True, but wasn't the point of T2 that the threat of Skynet was forever going to be destroyed, which is immediately negated by anything anyone makes afterwards with Skynet in it?
If an author writes two books, ending with a solid conclusion, then people start writing what's effectively fanfiction that undermines the conclusion, does that negate the original work?
The way the Terminator universe is structured is that T1 and T2 happen no matter what. After that, people have given their own takes on the series. All these are basically in alternate timelines, so in some of them, Skynet is never made, in others, it is made, and sometimes causes JD, sometimes not, other timelines there's Genisys or LEGION, etc.
Well, that it's not Lovecraftian, or rather than it might not be, despite the obvious body horror stuff, it doesn't, to me, seem to have the same overwhelming horror he tended to go for.
This is more an EU thing, but I think Lovecraftian can apply because the xenomorphs are pretty much everywhere. It's a helpless, bleak universe, and humanity can't do anything to change their condition. So in a sense, it's kind of Lovecraftian, in that mankind is at the mercy of forces beyond their control.
I'm also not personally seeing it being particularly tragic that the Earth is a mess if there are other planets colonised. What's special about the Earth beyond humanity starting from there (and me, and AFAIK, the rest of the forum living there)?
If Earth was rendered uninhabitable by human action, even if humans spread to other planets, that would be an absolute tragedy in my eyes. I'm not religious, nor do I subscribe to Gaia Theory, but to anthropize a bit, this is the planet that gave birth to us, and millions of other species, and I'd like to think the human race has enough foresight to not render our birthworld a wasteland, even if we have the ability to leave it. Yes, 1 billion years from now, Earth will be uninhabitable due to oxygen deplietion, and after that it'll be consumed by the sun, but in the short term, we don't have the right to loot and pillage. As a proverb goes, "we don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
And yes, that's an instrinstic value argument, and sci-fi settings have explored the idea that people living off Earth have no real attachment to it (see The Expanse for instance), but in reality, it would be a tragedy.
Humanity evolved in Africa, civilisation (arguably) started in the Middle East, those areas currently being messes isn't made especially tragic due to that.
Not the same thing, considering that whatever the condition of Africa and the Middle East, people still live in those areas. In Resurrection, Earth seems pretty desolate, and even then, that they crash the Auriga into the planet arguably does more harm than good, cosidering the size of the impact.
But even then, I'll concede that even in the knowledge that humans evolved in Africa, I don't have a particular attachment to the continent because of that. However, I don't need that to be concerned about Africa or anywhere else. And if we're talking about environmental degradation, consider the fact that in light of climate change, the continent that's contributed the least to the problem is going to be the one most affected by it. Or going further back, that Africa has fared better from human actions compared to most other contnents - it's the only one where humans didn't wipe out terrestrial megafauna for instance.
Not seeing how Prometheus was more upbeat than the later Alien films, but ok. In each of the films we are only really seeing a small isolated part of a much larger galaxy, I'm not seeing any reason to believe things are bad everywhere.
I'd say Prometheus is more upbeat because of a few reasons, namely:
-It has an optimistic view on lots of issues (e.g. in lore, Weyland solved the issue of climate change, the advance of technology, etc.)
-The aesthetic is far 'shinier' than the later films. The Prometheus itself is high-tech, we see shiny Martian colonies, etc. While in-universe it's because the Prometheus is more expensive than, say, the Nostromo (so even if the Nostromo is operating 30 years in the future, it's still a space truck), consider the shift in presentation to Prometheus to, say, Alien 3, or Resurrection.
-Prometheus is a very, VERY flawed film, but it's still a humanistic one. As in, humans meet their makers, humans prevail, humanity survives despite the fact that their creators deem them unworthy of it. There's a lot to say about how Prometheus presents those ideas (poorly), but they're there. In contrast, the chain of events from Alien to Resurrection takes a very cynical view on humanity. Alien and Aliens aren't too bad, but they're still worlds where WY controls a lot. Alien 3 is utterly nihilstic. By the time of Resurrection, Earth is trashed, humanity's had an android rebellion (the theme being that Cal is 'more human' than her creators), and the United Systems can operate at will, abducting innocent people to make weapons).
This isn't a complaint by any means (Aliens is a bleak setting), but the trend's there, chronologically speaking.
As for things being bad everywhere else, this is more an EU thing, but consider the fact that across the setting, there's a few constants:
-Xenomorphs are everywhere. The universe is almost unerringly hostile to human life.
-Life on Earth is bad, stays bad, and gets worse.
-Megacorps have unseemly influence. WY gets so much power that post-Resurrection, it overthrows the United Systems and becomes the ruler of humanity.
So, yeah. Aliens is a bleak setting. Not as bleak as, say, W40K, but still unerringly bleak.
