A new (possible) Alien 5 and the perhaps too many Diverging paths

So everyone has obviously heard the news. For the second (or is that third) time in the past decade we've been teased with the possibility of Sigourney Weaver returning to play Ellen Ripley one last time. First was Neil Blomkamps canceled Alien 5 and it was just a few years ago Walter Hill along with David Giler announced they had the script for a new Ripley helmed Alien. A script that Weaver seemingly shot down. It's now late 2025 and we now have another treatment from Walter Hill, one that Weaver is taking seriously it seems. Now it's time for me to sound like a broken record. I've been rambling on for some time now about how I'm certain under Disney, Alien 3 and Resurrection have been shown the door. After all very little if anything has acknowledged the later entries. Alien Resurrection comes as no surprise considering even with a franchise that includes Alien 3, Prometheus, Covenant, and Earth it remains the most maligned entry aside from maybe AVP Requiem. It also takes place far off in 2381 and to this day very few storylines have revisited that era. I can only think of three of the top of my head. Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator which featured Ripley 8 and Annalee Call. Aliens Original Sin which acted as direct sequel to Resurrection and Sea of Sorrows which takes place 100 years after Resurrection and briefly acknowledges the events of the movie. For all intent and purposes it's easy to ignore. Alien 3 being retconed is more concerning yet unsurprising. It remains a highly divisive entry. I don't need to explain why. The decisions made were and are controversial to say the least. The first move to deleting the latter half of the quadrilogy came with Marvel's comics. I covered it here a couple years ago. The short version is the guy writing the comics at the time while liking Alien 3 chose to ignore it for his story in so room could be left to tell a "better story". He also disliked Resurrection. Shocking right? While he's just a comic writer and even Fedè Alvarez while a fan of the comics didn't believe they were canon, his take is not definitive but certainly telling non the less of a possible direction they wanted to take Alien in. Less obvious is this tv spot which shows footage from every movie...except 3 and Resurrection. While it's certainly not official but the possibility of 3 and Resurrection being deleted from the timeline seems very possible. 

As if that's not confusing enough this follows Alien Earth which retconed Prometheus and Covenant. We also have Alien Romulus 2 on the horizon, a movie i might add embraced Ridley Scott's prequels. Scott also keeps kicking around the idea of continuing his prequel story line. To say nothing of the upcoming Predator Badlands which has planted itself directly in the Alien universe (no xenomorph in this one though) with Weyland Yutani synths and a very obvious visual lifted directly from Romulus.Will that lead to a new AVP? Will it canonize the other AVP's? I'm not even going to touch all the games, books and comics. Props to Aliens Fireteam Elite attempting to tie into many aspects of the universe. Crazy to think it's tied to Prometheus, Covenant, Alien, Aliens, Alien Echo and marvel comics but that's rare. Worth noting it absolutely does not acknowledge Alien 3 though. This is very scatter brained I'm sorry but after I was recently praising Alien for being fairly coherent it's starting to feel more than a little unfocused. It's certainly not as messy as Terminator, Halloween, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre to name a few but it's getting rough. Someone needs to get their shit straight. Earth is its on path where only Alien and Aliens happen. Fine, cool, whatever but it will confuse more than anything. It already has. Now this new Possible Ripley movie. What are we doing? If 3 and Resurrection are gone just come out and confirm it. Even Star Wars was more direct with it's continuity intentions post Disney purchase. It's getting messy.