10 Reasons There Are Only 2 And A Half Good Alien Movies

4. No One Can Cope With The Alien Being Out Of The Box Any More

Much of the power of Alien came from the fact its monster, like the shark in Jaws, went unseen for most of the movie, only being revealed in the final act. Aliens coped with the xenomorph being revealed by turning into an action movie, with gunplay, salty soldierly banter and nuclear-strength kickassery taking up the slack that suspense about the creature itself left behind. And of course it had its own reveal, with the Alien Queen making a climactic appearance like the giant mega-pregnant diva she is.

But starting with Alien3, the filmmakers seem to again forget what went before. The creature is seen as glimpses of tails and slavering jaws, or simply as a black shape darting into frame to eat some hapless unfortunate. The suspense is significantly dulled by the fact we all know what the damn thing looks like by now.

And the human/xenomorph hybrid from Alien: Resurrection doesn't count. It looked like a gorilla made of blancmange.