Chairman Miaow said:
Ezekiel said:
Windknight said:
Get the restored edit for Alien 3, and you'll have a good time. I don't like the fact it basically craps all over Aliens ending on high, but in its own right its an interesting take on the material.
James Cameron didn't like that they did that either. I listened to the Aliens commentary track a few years ago. What a disservice.
I honestly don't mind, and I understand why they did it. If newt had still been there it would have been harder to tell a different story rather than just repeat aliens again. I love Alien 3 for what it is but also hate that the meddling stopped us from getting the movie that could have been.
Let me try to think of a story that expands on Alien while keeping Newt and Hicks alive.
Mankind has ventured far deeper into space since the events of Alien (year 2127) 64 years ago. A drone (Not Weyland-Yutani again. Maybe a competitor, like Bionational.) has discovered an ancient civilization on a dead planet. Or it can be sort of an outpost like in Prometheus. The architecture is again inspired by H. R. Giger's art.
Ripley learns that her adopted daughter Newt was contacted by Bionational for information regarding the events on LV-426 and volunteered for a manned expedition of the new planet. The girl is now 19 years old, a spacer of some kind. She is still haunted by what happened and by the loss of her family and wants to make peace with it like her mother in the last movie. Or it's vengeance, I don't know. Ripley is not on Earth. That would be too much like the beginning of Aliens. Let's say she's the captain of a freighter and learns of what happened via a message from Hicks, who was able to find Newt's destination through his military connections. (Something like that. Maybe not even Hicks.) As the freighter is leaving orbit of the planet currently being mined and the crew prepares to go into hypersleep, Ripley changes course for the alien world in order to get Newt out. Her crew questions her motives. All except Bishop, whom she had repaired and whom she tells the truth. Or, to make it slightly less selfish, she takes the ship's shuttle. Towards the end of the movie, we get kind of a reversal of the last movie, in which Newt saves Ripley.
You're able to please Weaver, who is too lucrative to let go, you're able to please the fans, who have grown attached to the survivors of Aliens, you have an appropriately older looking Ripley, and you expand on the civilization seen in the first movie. All without taking away Ripley's family again and being pretentious like Alien 3.