Poll: Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection

[Chairman Miaow]

Get the restored edit for Alien 3, and you'll have a good time. I don't like the fact it basically craps all over Aliens ending on high, but in its own right its an interesting take on the material.

James Cameron didn't like that they did that either. I listened to the Aliens commentary track a few years ago. What a disservice.

I honestly don't mind, and I understand why they did it. If newt had still been there it would have been harder to tell a different story rather than just repeat aliens again. I love Alien 3 for what it is but also hate that the meddling stopped us from getting the movie that could have been.

Let me try to think of a story that expands on Alien while keeping Newt and Hicks alive.

Mankind has ventured far deeper into space since the events of Alien (year 2127) 64 years ago. A drone (Not Weyland-Yutani again. Maybe a competitor, like Bionational.) has discovered an ancient civilization on a dead planet. Or it can be sort of an outpost like in Prometheus. The architecture is again inspired by H. R. Giger's art.

Ripley learns that her adopted daughter Newt was contacted by Bionational for information regarding the events on LV-426 and volunteered for a manned expedition of the new planet. The girl is now 19 years old, a spacer of some kind. She is still haunted by what happened and by the loss of her family and wants to make peace with it like her mother in the last movie. Or it's vengeance, I don't know. Ripley is not on Earth. That would be too much like the beginning of Aliens. Let's say she's the captain of a freighter and learns of what happened via a message from Hicks, who was able to find Newt's destination through his military connections. (Something like that. Maybe not even Hicks.) As the freighter is leaving orbit of the planet currently being mined and the crew prepares to go into hypersleep, Ripley changes course for the alien world in order to get Newt out. Her crew questions her motives. All except Bishop, whom she had repaired and whom she tells the truth. Or, to make it slightly less selfish, she takes the ship's shuttle. Towards the end of the movie, we get kind of a reversal of the last movie, in which Newt saves Ripley.

You're able to please Weaver, who is too lucrative to let go, you're able to please the fans, who have grown attached to the survivors of Aliens, you have an appropriately older looking Ripley, and you expand on the civilization seen in the first movie. All without taking away Ripley's family again and being pretentious like Alien 3.

I didn't say impossible, I just said harder. What happened between Aliens and your story for example?

The four survivors got back to civilization like they were supposed to and carried on with their lives. Does it need to be explained? It was seven years. Might as well ask the same question about Terminator 2. Time skips aren't rare, especially when actors have noticeably aged. It's weird that Ripley ages thirteen years even though she's been in hypersleep between the three movies.

It's not much harder to come up with an alternative. Mine surely has holes, but I came up with it in like five minutes. A professional writer can find a way to be respectful towards Aliens.

And Weyland-Yutani just let them?

Yes. Weyland-Yutani didn't believe Ripley when she spoke of the alien and explained why she exploded the ship, so why would they give a shit now? Burke came because the facility was owned by WY, but once they discovered the eggs he acted on his own. And what are they gonna do? They're a private company. The military sometimes helps them because they're a big enough company t be considered an asset to the United Americas, but they don't have government power. They're not like the CIA.

I'm sorry, what? Burke's orders were specifically about returning a live specimen. Same deal with Ash. Same in every extended universe thing there has ever been.

Show me the line in Aliens. Ripley only says Burke wanted to take a live specimen to his superiors. He was there because it was a very expensive facility. He wouldn't have had to cover up his murders and sweat with anxiety if WY had told him to do what he did.

It was a Weyland Yutani colony. The colonists were sent specific co-ordinates to the Alien nest to investigate.

If I remember correctly, it was Burke who sent those coordinates.

Maybe I'm mixing up something from the books, but it's pretty explicit that it was not Burke acting alone.

 

[spartandude]

I think 3 (assembly cut) is good. Not great by any stretch of the imagination but good none the less. Resurrection is absolute crap. And that's me being nice.