"What If There Are Other Companies Trying To Look At Immortality In a Different Way?"

[Xenomorphine]

WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS???111

Yeeeeeah... In recent years, the 'Doctor Who' team were repeatedly pulling that trick during interviews and the end results never matched up to the expectations they were hyping. I remember one of the writers trying to cover for what was clearly a lack of budget by declaring something like, "Nothing is scarier than an empty hotel room." And, like... Yeah, that kind of stuff can be made to feel unsettling, given the right elements, but that's a far cry from what they were claiming - and the way it was actually executed felt very pedestrian.

The major example I'll always remember is the pilot for the 'Battlestar Galactica' remake, where Adama, of all possible characters, improvised a speech where he droned on about how maybe humanity didn't deserve to win against during the first war against the cylons and, wow... Did that ever feel like sanctimonious BS. He, of all characters, in the original, was the one who stood for hope. He was the Picard-alike who was always emphatic about how, no matter the odds, humanity deserved a chance to prove it could rise above whatever misdeeds may have been committed in the past by a few. If he felt that way, why not resign from his post as someone in charge of defending humanity from its greatest threats?

Ripley's quote worked really well, because she's not generalising and damning the Marines, Newt, her old crew, etcetera. She mentions species, but it's more of a directed comment against Burke and the corporate (as opposed to Capitalist) mindset he was representative of. Executives, politicians, etcetera, who come to see people as mere statistics and stepping stones for their personal gain.

If we're seeing the same tired old scenes, replayed in countless other films and TV shows, where a character solemnly goes, "Hey... We've advanced this far, but it's been on the back of genocide and slavery and environmental destruction. We're no good... Maybe we deserve to die? Maybe something should exist out there to put an end to us? Maybe we're advancing too far, man! It's a game for fools! Is it truly so wrong for us to demonise those who simply ask for a little wealth redistribution? Is that so bad? Truly?"

Then all around them either nod their heads or give a really weak as f**k counter-argument... No. Just no.

The best example of that philosophy was probably already done in the 1990s, with 'Jurassic Park': "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

It was beautifully delivered, because it was properly thought-provoking. It wasn't saying progress, itself, is a bad thing. It was pointing out that it needs to be done with common sense precautions, not rushing in blindly without weighing up consequences.

So far, Hawley's given a lot of emphasis to saying this essentially will be lecturing us about dangers of AI which will inevitably try to kill us (even though only one out of three definitive droid characters in the original films ever did so - and only because it was deliberately programmed to). We're told it will revolve around financial and/or social inequalities.

What we're not being told is how any of that will relate (cleverly or otherwise) to the actual creatures, themselves. It feels more like he's noticed certain elements from the source material and wants to play around with those, instead of working them into a cohesive structure where it all feels like it'll serve the story, rather than having the story serve those politicised messages.

Maybe it will. Maybe Hawley does have the correct perspective and it's just not coming across well when replying to reporters. We shouldn't get worked up over these comments, by any means. All I'm saying is that we're beginning to see a worrying pattern in quotes delivered over successive interviews and it's in a direction which could be detrimental to this property, if not handled well.

Like SiL, I absolutely wouldn't want to see something which is basically a live-action 'Fireteam Elite', because that would be just hideously shallow. But nor do I want this to be philosophically nihilistic for nihilism's sake. The comments about AI are already starting to feel worryingly along the lines of how Scott mentioned he wanted further prequels to head in.

Why not put an emphasis on, say, the more legitimate and immediate concerns we have, right now, about genetic tampering? Those of us who have looked into what's come out about, say, the Chinese Communist Party's advances in that area (particularly in regards to optimising biological weapon projects to target specific ethnic groups), due to deliberately removing safeguards, can see obvious and timely parallels to what a show like this could be dealing with. Instead, we're just being told that an 'Alien' show will deal with corporate executives, social inequalities, wealth redistribution and why AI will totally kill everyone in the future.

Alan Dean Foster already authored a book which revolved around issues like corporate espionage in this continuity and it wasn't exactly a hit.

I'll wait and see. I hope this isn't the direction it's going in, but there are grounds to feel it could be and that is concerning.

[Nightmare Asylum]

I'm finding myself on the exact opposite side here - the more Hawley talks, the more excited I'm actually getting. I am still very nervous about the Earth setting, and constantly find myself questioning the show's placement in the timeline, but as far as the thematic specifics of the world that Hawley wants to anchor his story in, based on these comments? I dig it.

Every word of it feels 'right' within this universe to me, and contrasting these "cyborg enhancements" and "transhuman downloads" with the nature of the Alien's own ever-evolving biomechanical identity - the contrast between "the primordial past and the artificial intelligence of our future" - rings true to me.

None of Hawley's comments seem to be cynical of the very concept of AI (or the other advancements Hawley listed in this interview) in and of itself, but rather, highly cynical of the corporate systems that are pushing these developments in this universe in the way they've been implemented, and the want-to-be-godlike figureheads striving for immortality/perfection sitting atop those thrones calling the shots. The very same figureheads and corporate structures that would surely love to get their hands on a certain Alien specimen to further develop these advancements...

There is definitely a lot of Ridley's prequel philosophy ringing through Hawley's words here, but in a way that seems to marry some of the prequel concepts even more directly to the corporate dystopia of the original films than we've seen in the past. More than anything, what I'd love to get is a proper Alien: Covenant sequel, but in lieu of that, this thing very much has my ever-growing curiosity.

[DaveT937]

Two brilliantly and respectfully articulated points above. That's how all online discussions should be.

Bravo the pair of you!

[Immortan Jonesy]

Since everything is in execution, I'll judge once I see the finished product.

[[cancerblack]]

The more I hear, the less interested I feel.

But if the Alien parts are sufficiently aesthetic and nasty, I'll put up with the rest of it.

[Stitch]

The more I hear, the less interested I feel.

But if the Alien parts are sufficiently aesthetic and nasty, I'll put up with the rest of it.

Since everything is in execution, I'll judge once I see the finished product.

I feel similarly.

[SiL]

We only have part of the picture here - broad strokes statements regarding elements of the world-building that are going to be at play in this particular iteration of Alien (no different than, say, if all we knew about before seeing the original film was the nature of the way Weyland-Yutani treat their employees, which we obviously know in hindsight now as having direct correlation to the Alien threat at hand in the film and how it gets on board in the first place).

When you describe an idea, you try to boil it down to fundamentals. What's the focus? If someone asked what Alien was about, you wouldn't start talking about corporations screwing over their employees. It's about space truckers running into a terrifying alien organism in the depths of space. That's the actual focus.

Hawley talking about androids first and Aliens never when asked about his Alien series doesn't jive well. He's using what little time he has to describe the idea to tell us about that - it's clearly what he feels is the heart of the story.

Covenant is actually a great example of what I'm worried about. David and his desire to create is the focus of that story. That's what pushes it forward. The Alien follows from that, and it's one of the reasons it feels so much like a begrudging afterthought when it finally appears.

That's what I feel the series is going to be. The focus is this interplay of companies, and the monsters - should they appear - are little more than pretext to keep the branding and add some drama.

[[cancerblack]]

Pretty much.

[SiL]

The more I think about it the more I realize that's actually my biggest issue with Covenant's handling of the Alien. It's a byproduct, a sideshow in its own series.

David didn't set out to create the Alien, he set out to create. The Alien itself has no actual influence on the plot. Anything could come out of that lab and you'll have the same story, because what David makes is secondary to the act of creation in that story.

So the Alien might look cool and kill some people, but it's effectively an Easter egg, a cameo that could be swapped out and change nothing.

When Hawley talks about companies and robotics as the heart of the story, that's what I start picturing. The Alien will be there, sure, but it's clear that it's not that beating heart of the story. It'll feel incidental and unsatisfying just like Covenant.

And anybody who thinks Alien is actually about corporations and not about a monster on a spaceship seriously needs to rewatch the movie.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I agree, Alien Covenant, suffers in my opinion because it does not show why the Alien specifically came out of that lab, everything surrounding it like David's point of view makes perfect sense thematically, but just not narratively.

The biggest issue in that respect's that it's treated as interchangable with the Neomorph, the film says that the Alien's so superior, but never truly shows an instance of that.

[Dr. Malcolm]

You do plan to have aliens in your Alien show, right?

[[cancerblack]]

I've said the same thing elsewhere.

[BigDaddyJohn]

That's why it didn't need to be shown and explained in the first place at all.

[Corporal Hicks]

[acrediblesource]

Since everything is in execution, I'll judge once I see the finished product.

No you must judge now! and become apart of the forum's douchey artsy aristocrat brigade!