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As a media franchise, the film
Alien has enjoyed a large and devoted fanbase for over four decades. This new book engages with the franchise in all its forms: not just the original film, but its sequels, prequels, and multimedia offshoots like comic books, audiobooks, action figures and videogames, to offer fresh perspectives on the
Alien universe. What is it about
Alien that still fascinates audiences, and why does it still matter so many years after its birth?
Table des matières
- Foreword
- Robert Kolker
- 1. Introduction
- Nathan Abrams and Gregory Frame
- 2. Boundaries of Viscerality: A sense of abjection regarding "the perfect organism"
- Sara Louise Wheeler
- 3. Fractal Patterns out of Chaos in Ridley Scott's Alien, Prometheus and Covenant
- Carrie Lynn Evans
- 4. The Progeny of H.R. Giger
- Christopher L. Robinson
- 5. The Unescapable Labyrinth: Archetypal Retrogression and Aesthetic Rigidity in Alien3
- Kenneth Sloane
- 6. "Building Better Worlds": The Rise of Alien's Online Marketing Campaigns
- Kim Walden
- 7. "What The Hell Is That?": A Transmedial approach to Taxonomic Ambiguity and Horror Affect in the Alien franchise
- Zoé N. Wible
- 8. From Personal Files to Blueprints: Exploring the Alien Universe through Epistolary Paratexts
- Tonguç Ibrahim Sezen
- 9. "Must be a chick thing": Ripley, the Alien franchise and the Female Gothic
- Frances A. Kamm
- 10. Making the Mother: Pro/Creation and Female Agency in the Alien Series
- Jonathan A. Rose and Florian Zitzelsberger
- 11. Melodrama of the Unknown Woman Lost in Space: A Cavellian Reading of the Alien Franchise
- Mario Slugan
- 12. Remediating Ripley: Negotiating the Patriarchal Gaze in the Alien Franchise Video Games
- Bronwyn Miller
- 13. Hissing in the Airvents: Decoding the Narrative-Verse of Alien: Isolation (2014)
- Reuben Martens
A propos de l'auteur
Nathan Abrams is Professor in Film and Lead Director for the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies at Bangor University. He lectures on British and American popular culture, history film and intellectual culture. He is co-founder of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal. He is the co-author of Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film, and the author of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual and The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema, among others.
Gregory Frame is Research Associate in Film Studies at Bangor University. His main area of interest is the politics of popular film and television, and he has published widely in these areas in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. He is the author of The American President in Film and Television: Myth, Politics and Representation.
Résumé
The 1979 film Alien has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Directed by Ridley Scott, at the time known primarily for making advertisements, and starring then-unknown actor Sigourney Weaver in the lead role, it transcended its humble origins to shock and disturb audiences upon its initial release. Its success has led to three direct sequels, two prequels, one “mashup” franchise, a series of comic books, graphic novels, novelizations, games, and an enormous and devoted fanbase. For forty years, Alien and its progeny have animated debate and discussion among critics and academics from a wide variety of fields and methodological perspectives.
This book brings together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Alien through a contemporary lens. The chapters here demonstrate the extent to which its effects and reception are deeply multifaceted, with the Alien franchise straddling the lines between “high” and “low” culture, playing with generic categories, crossing media boundaries, and animating theoretical, critical, and political debates. Chapters touch on female agency and motherhood, the influence of H.R. Giger, the viscerality of Alien's body horror, the narrative tradition of the Female Gothic, the patriarchal gaze in the Alien video games, and the rise of in-universe online marketing campaigns.
In so doing, the volume aims to debate Alien's legacy, consider its current position within visual culture, and establish what the series means--and why it still matters--forty years since its birth.
Texte suppl.
Tackling sequels, prequels, games and comics, Alien Legacies is a thoughtful and engaging demonstration not only of the diversity and sheer scale of the Alien franchise, but also its continuing resonance and interest for media studies scholars.
