Sandra Yi Sencindiver: ‘Fans of the Original Movies’ Will Be ‘Very Pleased’

[Acid_Reign161]

After A:ROM, I'm fully embracing the idea of a stand-alone take on the Alien franchise and universe, not bound to fan service and whatnot. Just like how the Fargo show barely had anything to do with FARGO the movie, I hope that ALIEN: EARTH will do the same thing with the Alien franchise and universe. That is, as long as Hawley captures the atmosphere and vibe of the first three Alien movies.

I'm totally down for standalone movies with no connection to any other movie in the franchise. The problem is modern audiences; there is a desperate, *desperate* need to have their hand held, everything explained and all dots spelled out and connected (like, folk can't even just watch a movie and form an opinion anymore, they need to watch some random 20-something year old on YouTube making videos titled "[Insert movie title here] Explained!" Where they proceed to listen to someone talk through what they have just watched, which was painfully straightforward and obvious by just watching the movie itself). Have you visited the LV426 subreddit? Someone mentioned Kay was pregnant to her cousin and there were several comments along the lines of "this wasn't implied, if it was it wasn't done very well!" (Clearly an on-screen diagram was required, the two separate scenes alluding to this were apparently insufficient for some).

I think this makes standalone movies difficult.. you can't just have mysteries anymore sadly.. start a movie like one of the Alien 40th anniversary shorts with people randomly happening upon eggs, and immediately it'll be "how did they get there??", promptly followed by "David did it!!" And  "this proves AvP is canon" fights etc.. it'd just be pure bedlam... you can't just have something like we were presented in 1979 like an alien ship with an unknown corpse and left to use your imagination... you'd have to have cave painting or pictorials, someone looking at it and narrating it as matter of fact to walk you through it (as per the AvP predator hunt flashbacks) 😅

Rook provided this role in Romulus (albeit it wasn't done bad)... why? Because if we'd just left the masses to use their minds in what was being presented you'd get a scenario like 'Prometheus' where they cry fowl  because "black goo wasn't explained so the movie doesn't make sense!" (even though the whole point of the movie was stealing fire from the gods, and thus we aren't really meant as humans to understand the fire we were playing with; a point lost on many).

So whilst I am down for standalones (and actually think those kinds of movies would be greatly beneficial) the amount of handholding required to appease the casual viewer would be more effort than simply directly referencing and tying in to a past movie complete with a shared music cue to really hammer it home, sadly. 😅

For me, I'd love something new, but similar to 'Alien' in that we don't know what to expect.. I think the neomorph was a misfire from a design point of view, but I also don't believe we have to have the exact same creature every time; some of the concept art for Covenant's facehugger-like creatures resembling isopods were so damn cool, believable looking creatures that you might see in an aquarium.. it's criminal that we didn't get to see those designs on screen ; I'd like it if it went beyond our expectations of how we "think" a life cycle of creature should behave and took us out of our comfort zone again /kept us guessing, and really bring back the horror.

[SM]

It sounds like they're doing everything short of flat out saying it's its own thing.  They said the prequels weren't "useful" or something.

It still sounds lazy on face value, but who knows.

[S.E.B.]

After A:ROM, I'm fully embracing the idea of a stand-alone take on the Alien franchise and universe, not bound to fan service and whatnot. Just like how the Fargo show barely had anything to do with FARGO the movie, I hope that ALIEN: EARTH will do the same thing with the Alien franchise and universe. That is, as long as Hawley captures the atmosphere and vibe of the first three Alien movies.

I'm totally down for standalone movies with no connection to any other movie in the franchise. The problem is modern audiences; there is a desperate, *desperate* need to have their hand held, everything explained and all dots spelled out and connected (like, folk can't even just watch a movie and form an opinion anymore, they need to watch some random 20-something year old on YouTube making videos titled "[Insert movie title here] Explained!" Where they proceed to listen to someone talk through what they have just watched, which was painfully straightforward and obvious by just watching the movie itself). Have you visited the LV426 subreddit? Someone mentioned Kay was pregnant to her cousin and there were several comments along the lines of "this wasn't implied, if it was it wasn't done very well!" (Clearly an on-screen diagram was required, the two separate scenes alluding to this were apparently insufficient for some).

I think this makes standalone movies difficult.. you can't just have mysteries anymore sadly.. start a movie like one of the Alien 40th anniversary shorts with people randomly happening upon eggs, and immediately it'll be "how did they get there??", promptly followed by "David did it!!" And  "this proves AvP is canon" fights etc.. it'd just be pure bedlam... you can't just have something like we were presented in 1979 like an alien ship with an unknown corpse and left to use your imagination... you'd have to have cave painting or pictorials, someone looking at it and narrating it as matter of fact to walk you through it (as per the AvP predator hunt flashbacks) 😅

Rook provided this role in Romulus (albeit it wasn't done bad)... why? Because if we'd just left the masses to use their minds in what was being presented you'd get a scenario like 'Prometheus' where they cry fowl  because "black goo wasn't explained so the movie doesn't make sense!" (even though the whole point of the movie was stealing fire from the gods, and thus we aren't really meant as humans to understand the fire we were playing with; a point lost on many).

So whilst I am down for standalones (and actually think those kinds of movies would be greatly beneficial) the amount of handholding required to appease the casual viewer would be more effort than simply directly referencing and tying in to a past movie complete with a shared music cue to really hammer it home, sadly. 😅

For me, I'd love something new, but similar to 'Alien' in that we don't know what to expect.. I think the neomorph was a misfire from a design point of view, but I also don't believe we have to have the exact same creature every time; some of the concept art for Covenant's facehugger-like creatures resembling isopods were so damn cool, believable looking creatures that you might see in an aquarium.. it's criminal that we didn't get to see those designs on screen ; I'd like it if it went beyond our expectations of how we "think" a life cycle of creature should behave and took us out of our comfort zone again /kept us guessing, and really bring back the horror.

Yeah, you're right. It's hard to present actual elements of mystery as the audience these days mistakes mystery for plot holes by default. Like, if it can't be easily explained it automatically means that it's badly written...

Personally I would love it if they decided to focus on the Xenomorph and really do a deep dive in its cunning behavior, intelligence and possible hints that it inherits parts of the hosts memory. Make it a psychologically horrific monster again without explaining too much. For example, I would actually love it if they reintroduced the unused concept of the Xenomorph "connecting" with the corpse of a human, effectively reanimating it to speak through it...  Even if it's just like a sadistic way of playing and experimenting with the body of a dead person, triggering reflexes and whatnot. Or something similar to the shimmer-bear creature in the movie ANIHILATION. Like, something truly psychologically disturbing.

I would also love to see directors borrowing ideas and concepts from the comic/novel ALIENS: LABYRINTH, especially Dr. Church's observations of the Xenomorphs in their hive and how they, in their own way, experiment with their hosts, including trying to get Church to "breed" with his own mother (severely mutilated) in order to create new hosts.

I would also love, love, love if Hawley decided to reintroduce the egg-morphing concept again, as well as showing that the Xenomorphs regenerate limbs, and that they can fold and squeeze themselves to fit almost anywhere.

I'd much rather see those kinds of implementations than a plethora of hybrids and weird mutants.

[SM]

There's a balance between leaving the audience confused and spoonfeeding.  In other films Ripley performed this function by knocking out 'this is how Alien works' in a single scene. When you don't have a character for that exposition it can get tricky in leaving the characters behind the audience.

[[cancerblack]]

if I want head I will ask cb not a studio.

Same

[CANNON]

if I want head I will ask cb not a studio.

Same

lmao - tbh when I responded originally I didn't read that last bit well enough but now here I am. O well what am I going to do?

[kwisatz]

Lul