Alien Identity - Alien Fan Film

[Corporal Hicks]

With Alien: The Adora Files due out any day soon and Predator: Dark Ages due to premier later this month, it looked like we were about to return to a period of drought for fan films. Then Sonnet Realm Films announced their upcoming Alien fan film, Alien Identity:

“ALIEN IDENTITY takes place 14 years after the events of Jim Cameron's 1986 blockbuster, Aliens. It continues the story of Newt, the little girl we all loved, but despised to see perish in vain. They decided to bring back Newt, played by Elle Viane Sonnet as a young woman with an undeniably haunting past and an uncertain future.

"I love the character Newt. Bringing her back has been something I've thought about for years, which is why this film takes place after Aliens, and dismisses the events of Alien 3 and Resurrection. It has been pretty much accepted as canon, that the last two films of the series are considered cryo-sleep nightmares, which we have no objection to," says Writer and Director Adam Sonnet.

Amongst the many extraordinary people coming on board the project, some of the talents include: Emmy Award-Winning Make-up Artist and Creature Designer, Brian Sipe, Terminator Genisys, X-Men First Class, and Star Trek: Into Darkness; Celebrity Creature Concept Artist & Consultant, Neville Page, Prometheus, Avatar, Star Trek, Oblivion, and Falling Skies; Saturn Award-Winning Writer/Director Marc Zicree as a writing consultant, Space Command: Redemption, Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II, Star Trek DS9, Sliders, and Babylon 5; and many more exciting names soon to be announced.”

Elle Sonnet as Newt. Photo Credit: Adam Sonnet and Graphic Credit: Gale Benning

The Alien fan film has been a project that the Sonnets wanted to do for around 2 years but production started in earnest around 2 months ago. Alien Identity is expected to start filming from the end of 2015 with an eventual release of late 2016. They will be starting their Kickstarter campaign around July time with announcements as to their cast in the coming months.

Alien Identity will be the second recent Alien fan film to return Rebecca Jordan, aka Newt, to us! Aliens: LV-426 was released at the end of May 2014 and portrayed an alternate sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens. We spoke to writer, director and producer Márcio Napoli in June of last year.

You can follow Alien Identity on Facebook to keep up to date with the Alien fan film and their latest developments.

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[Corporal Hicks]

I have to say I'm quite excited for these new projects that have professional people attached. Star Trek has enjoyed that for a while and it's really nice that the Aliens fandom is getting that now too.

[HuDaFuK]

"It has been pretty much accepted as canon, that the last two films of the series are considered cryo-sleep nightmares."

Ummm...

[Corporal Hicks]

I wouldn't take offence to it - I know how you dislike the idea. But I really don't mind people taking that road for fan films.

[HuDaFuK]

Oh no, I'm perfectly happy for them to do their thing. I enjoy stuff like this when it's done well. Just seemed like an odd thing to say, rather than, "This is our own spin on things."

[Corporal Hicks]

I don't think it was intended to bother anyone. A lot of fans probably do feel that way.

[Darkness]

It interested me until I read the word "kickstarter" and my excitement turned to disappointment. 

Potentially, it could be good with those people attached but it's all ifs, buts and maybes when it comes to kickstarter. So the project may not even be completed.

[Corporal Hicks]

It's the way forward now, crowd funding. If you convince people that you've got a great idea and can do it, then by all means have my money and do it. Personally I'm quite happy to help fund these kind of projects if I think they're worth my money.

They'll be posting proof of concept videos and vignettes along with the campaign.

[Darkness]

What happened to the days of funding a project yourself for fun, for a hobby?

[Corporal Hicks]

These kind of projects took a huge leap forward in terms of quality. Sets, professional actor, professional crew. That stuff costs and some people don't have access to good locations or groups of people that already happen to have costumes and props and etc. These things have gone beyond being hobby projects to semi-professional projects that just so happen to be done by fans.

It's not like you have to fund it all by yourself. If you like it, throw them some money. If you don't, move along. And I really don't mind. I've seen the quality of projects that are done like this.

I can't wait to see what the proof of concept videos look like.

[Jaxx]

Well personally I'm excited, and I agree, I never really considered the events in 3 and 4 to be in the Alien story line. Someone needs to fund the project, and from what I read, it's a feature film not 12 minutes.

[saintssinphony]

I wonder if Fox would try and stop something like this because the project is getting funds through kickstarter.  I don't personally care but they are using concepts they didn't create and getting money for it.  I think a project as this would need to stay at a small hobby level to avoid being squashed by a movie studio.  I seem to remember a video game project that was stopped by Fox.

[Corporal Hicks]

I wonder if Fox would try and stop something like this because the project is getting funds through kickstarter.  I don't personally care but they are using concepts they didn't create and getting money for it.  I think a project as this would need to stay at a small hobby level to avoid being squashed by a movie studio.  I seem to remember a video game project that was stopped by Fox.

Predator - Dark Ages was sucessfully funded via Kickstarter last year.

And I understand that the team behind this have a presence in Hollywood so I'm sure there'd be some political smoothing to be done.

Even though they're funded like this, they're not being funded for profit - only to cover costs.

[Jaxx]

Lots of Star Trek fan films raise money doing this, one just raised over $750,000. They just have to show where every dollar goes. 

[Jaxx]

Yeah a fan film can raise donated funds to pay for the expenses of the project. I've seen hundreds of fan projects do this. How else does a fan film raise money but by donors. They just can't make a profit off the film itself.