This bit of news hit just as I started building a smart gun. Go figure.
I get the impression that for many fans the death of Hicks and Newt make it impossible for them to objectively look at Alien³. They wanted a movie where Ripley doesn’t die and lives happily ever after with Hicks and Newt on a space station with a white picket fence and where Bishop is rebuilt and acts as their butler/cook. Despite the low opinion of the movie I think it fits in rather well with the tone of the other two movies which, even though the approach was different, are not dissimilar. Alien³ suffered from a lack of being more mainstream like Aliens.
I actually like A3 as a standalone movie and I'm often defending it. In some ways I like it better than the first one and I think Fincher is a fantastic director at times. But I do feel the handling of Bishop, New and Hicks was poorly done and disrespectful to what Cameron did in Aliens. They certainly didn't have to have a white-picket-fence ending, but looking at it today it felt like they were killed off as as a cheap way to introduce what would later be Fincher's signature "
everything is hopeless no matter what" angst outlook on things. It's not surprising that Se7en was his next film. It was very evocative, but I have zero desire to ever see it again. If you're going to put me through emotional torture for two hours while I'm
watching a franchise movie with established expectations, give me some kind of positive release at the end.
That said, I'm fine with them de-canonizing both 3 and Resurrection. (I doubt either Fincher or Jeunet will care... the latter didn't even seem to care while he was
making it!). Go for it. Let's see what can be done. Hudson survived too just like Cessnadriver explained it above. Game
not over as Isolation apparently proved.
However, I'm going to be skeptical of this film until I'm given some good reasons not to be. As has been mentioned in this thread, Elysium was rather dull and predictable, but very nice to look at. It's rather telling that everyone heard of this movie through the posting of
concept art. If Ridley Scott is indeed producing, I'm afraid we'll have both a producer AND director that are both great visual designers but not very good storytellers from a writing standpoint. There's nothing spectacular in terms of characterization or drama in Alien, beyond masterful visual handling and Prometheus was a train wreck in that respect, but also nice to look at. (And as much as I like Blade Runner, what depth is has cannot be credited in any major way to Scott.) I wonder how much of D9's charm can also be attributed to the fantastic performance of Copley. Chappie looks like it could go either way.
I just hope that when this actually happens, it's not going to a situation where Blomkamp caves to a need to make it his own to the extent that he trashes all hopes and expectations of fans. The next year or two will be quiet interesting...
