I disagree. I think competitiveness, in this case competing against past iterations of alien themes, brings out the best in people. But yeah, almost looks like they didn’t even try with this.
If a writer can somehow make the alien story original or more creative, that's great. But I am saying the actual writing is more important than trying to be creative or original.
IOW, if they make it original and creative, but can't write, then it's still going to suck. But if they can write extremely well, it will still be very good even if it's not the most original idea.