How to Watch Alien Movies in Order
Aug. 9, 2024If you are someone who enjoys watching gore and horror, the Alien franchise is something that is quite literally handcrafted for you. This franchise has been running for quite some time and has given us eight movies in total with another one on the way. Some of these movies were phenomenal but some were not so good. Now thatAlien Romulusis coming up, it’s time to start watching Alien movies to get familiar with the franchise. Here’s how to watch the Alien movies in order in both release date and chronological order.
Alien Movies in Release Date Order
But, this movie messes up the timeline and origin of the Xenomorphs set by the Aliens movies since a flashback also shows us that Aliens and the Predators have been at war with each other for a massive amount of time, basically, since before the dawn of human civilization.
This movie and the previous one are constantly trying to impose that both the Alien and The Predator franchises are part of a big cinematic universe and end up revealing that the space travel advancement seen in Yutani Corp in the Alein franchise was taken from Predator tech.
Chronologically, this prequel movie, Prometheus, is the first one out of the Alien-Alien franchise. Set in the year 2089, this movie shows us that archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway found a distant star dubbed LV-223 that can support human life. They are sent to LV-223, financed by Weyland Corporation, where they arrive in the year 2093.
This movie does not contain a lot of Alien action sequences but tells us a lot about “Engineers,” the ones who created them. If we look at this movie, classic Xenomorphs are nowhere to be seen and are nonexistent which makes the Alien vS Predator movies irrelevant.
Even though this movie once again does not give us a lot of classic Alien-like action there is just enough for the fans of this franchise to be happy. The selling point of this movie was that it gave the Aliens a strong origin point which once again does not align with what we saw in the Alien Vs Predator movies.
The events we see in the original Alien movie take place in the year 2122 which sets it 18 years after what we saw in Alien Covenant. This movie is where it all began and everything that happens in this movie is pretty standalone. This movie reinforces that back on Earth, Weyland Corporation has learned about the existence of Xenomorphs by either a surviving member of previous expeditions or transmissions since Weyland-Yutani was seeking out these creatures.
Set in the year 2179, Aliens takes us to Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of Nostromo, who is rescued by her employers in deep space. However, what she tells them in her debriefing, is taken with a grain of salt by them. LV-426 is now a massive terraforming colony and eventually, some employees come across dormant Xenomorph eggs which don’t stay dormant for too long.
Alien 3 takes place not too long after the events of Aliens where we see Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop go into cryostasis. Ripley crash lands on a barren planet and finds herself trapped on Fiorina “Fury” 161 while being hunted down by the Xenomorphs at the same time. This suggests that everything that has been happening in this threequel is rather fast-paced. This movie was the last one in the original Aliens franchise and everything that followed after this was either a prequel or a sequel stemming out of everything we saw in these three movies.
Initially, we had no information about the timeline where Alien Romulus will be taking place but in a conversation withVariety, Actor Cailee Spaeny, who will be playing the protagonist in Alien Romulus confirmed that this movie will be taking place sometime between the events of Alien and Aliens. In her comment, she stated-
It’s supposed to slot in between the first movie and the second movie. They brought the same team from ‘Aliens,’ the James Cameron film. The same people who built those xenomorphs actually came on and built ours. So getting to see the original design with the original people who have been working on these films for 45-plus years and has been so much of their life has been really incredible.”
As of now, we can’t say how much of an influence this movie is going to have on the franchise and what part it will play in the broader scheme of things, here are themovies you should watch before Alien Romulus.
Shashank Shakya is an Entertainment Writer and has completed his Bachelors(Honours) with English Literature. He is a published writer. He boasts incomparable knowledge about the Marvel and DC universes along with other branches of entertainment with substantial experience in the field of writing.
