I was just thinking about the moment in 1992 when the Alien franchise stopped being completely awesome. Alien³ was a decent movie in its own right, but it did not measure up to its predecessors. It didn’t help that it started out with a pretty epic bait & switch:

Yup, it really said “In 1992, we will discover on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.”

The actual theatrical trailer combined some pretty good teasers with some pretty bad cheese:

“The bitch is back”? Really?

To be fair, Alien and Aliens were extremely tough acts to follow. The fact that no one person can be blamed for the comparative inadequacy of Alien³ is both a useful explanation and the entire problem. Not even having a young Tywin Lannister as a love interest could completely redeem the movie.

Anyway, here’s an overview of sorts of the four main Alien films: