Alien 40th Anniversary Shorts Teaser

Ridley Scott’s Alien turns 40 this year, and to mark the occasion 20th Century Fox will be putting out a 4K restoration on Blu-ray/DVD & 4K Ultra HD this April. However, a sleek new print of one of the best sci-fi horror films of all time isn’t the only celebrating Fox will be doing.

Six visionary filmmakers were selected to bring their Alien-inspired stories to life. From terrifying escapes, to Facehuggers and Xenomorphs, these captivating shorts brings forth an exciting new narrative for fans while paying homage to the original film.

Alien fan-films have been around for ages with some shocking good ones out there. Naturally, they’re not all great, but nothing as bad as AvP, and that was a real movie. I have loved the world of Alien ever since my way too young self watched it late night on TV in the early 90s. James Cameron’s Aliens sure did up the ante, but Scott’s original remains my favourite of what is now a deeply messy franchise. I have a love/hate relationship with Scott’s two prequel films, both Prometheus and Covenant are jam-packed with things to love. I admire Scott for trying to do something different, but neither film realises its potential.

The soon to be completed 20th Century Fox merger with Disney means the rights to all future Alien movies now sit with The House of Mouse. I’ll admit that an R-rated violent sci-fi/horror seems like an unlikely priority for Disney, but the Fox side of things will look to develop projects for all ages including adults who like violent sci-fi/horror movies. It’s not like that Ripley is going to show up in the MCU.

I’m still hooked on Alien Isolation (there are some neat digital shorts on the Alien Anthology page), and the Alien universe is still rich for further exploration. We might never see Neil Blomkamp’s Alien sequel, but we do have six shorts to sink our teeth into while we wait for that glorious 4K release.