ALIEN AdApted (AgAin And AgAin)
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participation in the creation of cultural content is almost always unequal. 4
Lastly, considering that franchises usually span a host of different media,
with different representational techniques and different cultural prestige
at a given point in time, they deserve a closer look by anyone interested in
adaptation, remaking, intermediality, and transmediality.
In this essay, I will use the fictional universe of the Alien franchise as
an example to make a fundamental argument about the dynamics – i.e.
constitution, extension, modification, etc. – of fictional universes and the
storyworld(s) they consist of.
Expansion of fictional universes and semantic inconsistency
As is indicated in the opening paragraph, the first heuristic (but logical)
distinction I make is between “fictional universe” and “storyworld” in order
to account for the fact that franchises usually consist of numerous products
and/or storyworlds (more on this difference below) that all make a more
or less extensive deictic shift to the same fictional universe. Each Alien
film, novel, comic, computer game, and so on constitutes one ontologically
distinct storyworld within the universe of the Alien franchise, even if the
particular storyworld in question is an adaptation of another one in another
medium, for example the novelization of the first Alien film, or a direct
narrative continuation, for example Aliens and Alien 3. 5 As Carlos Scolari
points out, transmedia storytelling is never “just an adaptation from one
media to another. The story that the comics tell is not the same as that told
on television or in cinema; the different media and languages participate
and contribute to the construction of the transmedia narrative world.” 6
I am following Clare Parody’s definition of franchise storytelling “as the
creation of narratives, characters, and settings that can be used both to
generate and give identity to vast quantities of interlinked media products
4 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New
York University Press, 2006), 3. His admonition is made in the context of media convergence
and participatory culture.
5 Mark Wolf distinguishes between adaptation (a story moving from one medium to another)
and growth: “when another medium is used to present new canonical material of a world,
expanding the world and what we know about it.” Mark J.P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds:
The Theory and History of Subcreation (New York: Routledge, 2012), 245–246.
6 Carlos Alberto Scolari, “Transmedia Storytelling: Implicit Consumers, Narrative Worlds,
and Branding in Contemporary Media Production.” International Journal of Communication 3
(2009): 587.
161
participation in the creation of cultural content is almost always unequal. 4
Lastly, considering that franchises usually span a host of different media,
with different representational techniques and different cultural prestige
at a given point in time, they deserve a closer look by anyone interested in
adaptation, remaking, intermediality, and transmediality.
In this essay, I will use the fictional universe of the Alien franchise as
an example to make a fundamental argument about the dynamics – i.e.
constitution, extension, modification, etc. – of fictional universes and the
storyworld(s) they consist of.
Expansion of fictional universes and semantic inconsistency
As is indicated in the opening paragraph, the first heuristic (but logical)
distinction I make is between “fictional universe” and “storyworld” in order
to account for the fact that franchises usually consist of numerous products
and/or storyworlds (more on this difference below) that all make a more
or less extensive deictic shift to the same fictional universe. Each Alien
film, novel, comic, computer game, and so on constitutes one ontologically
distinct storyworld within the universe of the Alien franchise, even if the
particular storyworld in question is an adaptation of another one in another
medium, for example the novelization of the first Alien film, or a direct
narrative continuation, for example Aliens and Alien 3. 5 As Carlos Scolari
points out, transmedia storytelling is never “just an adaptation from one
media to another. The story that the comics tell is not the same as that told
on television or in cinema; the different media and languages participate
and contribute to the construction of the transmedia narrative world.” 6
I am following Clare Parody’s definition of franchise storytelling “as the
creation of narratives, characters, and settings that can be used both to
generate and give identity to vast quantities of interlinked media products
4 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New
York University Press, 2006), 3. His admonition is made in the context of media convergence
and participatory culture.
5 Mark Wolf distinguishes between adaptation (a story moving from one medium to another)
and growth: “when another medium is used to present new canonical material of a world,
expanding the world and what we know about it.” Mark J.P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds:
The Theory and History of Subcreation (New York: Routledge, 2012), 245–246.
6 Carlos Alberto Scolari, “Transmedia Storytelling: Implicit Consumers, Narrative Worlds,
and Branding in Contemporary Media Production.” International Journal of Communication 3
(2009): 587.