Colin McMahon

How I would Improve the Friday the 13th Game

Posted on March 8, 2018March 8, 2018 by Colin McMahon

The Friday the 13th series doesn’t have much life these days, at least so far as the cinema is concerned. It has nine years since the Friday the 13th remake tried and failed to breathe life back into hockey mask-wearing slasher Jason Voorhees. If it weren’t for the 2017 video game (aptly named Friday the 13th: The Game), the franchise would be all but dead.

Oh but what a game it is. If you’ve only ever played the 1989 indecipherable mess that was the Nintendo Friday the 13th, you may have written off the series’ gaming potential. Which would be a shame since developer IllFonic and publisher Gun Media have created a fan love letter to the series, complete with meticulously recreated campground levels.

When I first started playing Friday the 13th: the Game over Christmas vacation, I thought it was fun but frustrating. Months later and I’m still routinely diving into Crystal Lake, the Jarvis House and newly added Pinehurst. Clearly they’re doing something right.

That said, I do have some thoughts on how Friday the 13th: the Game can improve and, maybe more importantly, how these companies can keep financing their efforts. I know: Unsolicited feedback from a white guy – how original.

Being able to turn the male counselors into mock kid Jason

One of the most interesting aspects of gameplay in Friday the 13th: the Game revolves around killing Jason. Yes, it is possible (if unlikely) for the counselors to band together and turn the tables on their foe. This method is a multi-step process that involves summoning Tommy Jarvis, stealing a sweater, and knocking off a mask.

It is the second part where the potential issue begins: Only a female counselor can steal the sweater. This is to recreate the ending of Part 2 where the final girl pretends to be Jason’s mother, halting the killer in his tracks. It’s a cool bit of fan service to be sure and – as I said – really interesting gameplay.

Yet if there are no female counselors in the game, or if they have died, it prematurely closes the option to kill Jason. This is kinda lame. Rather than have Chad discover his feminine side, I believe I’ve come up with a solution that stays close to franchise emulation.

While only female counselors can steal the sweater, male counselors can cut their hair and mimic kid Jason (much in the way that young Tommy Jarvis did at the end of Part 4). This will require a procedure of its own. First, scissors. Every game would load with one set of scissors in a drawer. It would be exactly one item that would function much the same way as a pocket knife should Jason grab you.

Friday the 13th: the Game — Sure, our counselors are a little older but the effect could still work. Not like Jason is supposed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Once the counselor has scissors, it’s time to look for a bathroom, more specifically a mirror. After this is done, the counselor will need time (perhaps a button-pressing mini-game like car repair, except based on composure stat) to re-style his looks. After this is done, he now has a one-time opportunity to stun Jason, much like the sweater.

I believe this will add variety and further develop what already is one of the most interesting aspects of the game.

Adding a more open water level

A lot of perks in the game revolve around water – this is true for both counselors and Jason. While it’s a cool aspect to add variety, it feels pretty weak right now for one major reason: There’s not a lot of water on the current maps. Most have a shoreline in a corner or narrow rivers running throughout. I don’t have any solid numbers to back me up here but I wouldn’t be surprised if the average counselor spent less than 10% of his or her time in water.

This makes all those water traits kind of useless. When I can only equip three perks – who cares if one of them pluses my water speed by 99%? I’m never going to use that. Oh, Part VII Jason has excellent water speed… does that matter?

While one new level won’t entirely fix this problem, it will help. I would propose one of two options. First, the setting from Part 7: A New Blood. I would design that map to have a massive lake in the center – maybe with an island or two scattered on it. This will force counselors to swim for rapid transit or item retrieval.

Second option is the cruise ship from Part 8. Since this boat inexplicably sailed from Crystal Lake to New York (how did that happen?!), it would make sense to have supporting islands. The claustrophobia of the boat would also be a nice change of pace from numerous levels of open cabins and sparse woods.

More weapon variety

I’m actually really happy that they toned down the amount of guns and machetes in the levels. I always wondered why a summer camp had like… literally a gun every few feet. While it could have been a commentary on the status of firearm worship in America, I doubt that’s what Gun Media and IllFonic were going for.

While too many top tier weapons is a bad thing, I hope they enhance the number of options for mid tier and low tier weapons. The branch is awesome but it needs company. So I propose three new weapons:

a paintball gun: Made famous in Part 6, this rapid fire projectile could temporarily blind Jason if enough shots hit. The blindness would work like the blooper ink in Mario Kart 8, physically obstructing the screen. Jason players could always wash the paint off in water. While it won’t do much damage, it would be a terrific irk weapon.
Dinner plates: I see them on every table, stacks of projectiles. This would be the lowest tier ranged weapon. Counselors could hurl plates at Jason, hoping with enough direct hits to knock him down or at the least stun him. Stun chance percentage would increase based on the number of direct hits. Plates would come in stacks of five.
A rake: This weapon would function purely as a push-away. Counselors could prod Jason from a distance, not doing much damage but keeping him from getting close. Given that they just increased the number of throwing knives, this would be a cool chance to highlight their effectiveness. Jason would also of course eventually just break the rake.

Monetization methods to support continued updates

Now here me out here fellow players: Games cost a lot of money to make and maintain. Not everyone can do what Minecraft did. Gun and IllFonic have, to date, done an excellent job of keeping their Kickstarter promises and delivering a slew of free content. There’s but some monetization but it has been limited to a couple dollars for costumes and kills.

I want them to build on that. Keep the Kickstarter promises free, obviously but augment them with DLC to justify their continued investment. The counselor costume variety is terrific – keep it coming! This nature of superfluous paid DLC is the best as it doesn’t make those who can’t afford feel like they’re at an unfair disadvantage.

To this end, I have a few suggestions:

New Jason starting screens: Currently, Part 3 Jason greets players every time they load the game. While he’s cool looking, some variety might be nice? Charging a dollar or so per main menu Jason seems reasonable. Again, no one needs it but I might fork over some money to customize my game further.
Roy voiceover: If players select the Part 5 – or Roy – Jason, they still hear Pamela Voorhees droning on about killing kids and making them remember and bla bla bla. Honestly, it would be cool to hear someone else. While Dick Wieand may not want to return to voice his character, it would still be cool to hear someone play Roy. Dialogue could be more focused around vengeance and his little brother and things like that. I would definitely pay at least $2 not to hear Pamela every single game.
Part 5 Tommy: Designing models is expensive and getting voice actors is also not cheap. These two factors together explain why we only have one version of Tommy Jarvis – the Thom Mathews Part 6 version. Having John Shepherd’s Part 5 incarnation (or even an adult Corey Feldman) would add some awesome variety to the game. But for free, it doesn’t make sense – not on the developer’s side. I would be willing to pay for a new Tommy, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
A Kane Hodder Jason costume: While Savini Jason remains locked away forever (single tear), they could add another cool/funny Jason to the game. Kane Hodder. That’s it, no costume, no mask (well maybe some kind of mask for gameplay purposes), just the famous Jason actor. It would be a fun extra and technically wouldn’t violate their policy of not charging for Jason.

Adding in a way to report bigotry/hate speech

One last quick thing: there needs to be a way to report players who are bigoted assholes. I was playing as Jason one night and came across a kid. I could tell his age because of his microphone – I could also notice an accent. But I think, whatever, all races and people are scum in the eyes of Jason Voorhees so I’m going to go after him.

As soon as I kill his counselor, this other one appears and starts shouting the most vile, hateful crap I’ve heard during gameplay. Honestly it made me feel awful for having offed the kid’s character. I hope he didn’t think I agreed with any of the shit this “adult” was saying (I didn’t have a mic at the time so I could not vocally voice my disgust).

I made killing the bigot my next priority but I didn’t feel like that made it right. People like that should face consequences for spewing vile garbage across the internet. Jason may kill people but even he isn’t that much of a monster.

A report option please – I never want to be in that situation again.

So there you have it, just some thoughts on improving the game. Obviously I’m not alone in having suggestions – just hop on the Forums to see more. If you haven’t played yet, give Friday the 13th: the Game your time and money – especially if you’re a fan of the film franchise. It may be a mess, but it’s a fun mess.

Why I didn’t love Thor: Ragnarok

Posted on November 30, 2017November 30, 2017 by Colin McMahon

It’s been a few weeks but the critic and audience reactions continue to come in: everyone is having fun with Thor: Ragnarok. Why they can’t remember the last time they’ve enjoyed watching a movie this much (hint: Spider-Man: Homecoming) and wonder when’s the next time they’ll see a movie this light-hearted again (hint: Black Panther). Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – the Marvel superhero formula continues to turn out grins and box office dollars.

But for some reason – likely partly due to the fact that Thor: Ragnarok was the fourth superhero film I saw this year – I walked out frowning. Before I dive in, let me say a couple things: This film is much better than the dull Thor: the Dark World. Second, I applaud director Taika Waititi for making a genuinely funny movie. But overall, I feel like Thor: Ragnarok missed the mark, leaving it an almost success, which can be more infuriating than a failure.

Comedy and Death

When crafting a story, it is vital to pick a tone and stick to it. Tone can be described as the “attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience.” Usually a tone is determined by the story’s content. For example, if I were to be writing about a mother struggling to feed her family, I would probably go darker than if I were writing about two young children experiencing a first crush at the carnival. There’s wiggle room in every scenario but general rules apply. Death = darker, sex = more adult, clowns = horror. You get the idea.

Let’s look at the main events in the plot of Thor: Ragnarok (warning – spoilers)

Thor loses Jane (the woman he gave up the throne for).
Loki abducts Odin, effectively killing him.
Odin’s death frees Hela, who bashes Thor and Loki across the galaxy before murdering most of Asgard – including three of Thor’s best friends.
Thor is broken and made to fight. He meets a fellow Asgardian struggling with alcohol abuse and PTSD and his friend, Bruce Banner, who has been a mental prisoner of the Hulk for years.
Thor escapes his bonds and returns home.
Thor loses an eye.
Thor is unable to stop Hela without completely destroying Asgard (which he does), banishing the survivors to wandering uncertainty amongst the stars.
(BONUS after credits scene) Thanos shows up and looks to butcher the remaining refugees.

Sweet mother of Mary, that’s a lot of heavy stuff. The tone: WACKY IRREVERENT COMEDY! Seriously, there is a joke is almost every scene of the movie and nothing is off limits. Odin being forgotten to die – joke. Valkyrie’s alcoholism – joke. By the end of the movie, I was surprised Thor didn’t do some weird pantomime with one of the Warriors Three’s corpses.

A lot of people Thor cares about die during this movie.

The problem with setting such a bizarre tone (apart from its strangeness) is its effect on the sense of consequence. You would think Loki killing Odin would be, at the very least, an evil act but Loki is regarded as at his most heroic in this film. That’s a larger disconnect than no one pointing out that Tony Stark was responsible for every death in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Serious, depressing events unfold in Thor: Ragnarok but we’re made to laugh and smile. Only occasionally does the movie ever try to be dramatic and even when it does, you know the scene will climax in a joke. This works fine for a comedy or even a dark comedy but Ragnarok isn’t trying to be just those things (it isn’t trying to be a dark comedy at all… for some reason), it’s going for the typical Marvel bundle of laughs, action and drama, only none of the drama works. It simply is not allowed to.

Too Many Plots

When I structured Thor: Ragnarok, I focused on the main plot – mainly Thor’s banishment and return to Asgard but the movie has more going on. Subplots are fine in films if they meet two criteria. One – there aren’t too many of them. Two – they all exist in service to the story’s central idea.

Buried under all the jokes and laughs of Thor: Ragnarok is actually a really compelling commentary on the evils of imperialism. Asgard’s dark secret past is exposed, capped off in a wonderful line by Hela that was something like “where do you think the gold for this throne room came from?” Thor is stripped and made an immigrant, a refugee at the whim of those in power – much in the same way Odin and Hela must have done to countless civilizations in the past.

That’s all great…but it’s not all there is. We also have a very brief arch involving Dr. Strange and his introduction to Thor and Loki. We also have Bruce Banner battling with the Hulk for control of one body. We also have Valkyrie struggling to come to terms with the loss of her girlfriend and battling her alcoholism/PTSD. We also have Loki searching for some new material/purpose. We also have a slave uprising on a gladiator planet. We also have Scourge struggling with his sense of loyalty. We also have Heimdall struggling to keep the survivors of Asgard safe from Hela’s tyranny.

Not to mention the fact that we have to introduce new wacky side characters!

There’s a lot going on and some of these plots work better than others. One which definitely gets short-changed is Valkyrie, who seems to pull herself out of complete human mess very quickly. Another is Hela who strangely has no subplot of her own (more on that later). People can praise the progressive nature of Ragnarok ‘s anti-imperialism all they want but… how come the women really had no time devoted to them?

It’s not just the ladies though. I’m really not sure how Banner’s struggle resolved itself. He became the Hulk again and then turned back into Bruce soooooo I guess it’s all good now? The inclusion of characters like Dr. Strange and Scourge took away from time that really could have been better spent elsewhere.

Especially Scourge – who the hell is Scourge and why do I care?

Endless Quipping

After Avengers came out, I started to hear how Joss Whedon had ruined Marvel dialogue forever. His love of Bathos and Buffy Speak seems to have infested every Marvel superhero film since. Truth be told I never minded and I will tell you why: not everyone was witty. Not everyone had a one-liner waiting in the wings. I think back to the first two Avengers films and look at them as comedy compositions.

Iron Man was the wise-cracking sarcasm guy. Captain America was clueless in a hilarious way. Bruce Banner made often uncomfortable jokes about how he could kill everyone. And Thor was the straight man – he didn’t try to be funny or see the humor in his actions.

Well not anymore baby! This new Thor quips! He has one-liners galore and is always happy to diffuse tension through some snarky observation. In other words: he is much more Star-Lord than Odin-son. I know people found this new Thor funnier (I did too) but it came at the expense of his identity. If I wanted to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, I have two (soon to be three) films to choose from. I’ve got my snark fix. Thor was supposed to be my superhero Shakespeare and that is now completely gone.

In case any Marvel execs were wondering, the serious tone of *Dark World* wasn’t what made it bad. Comedy does not equal good, just ask *Justice League*.

Hela and the continuing Marvel villain problem

Before I go any further, let’s go back to Hela. Man does she make an entrance. First she breaks Thor’s hammer and then she murders the Warriors Three and takes over Asgard. Hot damn! What’s next?

Oh…oh that was it, I guess.

Hela is evil – for some reason? We’re never really told why other than she is very ambitious and aggressive. A conveniently hidden mural later helps flush out her backstory by essentially saying “See? This happened!”

Her grand plan is to use some magic fire… to bring back an army of the dead and a giant wolf… then sit in Asgard for a bit before eventually leaving – I think?

Hela’s undead army doesn’t appear particularly strong. In fact, they can just be shot by earth bullets. I have a hard time believing these guys were going to conquer anything.

We don’t care and that’s a real shame. Last time Thor had a sibling he turned out to be Marvel’s most compelling villain. We’re repeatedly told how powerful Hela is and early on we see it – she smashes the hammer but then… she makes pointed sticks.

Increasingly large pointed sticks and she can shoot them very fast. Yes, she is a super-charged evil version of Spyke from X-Men: Evolution. Cool.

Hela didn’t need a lot of character to be effective. Heck, she could have enhanced the imperialism commentary if she went on about divine right and acted more racist/xenophobic but all we get is the generic “I’m evil!”

She’s the goddess of death, did she mention that? Someone should have told her that death is not innately bad – also she has no specific death powers so I call bullshit. At the end of the day, Hela is poised to take her place alongside the whip-guy from Iron Man 2 (not worthy of me remembering his name) and Red Skull from the first Captain America. Oh well, at least she was better than Dark Elf Man!

An Honest Question

If I were ever to meet Taika Waititi, I’d ask him this question: Did he ever really care about/like Thor to begin with?

I love Waititi’s work but honestly I hope he never does another Marvel movie. His original stuff is much better.

The callous end to the Warriors Three, the complete rewrite of Thor’s personality, the dismissal of Loki to just comic relief, the immediate removal of Thor’s hammer for a recycled plot exercise (it’s just a more dramatic repeat of the first film), the inclusion of the Hulk – all of this, to me, says “I don’t really get this Thor guy but I know how to make an entertaining movie!”

Often times, when a director takes over a project they don’t care about, it goes badly. Think Godzilla (1998) and X-Men: The Last Stand levels of failure. Here we avoided that but I think it has less to do with Waititi’s love of the character and more to do with his skill as a comedic director.

Thor: Ragnarok, to me, ultimately feels like a much better version of Thor: the Dark World. It’s still a product, but this one was put together by somebody who knows what they’re doing. Kenneth Branagh remains the only director who seems to approach the material with love and a seriousness that comes from knowing it can be good as it is.

Sadly, I have given up hope that we’re ever going to see a Thor sequel that understands and respects the source material in its entirety. I can understand why Natalie Portman wanted no part of this bombastic, uneven mess of comedy.

Ridley Scott has Murdered the Alien.

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017 by Colin McMahon

Horror franchises age poorly. This is a general rule and there are few exceptions. While John Carpenter’s Halloween is hailed as a classic, not many outside of horror diehards await the next installment. Ditto with genre defining pieces like The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs. Horror sequels suffer from one inherent problem: It is never as scary the second time you see it.

Now there are some ideas that are more open for exploration and can find new ways to frighten audiences. There are also some horror sequels that are carried by excellent casting, directing, and production design. Then there are some movies that abandon the horror in favor for fun, dumb or otherwise. The Alien franchise is a horror series that has done all three.

But it’s over now.

The lifespan of the alien as a horror icon has ended. Shortened by rampant commercialization and less-than-stellar sequels, the series showed a blip of life with Prometheus before flat-lining in Alien:Covenant. Director Ridley Scott, channeling George Lucas, has returned to murder the creation that he gave life to decades earlier. Spoiler alert: I f*cking hated watching Alien:Covenant.

The Alien is No Longer Threatening

It is true that the alien design has not been scary for years. That’s what happens with eight movies, video games, and a toy line. It is simply too familiar to be terrifying in the way it was in Alien. That said, solid film-making can overcome this deficiency. But in order to do so, the alien must remain the primary threat. This shouldn’t be hard. After all, it was billed as the “perfect organism” in the first film.

Yet the traditional alien is the least threatening aspect of Alien: Covenant. Sure it still kills ‘people’ and is fast and strong, but let’s examine the other antagonists that the film provides. First off: David, the android from Prometheus appears to have scrambled his circuits and gone insane. He is deceptive, strong, intelligent, manipulative, and can blend into the party of good guys by virtue of looking exactly like one of them.

David more menacing than aliens — Is that Michael Fassbender a friend or a homicidal murder? Seems like an important and persistent paranoia-inducing question.

Alien: Covenant goes further to strongly imply that David created and can control the entire alien race. So really, he is the head of the snake, as well as a much more calculating menace.

In addition to David, we have his weaponized diseases that he took from the Engineer aliens of Prometheus. For my money, this thing is the perfect organism. It is a microscopic disease that travels quickly and is lethal upon contact/penetration with human skin. Sure, it could probably be burned up but no one ever seems to see it coming. They’re just fine until they start spurting blood and hatching monsters.

Alien Covenant Death of Alien — Not as bombastic looking but certainly more effective.

The alien comes across as nothing but a servant of a larger evil – a minion that is replaceable and expendable and, frankly, nothing more than a work in progress. The perfect organism has fallen very far from grace. Remember that Family Guy sketch about “Bigger Jaws” – that is essentially what Alien: Covenant does. It has one-upped its monster to the point of obscurity.

Killing Prometheus and Originality

I will say this right now: Prometheus was far from a perfect movie. It suffered from a litany of problems that are very amusingly laid out in this video:

That said, Prometheus also represented a bold new direction for the Alien franchise. An attempt to distance the films from the repetitive slump they had fallen into – you know, an evil company trying to exploit the aliens for military gain. Sure we still had the evil company, but this time they’re looking into how humanity evolved and attempting to understand its origin.

Perhaps I am in the minority but I found it profoundly refreshing to not see a traditional alien in Prometheus. As I’ve said before, the design is tired. Exploring another alien race and its relationship to the aliens may be a flawed idea, but at least it was one that was open to originality.

Alien: Covenant murders this promise with the same disdain that the third Pirates of the Caribbean abandoned all ideas established in the second. The Engineers from Prometheus – they’re dead now. Any unanswered questions remain unanswered because, well they’re dead.

Ruining the Engineers in Alien: Covenant — The much more human-like engineers only make a cameo in *Alien: Covenant*. I have a question: why did they ditch their super advanced technology for monk robes and stone buildings? For such an advanced race that specialized in advanced bio warfare, they sure were open to attack.

But the Engineers aren’t the only open-ended story path being squashed. Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw barely makes a cameo, being killed off-screen in a way reminiscent of Newt and Hicks in Alien 3. Dr. Shaw may have been a flawed character, but I spent all of Prometheus getting behind her and was genuinely curious to see where her character went.

After all, she is portrayed as an idealistic and naive scientist driven by her faith in Prometheus – a faith that is shattered by the horrific events she encounters. Logically, I could have seen her sliding into a homicidal streak more easily than the well-meaning but controlled David.

Alien: Covenant wasted Elizabeth Shaw — Instead, Elizabeth Shaw started trusting David (the android who murdered her husband) for… reasons, and then is betrayed and killed, used in David’s experiments to creation the perfect phallic monster.

Killing her off would have been more acceptable if it was to make way for stronger characters but, well, we’ll get to that in a minute.

For all its flaws, Prometheus opened the Alien franchise to expansion. Alien: Covenant was a film very determined to close off every avenue of that expansion, hastily answer the un-asked question of alien origin, and slam the series back to its tired roots of traditional xenomorph murdering space colonists.

The Lazy Writing of Bad Horror

I have been dancing around this problem throughout my review. Alien: Covenant is bad horror filled with bad horror cliches. Its cast is made up of so many characters – most of whom named – who exist without characterization. They are simply there to die. They don’t feel like people, instead serving as plot mechanics or set dressing.

Alien: Covenant does not have characters — The bizarre inclusion of James Franco (who dies immediately in *Alien: Covenant*) is actually one of the better handled characters in the film.

I’ll perform a test. The main protagonist of the film is Daniels (Katherine Waterson). She is our primary good guy. She is… a woman… who was a wife… and has short hair. I cannot name a single personality trait. She’s good? She kinda looks like a knock-off Sigourney Weaver?

She is the best developed of at least 13 named crew members. Even David cannot keep up with Ridley Scott’s disregard of humanity in this picture.

There is another character who I want to point out; Oram (Billy Crudup). Oram is a man of faith, someone who takes his religion very seriously. How do I know this? Not through his personality or meaningful plot action. Instead, I know this because the film tells me – over and over and over again. Literally every scene where someone says something about Oram, they mention his faith. And it is not important at all. Oram does nothing to contribute to the plot, eventually dying to face-hugger.

Poor writing Alien Covenant — “See this face? This is my religious face.”

I’m going to say this as someone who is not particularly religious: If you’re going to write about religion, treat it with respect. Do not tack it on as some afterthought. Perhaps Oram mattered in some version of the script but it just feels like his faith is there to take digs at. It is tacked on. If you want a better written religions figure – maybe try Elizabeth Shaw (whoops – too late for that).

The lack of characterization could have worked in a movie that was only interested in having fun, but Alien: Covenant takes itself too seriously. This is a film clearly far up its own ass with half-baked ideas of Paradise Lost and artificial intelligence. It postures and uses words, the best words, to sound smarter and inflate itself over all the other slasher films on the market.

Oh, one other character to mention – David. I loved Michael Fassbender‘s David in Prometheus. He is complex; a seemingly well-meaning creation who is disregarded by others and abused by his creator. Mary Shelly would have been proud by how well her creation was adapted into a futuristic setting.

In Alien: Covenant, David has ‘gone insane.’ This is the rationale used to justify his behavior. It is also lazy writing 101. Going insane is the overused excuse to get a character to do something that goes against earlier characteristics/motives. In Iron Man, the villain goes insane to switch from scheming business tycoon to rock ’em sock ’em robo-fighter.

It does not add to David’s character to make him pure evil – it detracts from it. He is no longer complex, he is just crazy. He hates humanity but loves its art and creation? Sure?

Alien: Covenant is a perfect example of how not to write an effective horror movie. If people don’t care about the characters then none of the horror can be particularly effective. I don’t care that the alien tore off a woman’s head – I’m still trying to recall who exactly she was.

10-insane-facts-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-heath-ledger-s-joker — For as often as it’s used, insanity is rarely done well in film writing. When it is, the results are truly memorable characters.

Ridley Scott is clearly bored with the alien concept and using it to explore other ideas. The problem is that he seems to have no qualms trashing a universe that has evolved past him. Yes, he directed the first film (and kudos for that) but the series has grown so much since then. If he truly wants to explore AI – then by all means make a film exploring that concept, but leave Alien out of it.

Perhaps he just wants people to see his movies but doesn’t trust his name anymore. Exodus: Gods and Kings was one of the last ‘original’ projects he did and most people remain blessedly unaware/unaffected by the lifeless mediocrity that was that film. Regardless, I have only one request for Mr. Scott: Leave alien and don’t come back. Maybe someone else can give it life. This is what you’re doing to your franchise: