Is the Alien(s) franchise overdue for an official day of recognition and fan celebration? I think so. Fans of the original 1979 movie and the sequels and prequel that followed are a loyal bunch. They spend money on toys, posters, t-shirts, Blue-ray box sets and some like me, shelled out big bucks in 1987 for a pair of Reebok’s Bugstomper shoes. That’s dedicated fandom.
#AlienDay426
This week’s big announcement of #AlienDay has coincided with reports in the media of ‘new’ Reebok Aliens shoes. I have serious doubts that any of those writers responsible for the reports are hard core fans of the franchise. If they were, they would know that the Reebok shoes being written about were actually available almost 30 years ago.
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here. There’s a good chance that the re-issue shoes might be slightly different than the original Bugstompers. Images and an official 20th century fox poster being used to promote the re-issues show the Alien character Ripley in a pair of very noticeable “high top” Reebok Bugstompers. Back in the day, only “mid top” shoes were available.
What else besides shoes?
Beginning at midnight and lasting 24 hours, 4/26 (an homage to the planet LV-426) will be filled with product launches, nationwide screenings and a Twitter trivia contest that will give away ALIEN merch every 42.6 minutes. Now you know what that twitter hashtag #AlienDay426 is all about: make April 26 the de-facto fan day for the Alien franchise. CP
Did you know?
The most sought after Alien collectible is the 1979 Kenner 18″ Alien doll– a fine likeness of H.R. Giger’s design. Originally pulled from toy store shelves due to frightening parents and children alike.
UPDATED- Aliens | July 2016 Comic Con Full Panel (James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton)
Spicing things up a bit, it seems that Ridley Scott (director of the original Alien and first Alien spin-off movie Prometheus and now the second Prometheus film) is including the Alien character in his follow up to Prometheus. Officially titled Alien:Covenant, we now have a chance to watch the first full length trailer- https://youtu.be/H0VW6sg50Pk
There will no doubt be a lot of confusion for the casual fan of the Alien series (why couldn’t Scott have kept the working title Prometheus 2?) and is not related to Neil Blomkamp’s upcoming Alien re-boot movie (http://variety.com/2015/film/news/new-alien-movie-confirmed-at-fox-with-director-neill-blomkamp-1201436551/)that likely will use original Alien and Aliens cast members Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn.
UPDATE The Alien movie franchise continues 2017. UPDATE
Movie Pilot Horror
2 hrs · ..
The Alien movie we’ve been waiting a lifetime for. It looks like they’ve done it.
Stephen Rutherford
6 hrs · .
While I am looking forward to Alien:Covenant, I fear that Ridley Scott has been forced to compromise his vision on these sequels to Prometheus. Facing pressure from the film studio to have a hit film and just throwing in aliens in hopes of drawing people with that.
I liked Prometheus. It was a welcome departure from previous Alien films in
that it explored the origin of the space jockey/engineers, who they were, what they did, and where they came from. As Scott said at the time, it was going in the opposite direction of the aliens and that future films would be going even further away from the aliens universe. It appears that’s no longer the case.