“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” These words, whether we entirely agree with them in the literal sense or not, spoken by musician Tom Waits, have echoed in my mind with a particular urgency since I found myself in the bewildering presence of the new series, Alien: Earth. This show, in its shocking lack of coherence and purpose, is a perfect, terrifying example of what Waits was talking about. It is a profound disservice to both its source material and its audience, and in its creative failure, it reveals a deeper truth about the state of our stories today.
Everyone suffers in life. Some may believe that the point of life is to be happy, but happiness, as we know, comes and goes. The pursuit of it as a constant state runs the risk of making us hedonistic, forever seeking the next fix of fun, increasing the dosage to find a satisfaction that perpetually eludes us. This can manifest in the obvious ways, like drugs or thrill-seeking, but also in more insidious manifestations: chasing the promise of an unending stream of gratification from the narrative works that we love. A great movie, followed by an exceptional sequel, might lead us to believe that the well of entertainment could continue on forever, never letting us down.
“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.”
But the purpose of life isn’t happiness. If it were, we would all become useless the moment we achieved it, a collective of grinning idiots with no further motivation. It is discomfort, in all its forms, that gets us up and spurs us to seek meaning. It is through our trials that we find our purpose. Knowing full well that suffering is unavoidable, we learn to accept it, not to suffer needlessly, but to make what we have to endure be in service of something that gives our lives meaning.
This is the power of a good story. In tales of heroes and their struggles, we find common ground in our own experiences. We see characters facing challenges we relate to, and through their suffering, we find a kind of catharsis that eases our own, and from there we get some enjoyment. Why? Because from these tales we see that we are not alone in our pain and that others have found meaning in their trials. We learn, together, how to better overcome our own obstacles. This is what made the original Alien and Aliens so great. They were stories not about monsters, but about a soul, Ripley’s, forging itself in a crucible of terror. Her strength was not an ingredient; it was the result of a story well-told, and in her triumph, we felt a profound sense of shared victory.
This is precisely where modern creators, like those behind Alien: Earth, fail. They believe the success of their predecessors was a result of ingredients: “strong female characters,” philosophical questions, or the visual spectacle of the monster. They are like a first-timer in the kitchen who, having seen a five-star meal prepared, believes they can recreate it by simply throwing a handful of ingredients into a pot, without understanding the art of seasoning, the craft of preparation, or the patience of the process. They believe they are clever for including a philosophical question about AI or making a Peter Pan allegory, but they are simply jangling keys in front of an audience, hoping we are too distracted by the shiny trinkets to realize the driving narrative is missing.
“Once you believe you can add greatness as an ingredient, you stop listening to the muse.”
My concern is that a new generation of creators, and even those with a history of great success like James Cameron, seem to misattribute the triumphs of their early work. They believe that their characters were great because they were designed to be “strong,” rather than understanding that their strength was the natural, organic result of a great story. This distinction is paramount, for once you believe you can add greatness as an ingredient, you stop listening to the muse, forgetting that which you chase will run from you, but if you are still and patient, it will come around and whisper inspiration.
The creators of Alien: Earth were not still. They chased, and their story came up empty. They forgot that the purpose of a good story is not to avoid suffering or to simply show it, but to give meaning to it so that the audience then says, “Ah-ha!” and delights in a moment of recognition. But in their failure, they delivered something truly hellish, because bad writing, in the end, does indeed destroy the quality of not only our suffering but our ability to appreciate happiness.
Christopher Moonlight is an animator, special effects artist, and the director of the ‘Award This’ winning movie, The Quantum Terror. His upcoming animated sci-fi adventure, Escape From Planet Omega-12, combines traditional film-making special effects with AI to create something never seen before in independent film. You can follow the behind-the-scenes, including tutorials, tips, and tricks, on his YouTube Channel and Substack.
