Luckily for me, it matters not a jot if this alternate 'direct' sequel to ALIENS happens or not, as I'm able to look on ALIEN & ALIEN RES as mere 'fan fiction' entries as it is.
To be honest, I would have been very happy with a follow-up to ALIEN that involved a storyline which expanded on the 'alien' aspect of Ridley's original WITHOUT including Weaver again at all. Sure, she was excellent in it, but she became big thanks to that movie, not the other way round - however, the rest of the cast was equally good in it too...except they weren't lucky enough to have their characters survive until the end. So Weaver became the focus of things thanks to the luck of her role, and of course there became a clamour for her to feature in the follow-up. But 'Ripley' was merely one element of the original movie for me, and I didn't necessarily need to see her 'continuing adventures' in the follow-up...
Luckily, ALIENS turned out to be an excellent sequel, despite involving a 'shoot-em-up' storyline which was essentially designed to get 'Ripley' back into the fray. But...I have no doubts whatsoever that an equally good follow-up to the original movie could have been successfully conceived which DIDN'T revolve around 'Ripley's character.,,and I've no doubt that it would have still been a successful sequel with the likes of Cameron at the helm too. ALIEN's subject matter was memorable in LOTS of ways, and the sequel didn't necessarily NEED to be plotted around the 'survivor' of the initial story.
Still, we got a terrifically re-watchable sequel, regardless. Weaver put in another great performance of course, and her involvement in Cameron's movie only enhanced her 'star power' in the franchise - which was too bad in my opinion, as she ended up being able to heavily influence the way her NEXT follow-up would be done...for the worse, in my opinion. Considering the limitations of the ALIEN 3's lacklustre plotline and settings..and the external interference of Weaver and the studio...it's a wonder how well Fincher's effort turned out in certain ways. But while some may love it's constantly nihilistic, downbeat vibe...it's only thanks to some stylish direction from Fincher...along with another good performance from Sigourney, a pretty good score overall...that makes it's drab settings watchable, as far as I'm concerned. And that goes for the equally flawed 'special edition' version of it too.
And then we got a further Weaver adventure with ALIEN RES...
Thankfully, I can re-edit both of these last 2 follow-ups for my own benefit, in a way that will make them a more curious re-watch for myself in future. I prefer to think that that the events of ALIEN 3 (and consequently ALIEN RES too) didn't *really* happen after ALIENS at all...and some of it's opening sequence anomalies are quite helpful in looking on them as mere 'fan fiction' adventures involving Weaver's character -
1. For instance, there's the WHITE 'Sulaco' lettering on the side of the ship, which was BLACK in ALIENS (sure, we see the other side of the ship in this shot, but I prefer to think it wasn't painted different colors on either side, and that it can't be the ship from Cameron's movie whatsoever)
2. Then there's the close-up of 'Newt' in stasis that isn't the SAME acress as before (yes it's very brief, but still)
3. And then there's the additional discrepancy of the single egg left in the 'Sulaco' by a 'sackless' Queen, which then seems to generate 2 seperate 'facehuggers'... I guess I could 'imagine' that it's a larger, 'special' egg that produces TWIN 'facehuggers' (one of which is a 'Queen'-producer, or perhaps BOTH are)...but I'd rather not...
4. But the main thing for me, is the fact that the 'hypersleep chambers' are totally DIFFERENT to the ones we last saw 'Ripley' & gang enter at the end of ALIENS...so as I don't think that they got up during their trip home to change sleeping compartments, then this seals it for me!
So while I don't necessarily need an 'alternate' follow-up involving 'Ripley', 'Hicks', & 'Newt to discard the events of ALIEN 3 & ALIEN RES from my 'personal canon'...I might end up pleasantly surprised with how it turns out. But again, I'd probably be happier with a non-WEAVER storyline involving the overall 'alien mythos' to begin with, new characters and all!