Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien.

[whiterabbit]

Yea I don't see anything wrong with the alien in either Prometheus or Covenant nor anything that brings shame upon Giger's beast. David's lair was a shop of horrors, David is a modern Prometheus. A:C out right expanded upon the creature.

[bb-15]

I understand that some viewers are frustrated with Prometheus and Covenant. That is certainly their privilege.
And in this thread there is criticism towards the idea of David creating the original xenomorph. (Fine, it's also an idea I don't like.)

But imo the "Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien" is over dramatic.
Giger was an artist and not a script writer.
In terms of design, the xenomorph in every Alien movie is based on Giger's original concepts.
In the franchise each film's art director made changes to the creature's body parts, but the overall design of every version of the xenomorph comes from Giger. 

As for the continuing story in the franchise, unless there are additions to "Alien" storywise there cannot be other Alien films.
The sequels / prequels and the AVP variation have given fans something to ponder about this fictional universe including about origins.
I'm not saying all the ideas in the Alien movies were perfect/great, but I'm glad the films got made.

Coming from an long time fan who has seen the Alien movies the year they were first released.

 

[Jonesy1974]

I understand that some viewers are frustrated with Prometheus and Covenant. That is certainly their privilege.
And in this thread there is criticism towards the idea of David creating the original xenomorph. (Fine, it's also an idea I don't like.)

But imo the "Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien" is over dramatic.
Giger was an artist and not a script writer.
In terms of design, the xenomorph in every Alien movie is based on Giger's original concepts.
In the franchise each film's art director made changes to the creature's body parts, but the overall design of every version of the xenomorph comes from Giger. 

As for the continuing story in the franchise, unless there are additions to "Alien" storywise there cannot be other Alien films.
The sequels / prequels and the AVP variation have given fans something to ponder about this fictional universe including about origins.
I'm not saying all the ideas in the Alien movies were perfect/great, but I'm glad the films got made.

Coming from an long time fan who has seen the Alien movies the year they were first released.

Well said.

[Paranoid Android]

I understand that some viewers are frustrated with Prometheus and Covenant. That is certainly their privilege.
And in this thread there is criticism towards the idea of David creating the original xenomorph. (Fine, it's also an idea I don't like.)

But imo the "Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien" is over dramatic.
Giger was an artist and not a script writer.
In terms of design, the xenomorph in every Alien movie is based on Giger's original concepts.
In the franchise each film's art director made changes to the creature's body parts, but the overall design of every version of the xenomorph comes from Giger. 

As for the continuing story in the franchise, unless there are additions to "Alien" storywise there cannot be other Alien films.
The sequels / prequels and the AVP variation have given fans something to ponder about this fictional universe including about origins.
I'm not saying all the ideas in the Alien movies were perfect/great, but I'm glad the films got made.

Coming from an long time fan who has seen the Alien movies the year they were first released.

I don't think the criticism of the OP is purely visual design-wise. His criticism seems to be focused on what the alien is (or at least was), which is a terrifying alien creature of unkwown origin. His complaint (and mine) is that the alien in Alien is no longer alien. It's a man made creature, and I can't think of a single worse thing that you can do to a series of films based on aliens. Having an actual alien in a film called "Alien" is the bare minimum of what's expected of you when you make these films. Even George Lucas, when making his Star Wars prequels, understood that his films must have stars and wars. Bare minimum, like I said.

Right now this franchise is so messed up even its title is wrong. It should be called the NotAlien series, cause nothing in it is. The space jockey isn't an alien; It's an overgrown blue human who's also our genetic relative. The alien isn't an alien; it's a biological T800 designed by Skynet (David). The universe itself isn't alien and hostile; it's just empty space for humans and their relatives to populate and be hostile towards one another. These new prequel films, like the Star Wars prequels, are hurting every Alien film made to this day.

[Gruyères]

I understand that some viewers are frustrated with Prometheus and Covenant. That is certainly their privilege.
And in this thread there is criticism towards the idea of David creating the original xenomorph. (Fine, it's also an idea I don't like.)

But imo the "Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien" is over dramatic.
Giger was an artist and not a script writer.
In terms of design, the xenomorph in every Alien movie is based on Giger's original concepts.
In the franchise each film's art director made changes to the creature's body parts, but the overall design of every version of the xenomorph comes from Giger. 

As for the continuing story in the franchise, unless there are additions to "Alien" storywise there cannot be other Alien films.
The sequels / prequels and the AVP variation have given fans something to ponder about this fictional universe including about origins.
I'm not saying all the ideas in the Alien movies were perfect/great, but I'm glad the films got made.

Coming from an long time fan who has seen the Alien movies the year they were first released.

I don't think the criticism of the OP is purely visual design-wise. His criticism seems to be focused on what the alien is (or at least was), which is a terrifying alien creature of unkwown origin. His complaint (and mine) is that the alien in Alien is no longer alien. It's a man made creature, and I can't think of a single worse thing that you can do to a series of films based on aliens. Having an actual alien in a film called "Alien" is the bare minimum of what's expected of you when you make these films. Even George Lucas, when making his Star Wars prequels, understood that his films must have stars and wars. Bare minimum, like I said.

Right now this franchise is so messed up even its title is wrong. It should be called the NotAlien series, cause nothing in it is. The space jockey isn't an alien; It's an overgrown blue human who's also our genetic relative. The alien isn't an alien; it's a biological T800 designed by Skynet (David). The universe itself isn't alien and hostile; it's just empty space for humans and their relatives to populate and be hostile towards one another. These new prequel films, like the Star Wars prequels, are hurting every Alien film made to this day.

Yup, that's it. The A L I E N side is almost faded out to oblivion.

bb-15: That's certainly fair, and it works as a cinematic saga as you've perfectly stated, but I was always looking for a Giger's universe expansion with every movie (only saw Alien and Aliens in TV, Alien 3 and so forth on cinemas) which they lacked or, in this new Ridley Scott reboot, mangled and twisted to the point of historic tales.

[bb-15]

I understand that some viewers are frustrated with Prometheus and Covenant. That is certainly their privilege.
And in this thread there is criticism towards the idea of David creating the original xenomorph. (Fine, it's also an idea I don't like.)

But imo the "Rest in peace, H. R. Giger's Alien" is over dramatic.
Giger was an artist and not a script writer.
In terms of design, the xenomorph in every Alien movie is based on Giger's original concepts.
In the franchise each film's art director made changes to the creature's body parts, but the overall design of every version of the xenomorph comes from Giger. 

As for the continuing story in the franchise, unless there are additions to "Alien" storywise there cannot be other Alien films.
The sequels / prequels and the AVP variation have given fans something to ponder about this fictional universe including about origins.
I'm not saying all the ideas in the Alien movies were perfect/great, but I'm glad the films got made.

Coming from an long time fan who has seen the Alien movies the year they were first released.

I don't think the criticism of the OP is purely visual design-wise. His criticism seems to be focused on what the alien is (or at least was), which is a terrifying alien creature of unkwown origin. His complaint (and mine) is that the alien in Alien is no longer alien.

You are using feelings to try to define things.
And that's a common way to react to movies. I accept that. It's just that I want to make clear where our views begin.
- I come from a different direction (which is also fine) where my definitions start from what I know about words, the history of science fiction and the Alien franchise.
So, from my POV;
- A space alien is an extraterrestrial. Defined as;

Of or from outside the earth or its atmosphere.

A hypothetical or fictional being from outer space.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/extraterrestrial

Whether the origin of the extraterrestrial is known does not matter to the definition.
- What your feelings seem to be expressing imo is strangeness.
If an origin is known then the being is less strange, foreign, mysterious.
True, but a known space alien is still a space alien.
And a xenomorph or neomorph, even where their origin is somewhat understood, would still be strange, foreign, mysterious creatures imo.

Having an actual alien in a film called "Alien" is the bare minimum of what's expected of you when you make these films. Even George Lucas, when making his Star Wars prequels, understood that his films must have stars and wars. Bare minimum, like I said.

The Neomorphs and xenomorphs in Covenant are space aliens.
Since you mentioned Lucas; Luke Skywalker is also a space alien since he came "from a galaxy far far away". 

The space jockey isn't an alien;

Of course it is.
A space alien can look humanoid. Science fiction has plenty of examples of this.
For instance in Star Trek, Spock's Vulcan father is a pure space alien / extraterrestrial.

The alien isn't an alien; it's a biological T800 designed by Skynet (David).

The xenomorph is still a space alien. 
And as for looking odd, strange, different; I guarantee that if a living xenomorph existed in our world and it was on the streets of a large city, pedestrians would be running for their lives.

The universe itself isn't alien and hostile; it's just empty space for humans and their relatives to populate and be hostile towards one another.

The xenomorphs aren't our close genetic relatives like a chimp for instance.
And the Neomorph's life cycle begins from fungus spores which in terms of DNA is pretty far from human genetics (+ black goo which infects humans). That's a pretty horrible disease and the Neomorphs certainly were strange imo and lethal.
That's why many of the characters were killed in the film because of hostile creatures exploding out of them from a bio-technology that was first created before life on earth existed.   
- Not a friendly galaxy to me.

* Anyway, I've no intention of changing your mind, feelings, conclusions. If you believe that humans could never figure out the origin of the Space Jockey (even though at least one SJ ship could be reached by them), then of course that's your privilege to believe that.
- Imo it is the nature of exploration to learn about things.
- For years Ridley Scott had ideas about what the Space Jockeys were and their relationship with the xenomorphs.
And he believed that this was knowledge which could be discovered.
- But I realize you think that a lack of certain knowledge in the Alien movies is essential.
Fine. 

I think this is one of those agree to disagree situations.

[Gruyères]

Covenant does a nice job of exploring David in greater detail, and of shifting the alien creatures away from insect heirachy B movie cliche it had drifted into, steering it into something much more menacing and Gigeresque in tone. Whether it's Hammerpedes or Neomorphs, these are creatures I could see coming from Giger's nightmares, perhaps via Hieronymus Bosch, but anyway far more connected to the tone of the horrors in ALIEN.

That along with the return of the Croissant ship, means that Scott's films are referencing Giger far more than any other director has, and David's workshop suggests to me that Scott is also playing with the idea that the Character of David in his new creative role is a meta interpretation of Giger himself to a certain degree - a man that designs beautiful horrors.

Very far from R.I.P. Giger, IMHO.

Well, that's certainly the way I saw A:C after I left the cinema, that David's engineering room and destruction/experimentation/creation spree was a good idea in the new lore, at least aesthetically. Those drawings, those designs were neat. Conceptually it worked IN THE movie. Yes, we can agree that David is the best thing in this new reboot.
But it still didn't make much sense in the old (read: ALIEN) lore. I preferred the 12-20ft fossilized unknown creature piloting an almost organic spaceship with a hundred meters tall chamber filled with milky, almost translucent oral-raping spider-shaped f**kers. I preferred the morphing egg theory instead of the queen. To me these are stimulant, fresh new ideas. Can you imagine Yaphet Kotto's Parker fighting an engineer? He'd be laughing his ass off! Can you picture Sigourney Weaver's Ripley facing an engineer after trying to recover Jonesy's cage escaping to Narcissus?
Okay, enough rambling. Now, weeks after, I watch the A:C documentary and I see the producers, writers and creatives talk about the 'overall' lore and how Ridley Scott's 'vision' evolved it to new grounds and I can only say what I've stated in the OP. O'Bannon, Shusett, Giger's vision is completely lost. They can bring back as much as they want, but the essence is gone. If you read the Metal Hurlant Special Making Of ALIEN and take a closer look, you'd understand what Ash was talking about: 

Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

To me, this doesn't relate to the new reboot, at all. They made it a human-derived product, and Giger wasn't about humans, he was about the unknown, Lovecraftian to the extreme nightmares.

[Paranoid Android]

from my POV;
- A space alien is an extraterrestrial. Defined as;

Of or from outside the earth or its atmosphere.

A hypothetical or fictional being from outer space.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/extraterrestrial

Whether the origin of the extraterrestrial is known does not matter to the definition.
- What your feelings seem to be expressing imo is strangeness.
If an origin is known then the being is less strange, foreign, mysterious.
True, but a known space alien is still a space alien.
And a xenomorph or neomorph, even where their origin is somewhat understood, would still be strange, foreign, mysterious creatures imo.

Your definition, while correct, has a problem: the origin does not matter to it as long as the origin is not human. Otherwise you can classify satellites as aliens as well. How about Hadley's Hope? Was that an alien colony? What of Gateway station? Is that an alien station as well?

Knowing the origin of an alien doesn't make it not-an-alien, but if the origin of your alien is humanity itself, it is not an alien to begin with.

The Neomorphs and xenomorphs in Covenant are space aliens.
Since you mentioned Lucas; Luke Skywalker is also a space alien since he came "from a galaxy far far away". 

Technically he is. He is completely unrelated to humanity as we know it. He is more of an alien than Ridley Scott's alien.

Of course it is.
A space alien can look humanoid. Science fiction has plenty of examples of this.
For instance in Star Trek, Spock's Vulcan father is a pure space alien / extraterrestrial.

They also have a 100% DNA match with us, making them less of an alien than any animal on Earth. Vulcans don't share our DNA.

The xenomorph is still a space alien. 
And as for looking odd, strange, different; I guarantee that if a living xenomorph existed in our world and it was on the streets of a large city, pedestrians would be running for their lives.

At first, sure. After a while though they will be saying "hi" to it on the street, having coffee with it, recruiting it to their basketball teams and complaining about it taking all of their jobs.

The xenomorphs aren't our close genetic relatives like a chimp for instance.
And the Neomorph's life cycle begins from fungus spores which in terms of DNA is pretty far from human genetics (+ black goo which infects humans). That's a pretty horrible disease and the Neomorphs certainly were strange imo and lethal.
That's why many of the characters were killed in the film because of hostile creatures exploding out of them from a bio-technology that was first created before life on earth existed.   
- Not a friendly galaxy to me.

Since human DNA was literally used to produce the xenomorph, it's closer to us than a chimp. Kinda like how Spock being part human-part Vulcan makes him closer to humanity than a chimp.

* Anyway, I've no intention of changing your mind, feelings, conclusions. If you believe that humans could never figure out the origin of the Space Jockey (even though at least one SJ ship could be reached by them), then of course that's your privilege to believe that.
- Imo it is the nature of exploration to learn about things.
- For years Ridley Scott had ideas about what the Space Jockeys were and their relationship with the xenomorphs.
And he believed that this was knowledge which could be discovered.
- But I realize you think that a lack of certain knowledge in the Alien movies is essential.
Fine. 

It's not just having a certain lack of knowledge as a core ingredient to the series; It's about not connecting every damn thing to humanity. This is a series about the fear of the unknown; about the fear of something alien. It was built around actual aliens precisely because of it. It was a tale about man's insignificance in the grand scale of the universe as a whole; about a crew stumbling on a creature too horrible for them to comprehend. In the prequels those creatures come with schematics, programming and father issues. The space jockey could've had an origin, so long as it's an alien origin. Making them related to us makes the whole thing a human story rather than an alien one.

[Gruyères]

The space jockey isn't an alien;

Of course it is.
A space alien can look humanoid. Science fiction has plenty of examples of this.
For instance in Star Trek, Spock's Vulcan father is a pure space alien / extraterrestrial.

And that is why this whole reboot is wrong. We have plenty of examples like Star Trek, we don't need more humanoids! We want alien-y things. Imagination, creativity. Giger had it, Ridley Scott's creative team hasn't. The closer we got were some designs from Carlos Huante's Prometheus pre-production era.

About agreeing to disagree, yes please! This thread is great because people like you are giving reasonable thoughts, keep going

It's not just having a certain lack of knowledge as a core ingredient to the series; It's about not connecting every damn thing to humanity. This is a series about the fear of the unknown; about the fear of something alien. It was built around actual aliens precisely because of it. It was a tale about man's insignificance in the grand scale of the universe as a whole; about a crew stumbling on a creature too horrible for them to comprehend. In the prequels those creatures come with schematics, programming and father issues. The space jockey could've had an origin, so long as it's an alien origin. Making them related to us makes the whole thing a human story rather than an alien one.

And you resumed everything perfectly. Kudos!

[Huntsman]

Getting other alien types like neomorphs is part of why I like the prequels. It's not just giving us the same things, even though we're building up to that. I loved the backburster and the throatburster. I think the best films are the ones that expand upon the mythology. The Xenomorphs are still aliens acting on instinct, regardless of what David did with them.

[Jonesy1974]

I think the universe has been expanded by the new films. The black goo itself opens the franchise to endless possibilities.

[Paranoid Android]

The Neomorph is just a reskinned alien though. It is just giving us the same thing; It's like adding a ninja with a new color pallet to Mortal Kombat...

[Rudiger]

Something has definitely been lost.

The original Alien was just that. Alien. Other worldly, cold, mysterious and terrifying. Now we know everything, almost down to its inside leg measurement.

Originality? Gone. Now we get a re-tread of Frankenstein and The Lost Island of Dr. Moreau, spliced with bits and bobs of Blade Runner. All been done before, and all been done far, far better.

[Huntsman]

I think the universe has been expanded by the new films. The black goo itself opens the franchise to endless possibilities.

Agreed. I just hope they get to make the third film.

The Neomorph is just a reskinned alien though. It is just giving us the same thing; It's like adding a ninja with a new color pallet to Mortal Kombat...

It's not an Xenomorph though, and that fact has irritated people because it's not the original design they crave.

[Paranoid Android]

It's not an Xenomorph though, and that fact has irritated people because it's not the original design they crave.

It has acid for blood, similar body structure, similar behavior, can climb walls...I dunno, seems like a xenomorph to me. They just reskinned it. And most reviews I've seen, both positive and negative, seem to suggest the Neomorph worked better in Covenant than the Xenomorph.