ALIEN AdApted (AgAin And AgAin)
167
My argument builds on the kinds of gaps, incongruities, and indeterminacies – what I will summarily call complications – that inevitably arise not
by chance or due to remediation, but due to how storyworlds systemically
function and (transmedially) interact.
Radical indeterminacy of fictional worlds and the limits of
authorial control
In fact, these complications and their causes and consequences are my key
point, and although this point appears to be obvious and has tremendous
consequences, I do not think it has been getting enough attention. 16 Let me
elaborate. One of the key points of possible worlds theory (as modified for
literary studies) is that, as Marie-Laure Ryan summarizes it, no fictional
world is or can ever be “complete” or “fully furnished”: 17 “because it is impossible for the human mind to imagine an object (much less a world) in all of its
properties, every fictional world presents areas of radical indeterminacy.” 18
In fact, most fictional worlds are composite and semantically heterogeneous 19 – the complaints in blogs and reviews about Prometheus not answering
a whole lot of questions are thus beside the point (complaints about logic
exempted).
Every new component, every new composite and semantically heterogeneous storyworld or textual contribution might alter the fictional universe
and its compossibility. 20 Every recursion, addition, and expansion creates
potential discord, divergence, contradiction, and feedback loops; not solely
because of what is there, but also because of what is not there. This is also
and invariably true for adaptations and remakes, although there are none
in the Alien franchise so far. Adaptations – here understood in the sense of
16 Wolf, for example, is almost exclusively interested in how transmedia worlds can be
constructed (literally: built) and made to cohere.
17 Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence and Narrative Theory (Bloomington:
University of Indiana Press, 1991), 406; Umberto Eco, “‘Casablanca’: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage,” SubStance 14, no. 2 (1985): 3.
18 Marie-Laure Ryan, “Possible Worlds.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, ed. Jan-Christoph
Meister (Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, University of Hamburg, 2009–), last modified
September 27, 2013, accessed February 15, 2019, www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/54.html.
19 Lubomir Doležel, Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1998), 23.
20 At this point, there are quite a number of typologies that denominate the different kinds
of relation between possible worlds; see, for example, Doležel, Heterocosmica, 206–207; Scolari,
“Transmedia Storytelling,” 598; Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 249–264.
167
My argument builds on the kinds of gaps, incongruities, and indeterminacies – what I will summarily call complications – that inevitably arise not
by chance or due to remediation, but due to how storyworlds systemically
function and (transmedially) interact.
Radical indeterminacy of fictional worlds and the limits of
authorial control
In fact, these complications and their causes and consequences are my key
point, and although this point appears to be obvious and has tremendous
consequences, I do not think it has been getting enough attention. 16 Let me
elaborate. One of the key points of possible worlds theory (as modified for
literary studies) is that, as Marie-Laure Ryan summarizes it, no fictional
world is or can ever be “complete” or “fully furnished”: 17 “because it is impossible for the human mind to imagine an object (much less a world) in all of its
properties, every fictional world presents areas of radical indeterminacy.” 18
In fact, most fictional worlds are composite and semantically heterogeneous 19 – the complaints in blogs and reviews about Prometheus not answering
a whole lot of questions are thus beside the point (complaints about logic
exempted).
Every new component, every new composite and semantically heterogeneous storyworld or textual contribution might alter the fictional universe
and its compossibility. 20 Every recursion, addition, and expansion creates
potential discord, divergence, contradiction, and feedback loops; not solely
because of what is there, but also because of what is not there. This is also
and invariably true for adaptations and remakes, although there are none
in the Alien franchise so far. Adaptations – here understood in the sense of
16 Wolf, for example, is almost exclusively interested in how transmedia worlds can be
constructed (literally: built) and made to cohere.
17 Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence and Narrative Theory (Bloomington:
University of Indiana Press, 1991), 406; Umberto Eco, “‘Casablanca’: Cult Movies and Intertextual
Collage,” SubStance 14, no. 2 (1985): 3.
18 Marie-Laure Ryan, “Possible Worlds.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, ed. Jan-Christoph
Meister (Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, University of Hamburg, 2009–), last modified
September 27, 2013, accessed February 15, 2019, www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/54.html.
19 Lubomir Doležel, Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1998), 23.
20 At this point, there are quite a number of typologies that denominate the different kinds
of relation between possible worlds; see, for example, Doležel, Heterocosmica, 206–207; Scolari,
“Transmedia Storytelling,” 598; Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds, 249–264.