10 Movie Franchises That Need To Return To Their Roots

The Alien franchise is one of the longest running franchises currently still doing the rounds, outlived only by a handful of other franchises such as Star Wars and the James Bond series. But ever since the second installment Aliens, the series has been on inferior ground, failing to live up to the greatness of the first two installments.

A variety of factors have led to this overall loss in quality, from the studio interference on David Fincher's directorial debut Alien3, to poorly conceived cross overs with the Predator franchise and, more recently, an expansion of the world building in the prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which feels overstuffed and complicated (the prequels were met with such a lukewarm reception from audiences and disappointing box office takings that the third installment was cancelled in 2017).

It's the tendency for franchises to over-egg the pudding in terms of world building and explanations which has led the Alien franchise down the path to disappointment. Re-examine the first two entries into the series and it's clear that less is more, whether you're watching Ridley Scott's intense, minimalist science fiction horror in Alien or James Cameron's edge-of-the-seat action masterpiece, Aliens.

What truly matters for an Alien film to work is pure horror and action cinema, not lengthy exposition concerning how the aliens were created and by whom. An Alien film needs to be a visceral and thrilling experience - the backstories and details are better served on a Wiki page for the franchise than on screen.