How can Blomkamp explain the aging Ripley and Hicks?

[LastSurvivor92]

Obviously hypersleep retains your age as you sleep through the duration of space but how will that be explained after the events of Aliens?

[Local Trouble]

I think the Sulaco made it home safe and sound with enough evidence to posthumously skewer Burke and exonerate Ripley for the Nostromo fiasco.  The company slithered its way out of any blame by denouncing Burke as a lone conspirator.

Simple, the film opens up 30 years later.  Everything I just described is told to us via snippets of expository dialogue.

[The Cruentus]

Yep, they could just set it 30 years in the future, there is no reason why not either. I hope people are not expecting this film to literally be set right after Aliens 

[NetworkATTH]

They got picked up, they sort of hardly integrated into society, and something happens decades later that makes the movie possible.

[Local Trouble]

Whatever happens, I hope they don't outright volunteer to face the aliens again.  I hope they're simply caught up in it with the rest of humanity, World War Z style.

[The Cruentus]

Or maybe Hicks has been creating a task force, training marines in the event of encountering an "unusual" life-form and when crap hits the proverbial fan, he and his team are sent to deal with it, though this can turn out to be too much of an Aliens clone so maybe instead, they get wind of someone investigating Acheron and caught a unknown life-form and they take it upon themselves to sabotage the operation and eliminate the Alien.  Or it just arives on their doorstep. 

[oduodu]

The sulaco drifted through space for a long time after malfunctioning. Due to unforseen circumstances before being discovered by .........

I don't see how else. Except if  they were kept in cryo to be studied by the company for a long period of time. Them awaken and find themselves on a deep space station where secret research is being done. Bishop saves them and they discover the secrets of the facility and where the aliens are being cloned and studied. This facility needs to be destroyed .

In this process they discover the derelict and the its cargo and the space jockey which ripley sees for the first time and wonders why kane dallas and lambert never told them about it..........

They find the research on the space jockey and find suit - bio suits that somehow allows them to access the tech on the derelict. They then find himanoid clones 8 feet tall with albino white skin and black eyes on which the bio suits are being tested - and a facility that allows humans to transfer their consciousness into the 8 feet humanoids.............

[Local Trouble]

Or maybe Hicks has been creating a task force, training marines in the event of encountering an "unusual" life-form and when crap hits the proverbial fan, he and his team are sent to deal with it, though this can turn out to be too much of an Aliens clone so maybe instead, they get wind of someone investigating Acheron and caught a unknown life-form and they take it upon themselves to sabotage the operation and eliminate the Alien.  Or it just arives on their doorstep. 

I could see Hicks getting promoted to a high-ranking NCO (like Apone), but I don't envision him creating much of anything on his own.  That's an officer's job.

[The Cruentus]

The sulaco drifted through space for a long time after malfunctioning. Due to unforseen circumstances before being discovered by .........

The whole drifting thing has been done before, it happened in the intro of Aliens and to a lesser degree, Alien 3 where the life capsule ended up at Fury.

@Local
I meant more or less unofficially, he is assigned a group of Marines but he is also teaching and preparing them about stuff not in the manual.

[Close Encounters]

I think the Sulaco made it home safe and sound with enough evidence to posthumously skewer Burke and exonerate Ripley for the Nostromo fiasco.  The company slithered its way out of any blame by denouncing Burke as a lone conspirator.

Simple, the film opens up 30 years later.  Everything I just described is told to us via snippets of expository dialogue.

This.

[Local Trouble]

I meant more or less unofficially, he is assigned a group of Marines but he is also teaching and preparing them about stuff not in the manual.

Or something sorta like this?

[CainsSon]

It will either not take place right after Aliens OR they will use CGI. Also Hick's face is mostly covered by scars or makeup.

[WarriorRidged]

Granted, 'Aliens' was almost 30 years ago but I believe both actors could pass for a 10 year gap on film. As has been stated here - Biehn could have latex make up FX to his face. I recently saw Sigourney Weaver on the Jonathan Ross Show in the UK (skip to 0.15 in the clip), and I was surprised at how good she looked for 65 years old. Obviously the make up and lighting of a TV studio helps. Personal trainers and nutritionists should help them lower any age puffiness/weight for a 3 month shoot too.

The characters have also gone through some serious traumatic stress in their lives, and would be susceptible to age more quickly.

Biehn and Weaver being 30 years older doesn't seem like a huge issue to me. Although if this was to be set between Aliens and Alien 3, then yes, creditability would be stretched. 

[HuDaFuK]

Who says Hicks is even going to be in it?

[OpenMaw]

Who says Hicks is even going to be in it?

Michael Biehn.