Sure, the Alien prequel films were cool and scary... and weird.
But its nice to see the franchise returning to its roots, in two separate mediums.
First off, Alien Romulus.
This movie is set between the first two Alien flicks and strikes a balance between them.
It returns to the Haunted House in Space notion of the 1979 original, but packs in more action to give the movie more rewatchability. (Or to make it less "for wall enthusiasts" as Anabelle says.)
The Haunted House aspect was amplified by having the main cast be a bunch of teenagers. This is a old school horror film in space. And what a ride!
It features the key elements of this franchise and works them all in well.
A) The Xenomorph itself- a terrifying killing machine in all of its life stages, even if there is only one.
(But there's never only one.)
B) The evil, soulless corporation- the reason our protagonists are in a hopeless situation that drives them to the Romulus Station to begin with.
C) Questions about AI- not only if it is inherently good or evil, but also how sentient or alive AI individuals are, and how they should be treated. This time they took it a step further as an interesting allegory for people who's brains process things differently.
D) An intelligent, competent and compassionate woman- who carries the story.
It's an excellent return to the franchise's "classic horror film in space" and retains the looks, sounds and themes that have kept this series of films alive for over forty-five years.
The second Xenomorph experience I've had recently was a novel.
Brenden Deneen is the author, and all around cool guy. I've met him a couple times as he shops at the same local comic shop I frequent. He gets extra cool points, as he wrote an Island of Misfit Toys comic that not only holds true to the characters and settings of the original Rudolph special, but also has the poor bird who can't fly save himself by learning to glide when tossed to his death by the Elves at the end of the special.
We were chatting in the store one day, and he mentioned he disliked what happened to Hicks and Newt in Alien3 (as we all did) and had written his own version. His agent said there was no chance another version of that story would be published. However, the agent ended up reading it later on, thought it was excellent, and asked if it could be rewritten as an original tale. Brenden did, setting it after Alien Resurrection. This idea intrigued me, and I was happy when it was released.
Alien Uncivil War is that tale.
Now that I have read it, I can come clean about having some concerns even though I wanted to read it.
My two concerns were
1) It would be obvious that the characters were stand-ins for Ripley, Hicks and Newt, and changes would feel jarring.
2) The Alien franchise is extremely visual, I enjoy the movies and comics, but for stuff like that I usually have problems getting into novels.
Both concerns were completely unfounded.
If I didn't know the origin of this story, I would never have guessed how it began life. Yes, there is a marine, an Android and children involved, but they have been separated into new, and living original characters.
The four key elements of the franchise listed above are all expertly handled and the story. The book grabbed me from the start and led to one of the fastest readings I've done in quite a while. The intelligent, competent and compassionate woman is one of the coolest surprises of the tale.
As for the second concern, there was no need to worry. His descriptions perfectly captured the iconic moments of hatching, face hugging, chest bursting and full size xenomorph attack, allowing the images to bloom fully formed into my head.
With both Alien and Predator films having new and exiting entries, that still remain true to their origins, hopefully, we'll get a better cross over than the last attempts.
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