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(Spoilers ahead)

I love the Alien franchise to death, but let's be brutally honest here: out of six movies (excluding Alien vs. Predator, whose canonicity is dubious), only Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and James Cameron's Aliens (1986) are widely acclaimed. The other movies are... divisive, to say the least. Many people consider Alien 3 a decent movie in its own right, but others (including myself) cannot forgive it for summarily killing off Newt, Hicks and Bishop, thus voiding Ripley's heroic actions in Aliens. Alien Resurrection is considered by most to be the weakest installment of the original four, a fact often attributed to creative differences. As a sucker for space horror, I still enjoyed the prequels Prometheus and Alien Covenant, but I agree with those who say that those movies screw up the series' mythology and timeline.

So imagine you are a studio exec, or a director who is given huge amounts of artistic freedom. How do you deal with the questionable directions the series has taken? Where does Alien go from there?


Some possibilities:

Bring back Sigourney Weaver as Ripley for a continuation of the original series where Resurrection left off. Perhaps she can act as a mentor figure to a new protagonist, a bit like Han, Luke and Leia in the latest Star Wars trilogy.

Soldier on with the controversial prequels and hope they can be led somewhere good. I think there should at least be a third movie to wrap up what we could call the "David trilogy", though my hopes that it can fix the damage to the overarching mythology are low.

Create an alternate continuity wherever the series went wrong. (For example: Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop awaken from hypersleep after the events of Aliens. Any movies made after 1986 are ignored.)

Full reboot. Not a fan of this idea, as I feel the first two Alien movies really don't need to be revisited or replaced; they are damn near perfect.

For my part, I would favor a noncommittal, middle-of-the-road approach: create a new series that takes place between the years 2179 (events of Alien 3) and 2379 (Alien Resurrection). Whole new cast of characters stumbling upon the xenomorphs. Female protagonist, because at this point it's safe to say that it's part of the series' brand. The events of Alien and Aliens may be referenced (e.g. characters reading a case file about the Nostromo incident or the disaster of Hadley's Hope), but the events of Prometheus, Alien Covenant and Alien 3 are neither acknowledged nor explicitly contradicted. The usual suspects (Weyland-Yutani) are still involved.

I think I would make it a TV series, instead of a film series.


.

To me the series ended at alien 3, i'm one of the people who liked that one. It's bleak and has a decent sendoff for ripley IMO. I'm not as big a fan of the directors cut though. Some bad CGI and wonky changes in there.

I am curious to see what happens next with David, but Ridley Scott is getting old and he seems scatterbrained. Maybe they should just lay this series to rest. Honestly i'd rather see a sequel to Alien Isolation, since that game captured the feeling of the originals better than anything else has.

I like the little shorts they did for the anniversary.

The universe is a big sandbox. You have people doing people stuff. Poking at the universe, trying to make a living. Little people scraping along, big corps doing what they can to boost profits. Governments trying to keep order, and power.

Into that little slice of life, you toss a few eggs of mayhem and death.

Watch the fun.


All the movies follow the same pattern.

Happy people existing, spend time to get to know them and get attached.
Exposure/infection/outbreak.
WTF PANIC!
<people die here>
We have a plan!
<plan fails, more people die>
last surviver(s) make a break for it
Blow it out the airlock.

You can basically just pick any happy little colony and spin it up. Random Joes? 1 and 3. More organized with military/security 2 and 4.

I loved these movies, even the ones after Alien 3 but you're right, some of them were pretty terrible. I read someone else once describe the aliens films as unique because each one is told in a different way. Horror, action film...err...prison film...etc. It helped make some of the later films more palatable. But honestly, regardless of the story, they just need to do a good job with relatable or interesting characters more than anything else. I didn't mind some of the Alien V Predator films because they looked cool, but man, the characters were just dull and lifeless. There are a bunch of great...actually...good...books out there that would work well. If it was me, I'd go with a new angle and tell the story from the Earth Wars books I think they are called. Those had some cool ideas in them and they go into Earth being infested and how it was mishandled, as well as cults etc so there is something interesting and a bit different there. Or, the ones where they go to an Alien homeworld and harvest their royal jelly...those were a pretty fun story to read, even if there were crazy over the top. But yeah, Alien movies fail when their characters are boring or pointless. Without those story arcs, they're just guns and gore porn really. (Although I still watched all of them...)

Nowhere. I'm a much bigger fan of telling complete stories and walking away. Any attempt to rehash them, reboot them or 'alternate continuity' is automatically a failure.

If there's room for new stories in the same setting, that can be a thing, but 'rescuing' for the sake of rescuing is pointless.

Probably the 'best' way to springboard off of Alien is to have a Weyland-Yutani (or competitor) crew do something that doesn't involve Xenomorphs or Precursors or whatever in any way at all.

A character driven story about a resource race on a struggling colony could be interesting, or claim jumping, or whatever. I can't think of much for the setting that isn't just 'Space Western,' but I'm not sure that's me or the limitations of the setting

I am going to defend Alien 3 and the death of Hicks and Newt.

If you REALLY love Alien and Aliens and the character Ripley then you should know that Ripley's character arc is defined by loss at the hands of the company in pursuit of their monster. Alien sees her lose her whole crew (every person she knows that we are aware of). Aliens opens with a recap of that and the stripping of her rank along with a massive loss of her time and life. The directors cut adds in the loss of her daughter.

Ripley's victory over the company comes in Alien 3. She takes from them the only thing they wanted by killing off their last samples. Her speech in 3 is perfect. They don't care about us. They think were crud. The first time it was crew expendable. The next time it was marines, the same. You think they give a feth about a bunch of lifers who found god at the ass end of the universe? They will kill you just for knowing about it. feth them.

Lets say hicks and Newt survived, yeah? How much impact would have been sucked out of that speech because of them walking around? Ripley's story is about loss. And her victory is about sticking it to them in the last and only way she ever could. Newt and Hicks have no lasting place in Ripley's story and their place in it was long done by the credits of Aliens. They would have only taken away from Alien 3 by being around.



That being said, you save Alien franchise at this point by moving as far away from LV-426 and Ripley as possible. You don't need to keep going to the same planet and Ripley's story is done.

Have a band of rebels fighting to free their homeland from invaders. They succeed and the invaders retreat. Everyone celebrates, someone wanders off to pee and vanishes. Rebels realize something is stalking them and try to survive the onslaught. It gets down to the final survivor who challenges the Xenomorph out in the open. As it approaches, they hit a button and a larva bursts out of the chest of the alien, killing it. It then rushes into a box beside the last survivor, who radios for pickup to let us know that Weyland-Utai has successfully weaponized the things.

 Nevelon wrote:
I like the little shorts they did for the anniversary.

The universe is a big sandbox. You have people doing people stuff. Poking at the universe, trying to make a living. Little people scraping along, big corps doing what they can to boost profits. Governments trying to keep order, and power.

Into that little slice of life, you toss a few eggs of mayhem and death.

Watch the fun.

I agree. It's a big universe. No reason to keep going back to the well, except for thematically (weak governments, awful corporatism, hideous monsters).

I love Sigourney Weaver, and it's time to let her go. No, no more remakes or rehashes or family members or anything like that, please, that tie into the original 4 movies. Beyond the fact it just sounds like a bad idea for me, look at the Terminator franchise. Continuing to keep hitching it to the same wagon has yielded nothing but ever diminishing returns. That story has been dead since the 90s.

I do want to see a sequel to Covenant, though. I want to know what ultimately happens with David, he's an unexpectedly compelling character - usually evil robots are so... poorly fleshed out. I also rather liked Covenant in general, honestly; it was one of the better entries in the franchise, which unfortunately is a bit of a low bar.

Any movie from here on out should solely be an exploration of how group X deals with coming across xenomorphs. No need to explore other characters. The franchise was kind of shot in the foot by Prometheus, so I'd simply do self contained movies set in that universe. Maybe have a movie where NOTHING the protagonists do works and they all die, showing a set up to a mission like Aliens 2.

So although I really dislike Prometheus for being a really dumb movie, I never thought it messed up the continuity too much; the Space Jockey’s are still weird and ineffable, even if the relationship with the xenomorphs is now clarified and I always thought that Weyland Yutani must have had some encounter with them beforehand, to have either sent the Nostromo to LV-426 deliberately or, more likely, have stuck standing orders in all of their ships & androids to investigate if they came across any sign of either race.

I also like the idea that it shows how futile W-Y’s idea of weaponising the xenomorph is; even it’s own creators couldn’t keep control.

Covenant, on the other hand, is a bit better made film that absolutely craps all over the continuity. Instead of the xenomorphs being this ancient, mysterious creation, sat waiting on LV-426 for aeons having destroyed their own creators in a grand act of hubris, some wonky android thought them up. A few years ago. And destroyed a vastly superior alien race at a whim, but not his own creators (who he hates). And then planted them to be found? With the corpse of a species he already genocided, in a different way? What?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don’t really know where you go from here; I would still like to see a “proper” version of Aliens vs Predator, as I think the original graphic novel/novelisation had a good core idea, but they used too many bits of it in the first AvP film and the Predator series has also gone back off the rails recently, all though not as badly.

All good things come to an end, at least it should have. Keep trying to milk it only make it worse imo. the difference between a good show and a great show its the length and execution, one too many season or 30 minute too long in a movie only weakens it.

Also the frightening thing about Aliens is gone, best leave it to video games like "isolation' to bring that fear factor back, in a 2 hr movie its unachievable. Maybe a spin off show or a new story set in the franchise.

Honestly? I'd rather franchises this old not be continued, particularly science fiction ones.

A lot of these classic films which were huge hits were essentially catching lightning in a bottle. I don't mind a trilogy of films if they're spaced a couple years apart. The tech, the filming, the actors are normally reasonably consistent. But picking up a popular franchise 20-30 years later so rarely works. More often than not the director (if it's the same) has lost that style or enthusiasm. It's painful to watch Scott's original interviews in the extra features on the ALIEN film and then see him do all of the things he said NOT TO DO in his later movies like Prometheus/Covenant etc.

I hate when movies like Prometheus etc. showcase tech that is far beyond that which featured in films which chronologically took place afterwards...often because CGI is cheaper than practical effects. It ruins the feel of a film for me. Likewise with the interjection of modern politics or themes which taint the movie's feel.

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Why is the answer to fix something always "let's make a desperate attempt to do more!".

Just let it go and it'll still be a huge success to those who enjoy it.
Just making more desperate content to keep it afloat does what it's doing now.

You'll end up with more garbage. Trying to get nostalgia points like they did with that star wars trash.

Its dead. Let it stay dead. We don't need to keep resuscitating dead horses.

 Elbows wrote:

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Fury Road?

 Elbows wrote:
I hate when movies like Prometheus etc. showcase tech that is far beyond that which featured in films which chronologically took place afterwards...often because CGI is cheaper than practical effects. It ruins the feel of a film for me.

In this specific example, you're comparing the technology available on what is functionally a notch above a garbage scow piloted by space truckers, and a vessel carrying Peter Weyland and his daughter. How well would the cheapest tugboat you can buy today compare to the most expensive yacht available in 1990?

Without a reboot (do not want), it’s hard to see how follow up movies would be much different to Resurrection.

In-Universe, it’s accepted Ripley drove the Xenomorph’s extinct (presumably the explosion on Hadley’s Hope took out the crashed ship).

So....where else do they go?

As for the excellent comment above about Alien3? Resurrection kinda followed that, with them taking Ripley’s humanity. Kinda.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

I really can't think of a long-time-past sequel that's come out that was really genuinely good and added to a classic favourite film IP. In short I'd much rather let an IP die than keep digging it up and making it progressively worse over the subsequent decades.

Fury Road?

That was going to be my reply!

Though Mad Max works as the connections between each film are tenuous at best. They're more like standalone films which share a universe and a character rather than connected stories.

Resurrection is an episode of buffy the vampire slayer that was written by hack director Joss Wheddon. Thats why all the characters have signiture weapons and shticks. They all have one defining shallow character trait.

Ressurection is only fine (and barely that) because it doesnt even have actual aliens in it. They are human alien hybrids.

That bejng said. It wasnt WY that did that. It was the military. Ripley 8 isnt Ellen Ripley and they dont share an arc. Ripleys story well and truely ends with 3.

Are the alien comics not canon? There are some good stories in there, whether they'd work as a film or not is another matter, a series though it could work.

It's a bit of a terminator/predator situation with the films after 2 (even alien 3 suffers) that they felt they HAD to introduce something new. No, no they do not they should always expand the current narrative with such franchises, they should not create new narratives.

Alien resurrection is a fine example of what I think they should do above narratively speaking, they just executed it so poorly it is a joke. The Weyland Yutani organisation was always the 'other' villain of the franchise, by them experimenting/cloning specimens they keep it in universe (yeah it's the military, but you just know WY have a finger in that pie, it stinks of it). Promethius also does the same, however that is truly a case of opening a box that should have remained sealed as it added to the narrative to keep it secret/ambiguous a bit like the idea in 40k of not revealing who the missing primarchs are, little slithers of information here and there to keep the theories flowing, but not revealing it (I'm talking about the engineers if people have lost my train of thought here).

Anyway, as for a suggestion, a series, maybe even animated based on the earth wars and the lead up to it would be cool I think.

Gonna have to agree with some here, it ended with Alien 3 (which I actually liked haha),Prometheus was an interesting idea what was not too bad and covenant was pure trash made by idiots for idiots and the sad thing is none of us are idiots and even those that like it still are not idiots and notice its glaring flaws..

Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Aliens is a struggling franchise run by people who do not know what to do with it or do not like the things that made it great, if there must be a reboot then I think it needs to embrace its horror roots and go big on that aspect.

I enjoyed Alien 4, but I always view it more as a fan-service film than a serious part of the legacy. It was also a shift again away form horror and more into an action film and it delivers in spades in terms of action. The only real mind boggling nuttyness was how they got Ripley back, otherwise much of it was fairly fiathful to its own lore

The films that came after I feel didn't really do justice to the source material. AVP was a bit of a mess; meanwhile the Prometheus films just failed to deliver.



Persoanlly I'd love for them to go back to the comic series that came out after the first film and explore concepts such as the war against Aliens; the Invasion of Earth; the invasion of the homeworld of the Aliens; the attacks on different worlds where you see Aliens using other biology (shark aliens) to evolve and adapt.

There'sa wealth of stories there which run the gauntlet from horror to action and they all stick within the same storyline and setting. They even expand on the idea of Aliens having a homeworld and coming from somewhere, whilst many of the post Alien 1 films keep trying to tie everything to a single ship and single instance of events.




I agree its a franchise with people in charge who don't "get" the franchise and who would even be better to just make "no name" films of their own stories than keep bolting them into aliens.


Alien could do a reboot, it would be hard to top the original, but they could reboot it. Personally I'd love to see a new actress take on the role of Ripley as she was done originally. She was always a more serious female role model lead and she got away being tough without appearing like she's putting on an act.

I wouldn't. some films should not be franchises, some should stand alone as a trilogy, and not have more movies pumped out.

Brian have you read any of the comics?

https://www.comixology.co.uk/search/items?search=aliens+omnibus&subType=COLLECTIONS

There's even a sale on right now for them, they are well worth a read

-Guardsman- wrote:
How do you deal with the questionable directions the series has taken?

Kill David off.

Offscreen.

 ValentineGames wrote:
Why is the answer to fix something always "let's make a desperate attempt to do more!".

This is the way.

"Everyone that has tried to reboot X franchise has failed, now watch as I try to reboot X franchise and find a whole new way to fail!"

Half the Alien comics involve the protagonist soliloquising about how they're all nihilistic now and there's no good in the universe because they've 'seen the face of death'.

Which ties into the original Alien 'the universe is bigger than you think' themes, but a bit too on the nose, spoiled by comic book writers imagining they're deep.

Honestly, if anything, it's about time the moviegoing public was introduced to one Herk Mondo.

Leave it as done.
Find something else to turn into movies.

It doesn't need to be rescued. Just watch the ones with Weaver in it and pretend that the sequels never happened.

Soft reboot. It’s the only way to be sure.

Go back and make the original DH Aliens: Earth War following on directly from Aliens and ignore eveything that came after it - especially Promethius just for the sheer unending stupidity of the scientists

Then make the original Predator Graphic novel and tie it in to Predators.