Alien 5?

[Ronald C. Semone]

I have just finished watching the first four Alien movies. Is there any serious talk about a 5th? And I don't mean "Alien vs. Predator"!

[dmatsch]

Originally Posted by Ronald C. Semone

I have just finished watching the first four Alien movies. Is there any serious talk about a 5th? And I don't mean "Alien vs. Predator"!

Please Og, NO!

[Bryan Ekers]

I don't think they could get Sigourney Weaver on board at this point. And even if they could, I just pray they don't invite Winona Rider along.

[Loopydude]

A few years ago I saw an interview someplace in which S.W. revealed the studio bounced the idea of an AlienV off of her, and she hadn't objected to it completely. Obviously the thing isn't even in pre-production since then, so I agree the window of opportunity for another chapter in the Ripley-as-alien-human-mutant-hybrid-clone-with-SuperPowers(TM) saga has passed. I doubt any actor at S.W.'s age could pull that off convicingly.

AvsP did OK in the box office, didn't it? These days, the only excuse the studios need to lob another retread at us is a profit, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see another spinoff of some sort.

[Revtim]

There could be a lot of life left in the franchise, if they are willing to go in some different directions.

If I were to write A5, I'd describe an encounter with a strain of the aliens that had evolved while the strain in the previous movies were dormant in egg form for god knows how long in that alien ship they were originally found in.

They could have weapons, greater intelligence, etc. But they'd still have to have the same "look and feel" as the aliens we know and love.

[GuanoLad]

There was talk that Ridley Scott and James Cameron considered the idea of working together somehow to oversee a fifth (and presumably final) Alien movie, trying to go back to its origins. That'd probably be very interesting and worth seeing, but it seems that isn't going to happen.

[Loopydude]

Meh. A-IV was a huge mistake as it was. Most people seem to have hated A-III with a burning hate like a thousand Suns, but I actually thought it was a reasonably fitting end to the franchise. I didn't hate IV, really. I pitied it. It tried so hard to be liked, but the premise was such a sad contrivance, such a pathetically-transparent attempt to milk the money cow that it never really had a chance to be a legitimate Alien flick.

Any attempt at continuity would just compound the error, I'm guessing. They story's been told; there's no motivation except nostalgia and money. Again, if there's any life left in the franchise, it's some kind of vulgar spinoff like AvP, something that blatantly flouts aspirations to substance, and hence can be considered so separate from the Ripley arc no one would attempt to compare them. Freddie Kruger and Jason Voorhees bury the hatchet and join forces to defeat their deadliest challenger!...or maybe...What happens when a chestburster parasitizes a vampire???

[Operation Ripper]

If that dink Sylvester Stallone is allowed to make more Rambos and Rockies, sweet sweet Sigourney should be greenlighted to do her thing toot sweet.

[Jonathan Chance]

Originally Posted by Revtim

There could be a lot of life left in the franchise, if they are willing to go in some different directions.

If I were to write A5, I'd describe an encounter with a strain of the aliens that had evolved while the strain in the previous movies were dormant in egg form for god knows how long in that alien ship they were originally found in.

They could have weapons, greater intelligence, etc. But they'd still have to have the same "look and feel" as the aliens we know and love.

That's BRILLIANT.

But make the eggs located in the ship regular eggs from the modern species. But because when they hatch there's no adults around the resulting adults are feral.

So actually the aliens are an enlightened race that evolved from stone cold killers. They have art and music and such. They're peaceful and such.

Then have some company people bump into them and recognize them as the race of 'terrifying' aliens and what the misunderstandings drive the plot.

Maybe toss in an alien cult that wants to return to their primal destructive past and settle Earth and you've got yourself a new take on the franchise.

[Silentgoldfish]

Originally Posted by GuanoLad

There was talk that Ridley Scott and James Cameron considered the idea of working together somehow to oversee a fifth (and presumably final) Alien movie, trying to go back to its origins. That'd probably be very interesting and worth seeing, but it seems that isn't going to happen.

I read an interview with James Cameron (can't find a link) that basically said that, and that he was even interested in directing another one. Then Alien vs Predator came out and they both lost interest in the idea.

So there's another thing to be mad at that movie for!

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Revtim

They could have weapons, greater intelligence, etc. But they'd still have to have the same "look and feel" as the aliens we know and love.

I seriously disagree with Jon Chance on this one.

Aliens were scaryonly because they semed like a primal force of destruction: malicious hunger incarnate. They were a lot less scary in Aliens (2nd movie) because the heroes actally had guns. And if they hadn't been outnumbered a hundred-to one and had competent leadership, they'd have done fine.

Give the aliens weaponry and "greater intelligence," and the movie loses the last shred of fear. The aliens are just really ugly orcs. And orcs are not very scary.

[Loopydude]

I was trying to figure out why everyone but me hated Alien 3 so much, and I may have an answer other than "Because you're an idiot, Loopy".

I never saw the flick in theaters. Rather, I saw the "restored" version on DVD without realising it was a "directors cut" of sorts (the director himself was reportedly so peeved by the theater edit he will have nothing to do with any of it). Apparently the theatrical release is more than 30 min. shorter and is rendered almost incoherent by the hash so much omitted story made of it. Interesting....

[Greywolf73]

Originally Posted by Loopydude

I was trying to figure out why everyone but me hated Alien 3 so much, and I may have an answer other than "Because you're an idiot, Loopy".

Well, I must be an idiot too because I liked it. Even before I saw the restored Director's Cut.

However, I like to pretend that Alien 4 doesn't even exist.

And I agree with smiling bandit: Don't give them more intelligence and guns. They are at their most frightening lurking in the shadows just around the corner, appearing as ominious blips on the radar detector, and with the sole purpose of protecting/feeding their queen and her eggs.

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Revtim

There could be a lot of life left in the franchise, if they are willing to go in some different directions.

If I were to write A5, I'd describe an encounter with a strain of the aliens that had evolved while the strain in the previous movies were dormant in egg form for god knows how long in that alien ship they were originally found in.

They could have weapons, greater intelligence, etc. But they'd still have to have the same "look and feel" as the aliens we know and love.

I don't think inteligence is the way to go. But, different directions could work. After Alien 2, Dark Horse comics got the rights to publish Alien comics. Most of the stories they've done don't involve Ripley or any characters from the movies at all.

Various governments and megacorps continue to breed and research aliens as weapons.

It's found that like bees, aliens secrete royal jelly. Research reveals that it is a powerful stimulant and steroid, though heavily addicting. It is also a hallucinogenic drug.

The Church Of The Queen Mother worships the aliens. Royal jelly is their communion/eucharist. They view incubating a chestburster and being killed by its emergence as becoming one with their god.

The aliens have been found on other planets, and in other ancient ships so there's no need to keep going back to LV246.

The aliens homeworld has been found.

OTTOMH Specific Stories (no spoilers)

Music Of The Spears- Pop music really is manufactured, composed by machines and performed by androids. A man struggles as one of the few remaining human musicians. His symphony of hatred is incomplete. He needs to record an alien.

Sacrifice- A ship crashes on a remote colony planet. The lone survivor, a priest, learns that an alien is loose in the jungle surrounding the outpost. The colonists are unarmed farmers. How have they kept the alien at bay?

Tuulitu-What if a cult believed that the writings of HP Lovecraft were the writings of an actual prophet? What if they found an ancient alien nest? Rather than cheezy and filled with winking jokes, this story is dark and serious. What happens when fanatics find proof of their beliefs?

[alphaboi867]

Hasn't Sigourney said that a future Alien move should show their home planet? Or what became of the rave that piloted the Derelict? Personally I think she can still pull off female action hero.

[The Chao Goes Mu]

Hey, I'd be first in line if Sigourney signed on for IV. What other movie am I going to get to see her in a tank top sweaty, dirty and oozing estrogenical amazonian power?

[Loopydude]

Ehh...Clips of Imaginary Heros show Weaver is aging gracefully, but aging nonetheless. She's got to be close to fifty. If someone dropped everything right now and started serious work on Alien V, I'd expect it in about four or five years. I admire Weaver for clearly not turning herself into a plasticised cyborg like the now duck-lipped Meg Ryan, but again, unless Alien-Human hybrids age just like you and I, and they make allowances for that in the script, which will necessarily limit the action element, it's going to be a tough sell without some serious makeup magic, I think.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by The Chao Goes Mu

Hey, I'd be first in line if Sigourney signed on for IV. What other movie am I going to get to see her in a tank top sweaty, dirty and oozing estrogenical amazonian power?

Yeah. A few more shots of sigourney in her panties sure wouldn't hurt any future movies!
What a sweetie!

[Tuckerfan]

Originally Posted by GuanoLad

There was talk that Ridley Scott and James Cameron considered the idea of working together somehow to oversee a fifth (and presumably final) Alien movie, trying to go back to its origins. That'd probably be very interesting and worth seeing, but it seems that isn't going to happen.

In the commentary for the first one, Ridley says his idea was that the ship which crashed was basically an aircraft carrier and that the aliens were the shock forces dropped onto a planet to wipe out the locals before the masters showed up (and somehow handled the aliens), one of them got loose, attacked the crew of the ship and it crashed on the planet for Ripley & Co. to find. The number of possibilities that such a situation opens up are nearly endless. Naturally, however, the suits in Follywood have no intention something like that since it's cool.

[Fish]

If it were me, I'd breathe life into the franchise another way than expounding on "Hey, here's even more information about this shadowy super-secret enemy monster! Now with complete color photos!" There's only so much more we can learn about the Aliens race before they become just another zoological exhibit — dangerous, yes, but hardly scary.

The original Alien was scary because things happened that were very creepy, sometimes sudden and sometimes slow, but there was no explanation. We almost never saw the thing or knew its capabilities. Partly this was budget, but also directorial choice: imagining and unknown monster is better than seeing another copy of a known monster.

I don't know all of the unofficial non-movie information about the Aliens, so what I'm about to say probably breaks a lot of fan-lore.

I would do Alien V as a movie where they return to the original planet to bomb the freakin' place from orbit, just to be sure. No lingering doubts. No mamby-pamby waffling. Kill off the sources we know of without prejudice. Throw out the ecological worries of the first four three films and all of the "but we might learn something!" or "but think of the military applications!" Mankind has got its shit together and it's gonna wipe 'em out.

So they go back to finish the job.

Something else has got there first. A new type of Creature, designed as the arch-foe of the Alien. These aren't natural creatures but bio-weapons, used by alien races as part of planetary takeover. Seed the planet with some Aliens — stop by a few months later and release the top-secret "stand down" enzyme into the atmosphere — you have a planet for your very own. The Creatures were designed to defeat the Aliens, and maybe vice-versa: they're part of a bio-arms race. Right now the Creatures happen to be better.

That would give the franchise a new, mysterious monster; it would keep the old monster and allow for new mysterious upgrades; it would give the humans a decisive role like "Discover who made these!" rather than the vague conflicts like "Let's exploit nature for riches!" It would include lots of blood and combat and gore, and some of that lurking, sneaky, unknown quality of the first movie.

It would also happen to be symbolically topical to what's happening today: two ancient civilizations whom the heroes don't fully comprehend have been fighting each other with increasing hatred and viciousness for millenia.

Yeah, okay, it probably breaks about a dozen things in the canon. But as it stands, the mystery and unknown horror of the first movie is long gone and something's gotta be done to bring it back.

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Fish

I would do Alien V as a movie where they return to the original planet to bomb the freakin' place from orbit, just to be sure. No lingering doubts. No mamby-pamby waffling. Kill off the sources we know of without prejudice. Throw out the ecological worries of the first four three films and all of the "but we might learn something!" or "but think of the military applications!" Mankind has got its shit together and it's gonna wipe 'em out.

So they go back to finish the job.

The military scientists in 4 were awfully sure that LV246 had no living aliens, and no clonable alien DNA.

Something else has got there first. A new type of Creature, designed as the arch-foe of the Alien. These aren't natural creatures but bio-weapons, used by alien races as part of planetary takeover. Seed the planet with some Aliens — stop by a few months later and release the top-secret "stand down" enzyme into the atmosphere — you have a planet for your very own. The Creatures were designed to defeat the Aliens, and maybe vice-versa: they're part of a bio-arms race. Right now the Creatures happen to be better.

That would give the franchise a new, mysterious monster; it would keep the old monster and allow for new mysterious upgrades

I hate this idea. 'We can save the franchise by making the movies about some other new monster!'.

If you're making a movie about a new monster, what do you need the aliens for?

[Fish]

Why? Because the best part about the original Alien — and of the original Freddy Krueger, the original Michael Myers, the original Darth Vader — was that we knew nothing of them. You had to subscribe to Phantasmagoria just to see a full-body photo of it.

The genie's out of the bottle now for the original Alien. We know too damned much about it. You can get collectors cups with the Alien on it. You can buy Alien action figures. Grandmothers in the street can recognize it. It's been turned into a slasher monster — it just needs the red and green sweater.

If they wanna get back to the roots of the thing, they gotta bring back the mystery, and there ain't none left in the Alien itself — unless they branch out, in my opinion, into a larger mystery.

If Ridley Scott said in his commentary that he imagined them as shock troops, then in four movies why haven't we explored the question "shock troops for whom, and against what?" That's a good mystery to follow up on — except when Aliens 2 came out and followed the dunderheaded idea that "if one alien is scary, then 100 aliens is 100 times as scary! Yay!"

I didn't like what Aliens 2 did to the series, frankly. It was a good movie in its own right, but not the same flavor at all.

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Fish

If they wanna get back to the roots of the thing, they gotta bring back the mystery, and there ain't none left in the Alien itself — unless they branch out, in my opinion, into a larger mystery.

Again, if you want to make a movie about a new species, what do you need the Aliens for?

If there is no mystery or fear left in the Aliens, why continue with the series instead of just making an unrelated movie?

[Fish]

Pffft, it's never stopped Hollywood before. If they wanted to make money off the franchise name, and they paid me, I'd go back to the "shock troops" idea and see where it took me. At least that's from the source movie.

I'm not advising or encouraging an Alien V, mind you.

But also — as I said — I think the franchise went the wrong direction starting with II, so I wouldn'ta voluntarily made any of the sequels, with those concepts.

[Silentgoldfish]

And we could call these new alien beings "Predators," and we could have them fight -- vs each other, if you will. It's a can't miss concept and I believe it will breathe new life into the franchise!

Ok, in all seriousness, I think that Alien and Aliens played out the concept. There's only so much you can do with slavering monsters who kill everything and incubate their young in their prey, and the first two movies pretty much covered it. It's why at best Alien 3 and 4 can be seen as trying to recapture some of the magic of the original 2, and why there's no way to do a part 5 without it being reduntant on arrival, or not about the Aliens and therefore not really part of the series.

[Fish]

I never saw AVP. It never happened, either. But the point is, AVP was a stupid crossover idea bound to fail, and which bit heavily into the backstory of what might have been the most interesting unexplored mystery remaining about the Aliens. Now there can be no movie about it, because of AVP. The comparisons are inevitable. Sad, really, since the original movie was fantastic.

[DocCathode]

The idea of AVP came from Dark Horse. They owned comic rights to A and P, so they did a crossover. I have the comic miniseries, which bears almost no resemblance to the movie. Since Predator 2 was largely an adaptation of a Dark Horse miniseries, I don't know why they didn't use more of the AVP miniseries as basis for the film.

Disclaimer- I haven't seen the AVP movie. I've read reviews and threads.
No spoilers.

The comic series is set on a planet with a fairly new human colony. The planet doesn't hold any nasty surprises. The only notable fauna is rhinth, basically alien cows. However, the Predators occasionally seed an area with Alien eggs in order to hunt. There is no hidden pyramid/temple.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

I have the comic miniseries, which bears almost no resemblance to the movie.

Well, except for the primary human character. Possibly they didn't go for the offworld colony idea because building some loopy pyramid set was cheaper.

[DocCathode]

The colony in question is located on a planet which is mostly desert. The American Southwest has plenty of land that could have been shot on. Building exteriors could be slightly modified prefab units.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

The colony in question is located on a planet which is mostly desert. The American Southwest has plenty of land that could have been shot on. Building exteriors could be slightly modified prefab units.

Yeah, but alien cows? Hundreds of colonists? That stuff ain't cheap.

[Stranger On A Train]

I always thought it would be a lovely idea if you had an "Aliens"-type movie in which humans were the violent, feral predators, perhaps preying on some race of small, peaceful furry things on a forest moon somewhere. Doublepluspoints if somene can work Charleton Heston into it alternately screaming, "Get your paws off of me, you damned dirty Ewok," and "Soylent Green...it's people!" while running away from half-human/half-cyborg zombies that are the product of combining the DNA of humans, insects, and Aliens in 1/3 portions each. Think of it as the mother of all overused sci-fi clichés. Oh, we also need to throw in a couple of cute robots and a black hole. Vin Diesel can star. Maybe we can base it (in name only) on the title of a Philip K. Dick novel; I don't think anyone has ripped off The Divine Invasion, have they?

Stranger

[msmith537]

Originally Posted by Silentgoldfish

Ok, in all seriousness, I think that Alien and Aliens played out the concept. There's only so much you can do with slavering monsters who kill everything and incubate their young in their prey, and the first two movies pretty much covered it. It's why at best Alien 3 and 4 can be seen as trying to recapture some of the magic of the original 2, and why there's no way to do a part 5 without it being reduntant on arrival, or not about the Aliens and therefore not really part of the series.

Pretty much. Alien was scary because you had no idea what the heck this thing was. All you knew was that it was mean and the crew of the Nostromo were stuck with it.

Aliens continued the story and made it an unending hoard of aliens instead of just one lurking about. Kind of like kicking over a hive of wasps except the wasps are nine feet tall and pissed.

There was no point to Alien3. Ok so Ripley sacrifices herself to kill the last alien. Big deal. It was just a rehash of the first movie except the alien was faster and the characters fairly anonymous. Basically it was two hours of dudes with shaved heads getting ripped apart.

Alien4 had even less point as the story had concluded. Just another excuse for an alien to run around a gigantic yet claustrophobic ship killing humans.

AVP also added nothing except providing a convienient arena for yet another spectacle of aliens (and Predators) killing humans. Other than giving us the orgins of the Wayland-Yutani corporation, it did little to add to the story of aliens or predators.

I mean what more is there to tell? A movie is a story about people. Aliens, Predators, slasher-monsters, robots, etc, as cool as they look, are just there to provide conflict. You can't tell a story about them. And that's what another Alien would be. Two more hours of figering out various grotesque ways to kill someone with a nine foot bug.

[Chronos]

In order to make Aliens 5, wouldn't they need to make an Aliens 3 and Aliens 4? Or is this some sort of silly out-of-order numbering like Naked Gun 33 1/3?

And certainly Sigourney Weaver is aging, and she's not as incredibly babelicious as she was back in the 80s. She's still hotter than most of the manufactured fluff-pop icons of today. Among all the things which should be an obstacle to another Alien movie, that isn't one of them.

[Revtim]

Sigourney Weaver's looks should have nothing to do with it. It's not a sexy role. Besides the underwear shots late in the first movie, I can't think of a single other scene in the whole franchise where I noticed her attractiveness.

The biggest obstacle is HER CHARACTER IS DEAD. That ridiculousness where they cloned her to get an alien out of her is one of the stupidest things in any movie, ever. If I get killed by someone shoving an armadillo through my chest, my clone will not have an armadillo in its chest too.

Yeah, you can wave it away with some bullshit about the alien inserting its DNA into hers after she got "impregnated" or some such crap, but it's still stupid. It was a bad plot device, and there are a probably a dozen better ways to get a Ripley clone into the picture, even one with "super Alien powers" if that's what you want. How about if they clone her simply because they know she defeated these things before, and need her as an emergency contingency plan? And they enhance her, so she can battle the bugs even more effectively, possibly even with alien DNA. They intend to keep her in her vat until they need her, but she is woken accidentally too early (to get her in the plot before the aliens escape).

The alien lifecycle as portrayed in the movies generally seem plausible to me, except for whatever made Ripley's clone have an alien in her too.

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Yeah, but alien cows? Hundreds of colonists? That stuff ain't cheap.

CGI the rhinth. Hundreds of colonists who don't have lines or do anything important are just extras.

[Tuckerfan]

Originally Posted by DocCathode

CGI the rhinth.

That's waaaay too expensive for a multi-million dollar sequel to a franchise pushing close to a half a billion (or so) in earnings. It'd be cheaper just to put hamsters in rubber suits.

[Loopydude]

Hmmm. My having reservations about Weaver looking middle-aged has nothing to do with her ability to give me a boner. It's because Ripley is now an alien-human hybrid with the strength of ten men. Had someone not comitted the insane crimes against the franchise necessary to leave the Ripley arc in this absurd predicament, the fully human Ripley (say Alien^3 ended differently) could very easily have been played wonderfully and compellingly by Weaver. Ripley as a tough middle-aged broad on a mission to wipe out the Alien hoards would have been brillaint. The realities of her age could have been incorporated into the character with great effect. But now Ripley's a superhuman action figure. A bizarro cloned lifeform who can take a dumbell to the face and whoop any space pirate alive. Crows-feet and incipient jowls are not going to enhance the audience's already strained ability to suspend disbelief yet again.

[Patty O'Furniture]

I think it's time for the aliens to rain down on earth.

Alien 5 - Alien Infestation!

The Orkin man sure would be busy.

[Jonathan Chance]

Originally Posted by Silentgoldfish

Ok, in all seriousness, I think that Alien and Aliens played out the concept. There's only so much you can do with slavering monsters who kill everything and incubate their young in their prey, and the first two movies pretty much covered it. It's why at best Alien 3 and 4 can be seen as trying to recapture some of the magic of the original 2, and why there's no way to do a part 5 without it being reduntant on arrival, or not about the Aliens and therefore not really part of the series.

And to come back to my partisan side of the issue...

Yes, it's played out. And it has been for a while. That's why it's necessary to turn it on its head if you want to extend the franchise. Show some more dimensions to the aliens. At this point we still know little about the aliens, their culture (if any), the culture that made them (if any still exists), etc.

Use that to build the structure of a new movie around. There's loads of potential there.

For those saying 'the best thing was the spookiness' and such let me say this: That's been done! There's little point in a sequel that recycles the old. I heard this argument when Aliens came out...that it was just Rambo in space and had none of the 'haunted house' stuff that made the first one work. That's true. Which makes it a better movie than a sequel that fed the same thing back would have been.

[dmatsch]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

The aliens are just really ugly orcs. And orcs are not very scary.

Nor are they very tasty, precious.

[LiveOnAPlane]

Originally Posted by Tuckerfan

That's waaaay too expensive for a multi-million dollar sequel to a franchise pushing close to a half a billion (or so) in earnings. It'd be cheaper just to put hamsters in rubber suits.

Love it...Hamsters on a Spaceship!!!!

[Ronald C. Semone]

Originally Posted by LiveOnAPlane

Love it...Hamsters on a Spaceship!!!!

Don't you remember the classic Muppets series "Pigs In Space"?