By Michael Marano
Disney bought Fox, so Foreigner The franchise today is no longer able to make an impact similar to its original approach when it redefined sci-fi/horror films.
Alien: RomulusDirected by Fede Álvarez. Screening at AMC Assembly Row 12 and Apple Cinemas Cambridge.
The alien eating machine is back in Alien: RomulusPhoto: 20th Century Fox
Ridley Scott’s Foreigner came out 45 years ago and was science fiction.
No, I don’t mean that it was part of the science fiction genre.
The film Foreigner itself was a science fiction artifact, something sent from the future to help audiences cope with the Toffler-esque future shock we felt in the ’70s, a resonance that added to the impact of what was already a sci-fi/horror classic at the time.
In the 10 years before ForeignerWhen it debuted in 1979, America and the world were confronted with the tremendous cultural changes brought about by the moon landing and the development of the Space Shuttle (in 1976 the first orbiter was named Pursue after the ship on Star Trek Science fiction ideas turned into reality. There was the corruption of Watergate. The sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, and what was then seen as the inevitable transition of the era. There was the fallout of American colonial aspirations as the last helicopter flew out of Saigon.
As the decade drew to a close and none of these changes had arrived, Foreignerwith: his spaceship captain Jimmy Carter Dallas; a merchant ship Nostromonamed after Joseph Conrad’s epic fever dream of colonialism and his shuttle daffodilnamed after one of the Conrads’ ships; a hostile creature that sexually assaults and kills its victims; Ripley, a heroine and sole survivor who is a woman, even though decades of monster movie plots had programmed us down to the cellular level to believe that Dallas would save Ripley and they would be paired up for one final kiss as the credits rolled.
Foreigner was breathtaking because it was so far ahead of its time, yet felt like a logical summary of the direction in which time was moving.
The real monster in Foreignerwas not the Xenomorph, of course. It was the Weyland-Yutani Corporation that sent its crew to their deaths via the fine print in their contracts. Given that Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning documentary from 1976 Harlan County, USA had shown us that the Duke Power Company had no problem with its employees dying of black lung, this did not seem far-fetched.
With Alien: Romuluswe see that the corporate monster destroys the Xenomorph with a breathtaking Coup de grace of mediocrity and lack of imagination.
Since Disney bought Fox, Foreigner Franchise is unable to make an impact on par with the original when it redefined what sci-fi/horror films can be. Look at how the first two Dead Pool Fox’s films were brilliant and much-needed skewerings of bloated, overproduced comic book movies. This summer’s films Deadpool and Wolverinefrom Disney, is… just a bloated, overproduced comic book movie.
Alien: Romulus is not planned. It’s a rosary of Pavlovian charms. There are only one or two story points involving the Xenomorphs that weren’t done better in earlier installments of the series. Their rehashed insertions here are weak attempts to restore the story points’ original punch. The omission of the line “Get away from her, you bitch!” is particularly unforgivable because it has no context in the story – other than as a stinky fish that makes the audience bark like seals when it’s thrown at them. The various narrative stunts used to drag out the story, Alien: Romulus These plagiarized plot points are pure invention and not the result of clever construction, and therefore devoid of any sense of escalation.
Cailee Spaeny on patrol in Alien: Romulus. Photo: 20th Century Fox
To be fair, the subplots in Alien: Romulus contains some interesting, albeit problematic, approaches to androids, which makes this film a better sequel than Blade Runner than it Foreigneras is the case with Alien: Covenant. As in Blade Runnerthe androids in Alien: Romulus are corporate products, slaves with limited ability to act against the interests of the big corporations. Of course, this limited Android ability is reminiscent of the same “Prime Directive” that conglomerates impose on the intellectual property rights they have devoured. Just as Deadpool and Wolverine equipped the satirical capacity of Deadpool with novelties, Alien: Romulus undermines the strength of the Foreigner Franchise.
Foreigner Released 45 years ago, it redefined the science fiction/horror genre because it wasn’t yet a franchise, a commodity that could be acquired by a larger Weyland-Yutani-like corporation. Corporate shackle turns genre properties into automatons, robbing them of the capacity for cultural criticism that defined the original. Foreigner more than innovative, but really insightful. What was the state of the art in science fiction/horror 45 years ago Foreigner? It was James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (although it is itself the second film in a series).
The tragic thing is, if anyone has a really solid Foreigner Entry, it could have been/would have been/should have been Alien: Romulus Director Fede Álvarez and his co-writer and long-time collaborator Rodo Sayagues. The first major film by Álvarez and Sayagues was the 2013 reboot of Dance of the Devilsand they have the motives of evil Dead franchise and completely subverted the Final Girl cliche, just as Ripley completely subverted the Final Girl cliche in 1979. Was her blending of drug addiction with demonic possession completely successful? No! But it brought something different to the evil Dead Franchise. It was a total blow that is impossible under the rule of the House of Mouse. Álvarez and Sayagues’ Don’t breathe was a master class on the use of claustrophobia, which easily applied to the corridors of Alien: Romulus‘ space environments. But the use of claustrophobia here seems like a gimmick… a bad cover of a song they originally wrote themselves.
But maybe I was too strict.
Alien: RomulusHow Foreigner before that actually feels like a science fiction artifact from the future.
Too bad it’s a dystopian future where our culture is completely controlled by corporations and everything is spit out by artificial intelligence that steals everything that was once original.
Horror author, writing coach and personal trainer Michael Marano (www.BluePencilMike.com) as a 15-year-old he scribbled a lot of ideas for sequels to Foreigner in the summer of 1979 to the sounds of “My Sharona” and “I Don’t Like Mondays”, including a really cool film set on a Dyson sphere. He can objectively say that some of them would have been better films than Alien: Romulus.
