Sigourney Weaver talked with The Chicago Sun Times Cindy Pearlman during promotional junkets for the film "Holes":
"As for any rumors of another "Alien" film, she admits, "[Director] Ridley Scott and I have talked about it a couple of times. He has some ideas. If we developed a good script, I'd love to play Ripley again. I've always felt so grateful to Ridley Scott because he gave me my first job. In fact, the first few weeks of "Alien,' I was so green that Ridley would say, 'Don't look at the camera.' And I'd say, 'How can I not look at it. It's right in front of my face all the time!' "
Ask her about plot ideas for a new "Aliens," Weaver says, "The only thing I'm not interested in is going to earth. I saw that 'Star Trek' movie where they went to Earth and ... yawn. I think it's more fun to go to a foreign planet--especially now. Who wants to come to Earth now? Let's go far, far away! Fantasy is what we need!" "

Alien 5: Back to the Sequel? 

Could the Alien series really be saved? 

As I reported in a blog, James Cameron is seriously considering making another Alien movie, this time to undo the damage done to the film series by (remember the insanity?) Alien 3 and Alien 4.

We've certainly seen this sort of thing before. Filmmakers have often misstepped with sequels and then sought to "find their way back to the real heart of the story." The James Bond flop, License to Kill (1989), took Bond out of his usual spy mode into a sort of personal anti-drug vigilante, so the next in the series, Goldeneye (1995), gave us not only a new Bond (Pierce Brosnan), but a super-duper spy plot. Goldeneye was also the first Bond movie to make over $100 million domestic.

Spielberg played the same card after the horrid Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), calling the next in the series, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), an "apology" for Temple. Certainly, the tone of the third film better reflected that of the original, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

But Cameron has taken the art of "I can do it better" to new, and much more public, heights, stating in a recent interview: "I couldn't stand Alien 3. How they could just go in there and kill off all these great characters we introduced in Aliens, and the correlation between mother and daughter? It stunk, but hopefully I'll get a chance to rectify all that."

The sixty-four-dollar question: just what does "rectify" mean?

Cameron has been dropping a few hints. As mentioned in Dark Horizons, He plans "something similar to what we did with Aliens. A bunch of great characters, and of course Sigourney. I've even discussed the possibility of putting [Arnold Schwarzenegger] into the Alien movie."

In the Edmonton Sun, he makes his admiration for the "real heart of the story" clear: "The trick [to making an Alien movie] is you don't go crazy and make a $150-million movie, because you don't want to have to compromise. You don't want to try to do a PG-13 Alien that is all things to everyone....It's got to still maintain its roots in this kind of cinematic id."

In a different interview with the Sun, Cameron talks about his hopes to lure fans back after the "dreary" Alien 3 and "disappointing" Alien: Resurrection. But he refuses to go along with the let's-do-it-for-the-money Alien vs. Predator premise: "I said, 'Look, that's Wolfman meets Frankenstein.' It's like when you're cleaning out the closet, and you find these poor old relic films down at the bottom and you put two of them together."

Cameron has also stated that while he might write and/or produce the film, he's not interested in directing it. For that, he might try to round up Alien (1979) director Ridley Scott.

This means, of course, that Scott himself will doubtlessly be weighing in with his own ideas. And let's not forget that Sigourney Weaver's opinions have directed the series in the past, which has given us two films with very interesting Ripley roles with (sorry, Sig) very bad script choices.

But let's say this doesn't work against the film, that Cameron and Scott and Weaver all get together with a minimum of "committee writing" and make a film that really aims for the quality, gut-wrenching cinema of Alien and Aliens.

The Stakes

The later films are so bad, it's kind of hard to remember, if you haven't watched the film recently, just how good Aliens is. It invented the whole "roller-coaster ride" approach to sci-fi action films, and I remember one movie reviewer who quoted an audience member who was leaving the theatre holding his stomach and telling his date, "I may feel sick, but I'm going to see that one again!"

Aliens achieves a level of in-your-face intensity that almost becomes overwhelming even when we watch it today, when the film's formulae have become familiar, yet gives us characters we really care about. In the tradition of John Wayne films, we see a lot of secondary characters die off without getting us down or numbing out consciences. Rather, their deaths befit their life roles, and they die true heroes, while a core of characters survive through acts of sheer will.

As Cameron states, it's the characters that really make the difference, their strength easily holding out against the onslaught of wild f/x. Aliens Marines of the future really feel like Marines, and Ripley's inner toughness is both highlighted and complemented by their acceptance of her into their super-macho ranks.

When Alien 3 came out, hopes were high that we'd get to pick up where we left off, with Ripley's near-adoption of Newt and perhaps a continuing relationship with Hicks. As long as there was another alien to fight, there was no danger of running out of storylines, and the uniquely dangerous tone of the series kept it from being just another "bug hunt." As with the original Terminator, Aliens had given us a slew of female power motifs: Ripley standing there with Newt in her arms, looking out over the alien eggs at the Evil Alien Mother before blasting her nursery to hell.

And, of course, everyone's favorite line: "Stay away from her, you bitch!"

The Obstacles

But alas, the sequel that seemed certain to be a hit killed off the survivors from Aliens before the credits finished rolling, leaving a depressed (and depressing) Ripley all alone with a bunch of worthless, unlikable criminals. Men were destroyed right and left, but the only victim the audience really gets to care about is the poor dog. When Ripley finally meets her end -- regardless of how brave and tough that end is -- it's hard not to wonder why you just wasted two hours peering through sepia lighting and incomprehensible camera angles when you could have been shopping for shoes, or something.

Alien 4: Resurrection is so bad, it's hard to work up the energy to summarize it. They make Monster Ripley, who finds some more unlikable people, who confronts a stupid-looking Evil Alien Mother II, and then they fall into Earth's gravity. Or something like that.

So the problems here are much greater than simply "coming back to the heart of the story." Ripley is dead, people. Dead a few times over, actually. Bringing her back for a fifth outing means cloning her again, and that's lame, no matter who's writing the script. I also don't see a way for the action to take place on the alien homeworld without Earth's launching some sort of attack.

So...what? We're going to get a cloned Ripley and another band of Marines with slightly different personalities attacking the alien planet (without, of course, just nuking it from orbit)? That doesn't sound good enough to lure sequel-burned audiences back to the theatre.

The Payoff

But what the hell do I know? If I had the secret of making hit films, I wouldn't be sitting here in my office. If Cameron and Co. actually can manage to recapture the tough, gritty and wild fun of Aliens, the movie sure would be a welcome change from the kiddie-heavy sci-fi we've been getting lately. Let's see some more of those smart and grown-up people from the Aliens universe attacking some bad-ass, acid-bleeding demons from hell. That's not just entertainment, that's catharsis.

Oh, and if Cameron is reading this, by any chance, could we clone Hicks too? He and Ripley together are just so hot.

hmmmm *reads article*.....

hey Talon S. did you watch the special edition version of alien?, i just love the bit when she finds dallas and thingy bob cocooned, with thing bob turning into an egg thing..weird

oh the special edition of aliens is so good, i bought that and special edition alien on the same day, it was buy one get one free, hurray

i bet you haven't watched the 3rd one that much either  , although its better than the 4th one i guess....

Personally i do indeed prefer Ressurection to Alien3.