Includes bibliographical references (page 240) and index.

Introduction -- Kane's son, Cain's daughter: Ridley Scott's Alien -- Making babies: James Cameron's Aliens -- Mourning sickness: David Fincher's Alien 3 -- The monster's mother: Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien resurrection -- Part 2. Film as philosophy: the priority of the particular -- Precrime, precognition and the pre-reflective cogito: Steven Spielberg's Minority report -- Part 3. The impersonation of personality: Brian de Palma's Mission: Impossible -- The burden of sex: John Woo's Mission: Impossible II -- An accelerated mutator: J.J. Abram's Mission: Impossible III -- Part 4. The legacy of Jason Bourne: Identity and the sinfulness of origins -- The enterprise, the Botany Bay and the Kobyashi Maru: rebooting Star Trek with Khan's wrath and Red matter -- The disavowal of animation: Brad Bird's Mission Impossible -- Ghost protocol -- Cinematic repetition and how to avoid it: Ridley Scott's Prometheus -- Films discussed in the book.