Alien anthology Film / TV Series?

[Perfect-Organism]

It can be done.  Kind of like Halloween III didn't need Michael Myers.   

[SiL]

Nah, Predator has no universe.

How ridiculous. Of course it does. And all those trophies in the cabinet in P2, just think of all the things we can put in that aren't the Predator!

Besides- Prometheus did it, said "f**k the expectations"

Except not, because they purposely didn't put Alien anywhere in the title and spent most of the advertisement on Ridley Scott's return to sci-fi. They knew very well they couldn't advertise it as an Alien movie without, y'know, Aliens.

[The Old One]

Skulls equal to; A.I, Muthur, Ron Cobb Spaceships, Synthetics, W-Y, Seegson, USCM, USM, (Unusually long) Cryosleep, Shake and Bake Colonies, Engineers, The Pathogen & even more!
Yeah, right.

As for Prometheus- well, there you go- bill it as the Prometheus series then.

@Perfect-Organism

Or Black Mirror.

Or Mad Max, none of those entries are directly connected and
apart from the first film Max isn't the driving force of the plot-
he gets caught up in it.
There's lots of ways to do Anthologies.

I'm not a proponent of ditching the Alien altogether, just like I'm not a proponent of ditching the Alien Queen.
But you don't need either 100% of the time. Especially with the universe Alien set up beyond the monster.

[SiL]

Skulls equal to; A.I, Muthur, Spaceships, Synthetics, W-Y, Seegson, USCM, USM, Cryosleep, Shake and Bake Colonies, Engineers, The Pathogen & even more!

OWLF, Stargazer, commandos, guerrillas, police officers, warring drug lords, literally any city on Earth, the skulls, the pyramids, hunting reserve planets -- with additional alien lifeforms and technologies on them -- their technology getting left lying around, etc.

And when you think of it, there are a lot more popular and successful films about hardened cops fighting drug lords, or commandos, or shady government bodies hunting aliens than there are about space marines, creepy AI and sci-fi political thrillers. Clearly, the universe of the Predator movies is much more ripe grounds for success than the Alien franchise

[The Old One]

You're being disenegous because not even half of those are inventions of the Predator franchise
or even carry a distinct aesthetic that reminds people of Predator.

Aka- A distinct universe with identity that isn't our own, Predator benefits from precisely the opposite-
you take a scenario that's already a recognisable modern day/our world compelling (action) film & add spice. (Predator)

[SiL]

You're being disenegous because not even half of those are inventions of the Predator franchise
or even carry a distinct aesthetic that reminds people of Predator.

Space ships, AI, synthetics, off world colonies, cryosleep, and space marines aren't the invention of the Alien series either

[Perfect-Organism]

The problem with building a Predator universe IMO is that it inevitably leads you to someplace that isn't compelling.  With the aliens and engineers, there is a sense that further exploration into their world will lead you to discover an ancient wisdom and revelation, whereas with the Predators, the trail will lead to a pile of empty beer cans.

An entire civilization cannot be based around hunting as everyone's favorite pastime.  That leads to all sorts of absurdities.  On the flip side, if only a few predators are hunters and the rest of their civilization is stratified much like ours, with accountants, mechanics, insurance brokers, what have you, well, who wants to see that?

[SiL]

I disagree. I don't find the Alien universe itself any more compelling than most other sci fi - the same way the Predator universe isn't much more compelling than your average 80s actioner. Without their creatures they're both pretty generic.

Prometheus is proof enough that without the Alien you're better off calling it something else.

[Perfect-Organism]

It's all just opinion.  I would be impressed if someone really did a good job of creating a compelling Predator back-story.  But my personal belief is that it is an insurmountable task.

[The Old One]

You're being disenegous because not even half of those are inventions of the Predator franchise
or even carry a distinct aesthetic that reminds people of Predator.

Space ships, AI, synthetics, off world colonies, cryosleep, and space marines aren't the invention of the Alien series either

Nope, but these are;

A.I Muthur, Ron Cobb Spaceships, Synthetics, W-Y, Seegson, USCM, USM, (Unusually long) Cryosleep, Shake and Bake Colonies, Engineers,
The Pathogen & even more!

[SiL]

You edited your post after I responded -- but half of your additions are just desperate ("Ron Cobb spaceship"? Seriously? Dark Star beat the movie to the punch and Alien's aesthetic owes much to Star Wars) and a good chunk are still wrong. The Alien franchise didn't invent unusually long cryosleep by any stretch of the imagination, nor synthetic humans.

It's all just opinion.

Exactly.

[The Old One]

The aesthetic of Star Wars is very, very different to Alien- the most they have in common is lived-in space technology.
The unusually long hypersleep was just tongue in cheek awareness that whilst these aren't exactly all Alien specific,
although a great deal of them are- certainly more than half- the versions specific to Alien are unique to Alien.

For example: Milky artificial people with no reproductive organs.
But it's also a robot in basic concept, but it's wrong to say it's interchangeable with a Terminator or Cyberman for instance.


There's nothing of the sort specific to the first Predator film as an equivalence.
Two if you're being generous could include, one Alien spaceship, with skulls granted and a single creature.
Or OWLF but really, that's just the men in black- they're's nothing terribly unique about them beyond Peter Keyes.
But the difference is, the Predator films are defined by the presence of that Predator alone.
That's why dropping the Predator into any other good action film you can think of works conceptually.

Alien in comparison, inhabits a world, a world that persists without it's presence that's substantially different from our own.
But very very real in many ways, separating it not just in details- but in tone from Mass Effect, Star Trek and Star Wars.

[SiL]

The aesthetic of Star Wars is very, very different to Alien- the most they have in common is lived-in space technology.

It's really not. The interiors of the Millenium Falcon and the Nostromo are very similar in places (dat wall padding).

The unusually long hypersleep was just tongue in cheek awareness that whilst these aren't exactly all Alien specific,
although a great deal of them are- certainly more than half- the versions specific to Alien are unique to Alien.

LA in 1997 ain't unique to Predator 2, but damned if its portrayal isn't.

For example: Milky artificial people with no reproductive organs.
But it's also a robot in basic concept, but it's wrong to say it's interchangeable with a Terminator or Cyberman for instance.

A lot of those "milky" visuals were taken from comics.

Or OWLF but really, that's just the men in black they're's nothing terribly unique about them beyond Peter Keyes.

You really just summarised most of the Alien franchise stuff. "It's just X, but with one little thing." The Colonial Marines are more known for their hardware than anything, for example. They're otherwise just soldiers.

But the difference is, the Predator films are defined by the presence of that Predator alone.

There have been Alien films that left out each of the elements you mentioned and still functioned as Alien films -- but no Alien films that have left out the Alien.

[The Old One]

Ok- it's quarter to 4 AM, this isn't worth getting irritated over.

[SiL]

It's not worth getting irritated over at any hour

We disagree and we're explaining why, that's the fun!

I believe I said in another thread that a single episode/short in an anthology is fine to explore Alien-less stories. I just don't think the world itself is inherently compelling enough to run a feature (without renaming it) or a series without becoming very generic sci-fi that's neither helped nor hindered by the set dressings of the Alien series.