Alien 5 Delayed "Pending" Alien: Paradise Lost

[Corporal Hicks]

There's absolutely no denying that Alien 3 was a trainwreck of a movie. I love it. There's lots in it I think is simply brilliant. But I can understand why people hate it and would like to see it revised. However, I don't think a revision is what is needed to "save the franchise". A good film is what is needed. There's an dependence on Ripley for Alien and I think that also really harms the series.

I'd prefer to see them go in a different direction and do something not a retcon. And Blomkamp is a bit of a risk in either direction because he's been quite hit and miss. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved District 9 and I also liked Chappie (but I like Die Antwoord) but I think anything he's attached to could be quite hit or miss too. If Alien 3.2 ends up being good and better than Alien 3 then I'll be happy.

[jimbob30]

Wasn't expecting to see blomkamps alien until after alien paradise lost anyway.but as alot of films lately haven't been as good as they should have been I don't hold much hope and Ridley Scott had better deliver this time.as good as Prometheus was its no ALIEN.he is capable of making the alien scary again if he puts his mind to it.these 2 films are the films I've been looking forward to for a while and they had better deliver don't want no pg13 rubbish I want full on r rating

[HuDaFuK]

Alien 3 is undeniably a mess, and I can absolutely see why people dislike it, hate it even, but what I don't get is this at times morbid obsession with permanently writing it off, seemingly at any cost. It's like scrapping the third film is more important to some people than actually progressing the series in a meaningful way.

I don't call pressing the reset button after almost 25 years progress. Not when there's so much more potential than that.

[Primordial]

Although I felt it was a bad way to start Alien³ with Hicks and Newt dead, my grieving for them was done a long time ago ; until recently, I was quite opposed to a retcon. But there is a part of me which started to say ''Why not ?'' for Blomkamp's next Alien film.

Let's have Alien 3.2 like he wants, like 'it should have been'. No need, afterwards, to expand on that timeline he created. End of Ripley's and Hick's story with that movie.

Then have Alien 5 with new characters AND the original timeline...

[Tough little S.O.B.]

Ah yeah.  That's right.  'Genisys' was a soft retcon of movies 3 and 4 in 'The Teminator' series.  That worked out well, didn't it.  lol.

All it did was make an even bigger mess of the extant situation that the 'Terminator'  series may never recover from, including the cancellation of any immediate follow up movies.  Pfft.  The whole exercise was a perfect demonstration of retconning the lesser movies for the sake of shoehorning the lead actor back into the series and how it was too much of a gamble that failed miserably.  It's not worth it.  Retconning 'T3' and 'Salvation' with what amounts to a movie that was even more shit was a tragedy; and yet some people here want to risk the same thing happening with the 'ALIEN' series by bringing back Ripley and Hicks.   So retarded.  So risky. 

There's plenty of opportunities to take this series into more constructive avenues, but no. The Blomkamp Boo-hoo Brigade just want a remake of 'ALIENS'.   f**k that.   Blomkamp could take 'ALIEN 5' into much better places than that.

-Windebieste.

This

[Xenomorphine]

'Genisys' was a soft retcon of movies 3 and 4 in 'The Teminator' series.

Of all of them.

Retconning 'T3' and 'Salvation' with what amounts to a movie that was even more shit was a tragedy; and yet some people here want to risk the same thing happening with the 'ALIEN' series by bringing back Ripley and Hicks.   So retarded.  So risky.

If you're saying retcons are bad for the sake that they're retcons, that's simply untrue. Stuff like the recent 'X-Men' film and the 'Battlestar Galactica' TV show achieved both widespread acclaim and commercial success.

Yes, a retcon is a gamble, but it isn't one which is destined to fail. The same charge can just as easily be said of sequels, in general.

There's plenty of opportunities to take this series into more constructive avenues, but no. The Blomkamp Boo-hoo Brigade just want a remake of 'ALIENS'.   f**k that.   Blomkamp could take 'ALIEN 5' into much better places than that.

-Windebieste.

You realise that, from everything he's said, he's more of an 'Alien' fan than an 'Aliens' fan, right?

All this name-calling... Yeesh. None of us have the slightest idea what story elements are planned for this (aside from Weyland-Yutani returning to replacing the inept USM, which is a potentially very good development) - and it's Weaver who is responsible for bringing Ripley (and, by extension, Hicks) back into frame. Are we going to collectively start ranting about how Sigourney Weaver's a 'Hicks and Newt fan-girl'? Because she was very assertive of her appreciation for both 'Alien 3' and 'Alien Resurrection' in the past.

Whatever the story's going to be, it's just a modification of one which, by Blomkamp's own admission, originally did take account of 'Alien 3'.

I also find it tiring to see the repeated accusation that critics of 'Alien 3' only care about Hicks and Newt surviving. The film could have kept them alive and it would still have had a mess of flaws.

[Kel G 426]

I don't support the retcon out of hate for Alien 3.   I just think it would be great to see the characters again.  It would feel like getting together with old friends.  Sentimentalist nostalgia?  Maybe, but if that's the worst offense this movie commits, we're going to be alright.

[whiterabbit]

The terminator is a multiverse "time travel" universe... mainstream movie goers may not know what the hell that means however all of the movies happened in that series so TG is not a retcon. In fact inside of TG's timeline T1 and T2 had to have happened while T3 and TG didn't happen in that precise timeline. So far we don't have any of this time travel bullshit in alien and I don't think they should start now.

Still I don't see the difference between a remake from alien and a retcon of Alien³. I mean it's been over 30 years, why not just start from the beginning already if you are going to use the same principle character and just reboot this bitch as a new trilogy. Otherwise at least be honest and call the retcon, Alien 3: Retroactive Continuity.

[windebieste]

The recent Battlestar Galactica wasn't a retcon - it was a tabula rasa 're-imaging' of the show.   The producers completely re-started it afresh. 

The new BSG producers didn't approach their project with cries of "Oh, boo-hoo! My favourite characters died mid-season* it's time we fixed this.  Let's bring them back, ignore the rest of the series and use the same aging actors to play their beloved characters 30 years later.  That way, we can give them the ending they deserve!  It'll be so much better this time." 

You know why they didn't do that?  Coz that would have been shit. 

Instead, they took a fresh direction with the core material and totally owned it without relying on sentimentalist nostalgia.  The new BSG is at its best when the stakes are high and popular characters come to an abrupt end with the remaining characters demonstrating their strengths and weaknesses as they respond to these situations.  Such deaths lend a sense of vulnerability to all the characters in the series which was one of the critical and core themes of the show that made it so engaging.  All the characters became susceptible to an untimely demise and their vulnerability is what made them humanly credible and valuable as characters - not a wish fulfillment re-iteration of them returning the sake of nostalgia or vilification.

May as well make Ripley and Hicks invulnerable against rubber-toothed Xenos for all the credibility 'giving them the ending they deserve' will deliver. 

Actually, I could do with a good comedy right now.

-Windebieste.

*While I can't recall any decent characters dying mid-season in original BSG, that's not the point being illustrated here.

[Kel G 426]

I can see your internet vein bulging.

[windebieste]

That's my hard on.  come get some.   

-Windebieste.

[Kel G 426]

*runs screaming*

[Xenomorphine]

The new BSG producers didn't approach their project with cries of "Oh, boo-hoo! My favourite characters died mid-season* it's time we fixed this.  Let's bring them back, ignore the rest of the series and use the same aging actors to play their beloved characters 30 years later.  That way, we can give them the ending they deserve!  It'll be so much better this time."

You know why they didn't do that?  Coz that would have been shit.

But neither is Blomkamp.

When have you seen him interviewed and express seething anger over Hicks, Newt or even Ripley dying? Never has.

Again, his original story was going to take account of 'Alien 3'. If you want to blame anyone for switching that around, then Sigourney's your girl.

The same actress who repeatedly spoke of appreciation and admiration of the third and fourth films in successive interviews, down the years, when virtually nobody else had wanted to.

It suits your prejudice to imagine Blomkamp as some kind of hate-fuelled fan-boy type, who's doing this purely to resurrect Hicks/Newt (let's not lose sight of how Newt hasn't featured in any released material and, for all we know, might be dying in this film's story, too), but that's not the slightest bit accurate to the real guy. He's doing this because he loves the original two films and the work of HR Giger, in particular. He loves the first one more than the second. He's also been influenced by 'Alien Isolation' to try and make this project look and feel very like it. He wants to bring back the psychosexual stuff which was completely, utterly absent from the third and fourth films.

So, please, people... Let's relax and stop building up this false ideal of what his motivations are. None of us want to see 'Pitchford - The Motion Picture' and there's not so much as a hint of anything close to that. So far as I can see, this is going to have the visual tone of 'Alien Isolation', the action sequences of 'Aliens' and a legitimate stab at replicating the nightmarish horror of 'Alien'.

If it succeeds in that, how could it possibly be a bad thing?

Let's just hope it does and that we're entertained along the way.

[whiterabbit]

I think NB has an admirer.

[Flexserve]

I think NB has an admirer.

He has lots of admirers; I'm one too.