Why It’s Good That Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 Was Cancelled

The Alien franchise is harder to kill than the perfect organism at its core. There have been eight movies over a period of almost forty years, during which time the series’ narrative has spanned four centuries and the full gamut of quality (and that’s nothing on the dense mythology built up in comics, books and games). The xenomorph has been a straight horror monster. It’s been a bug-hunt Viet Kong metaphor. It’s become whatever the Newborn is. It’s fought Predators (although we try to forget that).

Even the history of canceled Alien projects is a dense, dependably bonkers one. Right from when it was called “Star Beast” the series was cycling through various weird ideas (including the notion of the alien turning people into eggs, brought back for the original’s “director’s cut”) and Alien 3 famously almost went in various different directions to the point a teaser promised “in 1992, we will discover on Earth everyone can hear you scream” (it’s not set on Earth). In the late 1990s Ridley Scott and James Cameron even considered teaming on a fifth entry that would delve into the xeno’s past before Fox vetoed it in favor of AvP (that idea has to some degree informed the Prometheus run). And it looks like we can now add Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 to that list.

Back in 2015, the South African wunderkind shared concept art for a new movie in the franchise that would retcon the deaths of Hicks, Newt and Ripley in Alien 3 and give fans that long-desired good Aliens sequel. It quickly gained traction and was endorsed by Sigourney Weaver (who it emerged had actually discussed the project with Blomkamp while working on Chappie), leading to Fox officially putting the movie in development. And then… nothing. All involved (including a set-to-return Michael Biehn) have been reluctant to say anything resolute since and as prequel Alien: Covenant moved forward it looks dead or at least stalled.

Now the chest is well and truly burst. According to Ridley Scott, the film never really got beyond the pitch stage, with only a ten-page treatment and no script, and as his prequel enterprise is expanding to be as many as six more films it will probably never happen. But while the cancellation of a superficially interesting Alien project may at first seem upsetting, when you really look at what Alien 5 was and the man behind it perhaps it wouldn’t have been all its cracked up to be.

Blomkamp: One-Trick Wonder

The core reason to quell excitement is the filmmaker. Only two directors have really made the xenomorph unequivocally work – Scott and Cameron – and Blomkamp hasn’t represented the inherent skill needed to realize it.

Oh, he started out great. After the Halo movie he’d been developing with Peter Jackson stalled he was given $30 million to make his long-gestating passion project District 9. On the face of it a simple apartheid allegory, it told an achingly personal story that mixed real-world bureaucracy, intergalactic pathos and sci-fi mechs perfectly – all three elements essential to Alien – and wound up with a shock Best Picture nom. But while D-9 announced a fresh talent on the block, the director has since failed to follow it up. Elysium had some snazzy concepts but couldn’t find its focus while Chappie was a bizarre coming-of-age story without any real emotional weight, and both were ultimately undone by a slavish reuse of District’s gritty, South African-infused style for minimal effect beyond keeping conceptual costs down.

Fundamentally, Blomkamp essentially struggles with idea delivery. His films all have a delectable, unique concept that can be dissected from multiple angles, yet with both of his post-debut outings has handed in a high school-level exploration of them. He’s even admitted that he was so enamored with the giant space ring in Elysium that he neglected a proper story. What’s to say he’d not repeat this with Alien 5 and just realize those concept pieces in a basic manner? The fact all his films feel the same definitely doesn’t boost confidence; what was fresh with District 9 now appears to have limited him.

Of course, we do still know Blomkamp is capable of creating challenging, entertaining sci-fi from his first film, and the real barrier with his follow ups has been time; he had almost five years spent envisioning his debut (which started life as short Alive in Joburg), but only a couple on the Elysium and Chappie. With that in mind, Alien 5 is already two years in “development”, so it’s possible he could pull it together. Although that brings us to the more fundamental story issues.

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Was Alien 5 Actually A Good Idea?

When it comes to decoding what Blomkamp’s vision actually was for Alien 5, we have very little to go on, mainly those instigating Instagram posts: an aged Ripley and acid-scarred Hicks, Ripley with some biomechanical getup; a derelict craft in a warehouse; a Queen in that same warehouse; and Ripley discovering a goo-encased victim. These pointed towards a straight sequel to Aliens that retconned Alien 3 and Resurrection out of existence, although Blomkamp since backtracked on that somewhat (whether that was poor phrasing or the result of studio input is unclear). Beyond that, little is known.

The idea of the warehouse location is evocative of Blomkamp’s style, but the main appeal of the art is that retcon element, offering fans something they’ve been dreaming of since the altogether flatness of David Fincher’s compromised Alien 3. And that dreaming is the problem; for all its flash, the idea isn’t that original. The art is well drawn and all, but there’s little on show in Blomkamp’s evidenced concept that couldn’t be imagined by any Alien fan.

In fact, we’ve actually officially seen this done before, most prominently in Aliens: Colonial Marines. The FPS is widely regarded as one of the worst tie-in games ever produced, a rushed, unpolished project whose failure underpins an entire studio, but before release what made it so intriguing was that it was a sequel to Aliens that undid Alien 3. Sound familiar? Although most criticism centers on the unrefined mechanics, the story was incredibly lackluster, wasting the conceit and being boring by itself.

That serves as evidence that the core concept of Alien 5 isn’t by itself strong enough to carry a full film – a retcon is fan service and worth nothing without a proper new story to back it up. We don’t know for sure what the full treatment was, but with the creator and focus concerns in mind there’s nothing to say we should have expected a blind slam dunk.

It Doesn’t Fit The 2010s Alien Franchise

Neither of the key points already made are why Alien 5 has been canned, and while it is a corporate decision at heart it’s definitely one with some qualitative reasoning. Blomkamp’s film very much could have happened, and the single reason it didn’t is because of the very man who broke the news: Ridley Scott. The series’ progenitor has returned to the universe of Weyland-Yutani with a vengeance with Prometheus (originally intended as a two-parter) and now Alien: Covenant, films that both fill in the backstory of the xenomorph and add themes of creation and creators to the sexually-driven horror franchise. And he’s not done yet, with four more movies set to plug further story gaps.

OK, so the making of six movies is totally cynical, but this effectively restructures Alien from being a male-rape metaphor or war-is-hell femist drum (depending on if you’re more of a Alien or Aliens kind of person) into something grander and philosophical. Further, the way Scott’s proceeding it’s almost as if every sequel to his 1979 original didn’t happen.

So, not only does a movie ostensibly going back to the simpler days of pure horror feel a bit antiquated, it directly goes against the grain. Alien 5 would be a random fan film within a franchise heading in a totally different, more philosophical direction. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – Deadpool and Logan came out less than a year apart in the same series and couldn’t be more different – but in a modern franchise model is a counterintuitive direction.

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Blomkamp’s Alien 5 is destined to be little more than a “What If?”, sitting right alongside Alien 3’s wooden planet as something that sounds cool only because the questionable idea was never realized in its entirety. And maybe that’s for the best. There’s not actually that much there beyond an overriding sense that the film wouldn’t have delivered on its promise in the end anyway. At least the whole thing succeeded in its primary purpose of increasing interest in Chappie. Oh, wait.

Next: Alien: Covenant Early Reviews