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In a recent press release, showrunner for the upcoming Alien TV series Noah Hawley stated that the narrative would take place on Earth and focus on themes of wealth and resource inequality which will get worse over the future. Some fans have expressed outrage at the idea of a political message in the beloved franchise, but any viewer that was paying attention will realize that political or economic themes have always been built into the films.

The original Alien released in 1979 and has spawned 3 sequels, 2 prequels, as well as countless games, comics, and novels. Not every adaptation has carried the torch from the original masterpiece, but the central themes can be detected in almost every entry in the over 40-year long franchise.

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Ridley Scott's original Alien is such a simple film, so clear and direct in accomplishing its goals that the modern incarnations almost have trouble comparing. A group of civilian space-truckers are woken from their slumber to investigate a distress signal, accidentally bring aboard a hostile alien species and almost all of them are horribly devoured. Efficient effective gothic space horror raised from functional to fantastic by immediately identifiable characters, brilliant creature and set design, and haunting imagery. While the broad strokes are extremely straightforward, sci-fi is often a genre of small details with huge implications.

The crew refer regularly to an ominous company, which is implied to be corrupt and regularly unsafe. The crewmates complain about pay, Ripley quotes quarantine procedures with the tone of OSHA regulations and of course, they enter extremely dangerous conditions with little warning. The big third act reveal of the film comes when Ripley discovers that the company has ordered a fellow crewmate to preserve the hostile alien at all costs.

This crewmate is swiftly revealed to be an android, meaning that the company placed a machine amongst a crew of civilians to ensure that a wildly dangerous space monster would make it back to Earth, almost certainly at the cost of the people aboard. The commentary is clear, the company values profit over its own employees to an almost hilarious degree. The crew of the Nostromo is destroyed by the acid-blooded carnivore, the real catalyst is corporate greed.

In later films and throughout sci-fi media, the company is given a name; Weyland-Yutani. The intergalactic conglomerate megacorporation controls everything from spaceship manufacturing to deep space shipping to envoys to the military. Aliens features Carter J. Burke, a slimy researcher who enacts a scheme to smuggle the xenomorph into Earth inside the bodies of Ripley and Newt. Burke is a direct representative of Weyland-Yutani, and he is cruel, backstabbing, corrupt, and profit-obsessed. He is the perfect avatar for capitalist margin chasing and it would take fast-forwarding through the dialogue to miss the political overtones.

Alongside Burke, Aliens also introduces the Colonial Marines, a military force dripping with comical levels of masculinity. A handful of the force are immediately identifiable and widely beloved, but the team as a whole is a wonderfully blunt parody of militaristic imperialism. The soldiers swagger and brag, constantly ribbing each other and itching for a real fight. Ripley tries to warn them, but they're not going to listen to some lady coming in and telling them how to do their jobs. They are, of course, swiftly slaughtered when introduced to the major threat, leading to Ripley being forced to take over.

These cocky armor-clad jarheads are a direct commentary on the futility of military imperialism. Some have even argued that the film is a direct reference to the Vietnam war. Legions of young men are convinced through peer pressure and toxic masculinity to throw themselves into a meat grinder at the behest of slimy executives, all in the pursuit of massive profits for corporations miles above their heads. One wonders how it would even be possible to miss the social commentary.

Alien Disney Plus

The military and corporate angles are baked into the Alien franchise, but though they are the most blatant, they belie a network of more complex details latched onto by scholars over the years. The gender implications of the Alien franchise are multifaceted and interconnected. H.R. Giger, who designed the eponymous Alien, has a very particular style, often incorporating phallic or yonic imagery.

The reoccurring theme of Ripley, a powerful woman, having to save or protect hyper-masculine men subverts older male-focused narratives. James Cameron, director of Aliens, famously loves to include strong women as the heroes of his narratives. While gender relations aren't always as directly political as foreign policy or capitalism, the idea of women filling military roles, which gender carries strength and the reoccurring themes of motherhood are still well-debated issues today.

The more recently released prequel filmsPrometheus and Alien: Covenant, deal in metaphor on an even higher scale, often in rather unsubtle ways. Religion is a fairly central theme, much of Prometheus is about the main cast trying to find the origin of life on Earth, consistently debating whether what they've discovered proves or disproves the existence of a deity.

The main characters bickering over Darwinism and intelligent design brings to mind a variety of philosophical debates, but the teaching of intelligent design is a matter of political debate to this day. Religion is a matter of contentious argument throughout human history, and even in this film about the secrets of human creation and the reasons why humans have faith, the company remains an issue in the film's narrative. These films are controversial, but carry forward the themes of the franchise.

Alien Xenomorph in Ridley Scott

Company magnate Peter Weyland appears in both prequel films, characterized as brilliant but obsessed with his own immortality. Weyland's doomed quest to live forever is disguised by his image as a benevolent prodigy solving human problems out of compassion. This brings to mind the old Faustian tales of men who sell their souls but is also tinged with elements of the modern billionaire, pretending to save the world as they quietly accrue ill-gotten gains off the backs of their employees. A modern update to the themes of corporate greed, keeping it obvious to the new generation.

The idea that any fan of the Alien franchise could enjoy the films without absorbing any element of the consistent and blatant political commentary is inconceivable. The backlash to the upcoming Alien series' claims to social messaging is as clear a symbol fans could ask for that the creators understand the beloved franchise they'll be contributing to.

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