Alien fans could always use a refresher of the many traditions in the franchise, which range from original ideas to classic sci-fi beats. The traditions sometimes appear in different forms, locations, or timeframes, but they're easily recognizable. These range from creatures, characters, and all kinds of details about both.
For clarity, the franchise includes the following 8 movies (including extended versions): 1979's Alien, 1986's Aliens, 1992's Alien 3, 1997's Alien: Resurrection, 2004's AVP: Alien vs. Predator, 2007's AVP: Requiem, 2012's Prometheus, and 2017's Alien: Covenant. Each film contains one or more tropes that have become standard in the franchise and have made them stand apart from other sci-fi films.
10 Uncharted Planets Or Moons - 3 Movies
One of the reasons why Alien is an effective sci-fi movie is its depiction of deep space, which is where a distress signal on LV-426 draws the Nostromo. The moon has lots of Xenomorph eggs, and the crew ends up regretting their visit. Ripley returns to the same moon in Aliens.
There's a mission to find the Engineers on LV-223 in Prometheus, and that trip reveals all manner of horrible monsters. And in Covenant, a trip to the planet Origae-6 is derailed by a detour to a mysterious "perfect" planet, which turns out to be anything but perfect. These locations provide plenty of mystery for the stories they're in, and they make excellent settings for the series.
9 Large Time Jump - 4 Movies
The Alien movies don't often take place back-to-back, with just a couple exceptions. The gap between the first two films is 57 years, with Ripley being in cryosleep the whole time. Alien 3 actually takes place right after Aliens, but then Resurrection is a full 200 years after that film.
The two AVP movies take place back-to-back, but they're set a full 118 years before Alien. Prometheus takes the series into the future again, 29 years before the original film. Covenant comes 10 years after that. Having the series so spread out across time shows what resilient foes the Xenomorphs are. It also allows fans to see many perspectives of the franchise's fictional universe.
8 Alien Queens - 4 Movies
One of the reasons why Aliens is a perfect James Cameron sequel is because it expanded on the franchise's xenomorph mythology. Viewers first see a Queen in Aliens, and Ripley battles it with an exosuit. While only seen with the chestburster at the end of Alien 3, the extended cut establishes that a Queen is inside Ripley. Another Queen, taken from a clone of Ripley, is present in Resurrection. Finally, AVP has a Queen that's awakened by the humans, and it begins to lay eggs to start the hunt for the Predators.
The Queens show that even creatures as terrifying as the Xenomorphs still have someone bigger in charge. In addition, these fearsome antagonists aren't used frequently to become an eye-rolling inclusion, but they're utilized just enough to be intimidating when they're on-screen.
7 People Die Because They Don't Listen To Ripley - 4 Movies
Dozens of characters would've survived if they only listened to Ripley but they usually don't. Due to Sigourney Weaver's groundbreaking performance in Alien that still holds up today, Ripley is shrewd and cautious enough to be the first one to realize that the transmission from LV-426 is a warning. She doesn't want to let the crewmembers back on board when Kane has a chestburster inside him, but Ash lets them in anyway.
In Aliens, Ripley tries to tell Burke how dangerous the Xenomorphs are, and he doesn't care. In Alien 3, the warden shrugs off all her warnings. And in Resurrection, the mercenaries are reluctant to hear her out, though they listen to her better than most characters in the series. Ripley always being right and being one of the few survivors over and over shows why she's a sci-fi hero. Viewers can root for Ripley for all these reasons and more.
6 Kill The Alien Without Making It Bleed - 5 Movies
As the first movie puts it, the Xenomorph has a perfect defense mechanism; its acid blood. Throughout the series, characters are shown trying to kill Xenomorphs without making them bleed, which isn't easy. Some human characters do shoot or stab the creatures, and some come out okay while others are burned by the acid.
In the first two films, Ripley sucks the main alien out of the airlock. In Alien 3, the Xenomorph is super-heated with molten metal and breaks apart after being cooled with sprinklers. In Resurrection, Ripley breaks open a window in a ship to suck the newborn alien out. And Daniels and Tennesee eject the Protomorph into space from the terraforming bay in Covenant. It's an excellent part of the mythos, as killing an alien is rarely an easy matter.
5 Hypersleep - 5 Movies
Space journeys can take a long time, so hypersleep is a good way to deal with that. Viewers see the crew of the Nostromo wake from hypersleep at the beginning of Alien, and Ripley and Jones the cat go back into hypersleep at the end. In Aliens, Ripley awakens after 67 years, discovering that her once adolescent daughter has since passed away from old age.
Ripley's hypersleep from Aliens to Alien 3 is considerably shorter, with a facehugger causing problems on the ship. Viewers next see hypersleep in Prometheus, with the crew in stasis on their way to LV-223. In a chilling scene, Covenant ends with Daniels placed in her pod, not by the friendly Walter, but the villainous David. Hypersleep is used in the movies to let time pass, to show a staple of sci-fi space travel, and to give viewers interesting plot points like the one in Covenant.
4 Androids - 6 Movies
Androids easily pass as humans. In numerous cases, members of the crew don't even know the androids aren't human. Interestingly enough, the first four androids of the series have names starting with the first four letters of the alphabet; Ash, Bishop, Call, and David. Walter breaks this streak in Covenant.
Androids bring something different to their respective movies. Ash is evil, as he keeps the mission to find the Xenomorph a secret at the expense of the crew. Bishop is friendly and helpful, even putting himself in harm's way to save others. Call is the most human of the androids, and she proves to be a great ally to Ripley. David is the most self-centered of them all, and his doppelganger Walter is much more like Bishop or Call.
3 "The Company" - 7 Movies
Whether it's called the Weyland-Yutani Corporation or simply "The Company," this group is responsible for most of the problems in the series. They give Ash the mission to retrieve the Xenomorph in Alien, which kills most of the crew. Their representative Burke sends colonists to be infected with facehuggers, just to make money off of research. The human Bishop tries to convince Ripley they'll save her from the chestburster and kill the creature, but Ripley knows by then not to listen to the Company.
The successor to the Company is cloning Xenomorphs in Resurrection. An early, nicer version is present in AVP. The corrupt and greedy version returns for Prometheus and Covenant. In a series full of deadly aliens, perhaps the biggest monsters are the human beings behind the Company. Almost every instance of Xenomorph attacks could've been prevented if the Company wasn't literally putting profits over lives.
2 Facehuggers - 8 Movies
With few exceptions, a Xenomorph's life begins because of a facehugger. These creepy, crab/scorpion-looking creatures have been scaring audiences since 1979, and have appeared in all 8 films. Once they attach to someone's face, it's pretty much over for that person.
The facehugger is at its scariest in Alien, when the viewer is just as in the dark about it as the characters. It just lets go of Kane, and Kane appears to be fine afterward until he isn't. This sets the tone for every facehugger in the series. The characters are confused by them for the most part, but fans know what's coming.
1 Chestbursters - 8 Movies
The next step after a facehugger is a chestburster, which is laid in the victim's chest by the facehugger. These grow into the main Xenomorphs, and they've been terrifying from the first instance with Kane in Alien. They don't take long to grow either, with the exception of the Queen in Alien 3.
Chestburster scenes are definitive moments for the franchise, truly encapsulating both the mythos and sci-fi horror elements of the stories. A chestburster was also the introduction for the hybrid villain of the AVP films, the Predalien, which bursts from a Predator's body.
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October 05, 2021 at 02:19AM
