6.21 /// Ranking Every Alien [Alien Day Special]

Alien Day only comes once a year, so I leaned all the way in and ranked every Alien film I count as part of the saga: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien Covenant and Alien Romulus. Starting with the 4/26 clue for LV-426 or Acheron, I talk through what makes the franchise so re-watchable: grimy sci‑fi production design, believable crews under pressure, and a Xenomorph that is still one of cinema’s best monsters.

I put Alien at the top [Spoilers!] for sheer atmosphere and horror craft, then defend why Aliens deserves its pedestal even as it pivots into action. From there, things get messy in the best way. I make the case for Alien 3 in the assembly cut, dig into why Alien Resurrection works as a “popcorn film”, and unpack my long-running push and pull with Prometheus, especially the Black Goo and the engineer mythology.

Romulus is where I’m most conflicted: the look and feel are spot on, some set-pieces are genuinely inventive, and the ending creature is nightmare fuel, but I struggle with how much of the story feels like a remix of earlier beats and callbacks. I also explain why Covenant ends up higher than you might expect once I treat it as its own film rather than a promise of origins.

If you’ve got your own Alien franchise ranking, I want to hear it. Subscribe for more, share this with a fellow fan, and leave a review so more sci‑fi horror obsessives can find the show.

Transcript

Cold Open With Hidden Clues

Stephen 0:05

Hello, welcome to Infinite Prattle. Today's episode is kind of a self-indulgent and little bit of a clue if you're watching on YouTube. And today's date is a clue if you're listening on audio. Uh, and you read the date as an American. Stay tuned to find out what that means. Hosted by me, Stephen. Hello, welcome to Infinite Prattle. Thanks very much for joining us today. Um, if you got the clues right from my hat, well done. If you've got it from the date, well done. Uh today is the 26th of April and it is Alien Day, uh, as known in the community. Straighten this camera up, it's a bit wonky. Um, so if you read it as an American, it's 426, um, which is um the name of the planet from Alien and Aliens. Um, or Acheron, as uh we fans call it. So today I thought I'd just do a rundown of my favourite alien films uh and maybe do a little bit of a quick ranking. I've got a plan for a separate kind of series slash vlog about this, so it'll just be a quick one today, uh, some quick views, and they probably won't be a final decision. He says. Hedging his bets knowing that it'll change his mind. Um so I have all the films here in beautiful 4K slash Blu-ray, depending on what they've been released on. So I am including Alien Covenant and Prometheus in the Alien Staga, because they are alien films, even if they're a little bit different. Um But yeah, we'll start off with the greatest, which is in my opinion, Alien. Oh by the way, you might have got it from the background as well, because my little screen behind me is cycling through Alien stuff. So uh if you notice that then good on you too. Um oh yeah, my hat by the way is uh an Austromo um crew hat. So yeah, Alien. Um it's kind of gonna be it's it's the original, it's in my view, the best uh horror version of Alien. It's tells its story so well, and if you've not seen Alien, then I think you just need to from a cin cinema cinema cinematographic point of view. Is that the word I'm looking for? I went very high pitched that as well. I don't know if that's the word I'm looking for, but from from a cinematography standpoint, that's the word I was looking for. Um it's just it's just amazing. I may put some spoilers near, so I'll put a bit of a spoiler alert up actually because I can't help myself if I say stuff. But essentially Alien is is the setting of the whole franchise. You're always gonna hark back to Alien to see how he compares to the other the other films when they release. Is it keeping the timeline correct? Um and essentially it's it's it's it's it's the first one. It's the first one. Uh it was taking from a story originally written called Starbeast, um, and Ridley Scott kind of took that concept and took it forward. And H.R. Geiger famously did the creature design. Uh, and yeah, it's it's it's terrifying to this day, it's creepy, it's moody, there's tension between the crew. Um it's it's a world you can really get into. You can really get into it. Uh, and it's believable, even though it's in such a distant, far-off place that you might find hard to imagine. Um and two films have kind of spawned off this direct as a direct kind of sequel. So Romulus and Alien kind of intersect straight after Alien. Uh Romulus before that, aliens to to follow. Um I haven't got the exact dates in my head. Uh I'm terrible with dates even in reality, let alone try and remember dates of uh fake films. So uh all films are fake, I suppose, unless it's a documentary. Um Ignore my words. So Aliens was its sequel, very clever title change. Went from Alien, there was one alien in it, to Aliens, where there's multiple aliens, still on the same planet. Uh and it carries straight on. I say straight on after, if you've seen the film, you know there's a 50-odd year gap. I think it's a 57 years, um that Ripley's been in Cry of Sleep. And the main character Ripley does return um in this film, and she is the only surviving member of the first film. Sorry, that is a spoiler. Um and this one is a completely different film. Again, I love these films for for separate reasons. Alien pips it for me just because it's the the birth of it and it its whole tone. But Aliens is a fantastic film, and I think they kind of like share the pedestal somewhat with Alien just peeking over the parapet. Um, it just has everything, it's action, it has a deep storyline, it carries on that feeling from the original film, gives it a bit of a spin, introduces the life cycle of the alien a bit more. We had a lot cut out of Alien that was not put to film. We see that in the Director's Cut. Definitely watch the Director's Cut of most of these films, to be fair. Um Aliens is a fantastic film. Uh James Cameron is is quite a director. Say what you want about him, but this this film is amazing. It was a bad idea to use the stand as a as a prop for my my Blu-rays here because I'm wobbling the camera everywhere. Excuse me. So, yeah, so Aliens for me is slot number two. So the first one and the second one, slot ones and two. Now the third one, third position, is kind of more tricky, I think. Uh and I'm regretting now saying I was gonna rank these, to be honest. But um I th I think for me it's gonna have to be Alien 3. So we're going 1, 2, 3 with the ranking. And it's gonna have to be the cut not approved for release. So the assembly cut of Alien 3. Is that cheating? I don't care. Alien 3 has been slated over the years. It was a bit of a a production nightmare. I think the original script was written by um Josh Whedon. He kind of disowned the film a little bit. I think he I think he wrote a draft of it, but it was never used, and he ended up write writing Resurrection. Um I'm not sure that his final script was used for that as well. Um I think Josh Whedon did write Alien Resurrection. But I think he was called in to write or redraft this and there was arguments there as well. But anyway. Again, we're going back to one alien, we're going back to the roots of the franchise, one location. Um, but on a prison planet, and everyone's dead again. Ripley's back on our own. And there's something about this film, again, it's it's it's tone uh that David Fincher set. I've just noticed actually, it's how how how much David Fincher obviously has separated himself from this film, that my copies of Alien Aliens basically feature Ridley Scott's name on the cover, and this one just says Alien 3. Um. But yeah, David Fincher, it was his first feature film after doing a lot of music videos, etc. And he he came across lots of problems with the with the with Fox. And I think the theatrical version is still pretty good, but I think the the changes that they made to release it, because they were very stuck on a release date, um, kind of ruined the film. And the assembly cut that was put together years later, which I believe has never been author or you know authorised by David Fincher or anything, but I think is an achievement in what it does, and it does improve the film massively in my opinion. It's uh well I think it's uh I think it's a unique film, and I won't say too much about it, because if you've never watched it, I don't want to big it up too much in case you think it's shit. Basically, but I think it's good. And I think weirdly that might take position three. Uh controversial, I don't know. So we're now in one, two, three position. Now, this is where it starts to get tricky. So I have what would be the four remaining films? Romulus being the most recent, um from last year. Was it from last year? Time dilates terribly recently. I'm pretty sure it was was it released in 2024, actually, I think. Actually. I think it might have been 2024. Time is time is terrible. So, let's talk about let's get this one out of the way, actually. Alien Resurrection. So Alien Resurrection was kinda launched on the back of the success of Alien 3, but in video release and successful video games. And Alien 4, let's say, which is Alien Resurrection, um, kind of had a bit of a tough time, again with the critics and the review, because I don't think it's a proper Aliens film. It is an Alien film, it features the Xenomorph and Whale of Utardy, uh and it's set set a couple hundred years into the future. Uh Ripley's Back, which is a questionable thing anyway, considering how she uh disappeared from the franchise, let's say. Um but I enjoy this film. I do enjoy this film for what it is. If you if you take it far too seriously, then you don't. I I saw a meme years ago saying that, you know, Alien was that was the horror. Um Alien 2 is the action film, Alien 3. Sorry, Alien 2, Aliens, Alien 3 is the drama kind of thriller, and Alien 4, which is Alien Resurrection, is almost the the comic relief of the of the collection. And I can get where they're coming from with that. There's there's there's a little bit more, it's a little bit more putty, it's a little bit more obvious kind of humour in in there with the characters and how they play. But I think the concept of it's reasonably good. Um his execution's reasonably good, and it's one of those films that you can get through it and think, you know what, that was a good film. Uh, as one of my friends would say, a good popcorn film, and I'll come back to that where I'm going to put that because I'm not too sure where I'm gonna put that. I think it will rely on where I put these other ones. So we have Prometheus. Now, Prometheus was made for me, was a big was a big thing when it was gonna be released. I was really excited for it. I was uh pretty pumped, you know, it's the first time Ridley Scott's coming back to the franchise. What's he gonna do with it? We're gonna see the origins of like how the alien got to Acheron, who who who is the space jockey, because the story of the space jockey is different in the Dark Horse comics. Go and have a Google of that, you may be surprised. Um I came out of the cinema disappointed with this film. I enjoyed its cinematography, I enjoyed the actors, I enjoyed the premise. If I didn't know about Alien, if I hadn't watched the other films, I would have probably loved this film. Um I didn't really get the whole Black Goo concept, I still don't. Um Luckily, oh the wonderful author that that is um where's his book now? Alex White, um he's he's written two of the novelisations. Um and Alex um well they should say, sorry, he's not he's he's he's non-binary, so I apologise. Uh they've written um a couple of the alien novels, and they're brilliant. They just capture the whole feeling of it, and I wish they'd write a script for a film, if I'm honest with you. Um and they take the Black Goo to another level, which kind of make me feel felt more comfortable with it, even though I kind of still didn't really like the whole engineering thing. I've watched this years later, and it is a good film, and I enjoy it. Um do I enjoy it more than Alien Covenant? From a directoral point of view, maybe, from a story point of view, maybe, but I don't think it is as good as Covenant. So is that going to be fourth place? I'm not too sure. We'll put it in fourth for now, shall we? We'll put it in fourth for now. So Alien Covenant and Romulus. Now I'm gonna go to Romulus first. I went to see this at the cinema. I was very disappointed with this film in the cinema. I'll say very disappointed. There was I was very tri peaks and troughs with this film. I thought that the look, the feel, the aesthetic of the film was was spot on. I think that they got the universe right, but I came away thinking I wanted to see more of that universe, I wanted to see more captured, I wanted to see um I wanted to smell and and see it more. I that's that's I you've teased me far too much. It's the first time we've really seen a colony, um, apart from the Director Scott of Aliens, kind of working, kind of the politics of the colony. Um and I was I was a bit disappointed uh overall in the in the story. There was bits of it I really liked. I thought the di the the the them getting the face sucker off off the person was really a clever idea. I liked that. No one had ever done that in a film. Uh the life cycle of the alien was very, very fast though. Uh but they did kind of redeem that in the fact of the cocoon thing, and that's been mentioned, I think, in a book somewhere about how the aliens could cocoon to you know if they if they've not done um had time to develop too much, they can cocoon to grow, uh, which is which is kind of cool. Uh, and that's been mentioned that it's part of the life cycle anyway, as well as what was shown in the Director's Cut of Alien, of turning people into eggs, which was weird, and I'm glad to kind of cut that out. That's the only bit of the Director's Court I don't like. Um, but it was a good film if they hadn't followed the alien dynamic kind of story progression that they always do. Uh we've seen it before, and I will spoil it because it goes through of you know, things go wrong, aliens get released, um and it for me it's a mixture of like alien aliens and alien resurrection. Um and it ends with a weird monster, which is creepy as shit. I will give them that. That um basketball player they used for the part. Um no disrespect to him, but wow, like he made that role like so weird. Um and I'm glad they kind of did it mostly mostly practical in that sense, but then they kind of evacuated someone back into space again, which is what we've seen in three films now. Uh four films actually, because having an alien resurrection, technically. So, yeah, I I really like this film and also slightly despised it as well because it regurgitated too much. And weirdly enough though, everyone that reviewed it and the podcasts that I listened to kind of hated the callbacks. Um well didn't didn't mind the callbacks apart from one. They didn't like when Andy said get away from her, you bitch, which I actually really loved, because it was the only one for me that made sense. The the little recalls throughout the film, like the the computer game saying game over and and stuff like that, and little I can't remember off the top of my head now, but the little ones that were through the film, which were callbacks to the other the other alien films in the franchise, didn't work for me because it was it was obviously fan lip service, and weirdly the most obvious one, which was get away from her, you bitch, from aliens, worked for me because it was set up. Andy had been being called a bitch by one of the other characters, um they told him what it meant, that it was derogatory, etc. etc. And then he had the opportunity to use it on the alien because he obviously couldn't use it on humans because there's probably some sort of uh Asimov protocol there. Yeah, so that's the only one in the film that made sense to me, and a lot of podcast and stuff really slated it for that, and I was thinking, what? Are you are you real? So we're gonna put this one to one side because I want to see where the others rank first, because even though I really like how it's filmed and Yeah, I there was bits of it that I I questioned. I think it was too dumbed down, and it was definitely an introduction movie for a new generation, but it was a little bit dumbed down, and two, uh the Force Awakens for me. I I hate to say. Covenant. So Covenant is one of them films that it's a direct sequel to Pro uh Prometheus, and again, really like this film. I think it could have been better, but I kind of got over the bad taste of Prometheus that I had in my mouth and took this for a film on its own. And I watched this again recently, actually, and it's it's actually a watchable film. Um It doesn't get in the top definitely doesn't get in the top three or four for me. Um But it's it's a good fun film. They're a little bit different, these these films. Prometheus and Covenant are a little bit different because they set in the like in the past, before the Xenomorph has become the proper Xenomorph. Um I don't feel as good about them. Um but they are still good films in their own right. Ridley Scott's still a tremendous director. Um I feel like you could give him uh a load of lizards and a cage to direct and he'd be able to get a workable film out of it. That's a weird, weird analogy. Just think it's Sim Mike Coffee. Delicious. Um No Pepsi today, sorry. Um but yeah. I did like the promotional stuff for this though. This was the one I think where they had this alien face image and it just said run at the bottom, which I thought was just so impactful. Whoever was in charge of that um whole kind of um promotional stuff for the film, the media promotion was was uh spot on with that. So yeah, it's a covenants. I think I have to go behind Prometheus at the moment, so right behind that. So I have got a soft spot for for for resurrection though. Uh and Romulus is still good. This is this is quite difficult because it's it's hard when you rank films because they're they're good in their own rights. So we're gonna go. What I'm gonna do is Alien 1, Aliens 2, Alien 3, 3, because again it just it there's just something special about that film, and I can't put my foot on it. I'm gonna go Covenant number 4. I'm gonna go Alien Resurrection number 5. I'm gonna go Prometheus number 6. Am I really doing this? And Romulus at the bottom? Is is that the right order for me? Alien, aliens, alien tree, alien covenant, alien resurrection, Prometheus, which really doesn't have the word alien in it. And alien Romulus is at the bottom. You know what? Yeah, screw you, Romulus. You could have been so much better, but you chose to play lip service to Disney, even though they own you, and you could have been more. You could have been more. So there you go. There's the the the seven alien films ranked on Alien Day for your listening and viewing pleasure. I hope you like that. I've never done that before. Um, and I probably will press stop on this video and go, uh that should have been higher or that should have been lower. Um but I said I'm gonna do a few vlogs on my love for the alien franchise. Um gonna go through some of my collection that I have. Um and yeah, hopefully you'll join me for them. I don't know if they're gonna be part of the main podcast or they'll be like bonus episodes maybe, uh, just in a in a random series. But uh thank you very much for joining me today on this prattle through the the alien series and a little bit of a ranking of my favourites. Uh I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Um you can message me through Bussprout. If you look in the description, there's a little thing to send me a message. I can now reply to that, which is which is great. So if you do send me something, um I can reply. Feel free to comment and uh tell me what you liked about this video. Do you agree with my comments about the film? Did I miss something? Have I missed something in watching them? Let me know. Until then, take care of yourselves and remember to keep on prattling. Thanks for listening to Infinite Prattle with your host Steven. Follow me on social networks at Infinite Prattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.