I reckon that NB is not lying when he says he's a massive fan of movies - I'm sure he gets this aspect of no happy endings. I think that it's pretty clear that Sigourney Weaver wants a satisfying closure for her signature character (I imagine she's also tired of being asked about sequels and continuations 20 odd years after the last movie finished).
Now - for all its faults (sic) Alien3 provided that definitive, satisfying ending. But, for reasons discussed, I think I can wrap it up and say "right ending, wrong film."
As for new characters - there's been a lot of discussion about this on here and I'm really confident that NB's movie will be pushing that agenda - probably with Jorden as the new protagonist that carries whatever story will follow on from this forward. Even if its purely for practical reasons - as more mature people, how long can Biehn and Weaver conceivably be involved in this type of movie as anything other than "the general" or "the consultant."
I think that Rippers and Hicks may not survive this encounter with the Aliens and that characters introduced in the new film will carry the torch.
I think that all of us are going into this with our eyes open, expecting a new series of films and are looking past the first one to see what happens next, so the call for new characters will be answered.
Strange Shapes posted a great article on his FB page and that aspect - the characters - was at the heart of it. Lots of modern films focus on spectacle and are ultimately disposable because of that (and that's fine, Michael Bay is great at what he does and I enjoy his films because they are cookie-cutter, written to BS2 form and tick every single box), but Alien isn't really about the Xeno, its about how people deal with the Xeno. Great characters (so you need great actors for this). Look at Alien - Weaver, Skerrit, Holm, Hurt, Dean-Stanton (Kotto and Cartwright do brilliantly to even be in the same ring as those guys - and Weaver incredible in her first film role). Though I accept that conversely, Aliens didn't have that - but given the tone of the film, that ensemble was elevated by a guy who was to go on to become the most successful film maker in history. So with him in your corner, even if you're an "OK" actor, your performance is probably going to be elevated. I
Maybe this is one of the issues with Prometheus - aside from Theron (and Pearce, but he didn't have a lot to do) maybe the actors were part of the luke-warm reception (in critical terms if not box office) were the only heavyweights in the film?
