Alien (film) disguise imaginative poverty". In a 1980 episode of "Sneak Previews" discussing science fiction films of the 1950s and 1970s, critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were critical of "Alien". Ebert called it "basically just an intergalactic haunted house thriller set inside a spaceship" and one of several science fiction pictures that were "real disappointments" compared to "Star Wars", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and "", though he did compliment the early scene of the "Nostromo" crew exploring the alien planet as showing "real imagination". However, the film later made it onto Ebert's "Great Movies" list, where he gave it
Alien (franchise) game spin-offs. The "Alien vs. Predator" franchise combines the continuities of the "Alien" franchise with the "Predator" franchise, and consists of two films as well as varying series of comics, books and video games. A video game called "" was released in 2014 to generally positive reviews. After completion of the film "Dark Star" (1974), writer Dan O'Bannon wanted to develop some of the ideas (especially "alien hunts crew through a spaceship") and create a science-fiction action film. Provisionally called "Memory", screenwriter Ronald Shusett collaborated with O'Bannon on the project, adding elements from a previous O'Bannon script, "Gremlins", which featured