Weaver and Blomkamp on Alien 5

[Born Of Cold Light]

From what I can tell when Blomkamp says hes not trying to undo Alien 3 and Resurrection, I believe he is speaking in terms of he doesn't dislike the sequels, just that he can't fit in a story of the original Ripley in any other way.  I think this still confirms that the third and fourth film will be reconnected and he doesn't want fans of the sequels to feel cheated.  I honestly can't see how they would make a film between Aliens and Alien 3 especially with an aged Ripley or have her alive after the third film.

...which is lazy, cheap and unimaginative.

Or more creatively freeing, if someone wants to tell a story without the restrictions that come with the later films. More room for the imagination to play around in without having to stop every five seconds to clunkily explain away something from a film that otherwise wouldn't be relevant to the story this one is telling.

Why even make a franchise movie sequel at all then? Why even bother? Ego tripping? Grudge? Money?

Make it an original title like PROM if you want to go the "what-if?" route.

And btw restrictions are necessary in order to breed creativity. No restrictions and you end up with mindless wanking or floaty bits without meaning. The restrictions can be anything really, but no matter what you always need something that leads, frames and pushes back through your creative process. When making a franchise movie acknowledging what has been established in previous films are definitely restrictions one should adhere to unless one is too lazy, cheap and unimaginative... Butchering established continuity because you can't come up with a valid story is far from being creative.

Exactly.  If it becomes acceptable to complete toss out established continuity in order to create your own perfect story, the concept of the franchise will collapse and everything will become fan fiction.  Taken even further, you could get a glut of stories that are too different to be part of the same universe but too similar as to not be blatantly ripping off each other.  If someone made a successful movie, a dozen producers could just chop and screw it to make their own sequels-but-not-sequels in order to cash in, utterly ruining the original concept.  This is a very, very bad path to go down.

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

Because there are still stories to be told in this universe.  Telling those stories in the form of an original title would approach the threshold of plagiarism, because they would require elements fairly specific to the Alien universe.

And it can be argued that walking back the last few movies is actually embracing those restrictions and ditching "mindless wanking" and "floaty bits without meaning."  The first two films gave us a universe that was fairly coherent.  The next few gave us a universe where space monks contemplate God in a near-abandoned prison, xenomorph eggs magically spawn out of nowhere, and clones have the memories of their originals.

Disagree with you so hard on this one, especially when it comes to A3.

[Doktor Wunderbar]

I knew that you would.  You've got your opinion, and I've got mine.

Granted, I like the Assembly Cut, or whatever they're calling the latest version.  But I wouldn't miss it.

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

From what I can tell when Blomkamp says hes not trying to undo Alien 3 and Resurrection, I believe he is speaking in terms of he doesn't dislike the sequels, just that he can't fit in a story of the original Ripley in any other way.  I think this still confirms that the third and fourth film will be reconnected and he doesn't want fans of the sequels to feel cheated.  I honestly can't see how they would make a film between Aliens and Alien 3 especially with an aged Ripley or have her alive after the third film.

...which is lazy, cheap and unimaginative.

Or more creatively freeing, if someone wants to tell a story without the restrictions that come with the later films. More room for the imagination to play around in without having to stop every five seconds to clunkily explain away something from a film that otherwise wouldn't be relevant to the story this one is telling.

Why even make a franchise movie sequel at all then? Why even bother? Ego tripping? Grudge? Money?

Make it an original title like PROM if you want to go the "what-if?" route.

And btw restrictions are necessary in order to breed creativity. No restrictions and you end up with mindless wanking or floaty bits without meaning. The restrictions can be anything really, but no matter what you always need something that leads, frames and pushes back through your creative process. When making a franchise movie acknowledging what has been established in previous films are definitely restrictions one should adhere to unless one is too lazy, cheap and unimaginative... Butchering established continuity because you can't come up with a valid story is far from being creative.

Exactly.  If it becomes acceptable to complete toss out established continuity in order to create your own perfect story, the concept of the franchise will collapse and everything will become fan fiction.  Taken even further, you could get a glut of stories that are too different to be part of the same universe but too similar as to not be blatantly ripping off each other.  If someone made a successful movie, a dozen producers could just chop and screw it to make their own sequels-but-not-sequels in order to cash in, utterly ruining the original concept.  This is a very, very bad path to go down.

Amen.

[TheSulaco426]

wow, a lot of disagreeing here, I never understood why people take canon to heart so much especially canon that Fox says must be canon to everyone who watches the films.  I think the canon is whatever the audience personally believes is canon, if you believe the comics are canon so be it, if Alien 3 or Blomkamps is canon, so be it.  Whatever a corporate executive says doesn't mean it has to be so, if I followed the comic book continuity of Marvel, Id be lost from all the retcons, re-retcons, and inconsistencies.  I don't know, its too early to tell the quality of the next Alien film, continuity aside, I just want an entertaining film.

[xeno-kaname]

From what I can tell when Blomkamp says hes not trying to undo Alien 3 and Resurrection, I believe he is speaking in terms of he doesn't dislike the sequels, just that he can't fit in a story of the original Ripley in any other way.  I think this still confirms that the third and fourth film will be reconnected and he doesn't want fans of the sequels to feel cheated.  I honestly can't see how they would make a film between Aliens and Alien 3 especially with an aged Ripley or have her alive after the third film.

...which is lazy, cheap and unimaginative.

Or more creatively freeing, if someone wants to tell a story without the restrictions that come with the later films. More room for the imagination to play around in without having to stop every five seconds to clunkily explain away something from a film that otherwise wouldn't be relevant to the story this one is telling.

Why even make a franchise movie sequel at all then? Why even bother? Ego tripping? Grudge? Money?

Make it an original title like PROM if you want to go the "what-if?" route.

And btw restrictions are necessary in order to breed creativity. No restrictions and you end up with mindless wanking or floaty bits without meaning. The restrictions can be anything really, but no matter what you always need something that leads, frames and pushes back through your creative process. When making a franchise movie acknowledging what has been established in previous films are definitely restrictions one should adhere to unless one is too lazy, cheap and unimaginative... Butchering or circumventing established continuity because you can't come up with a valid story is far from being creative.

The more you repeat it doesn't make it any more believable. It simply isn't any of that. And I'm stating that as fact. Why? Because all this started from Blomkamp's concept art and story ideas. Independent from Fox or any active push for a sequel, as you yourself said. He CHOSE to create a story in that time period. Because he wanted to. Because he liked those characters and the tone of the original movies where they came from.

His brain child. "Imaginative." (Sure we don't know how many tropes he is potentially borrowing from existing genres, but he did think of this story mostly by himself. From what he stated.)

Has been working on it for (i believe he said) over a year. Putting his extra time available into this what was personal project. Bringing back old characters might seem lazy to you, but they are almost as difficulty to write for as for new ones. So what if you get to skip basic background or origins. Keeping recurring characters interesting while giving them new challenges is something that requires great effort. Nothing "lazy" about that. If anything he gave himself a harder time. He has to do justice to these sci fi legends.

And "cheap" is just so generic I don't think it can be applied to anything specific about these news.

It's just bias. Because you don't want A3 to get circumvented. If it wasn't then, as predxeno said, you'd be outraged about Prometheus contradicting the AvP's. A3 still exists. Don't be so threatened by this new possible timeline. You'll always have your movie.

wow, a lot of disagreeing here, I never understood why people take canon to heart so much especially canon that Fox says must be canon to everyone who watches the films.  I think the canon is whatever the audience personally believes is canon, if you believe the comics are canon so be it, if Alien 3 or Blomkamps is canon, so be it.  Whatever a corporate executive says doesn't mean it has to be so, if I followed the comic book continuity of Marvel, Id be lost from all the retcons, re-retcons, and inconsistencies.  I don't know, its too early to tell the quality of the next Alien film, continuity aside, I just want an entertaining film.

Indeed. They're saying "fanfic" as a negative when every script that has made it after "Alien" is basically just that. Fanfic that made it all the way to the top. Just because a big wig in an office wrote it and calls it a script doesn't mean it isn't fiction created by a fan. It's still a person writing a story.

So yeah at this juncture the canon is what you personally believe.

[CainsSon]

From what I can tell when Blomkamp says hes not trying to undo Alien 3 and Resurrection, I believe he is speaking in terms of he doesn't dislike the sequels, just that he can't fit in a story of the original Ripley in any other way.  I think this still confirms that the third and fourth film will be reconnected and he doesn't want fans of the sequels to feel cheated.  I honestly can't see how they would make a film between Aliens and Alien 3 especially with an aged Ripley or have her alive after the third film.

Truthfully, none of what is being said adds up to a whole lot of beans. It's in one way contradictory and in another way it just seems like they don't realize it's unclear what they are saying.
It;s entirely possible that FOX wants to ride the retcon wave of Publicity while deliberately shying away from using the term 'retcon'
The only other possibility is that there is legit something we don't know or understand about his concept that makes some sense out of all the conflicting info.

[Intrepid-Traveler]

Mmm I think what he's saying that its not directly going to retcon A3/A4. Similar to how predators sort of ignored predator 2 without retconning or even noting the film.

[Shamo]

Okay well I am kind of relieved after that interview. I don't think they should retcon Alien 3 and 4, but maybe they find a good way to fit the movie in between, or come up with a twist along the lines of "Out of the Shadows" but after Aliens. Or even tell the story of different Ripley clone at a different time. I dont- they will come up with something good. Nel Bonkcamp is an awesome director- even though I was slightly disappointed by the boring finally of Elysium- thestyle of the movie and the atmosphere was great. And together with District 9, these two movies really represent the griddy dirty realisitc future, where man is his own enemy- the kind of SciFi that was born through Alien. He is one of the few directors who still work with this kind of SciFi and brings it back to life with modern technology- so I think he is the right guy. But man- I am really jealous somehow. All my life I was daydreaming and thinking up Alien sequels. And here is one guy about my age- who really pulls it off. I should have lived my life differently...

[shakermakerman]

No retcon just ignore.

[robbritton]

I keep saying it, but if you start this new movie with Ripley in hypersleep and have elements of A3 and AR flash up in this style: http://www.traileraddict.com/prometheus/dream-monitoring then you have a way to keep both films in canon (as dreams) and also an excuse for some of their illogical plotting. That scene in Prometheus allows this to be seen in world on a monitor or something (Who's to say the Sulaco doesn't have that tech knocking about?) and allows the two films to stand, while also ejecting them from continuity. Have them get back to Earth, and then flash forward thirty years and have them be the age they are now. No CGI, no big de-aging make up (apart from a solitary cryo scene), boom!

I'm not saying for a second that that is particularly satisfying screenwriting, but it does resolve all the contradictions in what Blomkamp is saying.

from the day A3 came out, people were throwing around the 'it was all a dream' sequel ideas. It wouldn't be particularly surprising, and it is the only way I can see to wipe the slate clean without completely jettisoning A3 and AR.

[Alien³]

Mmm I think what he's saying that its not directly going to retcon A3/A4. Similar to how predators sort of ignored predator 2 without retconning or even noting the film.

But that is ridiculous when you're bringing characters back to life, which looks to be the case.

Predators had new characters.

This new film should have new characters.

[Son Of Kane]

Dumping A3 and A:R for this mountain of derivative dung settles the score.

We literally have zero information on the story. Praising or criticising it in a complete absence of knowledge is premature, IMO.

"Derivitive dung"? Maybe - but also maybe not. We don't even know if the conceot art is meant to be showing the same derelict we all know about or a completely different one.

Bottom line: We don't know if any of the other films will be affected.

It's arm isn't broken in the Concept art so I'm guessing it's different.

[Mike]

It will just be a alternate timeline. Fans can decide which is canon and not. I like the ideal of a alternate timeline, makes it feel unique. Yes in order to continue off, it's going to for sure bring back LT. Ripley and Corporal Hicks which would explain further of the alternate timeline not retconing the series at all. Neillblomkamp said it himself.

Gheez put your handbags away ladies, it's not like Alien 3 and 4 are going to disappear - you can still watch them - don't you think you should wait until you've seen his film before getting your panties in a knot? As far as you know, this film could be Ripley's hypersleep dream before she's abruptly woken up in Alien 3!

[Gridseeker]

Me too! Believe it or not I LOVE THE FOUR ALIEN MOVIES; sure, there´s a universal agreement the first two movies are flawless but IMHO despite their flaws A3 and Resurrection are worth to be in the franchise and official cannon (remember, in A3 there were a lot of pre-post production troubles. In Resurrection Fox gave artistic freedom to the french director, besides if the last movies would repetead the "bunch of marines facing endless packs of aliens" probably the franchise would be in bad shape). I fancy the idea of an alternate timeline or universe and no matter if Fox says which movie is cannon or not, at the end there´s something called personal cannon. In my case ACM it´s just and a mere "what if..." sequel...and a very bad one.