Alien: Containment

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the ‘Alien’ film franchise 20th Century Fox Disney is releasing six short films created in collaboration with Tongal — ‘Alone’, ‘Containment’, ‘Harvest’, ‘Night Shift’, ‘Ore’ and ‘Specimen’.  The first, ‘Containment’ will be released this Friday, but if you want a sneak-peek, the Alien Anthology Twitter account shared a short teaser clip.

 

The other shorts are:

  • ALIEN: Alone – Written and Directed by Noah Miller – Hope, an abandoned crew member aboard the derelict chemical hauler Otranto, has spent a year trying to keep her ship and herself alive as both slowly fall apart. After discovering hidden cargo, she risks it all to power up the broken ship in search of human life.
  • ALIEN: Harvest – Directed by Benjamin Howdeshell – The surviving crew of a damaged deep-space harvester have minutes to reach the emergency evacuation shuttle. A motion sensor is their only navigation tool leading them to safety while a creature in the shadows terrorizes the crew. However, the greatest threat might have been hiding in plain sight all along.
  • ALIEN: Night Shift – Written and Directed by Aidan Breznick – When a missing space trucker is discovered hungover and disoriented, his co-worker suggests a nightcap as a remedy. Near closing time, they are reluctantly allowed inside the colony supply depot where the trucker’s condition worsens, leaving a young supply worker alone to take matters into her own hands.
  • ALIEN: Ore – Written and Directed by the Spear Sisters – As a hard-working miner of a planet mining colony, Lorraine longs to make a better life for her daughter and grandchildren. When her shift uncovers the death of a fellow miner under mysterious circumstances, Lorraine is forced to choose between escape or defying management orders and facing her fears to fight for the safety of her family.
  • ALIEN: Specimen – Directed by Kelsey Taylor – It’s the night shift in a colony greenhouse, and Julie, a botanist, does her best to contain suspicious soil samples that have triggered her sensitive lab dog. Despite her best efforts the lab unexpectedly goes into full shutdown and she is trapped inside. Little does she know, an alien specimen has escaped the mysterious cargo, and a game of cat and mouse ensues as the creature searches for a host.

It remains to be seen how family-friendly Disney will handle the more adult-targeted Fox brands like ‘Alien’.  But in all honesty, the ‘Alien’ franchise has been struggling to resurface as a relevant franchise in the modern market.  Hopefully, these shorts will be more ‘Aliens’ than ‘Prometheus’.

What do you think?  Are you looking forward to 40 more years of ‘Alien’?