7. Alien Adapted (Again and Again) :
Fictional Universes between
Difference and Repetition
Rüdiger Heinze
Abstract
By adding storyworld upon storyworld, franchises create f ictional
universes. These are contested territory in terms of their constitution
and the meaningfulness and ascendancy of their various elements.
The very fact that f ictional universes can be contested points to
their def ining characteristics: they are open, dynamic, flexible, and
heterogeneous. This begs the question of semantic and pragmatic
control over such universes in terms of production, access, permanence,
and reception. Considering that franchises usually span a host of
different media, they deserve a closer look in relation to adaptation,
remaking, intermediality, and transmediality. This essay uses the
f ictional universe of the Alien franchise as an example to make a
fundamental argument about the dynamics of f ictional universes
and their storyworlds.
Key words: Fictional universes; franchises; adaptation; transmediality;
remakes
Introduction
On June 1, 2012, one day after the premiere of the film Prometheus in London,
the BBC conducted a radio interview with the film’s director Ridley Scott.
In the course of the interview, the radio host asked Scott whether the film,
although clearly being “in the same constellation, the same galaxy,” was a
direct prequel to Scott’s 1979 film Alien, to which Scott replied “absolutely
Fehrle, J. and W. Schäfke, Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence, Amsterdam University
Press, 2019
doi 10.5117/9789462983663_ch07