The Xenopod TAKE ONE Magazine

Final report of the podcast, The Xenopod. We've watched all the Alien franchise films and offer this final report on our findings, the various themes that have emerged as we went through, and some thoughts on the future of the franchise. With a little luck, the network will pick this up. This is The Xenopod, signing off.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: ⁠https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix⁠

This podcast was recorded during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labour of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

You've reached the end of your journey at last. As you touch down on the planet that you'll colonise as your new home, you feel calm. Until you're suddenly ambused from the field of cultivated wheat by critical appraisal of ALIEN: COVENANT offering insight into what elements of this best-of of the Alien franchise don't work, what the film has to say about colonialism and genocide, and what we learn about the Xenomorph.

Content warning: body horror, death, chemical warfare, space travel, genocide, colonialism and imperialism, biological experimentation, serial killing, antisemitism, Nazism and fascism.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/simonxix/collections/NTNK7XEN

This podcast was recorded during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labour of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

You descend to the surface of an alien planet and immediately remove your space helmet only to be attacked by a parasitic worm that pumps you full of critical appraisal of 2012's PROMETHEUS. Against your will, you learn about the extended development history of this quasi-prequel, the issues with the script that bog down the visual spectacle, and the film's dense thicket of thematic preoccupations.

Content warning: body horror, death, chemical warfare, pregnancy, abortion, space travel, religion, nihilism.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/simonxix/collections/MYARSAMP

This podcast was recorded during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

You crash in the Colorado forest and discover a small town overrun with people discussing ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM and why its gratuitous nastiness and deeply conservative undercurrents make this the most unpleasant film so far in the Alien franchise. Is there any interesting critical insight to pull from this literally and metaphorically dark film?

Content warning: body horror, death, infant death, child death, pregnancy, sexual imagery, nuclear power.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/simonxix/collections/7JI333U7

This podcast was recorded during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

You drill down into the Antarctic ice and discover what you've been doggedly searching for: an ever-shifting pyramid containing critical analysis of ALIEN VS. PREDATOR. Ancient hieroglyphics discuss why the film doesn't work, how its white supremacist premise fits into racialised readings of the Alien films, and its weird contested position as a paratext in the multi/transmedia franchise.

Content warning: body horror; sexual imagery; white supremacy; racism.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/simonxix/collections/ENGXD3R2

It's two hundred years later and you awaken in a weird membrane-like thing to discover that you've been resurrected for the purpose of learning about ALIEN RESURRECTION's tonal clash of writer and director, the script's baked-in misogyny, and the odd direction it takes with Ripley's character.

Content warning: body horror; death; ableism; misogyny; sexual imagery; spousal abuse; workplace abuse.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/simonxix/collections/32Y7KBZN