Alien: Monday

Alien: Monday is a short animated film that follows the crew of the Thanatos, a mining ship on the outer reaches of the universe. When our protagonist wakes up to find one of the crew already awake and missing, an investigation reveals said crew member was attempting to smuggle some... "undeclared cargo", shall we say. No prizes for guessing what. So begins the battle for survival...

Taking Paul "OtaKing" Johnson 6 long years to make BY HIMSELF, this feels like a proof of concept that has been fleshed out. I, and I'm sure many others are definitely interested in a full on Alien animated film, or animated series... and if nothing else this proves that there is interest and a market for that. Admittedly, the story and characters are a bit wafer thin, but for a solo project that can be forgiven. The plot also riffs on tried and tested ideas a bit too heavily, but again that can be forgiven. Visually, the art in particular is phenomenal, looking like a professional studio effort, and the sound design is also of equally high quality. All we need is for Fox/Disney to snap this up, give this guy a contract, and flesh out this idea into a full film. It would probably end up being the best Alien film released this century...

You get vibes from Lily C. A. T. (1987) and Cowboy Bebop's (1999) "Toys In The Attic" space-horror episode all while paying homage to Ridley Scott's original Alien. A love for retro-style animation and the Alien franchise is what this trio has in common - it's a really enjoyable 15 minutes which has been several years in the making!

The moments of silence in space and the little details like "The Fly" poster bring this short movie just over the edge. The Alien-style atmosphere is more palpable in this short production than in the entirety of Alien 3 (1992).

This needs a mini-series, it's that good!