Alien

Alien: Earth is wantonly disrespectful to the canon

I once spent a delightful weekend in Madrid with the co-producer of Alien. His name was David Giler (now dead, sadly, I’ve just discovered) and he’d hit upon the bizarre idea of trying to get my anti-eco-lunacy book Watermelons made into a Hollywood movie. The film project never came off but I did learn an important lesson in our time together, hanging out in nice restaurants and pretending to work: if you want a happy life cushioned from financial care, the secret is to wangle yourself percentage points of a successful franchise. Another example of this is Franc Roddam, with whom I once spent an even stranger weekend in Accra,

Please stop making Alien movies

In the Alien films, a xenomorph is a monstrous, all-consuming life form that exists only to make more and more copies of itself. Once the first xenomorph appears, it’s only a matter of time until all those gleaming chrome walls will be covered in creepy black goo and the humans suspended lifeless from the ceiling in webs of slime with their chests ripped open. The xenomorphs are not curious about the world. They don’t care that they’re in a spaceship in the middle of outer space. As far as they’re concerned, we’re all just warm bodies in which to incubate their young. The only thing they want to do is

Acorns and aliens: lunch with Vernon and the Ukrainians

Catriona and I were late for lunch at Vernon’s because I couldn’t get out of bed. The four of them — Vernon and the three Ukrainians — were sitting outside drinking in the sun when we walked up the path. The Ukrainians are renting Vernon’s other house. Nina is married to Andrij. Valentyna is Nina’s friend from their college days. They had been talking about me. ‘Talk of the wolf,’ said Valentyna. ‘That is what we say in Ukraine when we talk about someone and they come,’ she explained. ‘Quand on parle du loup,’ said Vernon, who is French-American, ‘on en voit la queue. That’s what we French say. When