{"id":2335488,"date":"2024-09-02T07:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/do-the-alien-franchises-anti-corporate-themes-still-work\/"},"modified":"2024-09-02T07:45:31","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T11:45:31","slug":"do-the-alien-franchises-anti-corporate-themes-still-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/do-the-alien-franchises-anti-corporate-themes-still-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Do The &#8216;Alien&#8217; Franchise&#8217;s Anti-Corporate Themes Still Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdo-the-alien-franchises-anti-corporate-themes-still-work%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2335488&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The passage discusses the persistent portrayal of evil corporations in cinema, particularly highlighting the Weyland-Yutani Corporation from the &#8220;Alien&#8221; franchise as one of the \u2064most malevolent examples. Over nine films, the company has been depicted as prioritizing \u200bprofit above human life, even subjecting its employees to fatal encounters with alien creatures. The latest installment, &#8220;Alien: Romulus,&#8221; continues this trend by focusing on characters who \u200dare trapped in a corrupt mining system that\u2062 exploits them while keeping them in a cycle of debt \u200cand false promises.<\/p>\n<p>In \u200b&#8221;Romulus,&#8221; the characters&#8217; struggles \u200dintensify as they discover a space station infested with Xenomorphs,\u2062 only to find that the company&#8217;s interests conflict with their survival. The film underscores the theme that Weyland-Yutani is willing to sacrifice lives \u200cfor \u200ccorporate \u2062benefit, echoing historical criticisms of corporations in both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/warners-bros-exec-celebrates-dune-2-scoring-81-5m-opening-weekend-we-created-a-cultural-moment\/\" title=\"Warner Bros. exec thrilled with &#039;Dune 2&#039; earning .5M in opening weekend, calls it a cultural milestone\">sci-fi genre<\/a> and\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/harry-and-meghan-learn-the-hard-way-that-comedy-is-still-legal-in-america\/\" title=\"Harry and Meghan Learn The Hard Way That Comedy Is Still Legal In America\">real-life events<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The text also ties \u2064in broader implications \u200bof\u2063 corporate actions with contemporary political sentiments, noting shifts in perspectives towards corporations across \u2062the\u2064 political \u200cspectrum. The enduring significance of corporate exploitation in storytelling demonstrates the genre&#8217;s preoccupation with the consequences of prioritizing profit over humanity, an\u2064 issue echoing real-world\u2063 examples of \u200ccorporate negligence and labor exploitation. &#8220;Alien: Romulus&#8221; serves as a reflection \u200don the dark realities of corporate motives that remain relevant decades after the original &#8220;Alien&#8221; film was released.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>If there are two consistent villains in the history of cinema, they are the Nazis and evil corporations. From the Umbrella Corporation (&ldquo;Resident Evil&rdquo;) to Omni Consumer Products (&ldquo;RoboCop&rdquo;), Cyberdyne Systems (&ldquo;Terminator&rdquo;), Buy N Large (&ldquo;Wall-E&rdquo;), the Tyrell Corporation (&ldquo;Blade Runner&rdquo;), Silver Shamrock (&ldquo;Halloween III&rdquo;), and LexCorp (&ldquo;Superman&rdquo;), there is nothing more evil in the eyes of many filmmakers than the corporate bottom line.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Among these evil corporations, none is so evil as the &ldquo;Alien&rdquo; franchise&rsquo;s Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Over the course of nine films, the company has sent its employees to be killed by parasitic alien monsters, cloned those same employees, and repeatedly attempted to weaponize the most dangerous beings in the universe for profit. In &ldquo;Prometheus,&rdquo; the company&rsquo;s founder even gets the Earth nearly destroyed by an interstellar biological weapon after asking an alien demigod to give him eternal life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Alien: Romulus,&rdquo; the newest film in the franchise, is no exception to this, but in its more salient moments, it expands upon the personal realities of these evils. As we discover, our lead characters are enslaved on a mining colony that continually extends their contracts and debts to the company against their will. These characters sold their souls to the company in exchange for a brighter future that will never come due to alleged &ldquo;worker shortages.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When our heroes discover a space station infected by Xenomorphs, the needs of the corporation constantly interfere with their ability to survive. Throughout the film, it becomes clear that the company is prepared to kill most of them if &ldquo;it&rsquo;s good for the company.&rdquo; Weyland-Yutani is once again in over its head and has forged ahead with horrific research that would carelessly result in hundreds or thousands of deaths if fully realized.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Corporations certainly have a strange place in American politics, let alone in Hollywood. The Republican Party has historically been far more aligned with the interests of major corporations, with Democrats long wailing about pollution, Big Pharma, monopolies, and the detrimental effects of Walmart on the small business economy. That&rsquo;s certainly changed in recent years, with Disney, BlackRock, and Pfizer becoming leftist darlings. It is much easier now to be a conservative and to hate corporations, if only because it&rsquo;s clear corporations are happily working against conservative values.<\/p>\n<p>Science fiction&rsquo;s deep hatred of corporations isn&rsquo;t difficult to understand. The genre has a futuristic and progressive bend going back to its foundations. Corporations are easy fodder for stories about mankind&rsquo;s follies and our species&rsquo; future (or lack thereof). It is easy to imagine corporations choosing profits over human life in a story because it&rsquo;s clear that there are corporations in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/another-wave-of-portland-police-quit-amid-massive-spike-in-shootings-and-stabbings-fire-dept-responding-to-10-homeless-tent-fires-a-day\/\" title=\"Another Wave Of Portland Police Quit Amid Massive Spike In Shootings And Stabbings; Fire Dept. Responding To 10+ Homeless Tent Fires A Day\">real life<\/a> that do so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From Foxconn&rsquo;s suicides to Vietnamese sweatshop labor and DuPont&rsquo;s history of Teflon poisoning, the trope does speak to an observable carelessness among global mega corporations &mdash; one rural and middle-class Americans have endured amid globalization as their financial lives have been quietly destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>What makes &ldquo;Alien: Romulus&rdquo; fascinating is how little has changed in the genre in the past 45 years. Ridley Scott&rsquo;s 1979 &ldquo;Alien&rdquo; told a story in which all of the events are manipulated by Weyland-Yutani, pressuring a crew of space truckers to put themselves in danger for the company&rsquo;s good. Working-class people have their contracts threatened by their unwillingness to risk their lives, leading to five brutal deaths at the hands of a horrific alien monster. James Cameron&rsquo;s &ldquo;Aliens&rdquo; further shows the company putting hundreds of colonist families in danger to access the Xenomorphs, lying to its protagonist as a means of using her body to traffic an alien embryo back to Earth.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The critical reaction to &ldquo;Alien: Romulus&rdquo; has largely focused on its nostalgia and fan service, with the film paying tribute to all of the previous films in the franchise &mdash; to its detriment. It&rsquo;s schlocky and violent and tries to gloss over its lack of originality with heavy-handed callbacks and practical special effects. This isn&rsquo;t to say the film is bad, as it is occasionally clever and engaging, but the result is that it transports the same concepts and ideas from a 45-year-old horror film into a modern context without much unpacking.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Weyland-Yutani is a cartoonishly evil corporation in a genre that has produced many examples of this trope. Karl Marx wrote heavily about the ways industry alienates people from their authentic selves, but these stories go further yet by suggesting that corporations will always choose profit over human life. They are unrealistic in this sense, as few examples of the genre give corporate characters the humanity to understand their poor choices, but they do capture how alien and ugly the output of greed can be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In an age of &ldquo;woke capitalism,&rdquo; and in the wake of the Tea Party, the gig economy, the Covid pandemic, quiet quitting, mass tech layoffs, automation, and the rise of artificial intelligence, an evil corporation means something very different now than before. It&rsquo;s never been easier to be skeptical of faceless corporations and their goals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Tyler Hummel is a Nashville-based freelance journalist, a College Fix Fellow, and a member of the Music City Film Critics Association. He has contributed to The Dispatch, The New York Sun, Hollywood in Toto, The Pamphleteer, Law and Liberty, Main Street Nashville, North American Anglican, Living Church, and Geeks Under Grace.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there are two enduring antagonists in cinematic history, they are the Nazis and malevolent corporations. Examples include the Umbrella Corporation from &#8220;Resident Evil,&#8221; Omni Consumer Products from &#8220;RoboCop,&#8221; Cyberdyne Systems from &#8220;Terminator,&#8221; Buy N Large from &#8220;Wall-E,&#8221; the Tyrell Corporation from &#8220;Blade Runner,&#8221; Silver Shamrock from &#8220;Halloween III,&#8221; and LexCorp from &#8220;Superman.&#8221; Many filmmakers view corporate greed as one of the greatest evils. Among these fictional companies, none is more notorious than Weyland-Yutani Corporation in the \u201cAlien\u201d series. Throughout nine films, this corporation has sent its employees to face deadly alien creatures, cloned them, and repeatedly sought to weaponize these perilous beings for profit. In \u201cPrometheus,\u201d even its founder nearly brings about Earth&#8217;s destruction by requesting eternal life from an alien demigod.<\/p>\n<p>The latest installment, \u201cAlien: Romulus,\u201d continues this trend but also delves deeper into the personal implications of such corporate malice. The main characters find themselves enslaved on a mining colony where their contracts and debts to Weyland-Yutani are perpetually extended against their will. They have sacrificed their futures for false promises that never materialize due to supposed \u201cworker shortages.\u201d When they stumble upon a space station overrun by Xenomorphs, corporate interests continually obstruct their survival efforts. It becomes evident that Weyland-Yutani is willing to sacrifice most of them if it benefits the company.<\/p>\n<p>The portrayal of corporations in American politics\u2014and Hollywood\u2014is complex; historically, Republicans have aligned more closely with major business interests while Democrats have criticized issues like pollution and monopolies. However, recent years have seen companies like Disney and Pfizer embraced by left-leaning audiences as well. This shift has made it easier for conservatives to criticize corporations since many now seem at odds with traditional conservative values.<\/p>\n<p>Science fiction&#8217;s disdain for corporations is understandable given its progressive roots; such entities serve as convenient symbols of humanity&#8217;s failings and potential future crises (or lack thereof). The genre often reflects real-world instances where profit takes precedence over human life\u2014illustrated by cases like Foxconn\u2019s worker suicides or exploitative labor practices in sweatshops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlien: Romulus\u201d stands out because it shows how little has changed within this genre over 45 years. Ridley Scott\u2019s original 1979 film depicted events manipulated by Weyland-Yutani as it pressured a crew into dangerous situations for corporate gain\u2014resulting in tragic deaths at the hands of an alien creature. James Cameron\u2019s sequel further illustrated how the company endangered colonists while deceiving protagonists for profit-driven motives.<\/p>\n<p>Critics&#8217; responses to \u201cAlien: Romulus\u201d often highlight its reliance on nostalgia and fan service rather than originality; while it pays homage to previous films in ways that can feel excessive or forced, some moments do shine through with cleverness or engagement despite lacking fresh ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Weyland-Yutani embodies a caricatured evil corporation typical within this genre\u2014a concept explored extensively by Karl Marx regarding industrial alienation but taken further here with narratives suggesting that profits will always trump human welfare among corporate entities. While these portrayals may lack nuance regarding corporate motivations or humanity behind decisions made out of greed, they effectively capture how destructive unchecked avarice can be.<\/p>\n<p>In today&#8217;s context\u2014marked by trends like \u201cwoke capitalism,\u201d gig economies post-Covid pandemic disruptions\u2014the notion of an evil corporation carries new significance compared to earlier depictions; skepticism towards faceless businesses has never been more prevalent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3027,"featured_media":2335489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-08-29-at-2.41.41%E2%80%AFPM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[39901,39902,39904,34313,39903],"class_list":["post-2335488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-alien-franchise","tag-anti-corporate-themes","tag-cultural-impact","tag-film-analysis","tag-science-fiction"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-08-29-at-2.41.41%E2%80%AFPM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3027"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2335488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2335488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2335488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2335488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}