Re: ALIEN: Horror or Sci-fi?

[SM]

The story from alien is rooted in horror, fear of the unknown, it can work in a non sci-fi setting. Which is why horror is it's main genre. You could easily adapt this story to be told about a crew at sea instead of space, hell I'm pretty sure it has been done before too.
Sci-fi is a core part of the franchise and a constant in it too, but the story of the first movie is horror first and foremost.

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

[BeeHooKoo]

The story from alien is rooted in horror, fear of the unknown, it can work in a non sci-fi setting. Which is why horror is it's main genre. You could easily adapt this story to be told about a crew at sea instead of space, hell I'm pretty sure it has been done before too.
Sci-fi is a core part of the franchise and a constant in it too, but the story of the first movie is horror first and foremost.

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

As long as there is a creature in the movie that is Alien/Extraterrestrial (life which does not originate from Earth), sci-fi is the core of the movie.

[SiL]

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

It doesn't become necessary to the plot until Resurrection, but it's a core part of the franchise's identity.

[BeeHooKoo]

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

It doesn't become necessary to the plot until Resurrection, but it's a core part of the franchise's identity.

How is the Alien, in scenes on its all forms (egg, facehugger, chestburster, xenomorph, etc) not central to the plot? ..have you ever seen the movie Alien?

And let's forget your "what if" fantasy stories, that's not what this is about. And if you mistakenly (again) imagine that's what it's all about, then tell us all a story where an Alien creature meets the ONLY fantasy specifications without any drop of sci-fi.

[Traveler37]

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

It doesn't become necessary to the plot until Resurrection, but it's a core part of the franchise's identity.

How is the Alien, in scenes on its all forms (egg, facehugger, chestburster, xenomorph, etc) not central to the plot? ..have you ever seen the movie Alien?

And let's forget your "what if" fantasy stories, that's not what this is about. And if you mistakenly (again) imagine that's what it's all about, then tell us all a story where an Alien creature meets the ONLY fantasy specifications without any drop of sci-fi.

The xenomorph is no more sci-fi than the various fantasy creatures in the various Lord of the Rings films. However, there are other aspects of the film that are sci-fi such as space travel, cryosleep, alien worlds, futuristic weaponry and so on.

[SM]

I don't really think sci-fi becomes a core part until cloning in Resurrection.

It doesn't become necessary to the plot until Resurrection, but it's a core part of the franchise's identity.

How is the Alien, in scenes on its all forms (egg, facehugger, chestburster, xenomorph, etc) not central to the plot? ..have you ever seen the movie Alien?

And let's forget your "what if" fantasy stories, that's not what this is about. And if you mistakenly (again) imagine that's what it's all about, then tell us all a story where an Alien creature meets the ONLY fantasy specifications without any drop of sci-fi.

Any made up creature could do what the Alien does in a non sci-fi setting.

You can't do it now because everyone would say 'well that's just the same as Alien'. But if it had originally been envisioned that some knight was off slay some beast that was just like the Alien it doesn't need to have any space stuff the same way a dragon is made up but not from space.

[SiL]

Any made up creature could do what the Alien does in a non sci-fi setting.

I've explained this repeatedly, and his only response is to keep insisting - without bothering to explain - that the Alien's lifecycle is somehow inherently sci-fi.

[SM]

Yeah I know. Thought I'd have yet another crack.

[kwisatz]

What about the acid for blood thing though? I'm finding it a bit hard to transfer this aspect into other genres without a spaceship/space setting actually.

edit hm ok it might work on a plane or something too..

[Immortan Jonesy]

The mysterious pilots found an extinct civilization of pyramid-building aliens whose silos were used as reproduction temples.

The Elephant Men obtained the DNA of the extinct aliens in order to create the plagiarus praepotens as a biological weapon millions of years ago.

What I'm trying to say is that Xenomorphs may be very ancient bugs. 🐜

[SiL]

What about the acid for blood thing though? I'm finding it a bit hard to transfer this aspect into other genres without a spaceship/space setting actually.

edit hm ok it might work on a plane or something too..

Ships at sea will sometimes sink if they get unexpected holes in them.

[Local Trouble]

Cameron should make a movie about that.

[SM]

But then they get rescued by NTIs.

[BeeHooKoo]

Wikipedia:Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life which does not originate from Earth.

Wikipedia: Science fiction film
Science fiction (or sci-fi or SF) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.

Wikipedia: Science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to SF or sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction, which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It is related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres.

Wikipedia: Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction which involves themes of the supernatural, magic, and imaginary worlds and creatures.

It should be noted that in "imaginary Worlds and creatures", "creatures" are connected to "Imaginary worlds" as a context.

Thus, the conclusion is easy to make:
1.) Does the creature come from outside the Earth? -if the answer is "yes", the creature belongs to the science fiction Alien/Extraterrestrial category
2.) Does the creature come from some magical powers, mythology, supernatural or something that could not really come true under any scientific conditions? -if the answer is "yes", the creature belongs to the fantasy category.
3.) Does the creature originate from Earth and is it presented 100% authentically according to the creature's natural way of working? -if the answer is "yes", the story and creature do not belong to fantasy or sci-fi. And since the story is made up, the end result is just fiction.

The xenomorph is no more sci-fi than the various fantasy creatures in the various Lord of the Rings films. However, there are other aspects of the film that are sci-fi such as space travel, cryosleep, alien worlds, futuristic weaponry and so on.

Lord of the Rings movies, characters and story involves themes of the supernatural, magic, and imaginary worlds, these all fall under fantasy. Alien itself present is extraterrestrial life, no magic, etc. And it is presented in story at our universe = sci-fi. Simple as that.

Any made up creature could do what the Alien does in a non sci-fi setting.

You can't do it now because everyone would say 'well that's just the same as Alien'. But if it had originally been envisioned that some knight was off slay some beast that was just like the Alien it doesn't need to have any space stuff the same way a dragon is made up but not from space.

Of course, any movie can be changed into a fantasy, including resurrection, but the changes also change the story in such a way that it can no longer be called the original story.
Perhaps the best example of this subject in film history is Akira Kurosawa's Seven samurai, which, in addition to the original samurai version, has been made into several western versions (The Magnificent Seven, 1960 and remake 2016) and (at least) one space movie Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).

In Kurosawa's case, telling a story in a different genre works on some level, because there is nothing related to the plot that would tie the story to any genre. Although the remakes of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai are not direct copies, they USE the original story. This is because presenting the original story in another genre is not possible without significant changes in the background story. For example, in Roger Cormann's film Battle Beyond the Stars, a lot of content different from the original was built into the story in order to make it work in the sci-fi genre.

The movie Alien, on the other hand, is already, as the name suggests, about a creature (life form which does not originate from Earth) which defines the movie as sci-fi.
If in the alien story the creature was just a last-stage monster, xenomorph, the situation would be more straightforward to transfer from one genre to another.
But as I have repeatedly said, the Alien monster, the creature around which the entire film is originally made, appears in different forms and these different forms build the plot of the film. In other words, the film's story is made up of many different states of the alien and the scenes connected to them.

If the movie Alien were a fantasy movie (the movie would have to have different name), it would start with a situation where the people meet an unknown entity that is created with the magical powers, or the people would move to the Imaginary world where this entity appears. Both options are very far from the story of the movie Alien and with the setting it would no longer be the same story.

I've explained this repeatedly, and his only response is to keep insisting - without bothering to explain - that the Alien's lifecycle is somehow inherently sci-fi.

So the story of Alien and the creature itself is sci-fi, as I've said from the beginning

[kwisatz]

What about the acid for blood thing though? I'm finding it a bit hard to transfer this aspect into other genres without a spaceship/space setting actually.

edit hm ok it might work on a plane or something too..

Ships at sea will sometimes sink if they get unexpected holes in them.

I thought about ships still find it a bit hard to atually transfer the scenario where a small hole at almost any place would be the definitive end of the whole crew. My impression from Alien always was that they wouldn't be able to deal with a tiny hole where a ship on sea souldn't really struggle with that..

Maybe a submarine would work.. then again a small/tiny hole?

Of course you could set Alien on the Mir and then it wouldn't be SciFi, I guess (?)