A friend of mine who hasn't seen any of the Alien films recently watched the trailer for Prometheus and said his mid was blown. Upon asking me if this is the beginning of a franchise, I told him about Alien being the follow-up story, and gave him a lowdown on the story and shown him a picture of the Alien itself. He isn't a huge fan of films, and though he'd heard of Alien he knew ABSOLUTELY nothing about it - and believed that Alien was in fact going to be the next released film in a couple of years following Prometheus and was blown away even more by the fact that the mythology and universe created would be, for him, the next huge franchise to wait for and anticipate.
I feel a bit sorry for him due to his stupidity in not realizing at first that the the Alien film I told him about was that Alien film and franchise that he'd heard about but nothing about. I also feel a bit cruel in leading him on that way, haha.
However, it got me thinking...
Ridley has mentioned that there will be a Prometheus sequel - and I'm not suggesting that he would ever remake Alien himself, nor would anybody even attempt to remake it - but, what if a sequel to Prometheus occurs during or following the events of Alien - there are so many stories that could be told following the events of the Nostromo, that could lead into the other films. One that struck me, for example was Weyland-Yutani's terraforming of LV-426. They must have come across the Derelict ship. I mean, how the hell do you miss it? But, I would love to maybe see some of the process of the terraforming, and maybe even what happened when the Mom & Pop Survey team returned to Hadley's Hope with the Facehugger attached to the man's face, and the events that transpired there, whilst Ripley was nice and safe orbiting Earth.
It's just some random thoughts - not suggesting anything here, but I think there are so many great stories that could be told now, I'd be surprised if nobody actually attempted something along those lines. Personally, I'd like Ridley to go "original" again with the sequel, tell a unique and different story, but again tie it into the previous films - but maybe, a little bit more than Prometheus is.