Perspectives on Foreign Policy Part One: Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001)

In this two part book review I will first focus on Walter Russel Mead’s Special Providence before turning in part two to Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson’s new The Myth of American Idealism. Why bring together Mead and Chomsky/Robinson? To facilitate a discussion and hopefully produce some insight. Mead represents the thoughtful articulation of a more or less mainstream, relatively positive appraisal of American foreign policy, while Chomsky/Robinson offer a thoughtful leftist critique. 

First, Mead’s book. Mead is a foreign policy scholar who has taught at several universities, written for many journals and magazines, and held positions at the mainstream Council on Foreign Relations. He is also cofounder of the centrist New America Foundation. Although his book Special Providence was published in 2001, and thus does not tackle such fundamental issues as 9/11, the Iraq War, and the more recent global populist turn, it is both a powerful overview of the history of American foreign policy and a remarkably prescient look at developments that were just starting to percolate at the turn of the twenty-first century.

To begin with, Mead says, “The United States has had a remarkably successful history in international relations.” (8). He gives examples of successful maneuvering with and against European powers that date back to the American Revolution and on through the Civil War. Mead notes that “within a generation after the Civil War, the United States became a recognized world power while establishing an unchallenged hegemony in the Western hemisphere.” (8).

This culminates, according to Mead, in a situation where in 2001 “the United States is not only the sole global power, its values inform a global consensus, and it dominates to an unprecedented degree the formation of the first truly global civilization our planet has known.” (10). He then goes on to compare this to many of the failed foreign policies of other powers, from misguided follies to immoral conquests. And this raises important questions: What counts as a successful foreign policy? How might one measure this? What counts as a moral foreign policy? We will return to these evaluative questions later. For now we must ask: Why has American foreign policy been so successful, according to Mead?

Mead sees four traditions of American foreign policy, each named after a key figure in American history: Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian. Mead’s thesis is that American foreign policy has been remarkably successful through the effective debate, confrontation, and collaboration between these four competing perspectives. Each of the four have made valuable contributions to American successes and have helped to correct for the shortcomings and blindspots of their rivals. What defines each school?

Hamiltonian: This school, named for Secretary of the Treasury and Federalist Papers coauthor Alexander Hamilton, is focused on using American power to maintain a stable international order for trade and free commerce. Historically Hamiltonians used protectionist policies to build strong American industries but over the course of the twentieth century became the key group in American foreign policy pushing for establishing an international capitalist order, through force if necessary.

Wilsonian:  This school, named for President Woodrow Wilson, focuses on spreading democracy and human rights to the countries and peoples of the world, partly through the framework of international law and human rights, partly through armed intervention. Both the Wilsonian and Hamiltonian perspectives are more than willing to bring these imperatives about through military force. They are, more or less, the dominant mainstream perspectives of American foreign policy and empire. 

The Hamiltonian and Wilsonian perspectives are internationalist in focus and built around regular armed intervention in service of their goals. In Mead’s words, “politically the first 140 years or so of American independence were not a quiet time in American foreign relations. Virtually every presidential administration from Washington’s to Wilson’s sent American forces abroad or faced one or more war crises with a great European power.” (17).

In the early pages of the book Mead effectively shows how an active, interventionist foreign policy has been a defining feature of American history, even during the supposedly more isolationist 19th century. And of course in the 20th century, as the US became a great power, it famously intervened in Latin America and elsewhere with regularity.

So what about the other two schools? The Jeffersonian and Jacksonian perspectives are more internally focused and as such have been less dominant within the mainstream of American foreign policy. To simplify, one could say that the Jeffersonian perspective is a sort of leftist view and the Jacksonian a right-populist one, whereas the Hamiltonian and Wilsonian perspectives are both centrist. 

Jeffersonian: This school, named after President Thomas Jefferson, is concerned primarily with expanding democratic freedom at home and harbors considerable worries over the concentration of state and corporate power, not to mention a skepticism of militarism and empire. As Mead says, “Jeffersonians have worried about the ability of large economic concentrations to infringe on popular liberty.” (179). This means they tend to be focused on reducing corporate power at home and promoting more authentic democracy in the United States. Initially Mead resists categorizing the Jeffersonian school as left-wing. After all, there are right and left Jeffersonians but all are anti-authoritarian and anti-interventionist. Think of the Iraq War of 2003 (which began after Mead’s book): it was opposed both by leftists and right-wing libertarians. Jeffersonian’s fundamentally focus on preserving the American experiment in self-government. He calls it a “defensive spirit.” (181). Indeed, “fewer things were clearer to the Jeffersonians than that the growth of the American republic into an intercontinental empire was a bad business all around.” (184). Yes, and this is why Jeffersonians tend to be left-leaning critics of the foreign policy consensus.

Jacksonian: This school, named after soldier and President Andrew Jackson, is generally a folksy, populist perspective of the right, embodied by figures like Pat Buchanan (and now Donald Trump). Whereas conventional Republicans often combined elements of Hamilton and Wilson, the Trump-friendly right is more Jacksonian. He also says it “is less an intellectual or political movement than it is an expression of the social, cultural, and religious values of a large portion of the American public.” (226). The whole chapter, but especially pages 238-240, offers powerful insight into the history of the populist Jacksonian impulse in American life—indeed, it is a stunning depiction of Trump’s populist appeal today.

But as for foreign policy, Mead characterizes it is a form of realism, not overly concerned with international law, norms, or human rights, but rather focused on “honor, concern for reputation, and faith in military institutions.” (245). Jacksonians believe the US “must be vigilant, strongly armed. Our diplomacy must be cunning, forceful, and no more scrupulous than any other country.” (246). They are not isolationists; however, “in the absence of a clearly defined threat to the national interest, Jacksonian opinion is much less aggressive.” (245-246). 

Thus, Jacksonians are not particularly interested in constructing and maintaining a world order. Mead points to opposition to American intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s among both Jeffersonians on the left and Jacksonians on the right. Jeffersonians worry that democracy is undermined by the military and corporate imperatives of empire; Jacksonians worry that we will spend unnecessary blood and treasure mucking about in some place we don’t belong—hence they sometimes team up to oppose action abroad. 

But Jacksonians are not pacifistic. If the US is attacked, like at Pearl Harbor or on 9/11, they can become the most supportive force for military action. In the aftermath of 9/11 neoconservatives were able to mobilize Jacksonian support for the War on Terror. But two decades later Jacksonian opinion seems to have moved back to a reluctance to waste American lives intervening directly in the Middle East.

What is the upshot of this analysis? For Mead, the debate and competition between these four perspectives has led to considerable success in American foreign policy. Here is, in sum, what Mead sees as the fundamental triumph of 20th century American foreign policy: Winning the Cold War and presiding over the international political and economic system as its undisputed leader. “It contained the Soviet Union and brought about the collapse of the European communist system without fighting a nuclear war.” (54). In a sense Mead’s praise of American foreign policy sounds similar to that of David Runciman in The Confidence Trap. Democratic policy can often be complex and look like a mess but democracies tend to muddle through even the worst crises and on to success after success.

What are some criticisms of Mead? The biggest, at least for those of us on the left, is that he too often euphemistically passes over the realities of empire, which sound mild enough when seen through the lens of words like intervention, order, regime change, and the like. The reality is a fair bit uglier. Nearly constant war-making, support for murderous dictators, and interference in other country’s elections are just some of the realities of empire when you peel back the rhetoric of “stability” and “interventions.”

Mead, to his credit, criticizes many elements of European imperialism and certain American injustices, like supporting Pinochet in Chile. But this points to a fundamental difference between the mainstream and the leftist perspective—are these features of American empire, like supporting dictators, overthrowing democracies, etc., regrettable aberrations or systemic features of American foreign policy?

According to Mead, the idealistic Wilsonian perspective, but really all mainstream parts of American foreign policy, “see Wilsonian ideals as defining the norm of American foreign policy, and interpret its other aspects as unfortunate and temporary deviations from it.” (171). Yes, this does seem to be the dominant narrative in the US. But how does it relate to reality? When you actually start to run through the many military interventions in American history they start to look less like aberrations and more like fundamental features of maintaining imperial order. And if overthrowing governments we dislike (including democracies), waging regular wars, nurturing a massive national security state, sending weapons abroad, and occupying countries, are the everyday cost of empire, they demand a serious (and morally informed response). This Mead largely fails to do. And it is here that the leftist critique of American foreign policy makes it case. (We will explore these questions in detail in the Chomsky/Robinson book review).

How does Mead see foreign policy? His account of American foreign policy is generally idealist, in that competing schools of thought seem to be the biggest drivers. Yes, he recognizes that there may be economic factors, competing interests, elite machinations, and so on, but seems to suggest American foreign policy is primarily the outcome of a pluralistic competition of ideas among elites.

In his words, “each of the four schools that together represent the American foreign policy debate makes distinct contributions to national power, and each is well matched with the others—capable of complementing one another and of flexibly combining in many ways to meet changing circumstances.” (311). And this is a powerful and evocative way to explain and understand that history.

He finishes with an assessment of how the foreign policy elite has become increasingly out of touch with ordinary Americans and how this may have consequences in the future. For a book published in 2001 it has some prescient insights into the budding populist rebellion that was then still lurking beneath the surface.

It’s a well-written and thoughtful assessment throughout. But as mentioned above, the account is also somewhat amoral. Mead recognizes that the US makes some strategic mistakes but this in itself is not a moral critique. When he does recognize that the US has done something morally wrong it seems like these policies are dismissed as minor departures from a broader trend of (relatively unproblematic) success. But the critique from the left presses much harder here: Was the Vietnam War, for instance, a regrettable mistake or an unjust war? How one answers the question is not a trivial matter.

A different concern, regarding his typology:  Where do neocons fit into his four-part scheme? How about the broader category of national security hawks? These seem to combine elements of Hamilton, Wilson, and Jackson, but is this the most helpful way to see them? These questions matter, though I leave them hanging for now.

Overall Mead is most interested in an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the four schools he identifies and less in a condemnation or celebration of any school. As for his own opinion, he concludes by defending a sort of chastened, non-leftist Jeffersonian perspective, one that embraces American world dominion but seeks to do so at the least possible cost and with as little military intervention as possible. 

In part two I will turn to Chomsky and Robinson’s new book, which offers a leftist alternative to Mead. In that review I will also consider whether their perspective can fit into Mead’s four-part schema, most likely as a radical left Jeffersonian argument, one very distinct from Mead’s. 

Review of Grace Blakeley, Vulture Capitalism (New York: Atria Books, 2024)

Grace Blakeley, a leftist political commentator, has a new book out titled Vulture Capitalism. Blakeley’s goal with this book is to provide a portrait of how capitalism, particularly its most recent neoliberal variant, operates in the real world. Her main thesis is that capitalism, contrary to the claims of defenders like Milton Friedman, is not characterized by the free actions of relatively equal individual decision-makers. Rather, capitalism in the real world creates a society that is dominated by the interests of the small number of people who control the capital. Blakeley makes a compelling case for this leftist thesis.

Blakeley begins by asking why, since those of us in democratic, capitalist societies are supposed to be free, we so often feel unfree. As she says, “this sense of unfreedom is grounded in the deep disparities of power that exist within capitalist societies, many of which are completely invisible…life under capitalism means life under a system in which decisions about how we work, how we live, and what we buy have already been made by someone else. Life under capitalism means living in a planned economy, while being told you are free.” (p. IX.). Her task in the book is to illustrate the many ways in which our lives are unfree in a capitalist world.

Because of this, “the question we should ask ourselves, then, is not whether planning is possible in a capitalist economy. Instead, we should ask where planning is taking place, how it is being executed, and whose interests it is serving.” (p. X).

Blakeley effectively demonstrates how large corporations plan and exert enormous economic power through investment decisions, employment practices, market dominance, and more. This world we now live in can be summed up as follows: “A world of pervasive corporate power is one characterized by low investment, low productivity, low wages, and high inequality.” (p. XIII).

She also stresses the point, as political philosopher Elizabeth Anderson has recently made so well, that whereas we have democratic freedom in the political realm, at work we are in an unaccountable dictatorship. (In addition to Anderson, this argument has been made by many. See, for instance, work by Robert Dahl, Carole Pateman, and Richard Wolff). I also plan to expand on this point in a future double book review of Elizabeth Anderson’s Hijacked and David Frayne’s The Refusal of Work.

In chapter one Blakeley sets out the key part of her argument, namely that capitalism, in the real world, is defined not by free markets but primarily by corporate power and its intertwining with state power. As she notes, “a corporation with significant market power can make decisions that have far-reaching implications for the lives of its workers, the choices of consumers, and even factors like the direction and rate of innovation, or the health of the planet. And all these decisions are made with little or no democratic accountability.” (p. 13).

As Blakeley recognizes, this goes against the grain of much mainstream economic thinking. “After all, free-market economies aren’t supposed to be defined by big inequalities of power. Corporations are supposed to be restrained by the market mechanism” (p. 15). But in the real world things work differently. Blakeley uses the example of Boeing, a massive corporation whose cost-cutting led to hundreds of deaths, to illustrate how many a large corporation actually operates. She rightly notes that “Boeing’s executives can afford to ignore the short-term pushes and pulls of the market precisely because their firm is so large and well connected—the ability to ignore market signals is precisely what market power is.” (p. 16).

But what about the neoliberal turn? Didn’t the election of Thatcher in the UK, Reagan in the US, and similar leaders elsewhere lead to the shrinking of the public sector? Isn’t this what leading neoliberal thinkers like Friedman and Hayek wanted? In the introduction Blakeley summarizes the Keynes-Hayek debate and how by the 1970s the neoliberals had won. Yet, “we live in societies that are just as tightly regulated, surveilled, and controlled as those of several decades ago.” (p. XI). Why?

Because, in practice, while the neoliberal turn transformed the state (and broader conceptions of politics), it didn’t necessarily shrink the state. This is an important point. In Blakeley’s words, “cutting public services doesn’t create more space for free markets, it simply encourages states to rely more on unaccountable organizations like McKinsey to do their dirty work for them.” (p. 58).  She elaborates later on the same page: “The close links between the public and private sectors seen during the pandemic demonstrate the futility of attempting to draw a stark line between state and corporate power in capitalist societies, especially during crises. Throughout the pandemic, states and firms worked together to augment their power and wealth—and as they did so it became harder to see where the private sector ended and the state began.” (p. 58).

This happened in part because neoliberalism, at its heart, was and is antidemocratic: “The idea was to replace democratic government with technocratic governance—to replace government by the people with rule by technocratic elites.” (p. 35). (There is a huge literature on neoliberalism: a few good starting points can be found in work by Wendy Brown, Quinn Slobodian, David Harvey, and Jamie Peck).

Blakeley uses the example of the US Federal Reserve to show how in contemporary capitalism an undemocratic but supposedly neutral, expert body actually takes actions that serve corporate interests, from quantitative easing to raising interest rates, done largely at the behest of big finance and the broader corporate world. For example, the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates too high for nearly three decades (until the 2008 recession) leading to lower wages for workers and unnecessarily high unemployment rates. In addition, “because the law is so central to the operation of the financial system, financial institutions spend a great deal of time and money lobbying legislators and regulators to influence that system.” (p. 130). 

Blakeley uses many examples, from Google to Amazon to Ford, to provide evidence for her compelling summation—“in the real world, corporate owners and managers have power—power that derives from their control over their workers, their ownership of the physical resources used in the production process, and their close relationships with states. Corporations are a form of despotic private government.” (p. 82).

The example of Greensill Capital in the UK offers another case study of the ways in which large investors exert power over state actors. “The events surrounding the rise and fall of Greensill Capital demonstrate quite clearly that the idea of a fixed boundary between public and private—state and market—has always been a fantasy…the link between the public and private sectors have become so close that it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins.” (p. 157). Again, this echoes arguments from political theorists Sheldon Wolin and Wendy Brown (whose excellent work Blakeley draws on).

One obvious rejoinder to Blakeley would be to ask what alternatives to neoliberal capitalism would look like. After all, the model of centrally planned economies from the twentieth century isn’t exactly enticing. And on this question it will be difficult to fully persuade the skeptics. As Thatcher famously said about capitalism in the 1980s, “there is no alternative.” Thatcher didn’t literally mean there were no alternatives—just that the main alternative to neoliberalism, Communist Bloc central planning, was worse. But Blakeley, and many others on the left, show that there are alternatives. 

Chapter 8 draws on a wide range of local experiments in democratic economic control, from worker-run firms to city government projects like participatory budgeting, to flesh out in some detail what these alternatives might look like. As Blakeley and others on the democratic left like myself argue, these cases of democratic economics stand as real-world counter-examples to the grim choice between Soviet-style central planning and neoliberal capitalism. Contrary to Thatcher and Hayek, we do not have to settle for only those two choices. Thankfully, “the local-level examples of democratic planning outlined [in Chapter 8] provide the foundations on which the shift to a democratic economy will be based. Not only do they show what is possible, they also help to engage and politicize people in a project of collective social transformation.” (p. 240).

To summarize Blakeley, capitalism is not characterized by free markets but by the dominance of capital. The occurs in several ways. First, within the workplace itself, where workers must submit to their superiors as long as they are on the clock. Second, in investment and production decisions made by big corporations and rich private investors. Third, through the complex and widespread interconnections between capital and the state.

Obviously, I think Blakeley’s framing is largely correct, and one finds good elaboration of these points in the work of sociologists Vivek Chibber and Erik Olin Wright, and political theorists Sheldon Wolin, Wendy Brown, and Tom Malleson. But one should also read and engage with the alternative perspectives: read some of the great free market writers, like Friedman, Hayek, Von Mises, Sowell. And judge for yourself. It is a credit to Blakeley’s Vulture Capitalism that it does just this, engaging with prominent exponents of neoliberal capitalism and showing where they go wrong.

A Primer on the Alien Films

For sci-fi fans, and especially for fans of the alien franchise and its signature xenomorph, the introduction of another Alien film is a time of excitement and high hopes. Miles Surrey recently wrote a fun piece at The Ringer arguing that Alien is the best franchise in Hollywood.

This is partly because Alien directors have been given lots of freedom to realize their vision. I would add that the franchise is also great because each film, save for the two Alien vs. Predator movies, is a serious attempt to make a great work of science fiction. Before delving into all seven movies I will go ahead and say that Alien: Romulus is well-done and worth watching in theaters. And yes, spoilers ahead.

We can divide this primer into three sections. The original four films, released between 1979 and 1997, all starring Sigourney Weaver. The two Alien vs. Predator movies, released in the 2000s, and generally not considered part of the official Alien canon. Finally, the three most recent films, which include Ridley Scott’s return to the franchise and the newest release, Alien: Romulus.

The Original Four

Alien. Alien is one of the greatest films ever made. The opening sequence slowly panning through the quiet spaceship, the incredible screenplay and naturalistic dialogue, Ridley Scott’s visualization of every set piece and slow building of tension, the incredible cast, the haunting score, the monstrous life cycle of the xenomorph, conceived by the writers and then realized by H.R. Giger. All of these are masterful. And, wow, the scenes—the space jockey, miles of eggs, and metallic architecture of the derelict ship, Dallas in the dark tunnels of the Nostromo, the Ash twist, the escape shuttle. The chestburster! These are landmarks of science fiction.

Everything about the film is influential and iconic. The used future, which we witness only on the Nostromo, is not a glittering utopia but dirty, grimy. The ship and its crew are gritty, industrial, banged up. These are Space Truckers, not scientists or heroic colonial explorers. They express reluctance about descending to an alien planet, concern for money and working conditions, struggle against an opaque and evil company, all set in a dystopian future that some critics consider a radical critique of capitalism.

The cast is amazing—witness the tension between Ash and Ripley, or between mechanical workers Parker and Brett versus the rest of the crew. Consider the tired leadership of Dallas or the inclusion of Jones, the ship’s cat. What else can I say that hasn’t already been said? This is a film of slow, beautiful terror. It is a futuristic dream twisted into an exquisite nightmare.

Aliens. Why is Aliens so great? Simply put, it’s a perfect sequel because it is a distinct movie from the original. Sequels are often inferior for many reasons, including the obvious fact that they frequently have no reason for existing other than profit. But another important point is that most sequels just redo the first movie but with a bigger budget. Aliens, however, is not Alien 2, if by that we mean simply a rehashing of Alien. Director James Cameron, fresh off the first Terminator movie, rightly centers Ripley as the main character. But he takes a sci-fi horror concept and transfers it to a sci-fi action movie. The tagline, “This Time It’s War,” is right. And Cameron, at the height of his powers, executes it perfectly. As with Alien, what can I say that hasn’t already been said? The characters, acting, writing, intense action set pieces, score. It’s all great. The movie has an ebb and flow where it builds up to manic sequences and then draws down again as characters (and the audience) regroup. Watch things rapidly spin out control during the first marine encounter with the xenomorphs.

It is blistering, addictive, exhausting. Cameron said the movie is forty miles of bad road. There are so many amazing characters (Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Apone, Bishop, Newt, even brief characters like Frost and Ferro are memorable. You can rattle off a dozen instantly recognizable names). There are so many great lines--game over, man! And don’t forget the queen alien, the Vietnam allusions, the continued role that corporate malfeasance plays, even if the overall critique is less radical than in Alien. Watch this movie!

Alien 3. The movie is obviously flawed and audiences and critics were understandably very disappointed at the time of its release. Why? For one, expectations were sky high after two of the greatest sci-fi films ever made. But it wasn’t just a matter of impossible expectations. The film’s story is not very likable, most of the prisoners, with the exception of Charles S. Dutton’s character, seem like disposable canon fodder, and the movie (spoiler alert) kills off all the key, beloved characters from the previous two films. How’s that for a start? The movie’s bleak, almost nihilistic tone can’t help but drag you down. Yet, with time and the success of David Fincher’s later films, many people (me included) have been willing to revisit Alien 3 and appreciate the things it does well. No, it is not a masterpiece on par with the first two. But it is a film that has some strengths. The atmospherics are genuinely creepy, Sigourney Weaver is wonderful once again as Ripley, the lack of weapons and advanced technology was a nice way for the story to distinguish itself from Aliens, and the four-legged dog (or ox) alien gives another little twist to our favorite monster. As I will keep mentioning, every movie in the franchise brings a few new things for audiences to savor.

Alien: Resurrection. This movie, which features a cloned Ripley two hundred years after Alien 3, is not any better than its predecessor. In fact, it is a bit worse. But with lowered expectations (no one was expecting a masterpiece, just two hours of entertainment) it easily delivered. The cast of characters doesn’t have anyone as memorable as Charles S. Dutton’s Dillon from Alien 3 but probably has a few more decent characters, played by (especially) Ron Perlman and Winona Ryder. The whole pirate crew led by Michael Wincott’s character is reasonably entertaining. What can we say? The movie has some gruesome additions, like the horrifying Ripley clones seen halfway through the movie and the unsettling newborn in the film’s finale. At the same time, the tone of the film flits between somber and camp, with close-ups on smirking actor’s faces and quippy lines from the Joss Whedon script. Add in a bit too much slimy xenomorphs running around on two legs like space velociraptors and you have the weakest of the four original films. That said, it is filled with cool ideas, visuals, and some savvy action sequences (underwater aliens, anyone?) and remains far superior to the next two features. A weird contribution, worth watching.

The two Alien vs Predator Movies

These two films are the only time the franchise has turned to mindless slasher fare. Although even here they can be fun if you like watching xenomorphs run around on screen for two hours.

Alien vs. Predator. After Dark Horse comics and spin-off novels brought the iconic xenomorph and predator together it was only natural that there would be some interest in turning these ideas into cinema. This movie, which involves explorers in an underground arctic pyramid, is no masterwork, but it does have some cool effects. The Alien-Predator fight scenes can be genuinely entertaining, it’s fun to see Lance Henriksen again, and the overall effect is tolerably entertaining. But the film has a PG-13 rating, leading to a lot of euphemistic violence, and there’s only so much that can be said about a silly concept like this. 

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Here I differ from the consensus. I actually think this is the better of the two AVP movies. First off, it’s rated R, the only appropriate rating for a series built around gore and body horror. Second, although it is visually too dark, the movie is set on earth (in a Colorado town) and it is a new twist to see police, waiters, high schoolers, and others contend with the creatures. Plus the Predalien is a cool addition. Overall, these movies are, by far, last on any list of Alien films and only of interest to those who love watching xenomorphs wreak havoc on screen (like yours truly).

The Three Latest 

The latest three Alien movies mark a return to attempts to make good sci-fi films.

Prometheus. Released in 2012, Prometheus was greeted with huge anticipation. It was the first serious alien movie in 15 years (since Alien: Resurrection in 1997, and that movie wasn’t that serious, as mentioned above). To its credit, Prometheus is filled with ambition, stunning images, and great concepts. At the same time it has some glaring flaws. Is it, then, a flawed masterpiece? Here are some of the obvious flaws that frustrated many fans—the stupid decisions made by key characters, some parts of the script (“I’m a human being. You’re a robot.”), obfuscating elements of the story, abrupt changes in tone. For instance, why didn’t Prometheus tie more directly into the original Alien film? Why introduce the black goo and what, exactly, does it do? Or, say, the tension building up brilliantly and culminating in Elizabeth Shaw’s emergency C-Section, only to be dissipated moments later as she wanders into a room of uninterested crew members and discovers that Weyland is still alive. 

Fan reception to Prometheus wasn’t so much mixed as divisive—many people hated it while others saw it as a misunderstood masterpiece. I recognize the truth to both perspectives although I lean more toward the second. I would not, however, go quite so far as to call it a masterpiece. But Ridley Scott is a visual genius and many of the scenes are truly striking. The opening sequence is masterful, not to mention David tinkering with galactic mapping holograms in the engineer ship pilot room, or the gut-wrenching Elizabeth Shaw surgery scene. I can watch Prometheus fully aware of the flaws while loving much of the film. Noomi Rapace is great as Shaw and Michael Fassbender’s David is a wonderful android addition, elaborated on in Covenant.

Alien: Covenant: This movie, released five years after Prometheus, has a number of cool elements while also being stuck between two competing imperatives—Prometheus sequel or Alien prequel? The good: the bloodburster* sequence is nauseating and terrifying as you lurch through the cramped corridors of the lander with a panicking Amy Siemetz (I watched this scene in the front row, yikes!). Michael Fassbender as the dutiful Walter and the menacing David is a delight, so is Danny McBride’s Tennessee. David, indeed, emerges as the most unique character in these two Ridley Scot prequels and one of the best characters in the franchise. He is altogether something new. Not one of the caring androids who protect us, like Walter and Bishop, nor is he an android secretly carrying out the company’s vile directives, as Ash did in the first film. When we meet David in Prometheus he is attempting to fulfill Weyland’s wishes but with considerable discretion. He mostly seems to be acting on his own whims and makes it clear that he doesn’t value his creator’s life. In Covenant we find him as the mad scientist, experimenting with black goo and various xenomorph creations. The fact that he is a fundamentally independent actor, obeying no directives but his own, and an amoral but deeply inquisitive and creative mad scientist, makes him endlessly fascinating. If we ever get a sequel to Covenant most of us agree that David would be its star. Ultimately, Alien: Covenant struggles between being Prometheus 2 and a standalone Alien prequel. There are compelling ideas, and compelling action sequences, but the two never sit quite right together, leading to unsatisfying and abrupt changes in tone and feel.

Alien: Romulus. The latest Alien film, which came out earlier this month, is directed by Uruguayan Fede Álvarez, who previously directed Don’t Breathe and the 2013 Evil Dead reboot, both solid horror films. What’s the deal with Romulus? It is set between Alien and Aliens and more so than the other sequels it is an attempt to capture the raw, gritty feel of the first two films, especially Alien. Although it doesn’t have one singular distinctive piece of body horror like the previous two films, Alien: Romulus is overall very well done. The opening sequence, the practical effects, the grimy settings, the relatively unknown cast, are all strong. The fact that the film takes place almost entirely in spaceships, rather than primarily on alien planets like the previous two films, is a wise choice. And the early stretch of the film set on a colony, in a nod to Aliens, is well-realized and compelling. 

What else is there to like? There are plenty of easter eggs and bits of fan service but more than anything it is simply a well-made, entertaining sci-fi horror film. The wild, scrambling facehuggers are terrifying, the first xenomorph emerging is an awesome scene, and the final sequence is scary and unsettling. (Let’s just say I wanted that final creature defeated asap). As I mentioned, the cast is good: Cailee Spaeny makes for a strong lead and David Jonnson plays a scene-stealing android. Indeed, Jonnson’s character, named Andy, provides another example demonstrating how the alien movies are about a number of non-human entities, very much including androids, who frequently turn out to be some of the most interesting and challenging characters.

*Confused about terms like chestburster, bloodburster, queen, dog alien, neomorph, and so on? After nine films there is a considerable taxonomy of xenomorph and xenomorph-adjacent creatures. I won't go into more detail here.