Maybe there's a future after all...

Personal opinions aside, Isolation is fine proof that a small intimantley scaled horror approach works. And horror is perhaps the only genre with box office and especially streaming appeal that isn't a damn super hero movie. An epic apocalyptic Alien story is best reserved for comics where they're quite common. I stand by my opinion that upping the scale, scope, and budget of Alien is not ideal for a franchise that hasn't been relevant at the box office since 1986. I've come to embrace the idea of smaller horror film sent to Hulu or elsewhere is a better idea. 

"You have to understand that what bored the fan might be a breath of fresh air for the casual viewer"

I think LETO thats a Good Point, the Die Hard Fans may have wants and likes and so are Disappointed with some Alien Movies and the Directions they took.

The Real Die Hard Fans do only make a SMALL % of the Box Office, and so Marketing something that would PULL them in is maybe how you have to do it... but i would say that Alien Covenant was kind of just that!

I think ninXeno426 hits the NAIL on the Head... well Miss Vickers more so... "a King has his Reign... then he Dies"

Some Franchises have their RUN.... a Good Run, but then the more you go back to it then the Interest goes away!  The Terminator Franchise may still make Money from Merchandise, Games and Comics but THEATRICALLY its a Gamble... i think the ALIEN Franchise has hit that same WALL.

We have seen some Reboots that just Failed to Live Up to the Originals..... they are always going to be Compared to the Originals.

Robocop, Total Recall, Nightmare on Elm Street... they did not give that Nostalgic Feeling and Failed to be as BIG a HIT as the Originals with a New Generation.. and so NONE of these will get a Sequel!

But to be fair i dont think any of them was BAD, yes they was NOT as Good as the Original but thats always going to be the Case!

Go and Remake ALIEN and you will be Hard Pushed to better the Original well as far as HOW people would accept it.

sometimes you do manage to SUCCEED the Planet of the Apes Reboot was Very Good and a Success... yet the First Attempt in 2001 never got a Sequel it was deemed to not be worthy of ONE, yet it was NOT a Bad Movie.

The IT remake was also a Success but again if they made a IT Part 3 and Part 4 they run the Risk of going to FAR and it NOT doing as well.

Halloween 2018 was Decent, but if they Churn out a few Sequels to that i doubt it can Maintain the Success.

Threes a Crowd... and so sometimes once you have made 2-3 Movies in a Franchise you then Leave it alone!  As it Mostly goes down HILL after that.

Back to the Future Reboot anyone?  That could be a Cash Grab and could make Money but then it could also be a FLOP and Tarnish the Originals...   Or maybe a Back to the Future Part 4 and bring the Gang back... again it would take something Special to do Justice to the Originals and so your BEST to leave it alone.

Maybe its a case of doing something NEW.... sometimes that works... AVATAR a Example.

Which i think its WHAT they was doing with the Prequels, especially Prometheus... something NEW that is SET in the same Universe that would STEER AWAY from ALIEN and i think Ridley Scott was right.... HOWEVER.. when you kind of make a Prequel which it was as it Covered the Space Jockey... you as with any kind of Prequel/Origin Story you are at the RISK of NOT living to the Expectations of all the Fans.

When it comes down to Scare People!

I think that apart from Cheap Jump Scares that even a Kiddy Halloween Cartoon can Pull Off... then to TRULY go and Scare people is HARD to do nowadays.

You can Gross People out with GORE but that maybe not going to Terrify them... you can Disturb them with something Shocking that would Work Better.

Imagine in Alien 3 the Alien came from Chest Bursting our Newt that would have been Shocking!  The thing that makes things Scary Really is the Fear and Worry and Concern for the Cast of a Movie... but for this you have to get the Characters Right!

You could Worry and Fight for Ripley, Newt and Hicks in ALIENS but with AVPR well No-One cared about the Lives of the Cast as the Characters just was not Developed and Poorly Executed.

Regarding Alien Isolation its Scary because it places you at the POV and you have NO Weapons etc, so you find the Xenomorph your DEAD... and so you have HIDE and its the being Found or Sporting the Xenomorph and Quickly having to Fine a place to HIDE that makes it Scary well its Panic Stations..

If you could Find a Pulse Riffle and take out the Xenomorphs like in ALIENS and some of the Games then you would LOOSE that Fear Factor!

The ONLY ways your gonna make the Xenomorph Scary is use it from the Shadows, but its more so about your Characters being Totally out of their Depth with NO WAY to really Dispatch the Horror with Ease... but for this to WORK you have to Build Up the Characters to CARE about them.

Or have some Sinister Antagonist who is Placing the Characters in Peril and using the Xenomorph to Commit Horrific Acts! 

Or you UPLIFT the Xenomorph beyond a Mindless Killing Machine or a Space Ant!   so it becomes Sinister, Tormenting!

But again those will ONLY work if you can CARE about the Characters.

"If you could Find a Pulse Riffle and take out the Xenomorphs like in ALIENS and some of the Games then you would LOOSE that Fear Factor!"

Unfounded bs. Leave a character unarmed in the face of danger or give him a weapon and let him fight back - it all depends on how you do it.

If you give a character a weapon, but leave the threat at the same level, then it is likely that you will screw up. But if you raise the ante and increase the threat in proportion to the weapon, you will succeed.

There are a lot of games, movies, ect. - where the characters are armed to the teeth and still in an inferior, vulnerable position.

On the contrary - it increases the fear factor - increases the level of threat and tells you that the weapons will not solve your problem.

To argue that the lack of weapons increases the fear factor is academic nonsense. An empty theory, which is said by people who do not know how everything works in practice.

Worse still - how far can we go with this? Claiming that smart characters who understand the situation reduce fear and threat? Is it worth praising the dullards who do not see the danger in front of their noses up close? Is Millburn or Oram playing on the fear factor? NO!

"To argue that the lack of weapons increases the fear factor is academic nonsense"

Well that is your Opinion and i Disagree with it, i can see what you mean in that give Amanda a Pulse Riffle and 30 Shots would she still be able to KILL the Xenomorph or get Killed?   But then what if she had 10 Xenomorphs to Fend Off then the Weapon would be of Little Use!  (Forgive me if thats NOT what you meant).

I think if you was in a Situation say your Office Block has been Invaded by 5 Terrorists armed with Knives and a few Guns.... If you had access to say 3 Assault Riffles that you can Arm 3 work Colleagues you are maybe NOT going to feel Quite as Threatened and Fearful because you have Protection.

But this could Lead you or a Colleague to Feel Confident to Confront the Threat and maybe END UP getting yourself Killed anyway.

If we had a Mutated Pathogen that Turned people into Zombies i am sure the more Weapons and Type of Weapon would Certainly reduce the Worry about your Safety.  This does not mean you go Gung Hoo on the Streets Shooting Zombies... its better to have a Weapon and NOT need it, than to NEED a Weapon but have None.

When i have Played Survival Horror Games then the Tension and Stress and Panic hits more when your LOW on Ammo or have only your Hands/Feet or a Crude Hand Weapon to Defend yourself.

"Claiming that smart characters who understand the situation reduce fear and threat?"

I dont think i made that Claim...

What i was saying is that the Viewer will get more Fear, Concern and Tension if a Character they can Connect with gets Killed or nearly Killed... when you had Characters we DONT care about like Milburn then when they Die it has NO impact on us.

The Aesthetics of Most Monsters/Killers alone are NOT enough to cause Fear to many nowadays.  Its the Build Up and HOW they Attack and then HOW WELL the Characters/Victims are Written so we can Feel for their Survival.

A Jason and Myers Movie where they go to a Carnival/Fair and just go around KILLING like 15+ People is NOT really going to be Scary!

Only to those who are Squeamish to Gore and these Folk would have been Freaked out by say the Neomorphs in Alien Covenant!

"They also have a preference to see a Colonial Marine story to which I also said no"

To be Fair i think as a TV Series then a Colonial Marine Story could be worth a Gamble.  However it depends as some Fans may Expect that such a TV Series would have to be about the Marines going down to deal with Xenomorphs.

We have the Impression that ALIENS was the Marines First Rodeo with the Xenomorph and well after ALIENS do we assume the Derelict is TOAST!

The Colonial Marines would surely be Involved in more stuff than Xenomorph Cleaning!

I think maybe a TV Series in the ALIEN Franchise about a Exploration Mission or Research where they Uncover something similar to the Xenomorph could work.  Some of the Anniversary Shorts were Interesting... so something like this but based on ONE Plot that covers say 6 Episodes with a TV Show you can Build Up Characters more, so you can have the viewers be more Involved and Fearful of their Losses.

If you are going to do that then you have to ask some Fundamental Questions.

*Do they Encounter some Xenomorphs if so HOW if the Derelict is the ONLY ship those Eggs are on... unless we go to Planet 4 or LV-223 which i doubt.

*Is there another World that other Engineer Ships with Eggs had been too?

*Is there some World where the Engineers came into Contact with a Ancestor of the Xenomorph who the Engineers then based their Experiments from?

*Are there Worlds that the Engineers had Bombarded with the Black Goo and what Horrors could be there?

OR... can you do a ALIEN TV Series that has NO Connection to Xenomorphs or Related Organisms or anything from LV-223 or other Horrors the Space Jockey/Engineers are involved with?

I say YES if its a Expanded Universe/Spin Off....  but if you USE a ALIEN: Prefix then it would be Expected to have Xenomorph Connections or Connections to the Engineers, Black Goo etc!

The same thing goes with ALIEN Movie it would be Expected to have Xenomorphs or something that is Connected.

My perspective is most movie franchise's feel played out in someway or another. Alien's glory days are well behind it. About 5 or 6 years ago my brother and I had observed nearly every major sci fi franchise had something in the pipeline. Everything from Alien, Predator, Terminator, RoboCop, Star Wars, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Riddick, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, BladeRunner, Independence Day and more all had something on the way. All seemingly promising these old series were back and here to stay. 5 or so years later, most of these series have once again gone dormant. Something we all have in common here is we all love the Alien franchise to varying extents. For a fact most of us will agree on 2 movies in the series. For a fact all of us will definitley agree on one movie, that being Alien.

Like I said to the guys on Alien Theory's discord, its an old franchise that has only produced two truely classic movies. The rest all have fans, but remain divisive. All I got to do is go through a ranking of David Fincher's films and see Alien 3 consistently ranked dead last with said site just saying it's a bad movie. Alien 3 may have been reexamined and somewhat redeemed among a certain portion of the fanbase, it however has not been treated with respect the same way Blade Runner has. Blade Runner was much like Alien 3 where studios interfered too much and the theatrical release suffered for it. Only in the decade that followed did Blade Runner eventually a merge as the classic it is renowned for today. Instead Alien 3 has the dubious reputation that truely killed Alien, a good amount of fans still hate it as well as hating every movie since. Critics and casual audiences don't care either. 

When you look at it from this perspective, Alien is an extremely difficult series to reinvigorate. Its now just an old movie to modern audiences who'll probably know it better from references in movies like Infinity War or Ready Player One than actually having seen it. Like I said, if Star Wars is officially a hard sell, then it's a even harder sell for Alien.

I absolutely agree with almost everything you say except for the last paragraph.

Alien franchise is alive and thriving.

There are 2 films released in each decade.

Alien in 79 and after 7 years - Aliens.

Alien 3 & R in 90s.

AvP & AvPR in 00s.

Prometheus and Covenant in 10s.

Plus - tons of comics, books and board & video games.

Plus - an active fan community. Creative - including.

Here are the facts - for now, the Alien franchise is doing better than ever.

"Alien is an extremely difficult series to reinvigorate"

I would agree with this Especially if they want something more FRESH than say to go and Bring Back Ripley, and IGNORE say Alien 3 and Alien R and then what we get?  Oh the Company has gone to LV-426 and recovered the Derelict or some Eggs... and Ripley like "oh no they DONT i am gonna put a STOP to that" Very Original  YAWN!!!

The Prequels with Prometheus was NOT to everyone's Cuppa Tea.... the idea of Blomkamps got some Excited because they maybe FELT that PROMETHEUS was NOT a Worthy ALIEN Movie...  But thats the Point it was supposed to be SET in the same Universe but to STEER AWAY from ALIEN and Sequels would do something DIFFERENT!

In Hindsight i think FOX Needed to Invest, take a Gamble on TWO Movies, it seemed they was going to GO for Blomkamps Idea with Ridley Scott even to be  a Producer but they WANTED to get the Sequel to Prometheus out First and that was BOMB! of Sorts.

Blomkamps Idea could have worked... just DONT need to have Ripley in it.. shes DEAD!

I have said this OVER and OVER...  I think what they SHOULD have done was this...

Prometheus Sequel that would be Released First that would GO BACK to LV-223 they could Cast Fassbender as another David Clone (or have a New Android).... One that does-not have a Mind of its Own...    We basically have a more Action Movie that would be more Similar to Alien Engineers... We get more Clues/Answers to the Xenomorph Potential Origins we DONT have to have Xenomorphs but similar, maybe a FEW different Monsters... some Answers to the Murals and Frescos...

We can THEN go and CLOSE the Door to ALIEN and allow for another Sequel that goes with Dr Shaw and David to a FAR FAR FAR away world where we can Find out more about the Engineers and NOT be Shackled by ALIEN.  Thus giving us a Expanded Prometheus Universe that has LITTLE to do with ALIEN!

The ALIEN Franchise would NOT have been Finished.. such a Prometheus 2 like Alien Engineers would OPEN THE DOOR to other ALIEN Movies due to the knowledge of the Horrors the Engineers had Conducted on LV-223, inc Xenomorphs and Similar and we could ASK... ok so did any of this STUFF get Unleashed on a World?

If so then thats a AVENUE for a ALIEN Movie..

But... ALAS!

@Leto

Absolutely there is ALWAYS a Market for the ALIEN Franchise beyond the Big Screen... this is where you can RISK things, and Offer Various Avenues that are all Expanded and dont have to Connect... Numerous Alternatives if you would.

I think in Terms of a Movie then its a GAMBLE... where do you GO? Would it Please Everyone?  And should a MOVIE be Made and BOMB or just Disappointment then it could be CURTAINS as far as Theatrically...

Do they RISK a Bigger Budget of $200-250M if this only brings back say $300-350M then it would NOT be deemed a Success and it would be DOUBTFUL they would Continue.. if it Fails to make $250M then i Feel its Curtains!

To Resurrect the Franchise i think DISNEY would Need to see a 200-250% Return... so a $200M they expect Box Office of say $450M+ to be Worthwhile to Consider MORE...

With a Lower Budget of say $80-120M would be Less Risk but it would LIMIT what you can do with Special Effects, Sets and A-List Stars.

This is WHY i have been Concerned they would PLAY SAFE.... and try to make a Alternative Alien 3 with Ripley back...... and Eggs and Queens... and IF this does not make 200% Min Return then its R.I.P to the Franchise..

Well for 15 Years before a Complete 100% Reboot!

But lets Wait and see what ALIEN DAY 2021 brings.. as well it seems we have a Project in the Works.. that WONT continue with the Prequels... and well lets say WONT have Ripley either!

Wait and See Game now... ;)

Yes it's true the franchise is hanging in there (for now at least), There's only so long a franchise can depend on other media. Yes it's also true Alien has managed to release a movie every 5 or so years, but with continued diminished box office returns. I hate to keep making it all about the money, but ultimately that's what keeps any franchise rolling. As much as I like and care about 3 and Resurrection, they were cash in sequels that didn't draw the same crowds Alien and Aliens did. The AVP's in the 2000's were basically reboots before that concept became really popular. Again thanks to the dismal quality these films failed to invigorate either Alien or Predator. Both series have kept separate on the big screen in the past decade. Prometheus was a more blatant reboot because Fox insisted on rewrites to separate it from Alien. Remember the confusing advertising campaign? The whole is it a prequel or isn't it? Fox I think knew Alien had been sagging for quite some time and tried there hand at something new. And when that failed to impress (at least initially) it was back to Alien which yet again failed to make an impact.

Alien as a film is at a crossroads on where to go next. Will Ridley Scott make his third and apparently largely unassociated prequel? Does Blomkamp get his Alien 5? Or will it be Giler and Hill's treatment? Or does James Cameron back his own 3 concept much like he did Terminator Dark Fate? Or does Disney just straight up reboot? (what I think they'll do sadly) I dont think Alien's prospects as a film have ever been so uncertain. Will there be another movie? Most likely yes eventually. The real question is what will it be and how long will it take. But suffice to say a balls out action epic is not a likely approach.

While I'm at I must add other Alien media is seemingly on the ropes. There have only been 3 major console Alien games in the past ten years, and 6 years since the last. We've only been given a few mobile offerings. I believe this is because Aliens Colonial Marines was a over hyped train wreck of a game, which lead to the excellent Alien Isolation to underperform. Yes Cold Iron is making a game but it's been known about for three years and we only occasionally get vague updates. I feel Alien is largely dead on the video game front.

Comics have been thriving but I also feel this is coming to end due to the transition from Dark Horse to Marvel. Dark Horse has been a steady home for Alien for 30 plus years. Marvel's talent pool seems more than a bit weak these days if their Star Wars comics are anything to go off of. Even the super heroes are at a weak point, the average Avengers issue only sells 400,000 copies a month. That may sound like a lot but it really isn't. I also can't forget that nasty business with Marvel tracing over existing art work for Star Wars, and it looks like its already happening with Alien. Check this Wolverine vs xenomorph and compare it to this Alien advertising image from Isolation. Marvel aren't what they once were and I think It'll possibly affect the novels as well. The Alien RPG along with merchandise such as Necca figures are what seems to keep Alien afloat at the moment.

If people say Isolation was not scary, they likely watched a playthrough and never played it themselves. That was exhausting and I just wanted it to be over- sort of how Ellen may have felt. It was beautifully brutal.

The franchise can go different directions and be good. I would like to just see good characters dealing with the mythos. Kind of old school, but not getting into flute playing, axe grinding, and cabin building bull shit. GO BACK TO THE BASICS. I vomit a bit by typing this, but as BigDave once said, MAGA- Make Alien Great Again.

As a fan of both Prometheus and Covenant I just may admit that Isolation was my favorite Alien of the decade. I not too long ago finished 5th play through on nightmare difficulty lol. That was a challenge that felt like authentic Alien. 

What I want from a story and characters is something Aliens Defiance. Now that was damn f@$&ing fine story. I highly recommend that comic. And it was about a colonial marine but wasn't a ridiculously action heavy story either. Defiance has been my role model for what a new Alien movie can be.

Update

Marvel's Alien comics have been announced today for a March release. Guess we'll see how that goes.

Update

Marvel's Alien comics have been announced today for a March release. Guess we'll see how that goes.