Extended Toy Box - Aliens (1992-1998)

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It’s become something of a cliché now to point out how, when it premiered, Star Wars changed everything, but it really did.  The ramifications of Star Wars as a film and, more importantly here, a multimedia phenomenon are still being felt today.  One of the biggest changes brought about Star Wars was a complete revamp to the way toys are created and sold.  Before this moment toys tended to exist as unique entities.  There were a handful of tie-in toys but for the most part toy “franchises” stayed confined to the medium of toys.  With the advent of Star Wars, suddenly franchised toys were big business, and Reagan’s deregulation of the FCC’s rules about advertising led to even more through TV shows built as ads for the toys. 

This was the first time something called ‘structured play’ entered the realm of American toy production, where the idea was that toys weren’t just for the imagination, but they were coming with a prebaked story and universe that informed them.  As such, when toy companies in the ‘80s and ‘90s wanted to keep selling new action figures from Terminator or Predator after the original film ended they needed to come up with new stories to base the new toys around.  

This series of events led to a ton of various toy lines at the time acting as the first expanded universe for the various franchise, the first place officially licensed new stories emerged even if it was just in the form of commercials or on the back of the packaging.  In this series, Extended Toy Box, I’m going to take a closer look at these franchises as well as occasionally touching on toys in general.  With all that said, let’s look at one of the best examples of this with Aliens.

Panel Vision - Aliens: Genocide

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So, the Alien franchise has, in classic form, given birth to a new monster in Alien: Covenant.  To celebrate the 6^th film in the Aliens franchise and the series’ seeming new lease on life in the 2010s I thought I’d look back at its most populated media frontier: comic books.  Yes, there were a metric ton of Alien comics published in the wake of Alien 3, which at the time seemed like the end of the franchise forever as “reboots” didn’t really seem like a thing yet back in 1992.  The main force behind the slew of Aliens branded books was Dark Horse, one of the B-list publishers now after clawing their way up from the C-list thanks to being the folks behind Hellboy. 

They’ve always made their bread and butter in adaptations and tie-in comics, and they milked the Alien franchise for everything it was worth, to the point they’re still putting out comics in this franchise now.  Seriously, there are 6 omnibuses worth of Alien comic material, which makes it all the more tragic that they’re so bad.  I dug through all of them in preparation for this review and found exactly two mini-series worth your time.  There was the enjoyably weird Aliens: Stronghold, which I’ll probably get to someday, and today’s focus, the unequivocal best of the bunch- Aliens: Genocide.  

Alien: Covenant Trailer Breakdown

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I'm kind of at a loss for words about Alien: Covenant.  There are plenty of things I could mention about the Alien series but, at this point, I’m pretty sure it’s all been said.  We’ve all heard the analysis of how the first film is about rape and sexual terror, we’ve all praised Aliens as one of the truly greater horror sequels, we’ve all searched for quality in Alien 3, and shamefully hidden our enjoyment of Alien Resurrection. 

We all struggled with Prometheus, a film whose failures and success seem to have most determined the path of Alien: Covenant, and we even enjoyed Alien v. Predator while also suffering through its sequel.  We’ve bought the comics and the action figures and the video games, we’ve gorged ourselves fully at the buffet of Alien.  So I guess my biggest question going into Alien: Covenant, the one thing I actually can say about it is…why do we need more, exactly?

Movie Monthly - Dead & Buried

Edited by Robert Beach

Welcome back to Movie Monthly’s Month of the Zombie where I celebrate zombie movies that only I consider to be zombie movies. There are just so many generic zombie films out there with your standard range of infected rage zombies or slow, shambling Romero zombies that you don’t need another person spotlighting them. In keeping with that trend, the zombies from this week’s movie are less of your standard issue undead and something more like the bizarre hybrid children of Re-Animator, The Fog, and Shutter Island.

It’s also notable as being from the writing team behind Alien…sort of.  Ronald Shusett, who’s credited with creating Alien’s story, while Alien’s actual author Dan O’Bannon has repeatedly distanced himself from the film, wrote the main script.  It’s a bizarre mash-up of zombie flick, seaside terror tale, retro throwback and atmospheric horror. Let’s talk about Dead & Buried.

Movie Monthly - Project Almanac

Previously in Movie Monthly I’ve stated my serious affection for found footage films.  However, I do realize this particular claim needs a bit of clarity.  When I say I like found footage films what I really mean is that I like found footage horror movies, mainly because the horror genre has a lot of interesting and engaging subgenre and elements that rarely get explored because they aren’t considered profitable.  So, if dressing up your Bigfoot horror movie in the clothes of a found footage flick both as a cost cutting measure and a way to convince investors and audiences this is a film worth their time I’m all for it (don’t worry, we’ll get to the Bigfoot films another time.)  However, I am aware that found footage horror isn’t the only aspect of this particular formatting tool in existence, there’s also the far less often employed Sci-Fi found footage film like Chronicle or today’s offering Project Almanac.  

Movie Monthly - Leviathan (1989)

For some reason in 1989 the world just decided it was obsessed with deep sea diving and exploration.  This was the year that gave us The Abyss, DeepStar Six, The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep, The Rift, and today’s topic Leviathan.  Now for most folks that list probably seems pretty obscure aside from James Cameron’s The Abyss but chances are if you grew up in the era of video rental stores chances are you know quite a few of those entries by sight if not by name.  Almost all of these deep-sea base films had a very unique and similar box art design, which is actually how I stumbled on Leviathan as a choice for this review.  That was just nature of rental video in the days before the immediate reward and no risk structure of streaming.  This also means that even when you’re talking about low-rent video rental scifi horror like Leviathan you can count on it to at least look good and be bonkers in all the right places.  

Aliens vs. Zombies #1 Review

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New review up on All-Comic of Zenescope's latest genre bending zombie comic: Aliens vs. Zombies, and don't worry, despite the jokey name it's a great read.  Full review here:

http://all-comic.com/2015/aliens-vs-zombies-1/

Movie Monthly: Carnosaur

Hello and welcome to Movie Monthly.  In this review series I'm going to choose a theme for each month and then every Monday I’ll spotlight a movie somehow related to that theme.  Generally I want to use this is a way to focus on lesser known or overlooked films but I’ll also sprinkle in the occasional new release or well regarded classic as I see fit. 

For our opening month I decided to start things off big and so we have Jurassic June, celebrating dinosaur movies for the whole month.  Partially I chose this theme to celebrate the upcoming Jurassic World release but mainly I chose it because there really aren’t that many dinosaur movies.  As such it’s my duty, as a critic, to dig up the strange, interesting, cool, or overlooked additions to this undernourished niche.  With all that said let’s look at Roger Corman’s Carnosaur.