About More Aliens
Post 1826:
Whatever it’s worth, I consider Alien and Aliens to be two of the best movies ever made. Especially the first one. So stinking good.
Since then, the powers that be have been foisting sequels and prequels on the public. Prometheus, for crying out loud.
Who cares? My last review was on Madame Bovary. Well, I care. Those old classic movies were made with care and devotion. And brains. Everything that’s come after has been missing at least one of those ingredients.
Which brings us to Alien: Earth. There are some neat concepts here. I like that it’s based around the synthetic v cyborg debate. Classic rivalry. The show looks good, mostly. It clearly has the budget, and it’s being written and produced by a guy who did something that was mostly neat one time.
It’s not good. Two episodes is all I’ll ever see. A shame, because I’d like to see a good thing. But it has to make some sense. The plot is busted. Irreparably damaged. Fundamentally flawed. The greatest genius in the world character is a moron and annoying. Quirky can be interesting. This guy isn’t quirky. He’s just a douche who doesn’t wear shoes.
If the point is that he’s prone to impetuous and stupid decisions because he’s a kid, how did he become a trillionaire? You know what, it doesn’t matter. This is a writer with some cool concepts who thought he could get by with a few holes in the logic.
I get that there’s pressure to produce and deadlines. But don’t take on something like this, created by other people, without a strong outline. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if it was an original property. Breaking your own thing is normal bad.
I think the emotional payoff of the siblings reuniting was compelling. Seeing your thought-to-be dead sister in another body would be crazy and complex and emotional. But when you think about how they got there, the lack of logic stomps out any feels.
Sending in children to a burning building as rescuers? Sounds childish, right? Welcome to elementary school, boys and girls. Remember Alien? That was neat. Anyway. Cheers and see you after.
