Josh-da-man

There are no good options.

They either just ignore 3 and 4 outright without explanation, or offer up some variation of "it was all a dream."

Or do some kind of time travel stuff where someone travels back in time and rescues Ripley, Hicks, and Newt before they crash onto Fury 161. And before the phantom facehugger attaches to Ripley, or after if they can surgically remove the burster from her. And they can also explain how two eggs/facehuggers got on board the Sulaco while they're at it.

inri222

And then it turns out that Hicks is really Kyle Reese looking for John Connor who in reality is an engineer and then...(insert wherever else you want the plot to go here because people will pay money to see this no matter how ridiculous it gets).

Abob Teff

There are good options ... The first of which is LET IT BE. No more.

Since that won't happen ... Option number two is to pick up after Resurrection WITHOUT Ripley ... Or, if you must use her go the "Ellen" route. Of course, by then Ridley Scott will have released his abomination so the pattern is screwed up.

Option number three is to move forward WITHOUT the known characters. If you want to write out 3 and 4, I would be more willing to accept it if it was to move the story away from Ripley.

I think I am starting to hone in on my issue with sequels/relaunches that come well after the originals (namely these revisits to decades old classics). To me, a continuation of the story should be a continuation of the world created in the original. To filmmakers, they continue by rehashing the same old characters and their narrow point of view. This is why I am more excited by Rogue One than I was by The Force Awakens or anything we are slated to get (Blade Runner, etc.) -- finally we are getting a story about a galaxy far, far away rather than the further shoehorned adventures of the fucked up Skywalker family (come on, they should go on Jerry Springer).

The same thing applies here -- this world and these aliens/xenomorphs do not exist ONLY to serve Ripley. She was a part of the story, now let's move forward. Their is a rich world out there to explore. I will give Ridley Scott kudos for that -- Prometheus was an attempt to do just this. It was a muddled attempt, but it was a fresh attempt. I enjoyed 3 and still don't understand the hate for 4 (barring the ending), but I will agree they were crappy ass attempts to keep Sigourney Weaver in the franchise. Remove her and the Ellen character from both of those movies, fix up the script a bit, and you will have two very lavish worlds to explore with the aliens. The "monk/prison world" had so much potential to take the series back to its horror roots. The crew of the Betty were ripe for another sci-fi actioner like Aliens. Unfortunately both stories were sullied (ruined?) by the need to include and focus on Ripley.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, as I said, there's really no good way to de-canonize the two movies.

Killing everyone off in 3 was just a bad idea, period. No way to run a franchise. They should have at least let Newt live so they could pick up with her if Weaver wanted out. And then killing Ripley necessitated that stupid clone storyline in Resurrection.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I agree with this.

However, I suspect that the studios are nervous about running their franchises without their stars. They think audiences will reject an Alien movie without Weaver or a Terminator movie without Schwarzenegger (they tried this with Salvation, and that movie is generally reviled), and they might be right.

I am of the opinion that Alien Resurrection would have been a better movie without Ripley and that cloning/hybrid bullshit.

Abob Teff

You are correct Josh with your take on studio suits. I imagine (hope) you will agree with this too:

A franchise revisited is not problematic because it is without the original star ... It's just easy to point to that. The problem is shitty, unimaginative, lazy scripts and filmmaking.

Terminator Salvation wasn't bad because Arnold was missing. It was just bad.

mndtrp

After Aliens, I felt that Ripley's existence was just shoehorned in because she was previously a great protagonist. She isn't necessary in a leading role, though. We've got interstellar travel, and the only stories to be told revolve around a single person? If Ripley is required, I would prefer her in a consultative type of role. She's survived the aliens several times, she's the best person to be brought in when someone else comes across another single/batch/planet/whatever.

I also agree that just canceling out the last two movies seems kind of weak. They weren't great, but they were still parts of the story of the aliens.

TGM

I really hope they don't introduce time travel into the Alien universe.

inri222

You never know. With time travel you can get away with just about anything.

rennervision

Since Resurrection takes place over 200 years after Alien 3, you can at least create an Alien movie in the original timeline that doesn't have to pretend Resurrection was a dream. You just don't have to acknowledge it since it never has any real ties to the original story. (Another reason why I hate the fourth one.)

But as much as I despise #3, I'm not sure how I feel about pretending like it never happened. It lessens any sequel's tension when you think to yourself that if anything happens to Ripley, Newt or Hicks that they can be simply rebooted back to life in the next movie.

SteelWill

It's no worse than knowing if they do make it out they can be unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the next move.

#3 didn't happen.


And while I'm at it, neither did Prometheus.

DRG

One way I see they could 'undo' the deaths of Newt and Hicks without erasing Alien 3 & 4 would be if they revealed that everyone aboard the Sulaco that crashes onto Fiorina 161 were actually clones... that Weyland-Yutani had rescued the real Sulaco at some point between Aliens and Alien 3, and with all three in cryosleep, made multiple clones of all 3 and sent them out in identical Sulaco units for some reason... maybe to lure another queen somehow. And in the new film, the real Ripley, Newt, and Hicks discover what WY has been doing, yada yada yada.

I mean, I admit it would all be a bit ridiculous... but since they've established cloning and the fact that Weyland Yutani is willing to do all sorts of jacked up things to get their hands on a xenomorph, it's not the MOST farfetched thing they can do.

DaveyJoe

It's not worth adding a stupid element to a potentially good movie, just to maintain the continuity for a shitty sequel like Alien3. Just move on, make a good movie, and we can judge it on its own merits when it's released.

TGM

violently waking up in a cold sweat from a prolonged cyber sleep induced nightmare isn't a bad option. Just bite the bullet, do it and move on... quickly.

rennervision

What I don't like about this idea are the two different scenes that bookend Aliens. At the start we see Ripley doing just this - waking up in terror after her traumatic ordeal. This is what motivates her to return to the planet and face her fears. Then at the end this is addressed again with this dialogue...

Newt: Are we gonna sleep all the way home?

Ripley: All the way home.

Newt: Can I dream?

Ripley: Yes, honey. I think we both can.

Then we see both of them sleeping peacefully. The movie was making a point that Ripley beat her fears and would no longer have nightmares!

TGM

I get that, and agree, and Aliens was the perfect ending for Ripley and the franchise, but they are moving on whether we like it or not and have to account for some pretty dismal sequels that blew up the timeline that have happened since.

The other issue is, do you age in hypersleep? I mean, you can recast Newt, but Weaver and Biehn have aged... so unlikely they can even do a hypersleep nightmare scenario.

DaveyJoe

Which is good. It's more realistic that some time has passed since the last alien situation. It's kind of silly that Ellen Ripley's life is one alien encounter after another every time they wake her up.

TGM

LOL, when you put it that way.... LOL.

Supermallet

That's part of what I like about Alien 3 though, that this one chance encounter has essentially defined Ripley's life ever since. It ties in nicely to the nihilistic tone of the film, and gives the ending extra emotional weight.

Lt Ripley

They're DEAD!
Alright?!
Will you let it go now?!

Enterprise

Technically yes, being in hypersleep is like putting food in your freezer - it isn't 100% stasis because otherwise you'd be dead, but rather an immensely slowed condition. So when Ripley had been in hypersleep for 57 years between Alien and Aliens I suggest she aged a year or two in that time.


This has always been my assumption about continuing from Aliens - that the story would cover their pods somehow malfunctioning and thus Ripley, Hicks, and Newt would all be older.

Abob Teff

That's fucking terrible. No personal offense. It suffers from the same problem the Jaws sequels suffered from ... Why the hell would a non-intelligent species (sharks or aliens) that lives in a vast, VAST world (oceans or space) take up a personal vendetta against individual humans who don't naturally occur in that environment? Just fucking terrible.

Decker

Why not just pretend like Alien3 and Alien Resurrection never happened? Just move along with the next story. Who gives a fuck?

Artman

Or the seven years between the movies I think they'd do some de-aging...but it's not required imo... you'd have two leads in their 60's, a young Newt...and probably a few other younger characters. Really hope this comes together in a few yrs...we'll see.

Josh-da-man

Considering the nature of the movies, where space travel involves being put in some kind of suspended animation, having a Newt in her twenties and a much older Ripley and Hicks, shouldn't be a problem. It would have to be quite common in that universe for people who do a lot of space travel to have messed up ages. You could have a set of twins, where one twin who did a lot of space travel appears decades younger than his earthbound brother. Remember that Ripley's daughter died of old age between Alien and Aliens.