Alien Legacies: The Evolution of the Franchise

The 1979 film Alien has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Directed by Ridley Scott, at the time known primarily for making advertisements, and starring then-unknown actor Sigourney Weaver in the lead role, it transcended its humble origins to shock and disturb audiences upon its initial release. Its success has led to three direct sequels, two prequels, one “mashup” franchise, a series of comic books, graphic novels, novelizations, games, and an enormous and devoted fanbase. For forty years, Alien and its progeny have animated debate and discussion among critics and academics from a wide variety of fields and methodological perspectives.

This book brings together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Alien through a contemporary lens. The chapters here demonstrate the extent to which its effects and reception are deeply multifaceted, with the Alien franchise straddling the lines between “high” and “low” culture, playing with generic categories, crossing media boundaries, and animating theoretical, critical, and political debates. Chapters touch on female agency and motherhood, the influence of H.R. Giger, the viscerality of Alien's body horror, the narrative tradition of the Female Gothic, the patriarchal gaze in the Alien video games, and the rise of in-universe online marketing campaigns.
In so doing, the volume aims to debate Alien's legacy, consider its current position within visual culture, and establish what the series means--and why it still matters--forty years since its birth.

Nathan Abrams is Professor in Film and Lead Director for the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies at Bangor University. He lectures on British and American popular culture, history film and intellectual culture. He is co-founder of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal. He is the co-author of Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film, and the author of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual and The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema, among others.

Gregory Frame is Research Associate in Film Studies at Bangor University. His main area of interest is the politics of popular film and television, and he has published widely in these areas in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. He is the author of The American President in Film and Television: Myth, Politics and Representation.