Aliens is a very high-profile film franchise that has not been good since 1986, when Aliens was released. Two sub-par sequels, Alien3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997), threatened to kill the franchise entirely. The spin-off film franchise Aliens Vs. Predators further tainted the Aliens brand (not to mention the Predator brand as well).

To inflame the franchise even more, Fox and Ridley Scott are now looking at a prequel to the original Alien film. And we all know how good prequel films can be. I can write a full post on the unnecessary nature of prequels, but suffice to say it’s a bad idea. EDIT: On Jan 14th 2011, Ridley Scott announced that the Alien prequel has evolved into an entirely new film called Promethius. The Alien prequel film is dead! Hooray!

My solution? A full-fledged sequel to Aliens, one that writes off both Alien3 and Alien Resurrection as nothing more than nightmares had in the stasis pod by Ripley.

You read me right. Ripley, Newt, Bishop, and Pvt. Hudson would all emerge from their stasis chambers, x number of years after the concluding events of Aliens. The stasis pods would lose functionality, causing Ripley, Hudson, and Newt to age dramatically. This would allow Weaver and Paxton to reprise their roles at their current age. Newt could be re-cast as a teenager/adult. Bishop could be played by a CG actor (and being a robot, they could get away with this).

A number of things can happen after their reemergence. Here are a few scenarios:

1. Scientists find Alien DNA in the cargo hold, start cloning, and things get bad. Ripley to the rescue!

2. They return to earth. The Alien Queen’s pheromones permeate the ship, and as a result attracts a full-scale Alien invasion. Or upon arrival to earth, the planet is already under siege from the Aliens.

3. Prior to rescuing the Ripley and Newt at the end of Aliens, Bishop took a detour with the drop-ship and retrieved the Alien samples he was studying in the lab and brought them aboard. The samples are then studied by The Company, and all heck breaks loose. Or a sample breaks loose (a facehugger) and infects someone on the ship while in stasis.

Those are just a few suggestions. But upon hitting this ‘reset button’, the possibilities are endless.

Would it be so bad to outright dismiss the two films in such a manner? Typically yes, but audiences who endured them have already felt cheated, so this would be a good thing.

With a film like 2009′s Star Trek essentially rebooting that franchise in a fashion that overwrites much of the canon/timeline, I think Aliens could also circumvent the latter two bad films in similar fashion.

Last year’s Avatar also proved Sigourney can still have a fiery presence (she still looks great, if you ask me!) and carry a film. Fan-favorite Bill Paxton would also be a welcome sight. The torch could possibly be passed to Newt, but I think such a film would be Ripley’s real swansong.

Here is hoping Fox moves forward with a sequel.