A-list Alien(s)

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

With Alien: Romulus in theaters now — and because I haven’t been able to make it to the cinema to see it yet — I contented myself with rewatching all the O.G. installments in the Alien franchise in order over the past week, and I suggest you do, too.

Below is my attempt at ranking the original films (from worst to best), based purely on subjective criteria. I will be disregarding the Alien-Predator crossovers because they were all total garbage — though the late-’90s video game based on that concept did provide me with many hours of enjoyment in college. I invite disagreement and debate.

Alien: Resurrection

Most listicles on this topic agree with Alien: Resurrection (1997) holding a place near the nadir of the franchise. I remember watching this one at the old Sandpoint Cinema 4 West theater when I was 17, and even my lifelong enthusiasm for the films couldn’t withstand the essentially comic-book nature of this fourth entry in the canon.

In it, Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns as a clone of her original character more than two centuries after the events of the first films, though her DNA has been merged with a Xenomorph and she’s tasked with carrying out a muddled mission mingling E.T. genocide with motherhood. Which is icky. Winona Ryder also stars, though is mostly underused as a sex object for the male space pirates. Also ick. Thanks but no thanks, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Aliens

I know, I know — everyone loves the 1986 sequel to Alien, but I don’t. Sure there’s badass machine-gunning Pvts. Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and “Game Over Man” Hudson (Bill Paxton), plus the cute-but-traumatized kid Newt (Carrie Henn), cigar-chomping Sgt. Apone (Al Matthews), grunt-with-a-heart-of-gold Cpl. Hicks (Michael Biehn) and sleazeball company man Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), but rewatching it for the millionth time, I’m struck by how obviously it’s a James Cameron action flick. There’s little that’s actually ominous and it lacks any deep ruminations on the essential hostility of the universe — just guns, explosions, car chases and all that rigamarole. 

Alien: Covenant

In this 2017 addition, we get pretty darn thinky. Scientist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and evil android David (Michael Fassbender) are at the center of this contemplation of creation, artificial intelligence and humanity’s future. It goes pretty wide, however, with a doppelganger David, revelations about the origins of both the Xenomorphs and their human prey — which somehow don’t feel very revelatory — and Danny McBride’s valiant efforts at comic relief that ultimately don’t contribute much other than diffusing the horror vibe, which in this case is not very welcome.

Alien 3

This may be somewhat controversial, but upon rewatching Alien 3, directed by David Fincher, I was struck by how good I forgot it was. Premiered in 1992, it picks up right after the events of Aliens, with Ripley as the sole survivor of an escape pod landed on the maximum-security prison planet of Fiorina 161, populated by murderers and rapists who cling to a quasi-religious leader played by Charles S. Dutton. Of course, a Xenomorph has stowed away (as they always do), and it’s up to Ripley and the inmates — including Charles Dance as a love interest/morphine-addicted prison doctor — to stop it.

Alien: Prometheus

Haters gonna hate, but Alien: Prometheus is a hell of a movie. This one is a prequel to Alien, with Covenant as its sequel. Ridley Scott originated this cinematic world and was at the helm for Alien, Prometheus and Covenant; and, in the hands of the master, Prometheus (2012) is a morality tale wrapped in a contemplation of cosmic horror with Charlize Theron and Rapace as the immovable object and the unstoppable force. Plus we get some backstory on the evil Weyland-Yutani Corporation and some super-slick visuals as a bonus.

Alien

Of course, the original 1979 film has to take first place because, well, it’s iconic. There’s no need to recount this haunted house-in-space thriller because, if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re 45 years behind on your cinema culture education. Here’s hoping Romulus proves to be a worthy addition, slotting itself between the events of Alien and Aliens; and, based on the early reviews, it’s a winner.