Blomkamp is officially making an Alien film

[Russ]

How about we just retcon the ending of alien³?

I just thought, reading another thread, you could do that. You could say that Alien3 was Morse's re-telling of it. That gives you a "Ripley Lives" way out. Doesn't get past battle scarred Hicks, though.

[whiterabbit]

Nah hicks and newt are dead. However there is another route that would be a hybrid of the retcon dream route and give Ripley a chance to say I told you guys so without removing Alien³ or A|R. Just retcon the very ending of Alien³ by making that a dream sequence. The way I see it, lets say she got darted and fell instantly asleep on the platform? This could be made to make sense since not much of the events that happen make sense. Bishops real life dad shows up and has red blood? That would only happen in a dream. Aaron growing some balls when all he wants to do all movie is go home? Highly unlikely. That fake ass dream like fire she falls into? In the theatrical cut the alien pops out but she is in no pain? Dreamy. This would also not run afoul of A|R. I say they tranquilized her ass, took it out of her (thus blood sample for A|R) some how cured her but it took 20 years to do. This explains her age and naturally the company screws it up big time and she has to now solve their problem which leads them to being bought out by f**king walmart. Morse? He's f**king insane, maybe so much so he shared the same dream she had.

Not trying to piss off the Alien³ fans but something has to give. Putting the movie in between Aliens and Alien³ couldn't possibly make any damn sense.

[HuDaFuK]

I just thought, reading another thread, you could do that. You could say that Alien3 was Morse's re-telling of it. That gives you a "Ripley Lives" way out. Doesn't get past battle scarred Hicks, though.

Except there's no logical reason or motivation for Morse to lie about her being dead.

If you're gonna scrap the third film, just outright scrap it. Any workarounds are just going to be silly and/or contrived.

[whiterabbit]

They should make an A|R sequel but that doesn't seem to be what they want to do. A full retcon is a terrible idea. I say they need to do just enough to make the movie fit in... yea sure, that's what they did with the egg on the sulaco... and look where it got us. I know.

Just as long as there is no time travel everything will work out.

[Russ]

There's no logical reason for the facehugger in Alien3 either - that's silly and contrived making the entire reason that the characters died silly and contrived?

It seems illogical to me that you are willing to accept a magic facehugger, but not accept the hypersleep tropes that are set up and (if you accept that Prometheus takes place in the 'verse / is a sidequel) and use those? I think that is far more acceptable and raises far fewer questions (story-wise) than just asking people to pretend the other movies didn't happen. Star Trek did a good job of that, using Trek logic against the outraged Trekkies (the alternate timeline was logical in that universe - and I thought it was a stroke of genius - because it uses a medium already set up in the previously established shows).

You don't like the hypersleep dreaming is one thing, but you can't handwave it out of the park because you don't like it. I believe that the general movie going public would be far more accepting of that version (they accepted the magic facehugger, after all).

[Corporal Hicks]

There's no logical reason for the facehugger in Alien3 either - that's silly and contrived making the entire reason that the characters died silly and contrived?

There's an entirely logical reason for the face-hugger aboard the ship. The Queen was present. The Queen makes eggs. Eggs contains face-huggers. The problem lies in how they showed the egg/face-hugger.

[HuDaFuK]

You don't like the hypersleep dreaming is one thing, but you can't handwave it out of the park because you don't like it.

How many times do Hicks and I have to say it? It's not that we don't like it. It's that it's an incredibly cheap story device. Like I said before, I was taught in primary school never to use it, because it's cheap and unintelligent.

And as for the magic egg, I'd argue undoing one cheap plot point with another is even less intelligent.

[OmegaZilla]

They don't need it to handwave it as a dream; if they do ignore it, they simply will.

[whiterabbit]

I hate that superfacehugger. They should have just stuck to two regular ones.

There's no logical reason for the facehugger in Alien3 either - that's silly and contrived making the entire reason that the characters died silly and contrived?

There's an entirely logical reason for the face-hugger aboard the ship. The Queen was present. The Queen makes eggs. Eggs contains face-huggers. The problem lies in how they showed the egg/face-hugger.

*looks around to see if the exit doors are clear*

Bishop did it!

They don't need it to handwave it as a dream; if they do ignore it, they simply will.

You really think alien³ and AR deserve the superman 3 and 4 treatment? That seems like it would leave a bad taste in a lot of mouths.

[Russ]

There's no logical reason for the facehugger in Alien3 either - that's silly and contrived making the entire reason that the characters died silly and contrived?

There's an entirely logical reason for the face-hugger aboard the ship. The Queen was present. The Queen makes eggs. Eggs contains face-huggers. The problem lies in how they showed the egg/face-hugger.

Which makes it conjecture, surely. There was nothing even hinted at that this had happened - everyone remembers the egg chamber being destroyed and the egg sac getting ripped off. No one remembers the queen quickly laying an egg and popping it in the corner whilst Ripley was gearing up in her powerloader (and even if the Queen did do that, why wasn't the egg sucked out of the airlock?). Not for me, Hicks, sorry man.

You don't like the hypersleep dreaming is one thing, but you can't handwave it out of the park because you don't like it.

How many times do Hicks and I have to say it? It's not that we don't like it. It's that it's an incredibly cheap story device. Like I said before, I was taught in primary school never to use it, because it's cheap and unintelligent.

And as for the magic egg, I'd argue undoing one cheap plot point with another is even less intelligent.

And how many times do I have to say that if you using the tropes set up in your universe that are perfectly logical - within that universe - is a better solution that just coming out with a marketing campaign that says "forget the last two, they were shit."

They may well do the latter, but the former works - we've seen it, we know it happens. They even say at the end of Aliens that they both can dream - the fact that Ripley's entire motivation for going to LV-426 is that she has really bad nightmares. Unless she wasn't having a nightmare before she called Burke, she was clutching her chest because she had a bad case of heartburn. Essentially, we can explain it all away as Ripley's Indigestion.

[SiL]

If only we could handwave all the people who think "It was all a dream!" is anything other than the laziest get-out-of-jail free card out of here too...

[Nightmare Asylum]

Yup. It'd be ridiculous, and incredibly convoluted, if they went that route.

If you're going to retcon, retcon. Do it with a little dignity though. Don't try to please everybody and then slap them in the face by saying it was all a dream.

[Corporal Hicks]

Which makes it conjecture, surely. There was nothing even hinted at that this had happened - everyone remembers the egg chamber being destroyed and the egg sac getting ripped off. No one remembers the queen quickly laying an egg and popping it in the corner whilst Ripley was gearing up in her powerloader (and even if the Queen did do that, why wasn't the egg sucked out of the airlock?). Not for me, Hicks, sorry man.

Which is why I say it's the placement that's the issue. If they'd have made it clear that it was in the dropship somewhere instead...or not stuck upside down. Or that a face-hugger had hitched a ride on the Queen from the Hive and omitted the egg completely. The sound of the face-hugger crawling is even in the credits of Aliens.

It's really not that much of a stretch. And it'd be nice if that sequence was reworked in any future Assembly Cuts.

And how many times do I have to say that if you using the tropes set up in your universe that are perfectly logical - within that universe - is a better solution that just coming out with a marketing campaign that says "forget the last two, they were shit."

They may well do the latter, but the former works - we've seen it, we know it happens. They even say at the end of Aliens that they both can dream - the fact that Ripley's entire motivation for going to LV-426 is that she has really bad nightmares. Unless she wasn't having a nightmare before she called Burke, she was clutching her chest because she had a bad case of heartburn. Essentially, we can explain it all away as Ripley's Indigestion.

As I keep saying, it's conceivable. Entirely. As far back at Alien the notion of recording dreams or viewing dreams has been mentioned. It's just cheap. It's poor story writing. It is the worse trope of writing.

[Russ]

If only we could handwave all the people who think "It was all a dream!" is anything other than the laziest get-out-of-jail free card out of here too...

But not as lazy as ad hominem side-swipes. 

Yup. It'd be ridiculous, and incredibly convoluted, if they went that route.

If you're going to retcon, retcon. Do it with a little dignity though. Don't try to please everybody and then slap them in the face by saying it was all a dream.

I'm all for that. How? I'd be all for a really elegant solution that isn't Ripley's Indigestion - but I really can't think of one. I really liked that "The Evil Pred" idea that did have Ripley's Indigestion, only it was induced by Wey-Yu, running different scenarios - it was more thought out than that, but that's the gist of it.

Is it any less of a slap in the face to say "nah, don't worry, didn't happen." I genuinely think that that would confuse the vast majority (I don't have analytics to back that up of course, so conjecture), but for me, if (the huge IF) this is a retcon, they have to explain it somehow.

I can't think of a better way and in reading threads and threads and threads and threads, no one else on here can either. Or if they have, I've missed it - but I'm all ears (or more accurately - eyes), I would love there to be a consistent, logical and smarter way of explaining it.

I can see them doing a 'Returns... but for me that doesn't fit with this universe at all. But that's only my opinion ... maybe they will!

Which is why I say it's the placement that's the issue. If they'd have made it clear that it was in the dropship somewhere instead...or not stuck upside down. Or that a face-hugger had hitched a ride on the Queen from the Hive and omitted the egg completely. The sound of the face-hugger crawling is even in the credits of Aliens.

It's really not that much of a stretch. And it'd be nice if that sequence was reworked in any future Assembly Cuts.

No it's not a stretch at all, and I wish they had done that with the last Assembly Cut to be honest. It would have been really easy for them to do so. But they didn't - so all we have to go on is what we assume to be the case (which is entirely reasonable), but if we're going on "facts" such as they are, it doesn't stand up. Which was sort of my point to HuDa - if the Indigestion scenario is bad, it's no worse than the magic faceugger in a film that some are defending and want to keep as canon over and above a retcon.

I often read "for all its faults" about Alien3 - for me, this was the biggest one of all, the whole film hinges on something the audience has to assume has happened. Well, that and the other stuff I've been ranting on about, but all that hinges on the facehugger. No facehugger, no accident. No Alien3 for that matter! (Thinking about it, they REALLY should have done something with an Aliens cut to explain it!).

As I keep saying, it's conceivable. Entirely. As far back at Alien the notion of recording dreams or viewing dreams has been mentioned. It's just cheap. It's poor story writing. It is the worse trope of writing.

It may well be, but we agree it's conceivable and it fits. It's by far the neatest solution (if, if, if etc). A few cuts, some digital youthening (what should that word be? Making them look younger...?) in the cryo tube... bang. Its done.

I've said all along - its not ideal, but its logical and I feel better than adopting the 'Returns approach.

[HuDaFuK]

It's by far the neatest solution (if, if, if etc).

No it isn't. Just ignoring them altogether is neatest.