It’s Friday! So that can only mean it’s time for the new Alien: 40th Anniversary Short! Today sees the release of Alien: Ore, directed and written by
As a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony, Lorraine longs to make a better life for her daughter and grandchildren. When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, Lorraine is forced to choose between escape or defying management orders and facing her fears to fight for the safety of her family.
After watching the latest Anniversary Short, be sure to head on over to the Alien Anthology social channels to check out the Meet the Filmmaker’s featurette to find out more about the ladies running this week’s show.
Next Friday is the 26th of April. Not only does that mean we’ve reached 2019’s Alien Day, it also means the release of the final two Alien: 40th Anniversary Short’s: Alien: Harvest and Alien: Alone.
Alien: Harvest — The surviving crew of a damaged deep-space harvester have minutes to reach the emergency evacuation shuttle. A motion sensor is their only navigation tool leading them to safety while a creature in the shadows terrorizes the crew. However, the greatest threat might have been hiding in plain sight all along. directed by Benjamin Howdeshell.
Alien: Alone — Hope, an abandoned crew member aboard the derelict chemical hauler Otranto, has spent a year trying to keep her ship and herself alive as both slowly fall apart. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life. Written and directed by Noah Miller.
Make sure you stick with Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest on the Alien 40th Anniversary celebrations! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums!
https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/017/415/719/large/pixel-slayerr-ore.jpg?1555907440
Specimen and Ore have one each now, afterall.
Nicely done.
Pretty cool poster.
Yeahh! That makes us happy
Thank you so much! We're thrilled you liked it!
I loved it! 👍
We are honoured to have been able to make one of these shorts to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of such an amazing film!
-k&s
Yes!!! I was shooting for "way, way below" so anything above that is a win!
A tiny budget and amateur crew don't forgive all their faults, but I'm gonna give them a lot more credit than if these were coming from a proper film studio. Considering what little they had to work with all of these have impressed me in one way or another. And Specimen and Ore have been downright remarkable.
Because it's an awful joke. That's below Dad Joke level. Way below. Disappointed.
Completely disagree. Containment does feel a little like that, but the rest, no. That said, they are supposed to evoke the Alien sensation and I think they're doing great.
People also have to remember these things were made with $35,000 and aren't exactly big screen productions. Personally, aside from the one, I've been really enjoying these Shorts and they've made so much with so little.
I don't get it.
It's the anniversary of the first film.
The money's not there, and we're not supposed to see much of them because they're in the spirit of the first movie.
Imbeciles...
Its pretty obvious that we will not seen much of the creatures in any of these. Either for legal or budgetary reasons. Which makes these even less appealing to me.
Interview via Tongal.
Apparently this was Tongal's biggest competition. It's great to know Alien's pulling power is still there.
The actress playing Hanks is fantastic.
Oh, I see. I completely misunderstood you before, didn't I? LOL
And yes. You're right. Good call.
TC
"So here I thought, an end, on an end, on an end and on an end. Brilliant."
Seen previously, the Alien surviving onboard the Narcissus, Sulaco and surviving a furnace.
They haven't as far as I know. What I meant was - it's the scene in the shuttle in Alien, or on the Sulaco in Aliens or on the Betty in Resurrection. Stuff has gone down on the ship we see breaking up and the film is what happens when the characters think they've escaped.
Haven't checked the cast list but the woman that was hugged and went back up in the lift looked just like Abi Franklin from Coronation Street
So what's your top pick out of all of them?
Here's hoping they're saved the best two shorts for last.
A twist ending is more deeply rooted in the writer’s theme or message. Your understanding of the twist also brings pre-planted clues together so that you now understand the story’s meaning.
Surprise endings are easy, you just hit the audience with something unexpected. (If you’re a little more sophisticated you can throw out some red herrings beforehand.)
Twist endings are difficult. They require manipulation of the viewer’s powers of insight.
Also see SiL’s answer, he has a nice way of interpreting what McKee is trying to say. But where I disagree with SiL is - well, you can simply read my response below.
You think all these “reconsiderations” are part of Taylor’s thesis? OK, every viewer’s mileage is going to vary. But clearly you put a lot more thought into the “twist” than I did. I got stuck on the first item in your list.
Is Julie attached to Maggie? The storytelling is contradictory.
a. She is fond of Maggie; because she gives her a name, and playfully throws a ball of paper to her.
b. She is not fond of Maggie; because she is so cool and distant when she discovers Maggie in her death throes. (She doesn’t offer any comfort to Maggie. Her facial expression shows annoyance rather than sadness or sympathy. The coverage is in singles - no 2-shots bringing the two of them together in the same frame for intimacy. She euthanises Maggie with a decapitating blow from a spade - is this how you would put down a beloved friend? I think not.)
What’s going on here? [Speculation mode /on]
I think Taylor wanted to hit the “twist” as hard as possible. All other priorities rescinded. So in the beginning she fools us with the naming of the dog thing and the wad of paper. Then, post-robot reveal, she changes Julie’s character completely to make sure we understand that Maggie is a machine, because it goes without saying nobody has feelings for machines, right?
[Speculation mode /off]
I’m not saying it didn’t work: clearly it does, but at the cost of breaking Julie’s character. First she shows one personality, and then, for plot/twist expediency, she shows another. This is a flaw that’s no biggie in a short film - lots of shorts work like the telling of a joke: You deliver the set up - you hit the punchline. No more, no less, and nothing deep and meaningful enough to make you “reconsider” anything.
Agreed.
I don’t pretend to be an expert in short-film script-writing, but I’m beginning appreciate how hard it is. That time restriction is a killer. (Incidentally, not one of the Alien shorts so far has abided by the running time guide of 6 to 9 minutes. They all overshoot.)
I’ve worked on a few short films for friends and colleagues (not as writer), but I never bothered to analyse the scripts I was given. I worked on them for fun and favours. It’s only recently I’ve been thinking about what makes a short-film script work (or not work).
I think I’m slowly making headway.
I’ve learned that you can make some outrageous abbreviations in your story structure, not just in exposition and character setup, but also escalations to turning points. These are the kinds of cuts that would be fundamentally egregious in a long-form story, but, for what ever reason, you can get away with it in a short.
It’s deceptive, because if the beginning of your short script retains the features of a normal 3-act feature film, everything feels entirely proper and even necessary, because it’s so normal; it’s what we’re used to. It never occurs to you that some elements of structure can be discarded and it will still work. (Elements that have probably been hammered into you by writing lecturers and tutors, books by screenwriting gurus, YouTube videos, etc.).
In Containment, as much as I enjoyed Albrecht’s little explanatory speech, it probably should have been discarded and the running time used to protract the scene later on for the purposes of tension and suspense. It also needs some kind of plot point after the chestburster emerges. No, not the space debris collision that causes Albrecht to open the airlock, but some sort of statement about Ward’s predicament. That’s my feeling anyway.
TC
This is interesting. I did not know Fox had prescribed "stages" for each of the shorts, so that they fitted into an over all arc.
TC
Containment is the fourth act where the events of the first three are hinted at.
Which isn't necessarily just an American thing, it's the same in the UK.
Specimen is technically the only one with an ending.
It's a complete short.
I don't see how that isn't a plot twist by this definition.
Ore is the first act of a 3 act story. Setup: introducing setting and characters and their relationships and their situation. Inciting Incident: the xeno attack. 1st act climax: realising they can't go back to normality - they must face the threat.
Night Shift starts well but it's a muddle really.
Specimen's structure is all about setting up the twist ending. (Although I say it's not a twist ending, it's a surprise ending).
https://mckeestory.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-surprise-ending-and-a-plot-twist/
TC
Seems kind of a loose framework - Alien/Android/Worker in space. They are still good, would have preferred more Specimen style though.
There's only so many ideas you can come up with in 10 minutes that involve an egg or a chest burster.
Before it gets hit we can see it's fullbody and there is no spike
https://i.imgur.com/wtyumpp.png