out the Engineers maybe weren’t all that benevolent, and this planet is a sort of repository of cosmic WMDs. Cue lots of bonkers, bizarre occurrences and some very illogical character decisions.

The film isn’t all bad. It’s beautiful to look at, and there are moments of brilliance peppered throughout - especially Michael Fassbender’s sketchy android David, who easily steals the whole movie.

But for an Alien movie, it has precious few xenomorphs in it (not counting the weird proto-alien that shows up for thirty seconds at the end), opting instead for some kind of alien virus, space zombies and a giant member of the Blue Man Group.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Credit: Alien: Covenant | Official Trailer #1 (20th Century Studios UK, YouTube)

A direct sequel to Prometheus, Covenant attempts to right a few of the wrongs perpetrated by its predecessor - there are actual xenomorphs this time, for a start - while also progressing the story of David, the shady android played by Michael Fassbender.

The story follows the crew of the Covenant, a generation ship filled with couples looking for a new world to call home. When they are drawn to a mysterious planet - one that looks potentially habitable - a contingent flies down to investigate, with predictably disastrous results.

It turns out that David has set up shop here, and he’s gone full Frankenstein - performing mad experiments and creating monsters in his spooky alien castle. Soon there’s a class-flavour xenomorph running around, and it becomes clear that the crew of the Covenant picked the wrong planet.

It’s a weird mish-mash of classic Alien-style slasher and grand, gothic horror, but weirdly it seems to work. Buoyed by excellent effects, gnarly kills and a great cast including Catherine Waterston, Billy Crudup and Danny McBride - not to mention a killer double role for Fassbender - this is definitely worth a watch if you missed it the first time around.

How to watch the Alien movies

All of the Alien films - including the prequels and the Alien vs Predator movies - are currently available to watch on Disney+. Check out our Disney+ page for more information on setting up a subscription.

Alien: Romulus is in cinemas now - check it out if you dare!