Quote from: acidreign on Nov 03, 2017, 04:55:03 PM
This series will never be what any of you want it to be.
Its moment of creative vitality was from 1979-1986. You simply can't recapture that. Just can't.
Novelty and freshness are incredibly hard qualities to sustain across a horror franchise. This is especially true of the Alien films, whose universe is comprised of a limited number of tropes that grow staler with each entry.
You can try to do something different with the series but the fans will get upset that you've abandoned them. You can give them what they say they want, and they will complain it's more of the same. There's no pleasing anyone. [Certainly not general audiences, who more or less checked out on the series after Alien 3.]
The above pretty much encapsulates the situation at hand. At the end of the day, if you want to look at things from a more neutral, level-headed perspective, the hardcore fans of any series are not the target audience - rather, it is the general public that will help push a film into blockbuster territory.
The studios follow the TRENDS. And if you look at trends, you can understand why FOX did what they did with both Prometheus and Covenant.
From my own reading of the events, FOX made the decision to distance Prometheus from the Alien series because at that moment in time original sci-fi properties were dominating at the box office (
Avatar,
Inception for example). Considering the haul of
Prometheus (and the recent comments about the profitability of the film), it was clearly a good business move.
From a creative stand point, Prometheus would probably NOT have been much different in terms of story had it closer ties with the original Alien. Sure, substitute a chestburster in the MedPod scene or add a xenomorph instead of the Fifield mutation - but it probably wouldn't have been that much different in terms of the tone, characters, and even philosophical nature of Prometheus.
Importantly, I think many fans have misread why FOX wanted to return to the Alien brand with Covenant. I don't think it was solely because of divided opinions of Prometheus. You have to analyze the trends, the film market, and the business. Look at the resounding box office successes of
Star Wars: The Force Awakens or
Jurassic World. Combine this with other successful business ventures such as the Alien: Isolation video game becoming a top selling hit or the success of the Alien themed Halloween attraction at Universal Studios. FOX was looking at this and thinking, "Nostalgia is in. Star Wars. Jurassic Park. Alien is popular in video game form and at a theme park."
So, my read of the situation, is that FOX felt that returning to the Alien brand would tap into this nostalgia that has been so wildly successful. Unfortunately what they failed to realize is that unlike those other properties, Alien is not going to have multiple generations of family members going to the theaters and introducing kids to the Alien series.
Certainly, after Covenant, what is clear is that the nostalgia trend is not helping Alien.
Again, from a creative standpoint, whether you branded Covenant as
Alien or
Prometheus, I don't think much would've changed creatively. Frankly, the criticism of Covenant regarding the appearance of the Xenomorph is more about fans' own personal hopes/dreams/visions of the creature than storytelling. So, if you substitute a Xenomorph for a Neomorph or Deacon or another creature at the end of the film, that would've made the film not much different from a story structure, narrative, or character perspective.
This new prequel series is thematically linked to the notion of "creation" - that is Scott's main storytelling concern in these new entries. Scott obviously wanted to elevate the Alien series beyond a horror-science fiction-thriller and take the very subtle (yet present) themes from the original series but place them in a more noticeable position. That likely wouldn't have changed no matter how you branded these films.
With the current situation, it's quite possible FOX doesn't know what to do. They may give Scott more freedom to explore and just lower the budget. In the end, perhaps that is the best circumstance for ending this series on an interesting note.
