ALIEN!! Film Foundations Franchise: An Introduction to Xenomorphs and Face Huggers!!

On this week's episode of Film Foundations, Chris and Ryan discuss the Alien franchise to celebrate the release of Alien: Romulus! From Sigourney Weaver's iconic lines and imagery to Covenant and Prometheus, we discuss all aspects of this franchise and all of its various ups and downs. DO you agree? Disagree? Tell us in the comments!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Film Foundations, the collaborative
show between weirding Way Media and Someone's Favorite Production. I'm
your co host Chris Tashi from the Culture Cast over at.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Weirdingway Media, and I'm your co host Ryan Verel from
the Disconnected of Someone's Favorite Productions.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
On this show, we ask and answer four questions about
a given topic that is surrounding either an actor, director, franchise.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Or micro Jean.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Our job is to entice you to broaden your horizons
on film, to encourage you to travel down film tangents,
which we will also be going on, and side roads
that you may have never traveled down otherwise. On this episode,
we have no guest. It is just Ryan and I
and we will be talking about a franchise that is
very near and dear to my heart because I'm the one.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Who picked the topic for this episode. So that's the
sausage making part of this. Guys. We go back and
forth picking the things that we want to do. Shocking,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
It's almost like the best content comes from when you're
really motivated to talk about some which is the way
our guests feel. I would assume, given that they're always
picking the things.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That they want. I would hope they feel that way.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I mean me too. I mean it sure seems like it.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I mean, geez, we all sorts of topics we're already covering,
and people are just waxing poetically about it. I'd like
to throw my hand in the ring to wax poetically about.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
The Alien franchise.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Maybe not all of them, but give me a moment
to wax poetically about Alien one through what through three
and a half of four and then some other things
added in. But on this episode of Film yeah, he's
laughing already. On this episode of Film Foundations, we are
going to be covering the Alien franchise, which as it
stands right now, I will say that, and I'm not
going to say when this is being recorded, but we

(01:43):
are pre Romulus at this moment in time. Pr The
films as they are right now are Alien, Aliens, Alien Three,
Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien Covenant, Alien Versus Predator, and Alien
Versus Predator Requiem are all up for debate and are
all fair game. On this episode of Film Foundations, no,

(02:05):
we will not be talking about Predator or Predators or
Prey or any of those movies. It's almost like they
probably deserve their own episode.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
It's like correction. The movie I believe is actually called
Aliens Versus Predators Requiem. Wow, Aliens versus Predator Requiem. I
only say that because I got excited the first time
I heard about that and thought, are they going to
take some aspect of aliens and make that a predator
movie somehow? And no it no they didn't.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
It went another way to title it that way, and
yet they didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
So why do it?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, I guess there were multiple aliens and but no,
never mind, not even worth addressing. Because an alien versus
predator there are a lot of aren't there a lot
of aliens?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, more than what.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Which technically means alien. Uh so yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
On this episode of Film Foundations will be covering all
those movies. But let's talk a little bit broadly about them.
So Alien one comes out in nineteen seventy nine. It
is a film that is very near and dear to
my heart. It is written by one of, if not
my favorite screenwriter, he who does not get enough credit,
but boy he was an ornery one. Father Malone would
agree with me. Dan O'Bannon, who I'm a huge fan of.

(03:15):
If you ask me what my favorite zombie movie is,
it's probably the one that he.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Wrote for a whole host of reasons.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
But for me, Dan O'Bannon is Dan O'Bannon, Iron Shoest obviously,
but Dan O'Bannon is the foundational piece of all of
this through which everything else is built, and the good
and the bad. Because ladies and gentlemen, Alien and again
maybe not even Aliens. If you're the person who doesn't

(03:41):
like Aliens, I actually understand. I mean, if you were
expecting it to be Alien and you watched Aliens, you
were probably massively disappointed, given how much of a thing
Alien is now. I mean Alien was successful then too,
But I mean again, to go from seventy nine to
eighty six, the kind of movie that's being made in
seventy nine is.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Not kind of movie being made in eighty six.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Nope.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
And that's because of the person who makes that and
writes that his movies just came out on four K.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, now you've dated it now.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
I said they have come out.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
They have come out on bluan four K. I didn't
say not like it was recently or anything, but James
Cameron takes it in an interesting direction with aliens and
broadens the universe in one way but doesn't do much
in another, Which is so the premise of Alien at
least the original and I would say more or less

(04:34):
the entire series as a whole, is you have a
group of people who are pitted against a organic life
form who is almost the perfect organism. At least that's
what Ian Holden says in the first movie, k Now.
Is it on a spaceship? Is it on a planet?
Is it on a bigger spaceship, Is it on a
smaller planet? Is it on another spaceship? Or I mean

(04:54):
it's literally it's always on either a spaceship or a planet.
There is very little in between unless we're talking Alien
versus Predator, and then we're talking about it being on
Earth for the first time ever?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Would you still on a spaceship planet?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Right? Right?

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I guess I should reiterate places that aren't Earth this series.
The promise of Alien three was that it was going
to be on Earth that it was never made good on.
There were literally promotional material for Alien three about it
taking place on Earth.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
They never got there.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
So the original film follows the character of Ripley, played
by Sigourney Weaver, who is in every one of the
original four film Alien, Aliens, Alien Three, and Alien Resurrection,
and throughout the films she becomes I think, for me,
one of the most important female actors in terms of
genre filmmaking period.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
And on top of that.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
It's similar to horror franchises in a way. That's kind
of interesting because in a lot of ways, Alien starts
out as a horror franchise and then really leans into
the sci fi, and then tries to bring it back
to horror, and then really leans into the sci fi,
and then full on just throws its body against the
wall with sci fi with Prometheus, and then Covenant kind

(06:05):
of comes back to horror and body horror a little
Romulus Fetti. Alvarez's involvement means we're probably gonna get a
mix of both. I hope that's my hope, given what
he has done in the past. But Alien, for me,
and like the series as it stands, is alternating horror
and sci fi movies of varying degrees of qualit. I
think first two movies are pretty rad. The third movie

(06:28):
has some moments, it's unfortunate who that movie's directed by,
given where he is now, and we'll talk all about
that when we get into the questions. But Alien Resurrection
has some fun points, it has Ron Perlman in it,
But then you get into this self serious nature of
the franchise, it kind of becomes an ip. I mean,
there was a time and a place where just making
you could make a hell raizor movie that wasn't originally

(06:49):
a hell Raizer movie, slappin head on and hey, look everybody,
Doug Bradley's got another check waiting for it.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's not a bad thing. Alien never became that.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
I felt like Alien was too big of a friend
to get bogged down in that it was.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
It was and is still a prestige franchise.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
So we had such a long time in between Alien
movies that it's kind of now become a very different thing.
And I think it's a little unfair to compare all
the movies, but I think that the original movies compare
closer to the newer things than they do to the
later movies. I'm talking the original Alien sets the tone
and stage for everything that comes in the future, Covenant

(07:28):
and Romulus and Prometheus, they're.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Not action movie.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Aliens is like Aliens is such a it's such a
thing that's such its own thing that I'm really excited
to talk more with you about it because for me,
like I said in this kind of just brief overview,
Alien is a franchise that has horror elements and only
really ever commits to.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
The horror movie two three times.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
But it's a sci fi thing throughout, but it only
ever commits to the action thing in the whole of
the Aliens without Predators. I don't think any of them
are an action movie as much as Aliens is, but
Alien Versus Predators kind of an action movie, and Alien Aliens,
as you mentioned, versus Predator Requiem is also kind of

(08:10):
an action movie if you can see what's going on.
Given the problems with that movie are well known how poorly.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Lit it was apparently.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
But I'm kind of curious what's your kind of experience
in history with the Alien franchise.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Oh man, So again another look at the sausage being made.
We have not really discussed this at all, so I'm
very happy to get into this finally. So some overarching
thoughts about all of this. First off, you bring up
the fact that it's still a prestige franchise, I agree fully,
but also the fact that that's been going on for
now forty five years, that's very impressive. That is not

(08:48):
something that you would expect for a franchise that was
made by Ridley Scott in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's kind of there's something they're so fucking weird about it.
That's the only I can say say, like Predator doesn't
feel that way. Predator was an Arnold Schwarzenegger thing. Like sure,
it was an action movie like Alien, Like it's so
yet so weird to me, like that it caught on
as hard as it did and it still has and
it's still I mean, we mentioned it, but like there's

(09:15):
a whole thing that's not the movies. More has happened
outside of the movies than has happened in the movie.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Uh yeah, And actually you just brought up the next
thing I was going to really hit on here is
it doesn't really compare with Predator. I personally have always
viewed this more in line with the Terminator franchise. And
that's funny to talk about because you know, Cameron's involved
in both of them. However, the thing that is so
interesting is that when you compare Terminator in Alien, the
first film for both franchises is basically a slasher. The

(09:42):
second film not even just Horde, like you break down right,
there's an actual slasher narrative to both of them. Then
the second film they have like slasher elements, but it's
more focused on action film for both of those second entries,
and then after that they all seem to go downhill.
No matter who's directing them, who's writing them, they're all
just wishing that they could be those first two films.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
It feels like I kind of wish we were doing
Terminator at some point, Like I wish we when like
we're done with this, we could just do that, because Man,
I have some real strong opinions about Terminator. I mean,
I have strong opinions on Alien, but I feel like
for me that here's a little here's a little taste
of that conversation. That's gonna be a hard conversation to
have any positive things to say for a long stretch

(10:24):
of movies. Yeah, back me up on this one, Mick
G Do you know what I'm saying? Like, Oh yeah,
Terminator Salvation is a movie that there's only one thing
memorable and it has nothing to do with ad All.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
And that's what's so hard to talk about about that franchise,
because literally, the first movie is great. The second movie
is arguably one of the best movies of all time. Right,
we don't need to talk about anything else. That's it.
Just cut off the conversation.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, And look, that's the funny thing. I think.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
I think for Alien there is more to be mined.
I think Aliens to Demise has not. Their reports of
Aliens Demise are grossly overexaggerated. I don't think Alien is
in as bad of a shape as Terminator. Terminator is
a franchise that's like dead essentially, Like I don't know
how to describe it. It's a dead franchise, right, Like
it's it's not only been shot and killed, it's been

(11:15):
resurrected and shot and killed again. Just to prove a
point to the point where I mean, look, you mentioned
James Cameron. I want to get out in front of
this before we get too far down the road. I
am not a fan of James Cameron for the most part.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
I don't like.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Most of the things that he's done because at this point,
the stuff that he's doing is to prove a point,
and it's not really I know, I know. I would
say the last good thing that he made that I enjoyed,
and look, say what you will about me and the
person that I am is that movie.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yes is True Lies. And look, that movie has its problems.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
It's grossly it's grossly anti Muslim like it's it's hard
to find a movie more anti Islam than True Lies.
They cast every single brown looking or brown adjacent actor
in Hollywood and said, hey, look vaguely menacing, because you're
gonna play a Muslim terrorist.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Tia Carrera is involved in.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
That Christopher's Statue. How dare you?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
I know? I love that movie though. That's the problem.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
That movie has one of the best non James Bond
James Bond openings of a movie ever, and it's literally
them just ripping off Goldfinger. They just saw Goldfinger and said,
wouldn't it be cool if we could have Schwarzenegger do it?
Literally he does. But that's the thing for me, James Cameron.
I like everything he's done pre Titanic, past Titanic, It's
just not for me dog like at all. And I'm

(12:33):
not even a big fan of the ABYSS, but I
can't take away the Abyss because without the ABYSS, there's
no terminator to judgment day. There is no T one thousand,
because that's where the technology. It's like, it's like saying,
like we talked about Peter Jackson, and I didn't mention
it there, but I'll mention it here. Without the Frighteners,
there is no Lord of the Rings for a whole
host of reasons, and one of them is the I

(12:54):
think I did mention it. The design of the Ring
Rays literally comes from the fright and it's one of
the best designed choices that they've made it any of
those movies is the Ring Race. They're arguably second or
third most iconic thing from those movies. James Cameron, for me,
is someone who similar to James to Peter Jackson, but
unlike Peter Jackson, the things he's working on now I
don't have any interest in because they all seem to

(13:16):
be very self served, and I don't think anybody would
argue he's so much invested in pushing the technology of
film forward, and when we get into the movie that
we're going to talk about with him, that for me
is a big reason that I like that movie, and
that's a movie that I think is worth talking about.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
And that's the other thing.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know, we kind of haven't mentioned it, and I
don't think beyond the first movie or the second movie.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
It's really a thing.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
The amount of like pushing the envelope on what can
be done practically in Aliens is because of James Cameron.
I'm not saying Ridley Scott didn't contribute to that in
the first movie. Ridley Scott contributed something differently. But when
you get at James Cameron, he's gonna it's his thing,
Like that's his thing, like he I mean, he sounds
like a nightmare to work with. But at the same time,
so does Tarantino, who doesn't allow you have phones on

(13:58):
the set.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Like I don't disagree with it.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
I get it, Like you're there to be a fucking actor,
so let's do the goddamn thing. And he's there to
be the director and he's gonna do the goddamn thing.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
I get it. And he's kind of not gotten a
bad rap for it.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
But you don't make friends being that guy in Hollywood,
and I get it, Like, and that's the thing, Like
you don't get a movie like Aliens without someone who
knows what they're fucking doing and knows what they want,
just like you don't get a movie like Terminator or
Terminator too, because like you said, those are all the
way through a James Cameron. Which is why for me,
like you said, Aliens Alien three in Resurrection, like they
cop from those other movies. But no, nobody's been able

(14:33):
to do the Colonial Marines right since James Cameron, either
in movie form because they've never really attempt or in
video game form outside of the original AVP computer games,
because I don't know if anybody else plays video games,
but Aliens Versus Prenter Aliens Colonial Marines is widely considered
to be one of the worst games ever made. And
this ding dong here bought it on the day it

(14:55):
came out. That's how much I that's how much I
like this franchise is I'm willing to that bullet and
then find out later, oh, you own one of the
worst games ever made. And we're still waiting for a
good Alien anything to come out. And that's the thing
to your point. Alien is not as dead as Terminator,
but it has similar problems, which is the later things
are so hard to recommend that the things that came

(15:18):
out a long time ago. It's like, you know, they're
not doing Aliens, so what does it matter if you
watch the new stuff. They're doing their own thing. Like
the thing that followed Alien is good, but the thing
that followed Aliens isn't good. Maybe I should stop watching there.
I don't agree with that sentiment, but I could see
where someone would come at it.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
So my history, like I was getting at, is I've
seen the first one many, many, many, many, many many times.
I was shown this movie very very young. It was
probably like the third or fourth horror movie I was
ever shown. My parents were a big fan of this one,
and I fell in love with immediately. I was taken
by the idea of space being scary. And the biggest

(15:58):
thing is the the practical effects in that first Alien
movie are wild, like if you were not ready for
it first off, Like seeing these glowing eggs is just interesting,
and then seeing the chessburstcene obviously that's like that will
traumatize somebody that's very young.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
It still hits like I saw Alien. I rewatched it
like over the weekend. Man, that scene still like it.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
There's part of it that doesn't work as well as
it used to.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
When the alien runs away and it's clearly just like
a little puppet on a rout right odd in the table.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
It always looks kind of cheap.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
This makes me think of Spaceballs because they kind of
did the same thing in Spaceballs.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
But it looks funny in Spaceball. It's an alien. You're
not supposed to laugh.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
But man, I don't think there's anything better than like
the last two thirds of that movie. Yeah, it's so
good and to your point, like it's almost that you
can rewatch it and take something away from it different
every time, Like you mentioned, it looks cool because that's.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Hr Giger baby exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, like that alone, Like, come on, you got Giger
involved in your sing.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
So yeah, I ingest that very early. I watched Aliens
multiple times when I was younger, probably a little less
than the first one because I didn't get on the
Cameron train like where I loved most of his stuff
until a little later in life. And to defend that,
like you did a little bit, I am. I am
all aboard the Cameron train at least up through Titanic.

(17:22):
I had, you know, obviously he did some some random
ass things in between Titanic and Avatar. I'm not all
aboard the Avatar train, but everything else, like I am
all about true lies, I'm all about the abyss. I
think Titanic is a masterpiece, completely, completely all for all
of those. But when I first saw Aliens when I
was younger, it was just this action is rad it's

(17:45):
so well done. It's it's space done in a way
that is exciting, and that it's exciting in a way
that is on top of the frontier of space, which
is incredible. Then past that, I I the third one
once or twice. It's been a very long time. We
probably should say his name at this point, Like I'm

(18:05):
still mystified that the first three films in this series
are directed by Ridley Scott than James Cameron and then Fincher.
Like any other franchise would be begging for that type
of pedigree to start off the franchise.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
But it's David Fincher at a time where he's not
David Fincher of now. I mean, it's it's unfortunate because
we will do an episode about David Fincher and nobody's
gonna mention that there's no way it'll get mentioned in
the This Is the Movie David Fincher has disavowed the
same way David Lynch disavowed Doom right until he just
recently brought it back up and was like, I'd love
to do it again. And it's like, what the fuck

(18:38):
are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Like it's it's it's very weird to me.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
It'd be like David Fincher coming out to mar and
be like, I want to direct the next Alien film.
Be like, wait a second, Like you've said that, this
is like the thing you want to keep at arm's length.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
It is it?

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, it's mind blowing. It is really mind blowing to
me to have David.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Fincher ninety two, David Fincher directing Alien three.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
This this led into seven, Like isn't that wild?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I know, I mean this is where David Fincher like,
what's funny is Alien three is where David Fincher becomes
David Fincher because he right, I am literally never doing
that again. That's why David Fincher hasn't worked in say
it with me, everybody, the MCEU. I mean, that's why
directors like him don't work with studios anymore. The same

(19:22):
way that they used to, because that's what happens. I mean,
he has worked in the studio system, but it's very different,
and he's.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Given a lot.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
He's given a very wide berth, and he's also given
a lot of control, clearly because I think he's the
kind of person who doesn't need it but definitely benefits.
So I'm excited when we do an episode on him.
But it is wild to me how bad the movie
is given who directed it.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, So the last part of this, which is why
this is your episode. I don't think I've ever seen
Alien Resurrection, and I know I've never seen Prometheus or Covenant,
so I have a lot to learn on that front.
I have a lot to be introduced to tonight. I'm
excited for it. But that all leads into our very
first question, which this is not a given answer. So

(20:07):
I'm very curious to what you're gonna say, mister statue
to answer question one, what do you think is the
foundational title in the Aliens franchise?

Speaker 1 (20:17):
I did hem and haw with myself for a while
about the answer to this question, and I'll tell you what.
There's part of me that wanted to be a cheeky
piece of shit and pick the one that I think
has aged better in terms of more recently and also
in terms of I think it gets people. It would
get people in the door faster because it leans on
common tropes of now current modern cinema, less cinema of

(20:41):
the seventies and eighties. And I have no problem with
cinema of the seventies and eighties, not besmirching it. I'm just
mentioning the expectations of a current film going audience. Okay, right,
don't roast me over the fire yet the way that
I taste delicious.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
I wanted to say Prometheus so fucking badly. You have
no idea as an entry.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Well, I mean, here's the thing I could. I could
explain it if you'd like. I will give a defense
as to why it could be. My answer, I think
the correct answer in all honesty is Alien. But I
will tell you why I believe I could make a
case for Prometheus, and I will right now.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
By all means.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Okay, so Alien, Right, that's the first movie chronologically in
the franchise, technically up until the.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Point Prometheus comes. Prometheus is a film that you've mentioned.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
You haven't seen it. For those of you that have,
seen it, you know what I'm talking about. But the
movie does not feature aliens in the way that aliens
are portrayed throughout any other point in the series. Literally,
Alien Covenant actually takes the problems of Prometheus, quote unquote
the problems that some people had. And look, I'm not
sitting here and saying if you go into a movie

(21:50):
that looks like, smells, like walks like an alien movie,
you shouldn't expect to see a xenomorph popping out of
somebody's fucking chest or somebody dying in a graph way
to an alien double mouth killing them in the skull.
I'm not saying that that's not an expectation. I'm saying
I understand why it's an expectation. But at the same time,
I also think that sometimes people's expectations are just to

(22:12):
see the same fucking thing again, and you can go
watch Alien. It still exists. The release of Prometheus did
not negate the existence of Alien. It's a hard thing
for some people in the stomach. Man like, it bugs
the shit out of me because it's like, Okay, Anchorman two,
for example, does Anchorman two diminish the enjoyment of Anchorman one?

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yes, And no, should it No? Does it? Yes?

Speaker 1 (22:35):
And that's why I mentioned Prometheus here and compared to Anchorman,
because Anchorman Ion that film is lessened because there's a
second movie that is wildly all over the place tonally
and not funny for the most part, it lessens the
quality of the original film. In this case, Alien Covenant
lessens the quality of Prometheus because they went, oh wait,

(22:55):
people didn't like that there wasn't an alien, specifically a
xenomorph that looked like everything we've seen with the glowing
eggs like you mentioned and the face huggers, So we
got to give it to them. And not only do
they give it to us, they essentially just remake gaily
and not in a way that feels genuine. It feels
very phoned in. And there's a cgi zeno more jumping around,
and Danny McBride is in the movie for god knows

(23:17):
what reason, and they waste uh what is her name,
Katherine Waterston, Sam Waterston's daughter, They waste her time. And
she's a great actress who just happens to be in
some of the worst franchise movies in the last decade.
Looking at you, Fantastic Beasts and where to not find
the money with that franchise. And I mean, I I mean,
it sounds like a sure thing to be in a
Harry Potter franchise until it's not a sure thing. But

(23:39):
and that's the thing with Alien Alien Covenant was supposed
to be a sure thing, and it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
It was not.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
It did not make the money they wanted. It did
not make anything the way that they wanted.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Prometheus, actually, I believe, if memory serves, Prometheus actually made
a lot of money. I don't think Covenant made as
much money for a whole host of reasons. One of
those reasons is it's not a very good movie because
it's literally just Alien. And that's why I mentioned Prometheus.
It's like the one time anybody's really done anything vastly
different with the franchise. John Spates and Damon Lindelof say

(24:10):
what you will about David Lindeloff, plenty of other people
have I won't.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
I get it. I understand people's problems with him. I
don't have those problems.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
And John Spates has run reo, has written several things
that people like I alluded to Dune earlier. He wrote
both Treatments of Dune and Dune Part two. He also
wrote The Mummy, so you know, take that with what
you will. He also wrote again Doctor Strange, which I
think the original Doctor Strange is a relatively well received
movie by most people, the second.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
One not so much maybe.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
But for me, Prometheus is a movie that I'm oddly
kind of not obsessed with, but it's such an intriguement
to the movie. For me, I'm so intrigued by a
movie that, for all intents and purposes, if it's not
an alien movie, everybody would love it. But because it's
an alien movie, even though they said it's not an
alien even though it is an alien movie, they Wayland

(25:00):
you Tani, and they have Peter Wayland, and they have
Michael Fassbender in the good version of the role, not
the one that becomes when we say that David fingers
himself in the second movie, it's not nearly as exciting
as it sounds. It's him playing a flute with a
version of himself. It's just again. Alien Covenant is like,
you know what, you liked Michael Fassbender in the first movie,

(25:21):
so we're gonna give you like all Michael Fassbender in
the second.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
You didn't like.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
That there wasn't an alien in the first movie, so
here's an alien in the second movie. Like reactionary cinema
is fine, but at the same time, I mean, we're
seeing what happens when you fucking franchises all the time.
David Gordon Green, I'm done doing The Exorcist. Oh thank
god that didn't spend four hundred million dollars on it.
It to me is all the same kind of problem here,
which is that there is there should be a genuine

(25:47):
love for the franchise that you're gonna get involved with
having anything to do with it now, because everybody who
loves it is either going to love it because you
made something that's similar or they're going to hate it
because he did something different. And if you can justify
why you did something different, most of the time, the
fans are gonna appreciate you for it. However, if you
do something different until the fansy will fuck themselves, like

(26:08):
Ryan Johnson did with Star Wars, you're going to get
the hate that you, I'm not gonna say deserve, but
don't expect people who have loved something like you said
since forty fifty years ago to go, oh, I'm so
glad you change the thing that I love. Like I
said right at the beginning of this rant, Alien still exists.
You can still go watch it, and you can watch
it in four k I'm assuming right, see absolutely, and

(26:31):
that's my point. But for me Alien to get to
the point where I answered the better part of the question,
I don't think I have to tell anybody who is
listening that knows what Alien is all about, why Alien
is such a good movie and why it's so important.
But given that you're here because you may not have
seen Alien or you want to learn more about it,
the reason Alien is such a good movie as it
is because it is a combination and a good movie

(26:52):
and a foundational piece, and the most important foundational piece.
It sets the tone for what the universe is going
to be, which is a lived in space universe, which
is very similar to.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Another movie that came out around that time called Star Wars.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
But then it also does exactly what you said, which
is it injects a horror element that we're not saying
that horror movies in the sci fi world didn't exist,
but didn't exist like this. They didn't exist like this,
And I'm talking about the level of violence. Alien is
a pretty violent movie. It's a pretty gory movie, but
not really because there's like one scene that's it, right,

(27:26):
it's it. I mean, it's a shockingly bloodless movie really,
like and I would say the second most grotesque scene
is grotesque because it's milk coming out of the guy's mouth,
not blood, and that's its whole own thing. But Alien again, like,
it also sets the design of the creature in such
a way that it is one of the most iconic
Aliens of anything because it it forced hr Giger to

(27:49):
make something that was marketable to children, which I want
to be in that room where they're like hr Giger
making kids toys Like I mean again, his original books
of artwork so sexual and phallic and an Alien like
the design it comes through, all those passages are so Giger.
And that's the thing, like when you have such a

(28:10):
unique and distinct movie like the first one that sets
the tone for the style of the universe and the
expectations and the way things kind of operate within the universe.
I mean, Alien's a perfect movie. That's the reality. Alien
is a perfect movie. And it being a perfect movie
it negates any other answer on this list because none
of these movies are perfect. Even Aliens is a good movie,

(28:30):
but Aliens is not perfect in the way Alien. Alien
is a seminal film that like, if you made just
Alien in your career as a filmmaker, you'd be happy.
You would you could die happy if all you ever
made was Alien and then never made anything else. Ridley
Scott made Alien and played Runner, but I would contend
he hasn't made a whole lot of good things otherwise.
Since that's my personal feelings on Ridley Scott. I just

(28:52):
find him to be kind of a cigar chomping guy
who seems a little abrasive.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
Which is fine.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I think we've I think for me, he's he is
a very interesting part of this because so much of
this also comes from him and what.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
He wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
So a lot of what Ridley Scott is at the
time is part of Alien and that helps drive where
this went. And again, for me, Dan O'Bannon is one of,
if not my favorite screenwriters, So that puts just one
more check mark in the column of Alien because it's
written by Daniel Yeah, good.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Call it's It's it's not any surprise, is it.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Well, if it's my turn to answer the question. So
the reason I said what I said because I wasn't
getting at that. You could have said Prometheus, and that
would have been edgy or exciting. I was getting at
I think there's two perfectly good entry points for this franchise,
and that's the first two films. And to go across

(29:43):
with what you just said, I do think Alien is
a better film. I do think Alien is a literal
perfect film. I don't think there's anything you take away
or need to add to the movie, and therefore it
is a perfect film. But if you're rating that and
that is one hundred, to me, Aliens is like a
ninety eight. I've always viewed them as very close. It's

(30:03):
just slightly behind it. It's also just a very different
genre film. And that is actually why I think Aliens
is the better choice here, because I think the fact
that it is not genre focused in terms of horror,
and the isolation is more intense in the first film
than an Aliens. And the other funny thing is, yes,

(30:25):
they set up the lore and the design and all
that backstory and all that stuff. The first part of
Aliens is really recounting everything that happened in the first movie. Basically. So,
I mean, Aliens tells that first story and you get
it in a way that is action oriented, which tends
to lean towards more mainstream audiences. So if you're somebody

(30:46):
that's brand new to this franchise, I think that might
be an easier first watch. Is it the best first watch?
I mean that could be argued. I think it's an
easier one. But if you're gonna do it, you may
as well just watch the first two back to back.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, I think that's actually the right answer.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
And the other thing that I will mention, I don't
think the alien is ever scary again outside of it.
And that's agree because of alien because once you once
you can see that one just dies by being shot
a couple times. It's not the same as in the
first movie, Ripley having to do literally everything short of
well she does literally everything and then some to get
rid of the alien. And that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
I don't even want to spoil it, because that's.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
You know that we're not here to spoil these movies.
There's no way you've never heard of the Chestburster see
Jesus Christ's That's impossible. But you might not know the
plot of the first movie, and I think actually not
knowing the plot of the first movie is beneficial because
you get to meet, learn, and like the characters before
the shit hits the fan.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
That's the other Alien compared to Aliens so much slower.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
It takes an hour to get to the point in
Alien where pretty much anything is actually happened.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Absolutely. And the thing with the plot of the Alien
movie funny enough, even if you haven't seen it, you've
seen it, you just don't know yet because it's the
exact same plot in like forty five other movies, because
it is a perfect plot to go through that there's
so many movies that. I mean, Underwater, which I love
with Kristin Stewart, is literally the movie Alien.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Basically, yeah, it's you know, Alien as an idea is
not really novel, but it's the way through which the
alien gets on the ship that is the novel thing.
And I believe Ron shoots it in the Beast Within,
which is the first full length feature documentary on the
Alien quadrilogy.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
This is me flexing my physical media knowledge which I
have seen one too many times.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
He says, what happened if the alien fucks it? And
that's literally what this is I mean, it's an alien
fucking your face with its long penis, and it's I
mean because the face hugger has like a tube that
it shoots.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Down here, very fallus thing.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I mean. I
mentioned hr Giger everything.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
An alien looks like a dick or a vagina for
a reason, because that's what hr Giger, or.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
At least a cod piece.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, I mean, the alien's head looks like a penis,
like yeah, yeah, from the from the pretty much the
top of the top of the head back. But the
alien's never scary in anything else like period. The mystique
of the alien is drawn out of it in Aliens
because now there's hundreds yeah yeah, And for me, I'm
not it's not that I'm not a fan of that,
but like you said, it's such a different thing that

(33:14):
it is almost it's unfair to compare them because they're
not the same kind of like you said, Terminator and
Terminator two, not the same kind of movie, same idea,
same premis theoretic, but take a step to the right
and Terminator two and now Arnold's the good guy in Alien.
It's oh, the aliens actually really aren't that scary. It's
just the volume of the aliens, right, yeah, because there
have to be. If one is not scary, then what

(33:36):
is scary? Hundreds of thousands, which again they never make
good on the promise on but they can't at the time.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well it's falling prey to the pressures of a sequel too.
Oh you had you had an alien in the first one. Well,
what happens if you have a thousand aliens?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Well ha ha, right, and it's like, you know, I
would say Aliens is the only time that that ever
really worked, which was you know, yeah, filling the screen
with as many aliens in you know, stun men in
suits as you could find. That's the other thing. Alien
and Aliens are both fantastic examples of physical and practical effects.
I mean like Alien three is too, and so is
a Resurrection because they're still being made at a time

(34:09):
and a place where CGI is not a thing. But
Prometheus heavy with the CGI to the point where people
really upset about it. But at the same time, I
actually think Prometheus is a lot of practical effects and
a lot of really interesting and well done stuff that again,
like you said, maybe maybe Prometheus isn't the right answer
Alien and Aliens is, but Prometheus is the answer.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
If you want to see you you could.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
I think you could get away with watching Prometheus before
before Aliens, and I think would still makes sense. I
think Prometheus does stand alone as its own thing enough,
because there is no xenomorph in that movie, not recognizable
the way that we see it. Moment one it jumps
out of John Hurt's chest.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Right right, Well, this is probably a good time to
transition into the second question, which I will fully admit
here I'm not qualified on this franchise to answer the
second question, so this will all be about you. And
as we get to this one, the question, of course
is always can you recommend a lesser known gem within

(35:06):
the subject that might be a you know, not not
the perfect first time watch for somebody new to it,
but also a good movie in the franchise.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
If I hadn't already gone on a tangent about Prometheus,
which I have, I would theoretically it was close to
being my answer. But the thing I ended up going
with on this is Alien Resurrection, and that's because it's
just like it's kind of just this dumb, fun movie.
It has a sense of fun to it that feels
like Aliens meets alien. So you have the plots, dumb,

(35:35):
Let's not talk about the plot. Let's talk about everything
but the plot. You have Sigourney Weaver, you have one
nota Ryder. You have Ron Pearlman.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
You have oh, the guy with the really hairy chest. God.
He was in Commando. He's the villain.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
He's the secondary villain in Commando in Prometheus. No, no, no, no,
he's no John. He's an Alien Resurrection Danadea, like I said,
a really hairy guy. And so he's in there. I mean,
there's there's plenty of really and brad Dwarfs in there.
Do I need to sell anybody on this? More like
there are people that I think people like in the
movie R There are some fun there are some fun

(36:10):
and novel kills, including one with leland Orzer.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
From Speaking of seven Uh that I will.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Leave for people to go and watch because I think
it's one of the most novel ways to kill someone
within the Alien universe.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
But it has a pretty good cast. I mean again,
I like Ron Pearlman a lot.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I like Winoda Ryder a lot, Sigourney Weaver, as far
as I'm concerned, can do no wrong, and Alien Resurrection
is fun. Alien three is not fun. Alien three is
like so self serious and just it's it's it's a
it's a drag for a lot of reasons, but it's
a drag primarily.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Because it's not fun.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
It man, it fucks up the It fucks up the
story so much on its own, like it undoes Aliens
in a way that like even I have a hard
time being like that was a good idea. But Alien
Resurrection for me is a is kind of like the
dumb an entry into the franchise, but in a fun way,
Like I don't expect much when I sit down with
Alien Resurre. I expect some things that I already know

(37:02):
I'm gonna get, and then I can always kind of
be impressed by some of the practical effects, especially the
alien newborn at the end of the movie, which I
think is a really fun like fun bad character design,
but a fun concept. But I mean, I think most
people could sit down with Alien Resurrection and have a
halfway decent time because it is the least serious of
all the movies other.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Than the AVP movies.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
And that's the thing, Like we didn't mention the AVP
movies here because I think they're better left for another
answer what's so important about them? But I mean Alien
Versus Predator I think might be the one be here.
It's dumb and fun. If you're a Predator fan, that's
the one you should watch. If you're looking for something
else to watch, you should watch Alien Aliens and then
jump to Alien Versus Predator if you're trying to educate yourself,

(37:46):
but then jump into it at the crossroads of the franchise.
But yeah, Alien Resurrection is a is a fun, dumb
movie that has a good amount of well regarded character
actors who turn it to who turn in good performances
because they know what they're there for and they get
to be in an alien movie.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
So fuck yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
The Brad Dwarf and Rond Peerlman are an alien movie,
an alien movie that If that doesn't excite you, I
mean as someone who likes to watch movies like Ron
Perlman is a great character actor, and him getting to
be in an ensemble cast in an alien movies, well said,
right like that, See like you're excited now you want
to go watch it?

Speaker 3 (38:21):
I can tell.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
I mean, I've wanted to watch resurrections for quite some time,
and this is one of those things that, other than
the AVP films, I've wanted to do a rewatch with
the whole franchise, and so I'm considering doing it leading
of Tu Romulus and just go through all of them
with the wife because she's never seen uh you know,
I don't think she's ever even seen Aliens. I've shown
her Alien like three times, so watching all of them

(38:43):
would be fun.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Yeah, yeah, I would be.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on a Prometheus
or Covenant because like they're so modern films, but like
trying to be Alien, which is so again, so weird
to me, Like yeah, yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
And again it's a forty six year old franchise about
Aliens that you never would have expected would have gone
this long like this is it's extremely surprising that we're
still getting sequels and that, you know, there's before the
end of twenty twenty four, we're gonna have a brand
new movie that we can rewatch the entire franchise before.

(39:19):
That's that's very weird.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Right, and you know, like that's again, there aren't a
lot of movies like that. There's Predator.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
There's Terminator, but so many of the other ones like
never made like RoboCop never really made it out, Like
I mean, I.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Don't consider there's three sequels, a remake and a TV
show come on, but none of them are good. Uh.
RoboCop two is not terrible.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
But it's not very good either. I mean it's not
I mean it's the best sequel to RoboCup. Yeah, which
is like not saying much given what that remake is.
And RoboCop three doesn't even have Peter Weller.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
So and that first movie is damn near perfect too.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, I was gonna say, boy talking about perfect movie Club,
that's that in that discussion, I think in terms of
like a certain kind of movie being made at a
certain time in.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
A certain place.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
It encapsulates a very specific thing, and for me, honestly
like to pivot back to Resurrection, like Alien Resurrection captures
a time in a place.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
It's like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Alien and look
on a surprise. It was written by Joss whed but.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
It's one of the things that I think he's written
that isn't as imminently fucking smug as everything else he
does because it's a Alien movie still, so you get
the quippi bullshit, but there was always quippie bullshit in Aliens,
So especially in Aliens, I mean, the best one of
the best characters in the movie. You're looking at the
catchphrase that is he's known for right under my name,

(40:42):
and that's Bill Paxton. So Alien Resurrection was trying to
do that thing. So I think it does it better
than anybody gives it credit for. And given where the
franchise would ultimately go with something like Covenant still a
better sequel than that.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Well then I think that's the best way to run
with that. Then. But man, uh, I feel like this
one's be a debate and a half. Our third question
on this one can't wait to hear you say, what
is the biggest impact that Alien and the Alien franchise
has had on pop culture and reminder for everybody? Because
I think this is probably going to be important on

(41:14):
this discussion. Specifically, it doesn't mean that it has to
be a specific film, even though it can be, of course,
but it can be something like inspiring future filmmakers. It
can be like bringing awareness to a genre. It can
be like delivering Dan O'Bannon too. The World, that sort
of thing. So, Chris, what is the biggest impact the

(41:36):
Alien franchise has had on pop.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
I think the biggest thing that the Alien franchise, the
biggest effect that it has had on pop culture is
introducing us to a uniquely singular world unlike pretty much
any other sci fi thing that we've seen, and creating
one of if not I think, like genuinely the one
of the best movie monsters ever. It's one of the
few movie monsters that showed up a Disney like, you know,
Disney World at the Great Movie right, like they had

(42:00):
an alien scene Disney World like that. If that doesn't
tell you the permeation of this pop culture icon that
is the Zeno morph clean, Like, please tell me what
would be? Because they the alien experience at Walt Disney
World and Disneyland was meant to be the Zeno morph
from Alien. That's how important to I think pop culture

(42:21):
alien the creature is because again it's the one of
I think it's the most iconic alien other than e
T Maybe, like, is there a more iconic alien than
the Zeno Morph?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
No, I mean.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Especially not one that doesn't get a character name ascribed to.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
It, right, I mean maybe Mac and Me.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Wait, god, well that's been made famous by Paul Rudd. Yeah, Mac,
Alien and Mac and Me being mentioned in the same breath.
I mean Alien, I mean the Alien franchise. It's been
part of my life, my entire life, which is a
very weird thing. I was able to see Prometheus in
theaters and look, I bought into the hype of that movie.

(43:01):
I was disappointed by it, and I've come around very
hard on it because I think it's aged rather well
given what's come out. Since I don't know what FEddi
Alvarez's take on Alien is going to be.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
He's the right person.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
But I think what's what makes Alien as a franchise
so important is it is given certain filmmakers the opportunity
to do things that they otherwise would never have gotten
to do, like.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
A James Cameron or a David Fincher, who.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Has not really ever done anything like that, since I
mean Cameron has, but not in the same way.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Would love to have known what Cameron wanted to do
with Aliens, if he had actually cared to stick around
and do a third movie.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
I don't think he did.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I mean, in a lot of ways, Aliens is the
end of the story and Alien three is just some
like fucked up epilog that somebody dreamed up and slapped
on and was like, this is the real end.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
No, it's not. I think it.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
It also introduced us again to like this idea of
a lived in space. It reinforced the idea of a
lived in space, which Star Wars did really well, and
I think Alien did even better because Alien didn't lean
on sci fi tropes of wizardry and fantasy. Alien is
very grounded in reality and it feels lived in They

(44:08):
feel I mean they they call them truckers in space,
and that's because that's what the first movie is is
Truckers in space.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
And that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
When you create a world that is so uniquely yours,
you've made a sandbox that looks very appealing for everybody
to come play it. And I really wish Alien would
just Alien in the franchise in Disney now because it's
not Fox, and I wish that they would let more
people play in that sandbox because it's such a fun
world to be part of. You have the organic against
the human, you have the organic against the mechanical, you

(44:38):
have the organic against the organic aliens in some respect
with Alien versus Predator. And then on top of that
you have the intrigue of whaland Utani and all these
other corporations trying to get a hold of the alien,
and it's like the Keystone Cops. They never can They're
always trying to capture the alien and fuck it up
every goddamn time, even in Prometheus, even in Alien Covenant, like,

(45:00):
the alien as itself is such an iconic creature they
almost acknowledge it within the universe as a perfect organism,
and the alien is a perfect creation of hr Gier.
It is an iconic creation. I think the I think
the biggest pop culture thing is the creation of the alien,
giving us the Xenomorph. Because the xenomorph got xenomorph shit
on my book bookcase over here. I gotta glow in

(45:21):
the dark. Xenomorph, I got alien eggs. I can see
them from here. If that doesn't speak volumes to what
the alien is as just a character, I don't know
what does. And that for me, I think is that's
the moment in time, is the creation of the alien,
whatever that means. It starts with alien, but that creation
of the Xenomorph is I think that's the biggest thing.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I have an Alien egg that was three D printed
that I use as a pencil holder upstairs.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, I believe it.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Like that's there's just something about the Alien universe that
is very appealing to some people. And I like the
you know what, I like the aesthetic of Alien. That's
what it is, the aesthetic of Alien.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
It's cool. It's cool.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Like the original Aliens movie aesthetic is cool, and I
think Aliens aesthetic is cool too. Three in Resurrection is
a different story, but it's also just again introducing us
to a singular narrative and a singular world more important,
and a singular creature that lives within that world that
everybody is either vying for, running away from, or fight.
So what about you?

Speaker 2 (46:19):
What's your answer this one? I honestly, the first thing
I thought was, yes, the Xenomorph is the clear winner here.
But then I started thinking about it, and over the
last few months, I've been working on some projects that
have brought me a lot of old sci fi horror,
specifically like the fifties of the Big Boom of like

(46:39):
The Creature from Outer Space and It and all these
other movies that were foundational sci fi horror for so
many people. When you think about it, all of those
movies take place on planet Earth, and so I think
the thing for me that I really see as like
the biggest hit is for me personally a least. I

(47:01):
love that it gave us, like space horror. We finally
have the ability to be scared in space, which changes
the way that we can make these movies. And there's
hints of that earlier in maybe like two thousand and
one a Space Odyssey, but that's not quite the same thing, obviously.
And then the only other thing that I could think
of that maybe came before this was Plan of the Vampires,

(47:23):
the Mario Bava film, or The Green Slime directed by
Kidji Fukusaku in sixty eight. Both of those movies were
in space for a lot of it, but also they
brought stuff back to Earth, and it kind of led
to the same thing. But something about that first alien
movie making it possible to have true cosmic away from
Earth isolation horror is what I think this franchise delivered

(47:47):
in spades, because without that, there's no Event Horizon, which
is one of the greatest movies of all time. There's
no Sunshine, which is frickin' incredible. There's no gosh, Leprechaun
four in space, he says jokingly, does not say jokingly.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
I don't think he's saying that jokingly after the fact
to try to cover up the fact. I mean, Leprecaun in.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
The Hood is not a bad movie either.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Anyways, Why didn't that make our list of micro version
or franchise?

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Lepricawn me Sam.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Rockwell in Moon never would have happened without Alien. Of course,
there's so many of these movies like Clartony's High Life,
which is great, which is like kind of like a
version of Alien where the human is the villain, and
just these movies could not even be fathomed as existing
if Alien didn't show that it was possible first and

(48:39):
so popularizing that. I think it's really had an impact
on the future of cinema when it comes to pushing
the frontier of isolationism and horror in space in a
way that most people can't relate to, which is very
difficult to portray on screen and get people to feel
empathetic to that type of situation. So I love Alien,
and I do think that that.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Is one of the biggest things for sure it's like
I said, we both kind of already alluded to it.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
It's a perfect movie.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
It doesn't. And perfect movies tend to introduce things into
the world that are remembered fondly. Another perfect movie for me,
Silence of Lambs introduced the world. I mean, look, Manhunter
came first, it sure did, but Silence of Lambs put
that character on the map, another character that's a seminal
character in American cinema and then in American literature as well.

(49:27):
So yeah, I'm with you. Like perfect movies introduced things
that are damn near perfect, like the original Star Wars
movie is a damn near perfect movie, introduces us to
a universe that, like Alien still going to this day.
So you know, it's you don't always hit a home run,
but man, if you hit this.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Home run, hit this home run hard.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
And look, I mean Ridley Scott for me, like this
is his best movie, like I think for me, And
I know that's gonna wrangle some people, wrangle some people,
but it's not gonna me because I like little to
very much else.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Of his stuff well, and I think he's made quite
a few really great movies. But I mean, first of all,
you mentioned two of them earlier. The fact that you
go Alien, Blade Runner, Legend back to back. That's an
incredible trilogy of movies to make as a directors. That's
mind blowingly good.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Yeah yeah, I mean that's the thing, like you said,
like I am in the minority here and I know that,
like there are you know, there are people that really
like a lot of the stuff that he does. Oh yeah, down,
I mean there are people that would probably get really
upset that I said this because Gladiator is one of
those movies. I'm just not a movie that resonated with me.
And like that's really what I feel like with Ridley

(50:35):
Scott is like the only movie of his that resonated
with me is Alien. I'm not even a big fan
of Blade Runner. I like Blade Runner twenty forty nine more,
which I know is like double pin me to the wall. Now,
I'm just speaking, you know, Blasphares.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Now, all the film bros are fansy you now.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
I mean that's you know.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yep. So now we're on to our last question, and
this one, of course, is what do you view as
a cinematic bridge to our franchise of Alien? So if
there's something else that somebody might aready be interested in
that could show that they are interested in Alien and
I made you go first. Couple of times, I'll just
throw out mine because mine is a really I don't know,

(51:14):
it feels like a cheap, silly answer because I'm not
going to name another franchise. I think the big thing
I'm going to go with is I appreciate the filmic
quality of single location films, and that's what gets me
about the Alien franchise. Most of these are fairly isolated.
You're stuck in one place, or stuck on a vehicle,

(51:34):
or stuck between a vehicle and the short little area
that you're exploring, whatever and so things. I mean, this
is going to be like a funny thing to compare it,
I guess. But like The Raid, if you like The Raid,
you're probably gonna like Aliens. It tonally, it's not quite
the same, but it's people infiltrating an area and cleaning
it of enemies. Like there's not a lot that is

(51:54):
super different there, and it's not the same style of action,
but they're both action oriented films. If you like a
lot of these one location like haunted house horror movies,
you're probably gonna like Alien.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
I mean, Alien's the best haunted House movie.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
I think it's it's up there clutter percent.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
It is like it's takes place on a space station
or I guess a giant ship, but whatever it means
the norom I'm with you. I mean, I think that
that definitely is a huge thing, like making again, because
if you're doing space like this, it's just one set
and that's it, like or if you're going into the water,
it's just one set and that's it. I I totally
I totally agree. I will say my answer kind of

(52:32):
a cheat.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
We've already talked about Terminator. I think if you're a
fan of Terminator, this is a franchise.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
That doesn't do it's, that doesn't do its movies as
dirty as Terminator did. I would kind of be surprised
if you'd seen Terminator and not these movies. Given the
direct involvement of James Cameron. I wouldn't say that going
on to watch any other Ridley Scott movies, or if
you like Ridley Sky, you're gonna like Alien. I don't
know if that's the case, Like I.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Know, it's too early in his career.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
I think yeah, yeah, which is a crazy fucking thing
to say, given we're two talking about a perfect movie here.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
I mean, it's just I mean, dude, it's a second right,
is it? Sophomore slump? Fuck you? I made Alien like and.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
And his first movie is The Duelist, which isn't a
bad movie.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
You buy No No, and and you know it's a
pretty good adaptation of a of a pretty good book.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Pretty good Joseph Conrad.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
So yeah, I don't know, like I feel like for me,
like Terminator is my answer, just because that's kind of
a cheat. But I think if you're if you're a
fan of you know what, if you're a fan of
Final Girls, Alien is for you. Alien Aliens and Alien
three an Alien Resurrection are for you, because I think
for me, Ripley is like the Final Girl. She's she
is on the same if there's two heads on this coin,

(53:41):
for me, one side is Sigourney Weaver and the other
side is nev Camp No No. I mean, I could
see why that would be some people's answer, but well
it's for me.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
It's never It's nineteen seventy eight, nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Is what, right? I mean?

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I yeah, I mean that I get but like for
me personally, I think you could still make a case
that nev Campbell what deserve to be there, depending on
what era you're coming at horror from. Some people love
Jamie Lee Curtis and she can't do no wrong. I'm
not saying I don't like Jamie Lee Curtis. I love
Jamie Lee Curtis. I like Nif Campbell more in the
movies that she's in. Scream resonates more with this guy

(54:14):
than Halloween does.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
That's just the way that it is cool.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
And I say the same thing about Alien Alien Aliens,
Alien three and Alien Resurrection have one of the best
final girls period in Ripley Ellen. Ripley is a She
goes from being the person who you genuinely think is
going to die first to the person who survives, kills
an alien in her under looks like a badass while
doing it, cuts her hair in the next movie, which

(54:37):
is one of the most iconic things about her.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
In the first movie, she cuts her hair short.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Becomes a space doc worker, beats the shit out of
aliens in that movie, and then in the third movie
makes the choice of choices to try and stop the
aliens from continuing to exist, and then in the fourth
movie she's clone. So, as far as I'm concerned, the
horror horror movies, Final Girls tend to not come back.
Other than Lori Strode, Sidney Prescott, and Ellen Rip those

(55:03):
are the three Friday the Thirteenth, Part two. The chick
for the first movie dies in the first five minutes. Like,
there's not a lot of follow through. So if you're
a fan of Final Girls and you've never seen the
Alien franchise, what are you waiting for?

Speaker 2 (55:14):
This is like the epitome of Final Girls.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Right, like that, the whole franchise up until they rebooted it,
and even when they rebooted it is about Final Girls.
I mean Numi Rapase, Alien or Prometheus. She's the final
Girl in that movie. She's really good in that movie.
Catherine Waterston Alien Covenant, final Girl in that movie. Dad
movie's not very good. She's not bad in it. It's
not a good movie. But yeah, it's all about I mean, again,
if it's horror, it's gonna have a Final Girl trope,

(55:38):
and it does, and it does it really well. Which
again for me, like I said, if you're into horror
movies and more specifically ones that are leaning on the
horror horror trope of Final Girls a the alien franchises
for you, I mean even AVP has a Final Girl.
I know we said we're gonna mention AVP. I will
mention AVP here. I saw AVP in theaters. Fucking dumb movie.
It's fun, but it's.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Not like A.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
It's not Alien, It's it's like what if we made
Aliens with CGI?

Speaker 3 (56:03):
That's what AVP is.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
And no Colonial Marines, Like I want to know why
no one has made another colonial.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Marine, Like why, Like why haven't we seen more of that?

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Like we have all the video game attempts, but nobody
has tried to make another colonial marine movie. That for
me seems like the biggest missed opportunity here. And like
you said, like I think even if we're talking ways
to get people into this universe, if you're into like
Vietnam stuff and like Vietnam movies, I feel like Aliens
is a pretty good at least the first two thirds
that movie is an interesting like take on a Vietnam

(56:32):
movie because like the Aliens are gorilla fighters living in
the walls and living in the ceilings, and like we
don't know where they are. They could be anywhere at
any point. That doesn't sound like what everybody talks about
Vietnam being I don't know what it what does. But like,
if you're into Vietnam stuff, Aliens might be up.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Your alley too.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
So there's a there's a strange connection, but I don't
think it's a I don't think it's much.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Of a reach.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
No. And the thing is, you know when something is
so so powerful and all encompassing is Vietnam. It affected
all filmmaking from like nineteen sixty nine through like nineteen
eighty five. And if you really want to dive into
any of these any films released in that like sixteen
year period, those people were either in the war, their

(57:16):
parents were in the war. They were affected greatly by
the war. They were thirteen when the war was happening,
and they saw images from the war on the news
and the newspaper and stuff like that. It is such
just a giant, intimidating thing when you're looking at that.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Well, I mean in Aliens, they went out and they
all trained together, they all customized their armor. I mean
they look like they look like they stepped out of
case on. Really like the design of the armor, the
design of the helmets are all very reminiscent of marines
in Vietnam. So right, I mean again, if you like
war movies and stuff like that, Aliens is probably more

(57:53):
your speed. Not much else in the franchise really has
the same fun level. That mean, Aliens is a fun movie.
I think that's the other thing that we kind of
haven't really touched on. Alien is not a fun movie
in any stretch of the imagination.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Like it is a.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Scary, tense movie where a woman is being stalked by
a massive alien. It's a slasher, like said, and then
the second movie is just like a bunch of assholes
going down to a planet to kill fucking alien. It's
literally Starship Troopers, right, but without the jingoistic satire that
makes Starship Troopers such a fun movie and book on it.

(58:27):
But yeah, I mean, if you're into these things, like
this is definitely your thing. I feel like anybody has
seen this, Like I feel like you is a thing.
Like if you say, like I love Vietnam war movies
and I've never seen Aliens and be like really.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Interesting, Yeah, that's a big one fun franchise. Highly recommend,
at least the ones that I've seen to everybody. It's
clear that Chris is passionate about them as well. And
uh yeah, I mean this is one of those things
that it's it's in. It's in pop culture so much
you have already absorbed a lot of it, so it
seems odd to keep going on on, but it's Alien.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
I spent almost a decade trying to get the Tyler
Stout Alamo Draft House Alien poster, and one of the
years they did the flat File sale and managed to
get one. It is one of my favorite posters that
is hanging in the hallway of our house. I have
two posters downstairs that have never changed, and it is
an Alien and a Predator from Alamo Draft House and

(59:22):
they are.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Opposing posters facing each other.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
That is how much I love this franchise, subconsciously or consciously.
The design choice is just everything about it. If we
ever do a Predator episode, I'm not going to have
as much love for that franchise for a number of reasons.
Not because of the quality of the movies, but I
think to put a button on it. Almost all the
movies in the Alien franchise are worth watching, even the
bad ones, and not a lot of franchises can say that. Frankly,

(59:47):
most camp There's like one movie in the Alien franchise
that I would say and you can skip it, and
that's Covenant. I think everything else I've made more or
less a case as to why it's worth at least
spending a little bit of time with it, even Alien three,
which is just a weird movie that David Fincher directed,
which if that's not something that imminently excites you, that's
a David Fincher Alien movie. Like I don't know what
would so because he's never gonna do that again, just

(01:00:09):
like I don't think he's ever going to do seven again.
So you know, I think it's just, Yeah, Alien is
such a weird thing, and I'm so glad we got
to cover it because I've never really gotten to talk
long for him about it. Only whenever we've covered the
show's been going long enough. We covered Alien Covenant, I'm
pretty sure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
But I mean, again, it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Twenty seventeen and I didn't enjoy it and I still don't.
So this is like to speak poetically and wax wax
lovingly about a franchise that, yeah, is a big part
of my pop culture makeup.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Well, maybe after Romulus will have to give a little
update on what we both thought and do, like a
little ten minute ketchup on Romulus.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
And you signed yourself up for it at this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Point because you've already said I'm going to watch all
the movies ahead of time. It's like your best be
damned if I'm asking you questions about how you feel
about all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
It's necessary and to be honest at this point, like
not that my kids are able to watch anything, but
that First Day movie I think is pretty much ready
for at least my oldest to watch, if not both kids.
I mean they've both already seen Jurassic Park and we're
good with that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
I think the Chess Person is a Jurassic Park.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
I mean that first Jurassic Park movie. You see a
dinosaur literally eat a guy off of a toilet.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, but it's a CGI dinam it's in a CGI guy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
But it's one of the best looking CGI dinosaurs ever dinosaurs.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
I've not been moaning or besmirching that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
There is something about that scene and alien that just
there's nothing that CGI can change about that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Fucking that really that all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Of that, I mean, I would love to know what,
like your kids think about it, because like, outside of
that one scene, it's a relatively bloodless movie, Like there's
not Yeah, it's like everything is just the implication.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Well that and there's no nudity. There's no like there's
a handful of square words not not too too much.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Well, there's no nudity, but Sigourney Weaver at the end.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Well, there's no there's no sexual objectification or sexual acts
display gaze.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Yeah, gays just walking wherever they want. That was a
terrible Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
That was funny.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Anyways, Chris, why don't you share with everybody where they
can find you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Yeah, when I'm not sitting and talking about alien, you
can find me and everything I work on over at
weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is named for doone. Apparently people
didn't know that I didn't like the New Dude. Apparently
they don't understand why I didn't like it. I would
reiterate weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's where we can find everything
I work on. When I'm not being an intellectual bully
and telling people how they're wrong, you can find me

(01:02:30):
on Patreon slash culture cast, where ten dollars a month
you can listen to me the projection booths, Mike White
and Richard HadAM of many things, including Richard Adams's paranormal Bookshelf,
DC Titans, and the writer of the Mothman Prophecies. We
cover James Bond, another franchise that will inevitably cover at
some point on this show once a month.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
So that's where you can find everything that I work on.
What about you, Ryan?

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I am on all social media under the name The
disc Connected. I'm also everywhere under someone's Feverite Productions. Got
a lot going on. If you are interested in physical media,
check out they Disconnected Everywhere. I do a live show
every Thursday, going over the announcements for the week, including
weekly interviews with industry professionals, and I also write a

(01:03:12):
monthly and sometimes bi monthly zine that you can purchase
in a paperback physical format on Amazon. You can also
get a digital file if you want, with all the
links embedded, so you can tap it and go to
all the releases and purchase them without ever leaving to
another website. Just go through a zine. That's pretty awesome. Yeah,
check that out by looking up the Physical Media Advocate
on Amazon and until next time. We hope you check

(01:03:34):
out our next episode, that you continue to push to
the mappers of your interests Z