ALIEN: ANAKAINOSIS

Thanks chli, going to have to read that novel!

Right now the Alien universe seems really tiny! Just how many spacecraft are out there? What's the furthest human settlement ( if any ). With Star Trek I get a great sense of scale. Alien Universe not so much. I'd think a tv show would flesh it out. World building in movies is asking for trouble.

"We have the problem of what might please a majority (economically satisfying) and what would please (some) fans (even avid fans have different opinions about the franchise)"

Certainly i think a Movie hits a Problem if your BANKING on the Avid Fanbase, so every Fan who sees at least 2-5 Alien Movies a Year, has the DVD Box Sets, Merch, Toys and Comics etc..  watches the Extras and Commentary etc

If we look at the Box Office of a $100M Alien Movie then even if EVERY such Avid Fan went Twice i doubt your going to make a Profit ;)   So YES it the more Casual Fan and General Public that you have to PULL in to make the Success of a Movie. (Financially)

These People would NOT really know WHAT the Space Jockey was, or other things....    what they would Recognize the most is RIPLEY (well Miss Weaver playing her) and the Xenomorph in Particular the ALIENS one as it had more and the Queen!

So when your going to do something NEW and DIFFERENT then for the General Public you maybe NEED something that they can Connect with what they think about when you say ALIEN Franchise.

"So, do we want more episodic films without continuation of the story but only connection to the “Alien Universe” or do we want to see what happens to the main characters: David, Daniels, Tennessee, Ripley, Hicks, Newt?"

This is a GOOD POINT... what made ALIEN Franchise so relatable was the Continuation of Characters... well RIPLEY as she was the Survivor until ALIEN 3 but she kind of Lives on in Alien R and you had Call as a Interesting Character but we had NO Continuation.

With Prometheus then you would have Expected a Sequel to Continue with the Protagonist Dr Shaw... but it NEVER...

We had Daniels who is a Character  that seemed to just NOT really Connect with Most of us, and well the Revelation she knows who DAVID is... really Paints the Sequel in a Corner.... her knowing is a THORN to Davids Plans... he would be best to just KILL or Experiment on her so she dont Survive.. well as a Human.. but maybe he KEEPS her Alive and Hidden and this is his Hubris...

But its UNLIKELY we get a Continuation... and so YES if we have  NEW MOVIE, then we have to introduce New Characters and maybe Fans just WONT go and Invest in those Characters if they THINK its Unlikely they would appear in a Sequel!

So you can see WHY some Fans and indeed seems Blomkamp, Hill and Giler had believed your BEST to go back to whats Relatable and Familar and to Bring Back our Ripley and maybe the Xenomorph from ALIEN/ALIENS.

“Anakainosis” roughly means “to think in a new way”

Certainly when i do Titles to Topics there is more to the Name than just something Different.  So indeed the Choice of Anakainosis is to look at HOW we could Revisit the Franchise and how can we RENEW and RENOVATE the Franchise.

And so i was thinking HOW can you go and Introduce us to a Relatble Threat but Change it a BIT but also to leave some Connection/Clues to the Franchise/Prequels to UPLIFT them.

Its NOT a Easy Task... as Ridley Scott found out with the Prequels and so maybe those in Charge would rather just go back to BASICS (Play it SAFE)  and to just Resurrect Ripley again.....

"The interesting thing with this story is that they turn the beacon off which gives an explanation as to why W-Y hasn’t found the Derelict"

Certainly.... i have NOT gone and Read the Novel and NEVER got FAR in the Game (Played it Once) but its a Good Idea/Plot.

Was THIS the LAST time that anyone went to the Derelict prior to the Jordans?  Thats something to Consider ;)

"Right now the Alien universe seems really tiny!"

Agree and i think that RS with the  Prequels and Engineers Plot really OPENED UP the Franchise to Many Worlds, Races and Horrors oh and Conflicts ;)

Wouldn't it be more likely that we will see games, comics, and so on? If we look at how the movies have done since after Alien 3 we can see that they haven't done that well. Prometheus did decent but that was probably because Scott and a bit of waiting since the last one.

Looking at Covenant and how it did I doubt that they will continue the David-story (thanks F for that). Maybe make new prequels and give it to someone that can write and a director that knows his or her limits maybe? Scott doesn’t seem to be able to do that.

No Blomkamp please, not interested in another Ripley story. Make something else, an independent movie more like Rogue One. There would be no Ripley, no David, for example. Give me something new that works, not like the prequels that messed things up.

“This Project had HOWEVER became Dead in the Water!”

Phew! Good! It's time to move on, Ripley should have stayed dead after 3.

“but the Question would be WHAT Movies would Survive as Canon?”

As long as they never touch Alien 3 I'm fine, they can do whatever they want with the rest. If they would improve what we have after Alien 3 then why not? I don't mean as in time-line but the prequels and Alien R (don't care about AVP and whatever).

Give me something new, new monsters, new worlds. An interesting story and well-made characters are required but other than that I’m open to different things.

“especially ALIEN and ALIENS are Considered so Iconic and Deserve their Place in the Franchise”

*Cough* *cough* someone forgot about Alien 3. :-)

“If this is the CASE then WHAT/WHERE do they take us?”

I would like to see survival-horror of some sort, one could say that it has been done to death but you can add new stuff to it. You can add new things to try to expand the franchise. Even though the prequels are disappointments we got new monsters, new worlds, and the Engineers. Not sure if we will see the Engineers again but it would be bad to just throw them away.

What I don't want is poorly made human characters and a focus on androids. F the focus on androids, that sucks even though they can be part of the movie (it worked with Ash and Bishop). The prequels made me think about what I don't want so that is something good I guess. Last but not least: don't cut out important parts just to get a certain run-time, that leaves out important parts and destroys the movie (the prequels show that).

“Sadly this may make them Conclude that Ripley, Xenomorphs with a Dash of Marines is the SAFE BET!”

How about a Rogue One about the Colonial marines without Ripley? This could show us new monsters and new worlds without it being Aliens 2. Keep the marines but try new things and also, please no 80s vibes - you got to update things. I could accept this, at least it’s something new, but we need people to care about.

We have had an action-movie, and horror-movies. Maybe there is a third genre that could work that are not far away from those but that you could add something different from. Perhaps a sort of common people versus intergalactic gangsters backed by WY?

Answering the thing about the trailers to AC, they were crappy because they were misleading and showed a better movie than we were given. I doubt that the movie would have been better just by having more action in it because the problems would still have been the same. One action-scene was with David and Walter, but it was still, yeah whatever since the android-parts wasn't what I watched it for.

The idea of a robot that starts to become self-aware and becomes a threat could work if you put it in the background as a part of the movie and have better human characters and have more humans versus monster-moments. For that to work you got to care about the characters and not just throw the monsters in there like Scott did. Covenant to me is more like Alien R in quality rather than Alien kind of quality, I'm not joking even though it's better than AR but that's not a huge achievement.

“So i think the Initial Box Office Numbers before Word of Mouth were LESS than i expected.”

Not surprising, they got rid of the Engineers, made it about an angry robot and had almost no characters worth a damn, plus they made the Xeno a creation of a bored robot. Not sure how anyone can't see how that will turn into average at best. Yeah, they replaced the Xeno-action with a long scene about fluting (yes I understand that they discussed creation there but what ever) which was long and slow. While the creation-theme isn't meaningless in itself it wasn't executed well.

Scott is not a writer, he can make great visuals but as far as the writing and the monster go, leave that to someone else because he isn't capable of handling that. It is doubtful that he will be involved in another alien-movie if we look at how the prequels turned out and that he had a huge part in what became of them. My guess about Scott's involvement and why I wrote that is because I try to imagine how the studio looks at it. Let him handle the visuals and that's it.

Spin-off or Franchise, whatever they decided it failed. They must have:

• Better human characters
• Less about robots
• Don't cut character-parts to get a run-time (both prequels are proof of that)
• Let the writers write, not the director
• No Ripley

Chli:

"it was probably a wrong decision not to continue the story of Ripley, Hicks and Newt."

I disagree, Alien has never been about family and happiness, that would also have been a repetition and that to me would have been boring like an Alien 2.0. This would have made Aliens less special since it would have repeated itself but now thankfully we have one Aliens that we can enjoy.

Killing them off was a necessary thing because then you could try something else and not be tied to what happened there. I doubt that it would have been an interesting movie to have Hicks and Newt in a prison full off rapists and so on. Even Alien 3 by Gibson that had Ripley in a come felt kind of eh, so I think that they did the right thing in the end.

Many people think that the Star Wars sequels weren't that great but the way that I would have reacted to another Hicks and Newt-story would probably have been worse than how I reacted to the sort or rehash that the Star Wars sequels became. Hicks and Newt were not the main-thing anyways so who continue with them? They were never as interesting as Ripley although the characters were well-made.

A new movie in the Alien-verse should have nothing to do with what we have seen. The Engineers could be featured but other than that I would say move on. It's time to get interesting again, so don't make it about androids.

“Even James Cameron expressed doubt about killing off the main characters of Aliens in Alien 3. There was a special bond between Ripley, Newt and Hicks - a potential family.”

He can have his opinion, I don't agree at all. If he wants the franchise to have a feel good thing going on he could go somewhere else. You have Disney animated movies, and so on, but Alien isn't one of these things.

Episodic movies please, all the characters that you mentioned are done to me. Those from Aliens had their time and the rest are not interesting. I would rather move on than to see something that we have seen before. You can keep some of the themes but in a new story and new characters.

"*Cough* *cough* someone forgot about Alien 3. :-)"

I was talking about in General ;)  i dont think Alien 3 should be Removed because it gave Ripley a Good Ending... a Sacrifice....  when Blomkamp and Weaver talked Alien V they kept on about Happy Ending for Ripley, Newt, Hicks and even Bishop..... NO THANK YOU!

I think that Alien R had Set Up some Potential, if they had the BALLS to try something Different... but then it would be Expected to see Eggs and Xenomorphs again and so i agree with Ridley Scott when he said there is ONLY so much Face Pulling, Chest Bursting and Snarling that you can do.

"Not sure if we will see the Engineers again but it would be bad to just throw them away."

I think there are Fans who would LOVE to see them again but only in like a Comic Book way... where the Angry SOB's come to Earth with Xenomorphs! 

IF you are going to go for a WAR ON EARTH kind of Plot i feel it would be BEST to take Place after Alien R and i think that Alien R can UPLIFT the Plot...

Xenomorphs and Engineers with Ships and Technology... vs Colonial Marines... i mean come ON!!!    it would be like Predator vs Caveman!

If our Defense is Marines then GOD help us.. but it would be GOD who is out to Destroy us....  Well Programed Androids/Robots should be better... but we know you can get Problems with A.I...   

Thats NOT a attack on the Marines, i think it depends on HOW MANY of the Engineers come and Xenomorphs... as they are just Humans..

However with Ripley 8 you have a Super Human... if you could Clone or Use her DNA to Create Superior Military Force then that could Turn the Tables....... maybe they wont be a Match for the Engineers very own Genetically Engineered Freaks (LV-223 Guys) but with a Ripley 8 DNA... a Twist could be they could Communicate with the Xenomorph and they Turn on the Engineers...

A Downfall to a kind of Hive Mind Connection between Xeno DNA Super Soldiers and Xenomorphs could be IF the both Species then Cooperate for their own Combined Agenda.. they would be a BIGGER threat than the Engineers at this Point a Coalition of Xenomorph and Humans with Xeno-DNA would be BAD for the Galaxy!

"Hicks and Newt were not the main-thing anyways so who continue with them?"

I think we have to remember that Miss Weaver did want to have Ripley get Killed Off.... did they have to KILL our Newt?

Again you raise the Great Point of HOW do you have her on a Planet of Rapist!  But the Biggest thing to Consider for those who was like "they Killed Newt"  well Carrie Henn would have been about 15 when they was Shooting Alien 3 so they would have had to Cast another Actress... Unless the PLOT was changed to be 10 Years after ALIENS!

IF i was to Change ALIEN 3 i would have had it that Newt was where the ALIEN had came from... seeing her Chest Busted would been Shocking!   It would also have made a Greater Loss to Ripley and Hicks!

Oh yes Hicks.... i would have kept him ALIVE and at the End after Ripley has Sacrificed herself it would UPLIFT his Character with the Loss of Newt and Ripley... and he would VOW that he would NEVER allow the Company to get its Hands on the Xenomorph again..

So you then have PASSED the Torch onto Hicks... for Potential Sequel.

"Perhaps a sort of common people versus intergalactic gangsters backed by WY?"

Certainly... what about Space Pirates i had mentioned that before... "what kind of Plunder is there on that Ship....."  OPPS!

If Carrie Henn had enjoyed a successful acting career ( teen movies or some Arnold flick)....I'm sure they would have kept the team together ( I'm not suggesting Alien3 was her fault though ) only a handful of actors have made the jump from a childhood acting career to a-list movie star able to carry / support a major motion picture!

I think thats a Good Point... if she had Quite a bit of Success after ALIENS then the Writers for a 3rd Movie maybe would have came up with a Plot thats set say 10 Years after ALIENS, so she could reprise her Roll as Newt.

Regarding the OT... i think that you have other Avenues for a ALIEN Movie than having to RETCON anything, or Connecting to Previous Characters.

Its a BIG Galaxy and who knows what Worlds had Eggs arrive, or have the After-Math of the Black Goo and WHAT kind of Horrors are in Store..