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Alien is coming back! And we're not talking Prometheus 2! (Whew!) Writer/director Neill Blomkamp announced via his Instagram yesterday that he will take on the 30-year-old franchise as his next movie, and we've got a lot of thoughts on the matter. (LOTS OF THEM.) Here are a few reasons why we can't wait for his take on the Alien franchise—and a couple reasons why we're just the slightest bit leery.

Why We Love Blomkamp

His Appreciation of the Xenomorph: Alien is not, nor has it ever been, a movie about people. This franchise is about one thing, and one thing only: The greatest extra-terrestrial creature ever brought to life on screen. Obviously, Ripley is a film legend, and we prostrate ourselves at the feet of Sigourney Weaver forever because of that role, but the common thread through any movie that dares to call itself a barer of the Alien standard is the Xenomorph. People can die off (farewell Dallas, Private Hudson, Clemens, and General Perez). Locations can change (we hardly knew ye USCSS Nostromo, LV-426, and USM Auriga). But no matter what, any Alien movie worth its salt has at least one, and preferably one million, Xenomorphs. Even Prometheus, which at best could call itself "Alien adjacent," got wise by the end of the movie and gave us the hell beast we waited for (sort of...it was only a Deacon). But it was too little too late, and we didn't even get a Ripley safety net to fall back on! The movie, in the hands of Grandmaster Ridley Scott, was a total let down. Blomkamp, on the other hand, posted concept art for the Xeno as his official announcement. That means he understands that without the ultimate Big Bad—even with the most perfectly-executed screenplay in history—Alien is just another space thriller.

And, um, have you seen his movies? Blomkamp creates creatures that are impossibly real. The Prawns of District 9 were at once lo-fi and incredibly detailed. They moved and gestured in such human-like ways, viewers were forced to empathize with them as a disenfranchised demographic, not just alien invaders. And if all the footage we've seen of Chappie is any indication, he's recreated the same magic with his latest effort. The original Xenomorph in Alien was played by a 7-foot tall Nigerian actor named Bolaji Badejo. In 2012, iO9 posted test footage of Badejo from the set, and just watching him slowly stalk down a hallway wearing only the creature's head gear is chilling. All the CGI paint brushing in the world can't replace the fear instilled by practical effects and a human touch, and there's no one in the movie game making more tangible and believable non-humans than Blomkamp.

His Respect for History: Two months ago, the director went on a small Instagram tear and put up renderings of Ripley in a Space Jockey mask, Weyland-Yutani Corp and The Derelict, captioning the pictures with comments like "woulda rocked," "oh shit" and "love the world." In other words: Neill gets it. Whereas Prometheus felt like a "Whatever, I'm on my own journey" from Scott with only loose connections to the source material and tons of unanswered questions, Blomkamp clearly understands what the people want when they turn out for an Alien experience. And like any good director of science fiction, he counts the seminal works of Scott as the catalysts for his entire career, saying in 2009 that "Alien and Aliens and Blade Runner are probably the films that got me most into wanting to make films." Also, come on, he put Sigourney Weaver in Chappie. She's the Alien whisperer for God's sake!

His Respect for the Future: Much like Scott himself, the early films of Blomkamp (including the upcoming Chappie) all take place in near-future timelines when humanity has stretched Earth to its limits. Garbage piles up in the streets. Society is divided starkly between the elite and the proletariat. The walled-off high rises of Los Angeles in Blade Runner are not so different from the gleaming buildings of terraformed Elysium. Blomkamp knows how to build worlds that look enough like home and present-day Earth to be relatable, but enough like jerry-rigged, hyper-technical futures to feel otherworldly. Striking that balance is what makes a Blomkamp movie so affecting and disconcerting, and it's exactly the vibe we need from an Alien movie. Sure, the Nostromo was a spaceship, but in the grand scheme of isolation-based horror movies, it could have just as easily been a cabin in the woods. You could picture yourself inside.

And philosophically, Blomkamp seems to always have one, if not both, eyes on the horizon. He's a big fan of noted futurist, author, and Google executive Ray Kurzweil, and while doing promo work for District 9, told The A.V. Club, "I think that what's going to happen is that you're going to have something like Ray Kurzweil's singularity happen within 50 or 60 years. And there will be a massive redefining of what it means to be human when we start merging with technology," and just like in his films, Blomkamp feels progress will certainly come, but in equal measure alongside destruction. “On one hand, I think people are destined for something incredible if we don’t wipe ourselves out," he's said. "But I think we're going to wipe 90 percent of ourselves out." And what is an Alien movie (or any good sci-fi thriller) if not a dance on the razor's edge between technological utopia and human extinction?

His Repeated Hiring of Sharlto Copley: That guy goes all in.

Why We Have Reservations

His Deep Hometown Roots: Elysium wasn't a bad movie, but when you go as big and think as ambitiously as Blomkamp does, anything short of a major "Wow!" ends up being a little forgettable. That was only the director's second feature, of course, but even factoring in the short film Alive In Joburg, Elysium was Blomkamp's first big project set somewhere that wasn't South Africa. His third endeavor has him going home to the familiar environs of Johannesburg, and if Chappie returns Blomkamp to Oscar-buzz form, that at once means good momentum going into Alien, but also begs the question: Can he find his footing outside of Joburg? In the same A.V. Club interview, Blomkamp explained that the inspiration for District 9 came while living in Canada. He developed a kind of fixation with his hometown, saying: "It became this insane sociopolitical interest of mine. I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg. Every time I'm there, it feels like I'm in the future." So if Blomkamp makes movies about the future and considers Johannesburg to be the epitome of it, does that mean we're in for another movie where the location is the secret main character? Probably not. Alien would be the first movie from Blomkamp based on pre-existing material, and he clearly respects the world built within it. But that doesn't mean we aren't concerned that he might get a little lost outside of his hometown.

His Single-Mindedness: And as an extension of the Johannesburg question, we've yet to see what happens when Blomkamp isn't making a movie essentially about apartheid. Curiously, he's maintained throughout his career that his films are not politically motivated, that cinema is for fun. In an interview for District 9, he said "if you want to express ideas, films are not the place to do that. It's as simple as that. That's my personal opinion." He added that "if you have an idea to put forward, don't pick a movie. The cliches of Hollywood will make you dumb them down. Once I figured that out, I was fine making films." Then later on in 2013, he reaffirmed the point saying "I don’t really want to push any message or commentary. Science fiction allows for the delivery of that kind of commentary in an easier-to-digest form, but is that my goal? Not really." Those remarks came while promoting Elysium, a film that felt a whole hell of a lot like commentary on socio-economic disparity and racial/species-based inequality—just like District 9 and, from what we can tell, Chappie too.

We're not here to tell Blomkamp how his films work, or what his process is. If the man says they're not political, perhaps they aren't, but they sure do feel message-y for movies that are just meant to serve as escape portals from reality. And it's not even that we disagree with the messages (intentionally delivered or otherwise). Social commentary in popular art is welcome and necessary. We are all products of our experiences, and Neill Blomkamp's experience is deeply rooted in an apartheid-scarred South African upbringing that's become essential to his identity as a filmmaker. But the idea of an Alien flick too much content about socio-economic inequality gives us pause. Will this next installment of Alien be a break from Blomkamp's trend, or can we expect another trip through his mental looking glass with Weyland-Yutani nestled under a broke down spaceship docked over Johannesburg? Besides a drawing of a Xenomorph by H.R. Giger on Blomkamp's Instagram, we don't have much evidence to support any theories, but we are very, very excited to find out.