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I'm working on a concept for a "re-trying" of the third Alien film, because I was rather unimpressed with the one we got in 1992. It's not entirely nailed down yet, but you can enjoy this hastily cobbled-together little slideshow of my idea for the film's title sequence that I made in MS Paint.

 

 

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 (Edited)

DAY ONE

 

The USS Sulaco, on a course for Gateway Station above Earth (by orders of the Colonial Marine Corps) is intercepted in deep space by an interstellar shuttle adorned with the insignia of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. The only apparent inhabitants of the Sulaco are the sleeping forms of Ellen Ripley, Dwayne Hicks, Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, and the artificial person known as "Bishop", all secure in their cryo-pods. 

 

The Company cruiser (only about twice the size of the escape shuttle Ripley uses at the end of Alien) matches speed with the Sulaco and extends a docking walkway to one of the military vessel's airlock ports. Four figures in space suits clamber through the walkway, the flexible transparicrete alloy of the unfolding tunnelway being one of only two boundaries separating their bodies from the infinite void of the cosmos.

 

They reach the airlock to the Sulaco. One of the spacewalkers, whose suit is labeled "MACK", orders another walker, whose suit is labeled "CALVIN", to use a laser cutter to open the doorway.

 

After thirty seconds of bright light and sparks, the metal bulkhead of the Sulaco topples over like domino. The four walkers enter the ship, taking a second to adjust to the artificial gravity. After Calvin reads a positive check on his wrist-mounted atmosphere scanner, Mack orders the squad to remove their helmets.

Mack, the squad leader, is revealed to be a short-haired blonde female in her late thirties. She readies her pistol, an efficient killing tool of finesse and precision.

Calvin, the technician, is a somewhat diminutive-looking man of bronze complexion.

The third squad member, Portnoy, the doctor, is a balding, bitter-eyed man who appears to be pushing 50.

The last squad member, Rodan, the security operative, is a tall, musclebound, goatee'd black man with a steely look of grim resolve in his eyes at all times. He clicks on the sparker of his flamethrower, ready to meet any threat with a storm of fire.

 

Mack sends a message to their cruiser's computer, causing another figure to cross over to the Sulaco. This last member of the group is O'Neill, the Company executive in charge of facilitating mission outcomes, a somewhat portly man with an overfriendly demeanor befitting a corporate weasel.

The Company detachment moves down a cavernous, poorly-lit hallway towards the cryo-pods.

 

The cryo-pod area of the Sulaco.

The four survivors of the Hadley's Hope incident lay tranquil and oblivious.

 

Then the five Corporates show up, with Rodan taking point. He holds his flame unit at the ready, having heard tales about the monstrous creatures of Hadley's Hope, he keeps his eyes peeled more than the others. 

Rodan is followed by Mack, with Portnoy, Calvin, and O'Neill at the rear. On beholding the sleeping forms of the four survivors, Portnoy begins accessing the cryo-pods' computers. After a brief analysis, the doctor determines that the three human subjects have not suffered any permanent physical injury and can be safely re-awakened. Calvin examines the deactivated Bishop and determines that he can be only be re-activated for a short amount of time.

Calvin wonders aloud what in the universe was strong enough to rip a Synthetic in two like that...

 

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More to come soon!

 

 

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     That's a great graphic. :)    The I, the first vertical segment of the E, and the first vertical segment of the N are equidistant, though more off center. ;/
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 (Edited)

At first, only Bishop is brought out of hypersleep by the Corporates. Calvin uses a work terminal in the Sulaco's engineering deck to give the bisected android a few minutes of life before permanent shutdown. In his last few moments "alive", Bishop tells the expedition group numerous details of the LV-426 incident.

O'Neill asks Bishop if any Xenomorphs made it onto the Sulaco. Bishop replies by telling him that a single egg-laying Queen stowed away on a dropship. The android ends his account by mentioning that it would be very inadvisable to try to interact with the Xenomorphs in any way besides eliminating them, precluding the Company's goals of capturing and harnessing them as bio-weapons.

Bishop finally gives out. His remains are folded up and stuffed into a storage locker.

 

Calvin reaches the Sulaco's bridge to get a full assessment of their location and trajectory. He consults the ship's artificial intelligence CISTR (Command Interface and Synthetic Tactical Rendering), or "Sister". This leads Calvin to deliver the news to the other Corporates, who have moved back to the cryo-pod area, that the ship will dock at Gateway Station in just under two days. 

This gives the group a tight deadline to meet. O'Neill delegates tasks to help accomplish the Company's objectives: locate and harness any trace remnants of the Xenomorph presence encountered on LV-426. He orders Mack and Rodan to search the hangar bay, the Queen's former location as indicated by Bishop, for any Xenomorph activity. O'Neill wants the team out of the Sulaco (preferably with something or someone carrying Xenomorph biological matter) before it enters the Solar System so the Colonial Marine Corps will be none the wiser by the time the troop carrier reaches Gateway Station.

 

The dropship hangar. Where Ellen Ripley faced off against a Xenomorph Queen in single combat. The dropship flown by Bishop rests on the deck.

The shallow puddles of white Synthetic blood still haven't been cleaned up.

Mack and Rodan enter, weapons drawn. They vigilantly scan every nook and cranny they can in anticipation of Xenomorphs, but none appear. Rodan carries a stepladder to the front end of the craft, climbs to the top, then takes out his laser cutter.

After cutting a large hole through the dropship's canopy, Rodan crawls through and scouts the craft's interior. Mack slithers through the hole in the glass shortly after.

The two enter the rear compartment of the craft, a claustrophobic area bathed in red light.

And it is there that the two lay eyes on an unhatched Xenomorph egg.

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Mack communicates their finding to O'Neill over her headset. The executive's voice tells the two not to go near the egg and that the specimen is very valuable to the Company. Mack and Rodan leave the egg undisturbed and report back to the cryo-pod area.

 

The cryo-pod area. Ripley, Hicks, and Newt are still sound asleep.

O'Neill tells Portnoy his next assignment: determine the best possible test subject from the three people sleeping in the cryopods and expose them to the Xenomorph egg on the dropship. 

Portnoy casts a glare over the three sleepers.

He decides that the little girl would be the best choice for Xenomorph implantation. 

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Eyes open. The comfortable resting place of a cryopod. The glass door opening outward.

The old man looks down at Newt laying in her cryopod.

She is still groggy from hypersleep and needs to be helped out of her pod. She asks the man if they have reached home yet. He tells her that she needs some shots before she can be allowed to come home.

Little Newt asks why Ripley and Hicks haven't been woken up yet, but Portnoy simply shushes her and walks her over to the infirmary. She starts to suspect that not all is right.

 

Mack decides that the bridge will be the best place to serve as a temporary base of operations. She returns to the Company cruiser attached to the Sulaco's hull and brings back a clear glass cage containing her pet: a boa constrictor named Ahab.

Back on the bridge, Calvin is parsing through navigational and environmental data with Sister. A door slides open and in walks Mack with her pet snake. 

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The film has yet to reach the frantic, action-packed phase of its runtime, but that's just because there is no killer Xenomorph onboard as of yet. How do you guys like it so far? 

Similar to how the first two films had taglines ("In space, no-one can hear you scream." and "This time it's war."), I've been juggling ideas around for Alien III's tagline...

- "The deadliest creature in the universe is coming for your world."
- "Some monsters are stranger than fiction."
- "It wiped out a crew of seven. It destroyed a colony of hundreds. Now it has come to feast on billions." 

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You're sort of on the mark with that one, but there's more to it than that. More to come later...

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The infirmary of the Sulaco. Several rows of stretchers resting on movable power-assisted gurneys. Medical computers ready to scan for patients' vital signs, such as heart rates, blood pH levels, and other biometrics.

Portnoy picks up Newt and places her on a stretcher, laying her flat on her back on top of the soft surface. She immediately sits up and turns to her captor.

"Where are we going, doctor? Will we be home soon?" she asks.

His back turned away from the little girl, Portnoy fills up a syringe with a sedative compound. He tries to placate the little girl, but it is of little avail.

Newt starts to panic and gets up off the stretcher.

Portnoy is forced to chase her through the infirmary. 

The little girl flips over several carts loaded with pill bottles and flasks of anesthetic liquid in an attempt to slow down Portnoy. But the old man eventually catches up to her and grips her from behind with both arms. She whines and cries out for help,

"RIPLEY!!!"

Portnoy deftly maneuvers the needle to a vein in her neck and delivers its liquid payload. The little girl is quickly pacified. Sedative runs through her young veins. 

Portnoy picks the little girl up and places her on the stretcher again, this time crudely strapping her limbs to the siderails with a few leather belts.

 

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Whenever I write summaries of my material for presentation on this forum, I feel like I am writing Wikipedia-style synopses of movies that already exist.

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Hicks is woken up from cryo-sleep by Mack and Rodan and taken to the infirmary.

He recognizes the two Corporate guardsmen as having once been Colonial Marines. He remarks that they have stopped fighting for real ideals and instead embraced the cold life of mercenaries. Fighting for money and money alone. Hicks sees their choice as dishonorable. Rodan tells Hicks that he is missing out on a hefty paycheck by staying in the Marines and not joining Weyland-Yutani private security.

In the infirmary Hicks is patched up by Portnoy. A special sterilized patch is placed over his eye, far more effective at protecting against infection and irritants than the simple cloth bandage he improvised on LV-426. With his one good eye, Hicks spots Newt unconscious and strapped to a stretcher. 

Hicks asks why they have done that to a little girl. He is visibly angry.

Portnoy simply tells the Marine that little Rebecca Jorden is an important asset to the Company, especially considering what was accidentally smuggled aboard via the dropship. It dawns on Hicks that she is going to be exploited by the Bio-Weapons Division, just as Ripley revealed on LV-426 shortly before Carter Burke's death. The Queen must have laid an egg on the dropship while Bishop was flying him, Ripley, and Newt off of LV-426.

Without a weapon, Hicks decides that he cannot physically resist his captors. He regards his captors with a weary eye, sizing them up to see what it would take to get past them. The fragile old doctor would pose no problem, but Hicks knows that Rodan and Mack are both formidable in combat (from his experience serving alongside them).

The Marine lies back on the stretcher and lets the recovery drug cocktail take effect. Better to not fight now if it means living to conquer another day.

Newt, who is completely out cold, is wheeled out of the infirmary by Portnoy.

 

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In the cryo-pod area, O'Neill taps several keys on the last occupied pod. The glass canopy slowly flips open, exposing Lt. Ellen Ripley to the stale, recycled air of the Sulaco.

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@NeverarGreat: Alien was horror. Aliens was action. Alien III is survival.

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Ripley curls upward and takes a moment to adjust to her surroundings.

It seems like no time has passed since her fight with the Queen. One minute she is drifting off to sleep, near Newt, Bishop, and Hicks; the next minute she is awake again and those three are no-where to be found.

O'Neill sits on the side of the cryo-pod.

"Do you hear me? Do you know where you are?"

Ripley is somewhat dazed from hypersleep. "USS Sulaco...What's going on? Have we reached Gateway Station?" she asks.

"Lt. Ellen Ripley?"

"Yes, that's me. Who are you?"

"I'm Brandon O'Neill; I represent the Company. We'd like to have you examined before you get to Earth, make sure everything's okay."

Ripley's eyes widen. She stands bolt upright and faces O'Neill.

"Bullshit. This is not a corporate operation; the Sulaco is a military vessel," she gestures around the starship containing them.

O'Neill tries to adopt a reassuring manner to put her at ease, but Ripley quickly becomes more agitated. She looks around and asks "Where are the others?"

Then she turns back to O'Neill. "Where is this ship?"

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The dialogue I posted in my previous post is stripped down and minimalist compared to what would actually be heard in the movie.

I was kind of nervous trying to tackle the problem of what Ripley would do in this scene. It seemed like a daunting task, above my "pay grade", to write from the perspective of one of the most memorable and enduring protagonists in the history of science fiction cinema.

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O'Neill tries to get Ripley to calm down. "It's okay, Ripley. You're still on the same course. We'd just like to run a few tests on you and ask you a few questions before you report to Gateway, that's all."

Ripley will not have it. She bolts out of the room, but turns a corner only to be blocked by the looming mass of Rodan. His flamethrower's barrel tip scintillates with a small flickering fire.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to pass, Lieutenant."

We cut to the dropship in the hangar. The craft's rear door is now open. Red light fills the interior of the parked vessel. The Xenomorph egg sits patiently in the back of the dropship's payload compartment.

Portnoy enters the hangar, wheeling the unconscious Newt forward on the stretcher. She will regain consciousness soon.

He wheels the stretcher up the ramp and into the cramped red-tinted interior of the dropship. All the way over to the egg, then he leaves.

Newt's lolling head rights itself as she blinks her eyes open. Her limbs are still strapped to the stretcher, but it looks like the old man re-configured the stretcher so that now she is lying at an angle to the floor instead of parallel.

Now all Newt sees is the Xenomorph egg bathed in red light.

The flaps at the top of the egg fold open, revealing the Facehugger inside. Three yellow fingers of the creature extend from the oval's orifice.

Newt screams louder than she ever did on LV-426.

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This was a hard scene to write. I decided that it would be best to not show the actual Facehugging of Newt on-screen. Even for an Alien movie, that would be going too far.

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Ripley sits in the brig. A grid of metal bars separates her spartan accommodations from the two men peering at her. Rodan stands guard with his flamethrower. O'Neill brings more questions in front of Ripley.

"Look, Ripley, we're just trying to help you out here. Now when you signed on to that mission to LV-426, part of your contract with Burke stipulated that you had to provide consulting to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation regarding these Xenomorphs. Now we need you to do so."

"Forget it, O'Neill. I'm done working with the Company," Ripley says. Her arms are crossed in defiance. She gets up and begins to pace back and forth like a caged lioness.

"Your contract still stands, Lieutenant."

She rushes right up the bars of her cell. "Fuck the contract! Don't you realize what those things are capable of doing? You people are insane, you know that? Those creatures can't be allowed on Earth for any reason."

O'Neill sighs. "Now Ripley, LV-426 was one story. It was a bad situation, but this time we've got top-of-the-line private security on the job. We can keep these things contained easy."

"What do you know about them?" she asks.

"Just what you've described. Sharp teeth, acid for blood, kills on sight. Sounds like my ex-wife, " O'Neill says to try to lighten the mood.

Ripley is not amused. "Why are you people even here? Those things are all dead. The colony's gone and so is the Queen. I killed her myself."

"A fact for which we are very thankful. But as it turns out, that goose laid one last golden egg. It's in the dropship that brought you back from the colony," O'Neill says.

Ripley grabs O'Neill's tie through the bars and yanks him closer. "Don't you fucking think about it! You're not getting that thing off this ship! So help me God I will make sure of that!"

Rodan grabs O'Neill's shoulder and pulls him back away from Ripley's grip. 

 

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I'm prepping the next segment of the movie at the moment. What do you guys think so far?

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In the infirmary, Hicks wakes up and feels noticeably better. His acid wounds have healed at a remarkable pace. 

Portnoy wheels Hicks' stretcher towards the brig. Hicks turns his head to get one last view of infirmary, seeing Newt on another stretcher...with a Facehugger busy planting its egg inside her chest. 

 

In her cell, Ripley sits on the edge of her bunk with her head down. She is alerted by the noise of the brig entrance opening, revealing an old man (a Company science officer, by her reckoning) wheeling Dwayne Hicks on a stretcher. Ripley's heart skips a beat. Something like a smile briefly dances across her lips.

Per the old man's instruction, Hicks leaves the stretcher and gets locked into a cell adjacent to Ripley's. The two cannot see each other, but they can still hear each other.

 

 

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The old man leaves the brig.

"Dwayne!" exclaims Ripley.

"I'm here, Ellen."

They both rush to opposite sides of the wall separating their cells. They clasp the ends of their fingers together, reveling in the brief respite from their continuing ordeal.

"What's the goddamned Company doing here?" the Marine asks.

"They want one of those things on Earth. They're working for Bio-Weapons, just like that bastard Burke. Are you OK, Dwayne?"

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine. I need to tell you something about Newt." Hicks says.

Ripley fears the worst. "Is she awake?"

"Yeah, and they're planting one of those things inside her."

Ripley gasps and lets out a painful tear. With her unoccupied hand, she covers her mouth to contain a sob.

"It's OK, Rip. There's still time. I know where she is. We can still get her out of here."

"What about that thing inside her?" Ripley says.

"I overheard them talking about how they got here. They've got enough cryopods on their shuttle to get all three of us back to Earth safe and sound." Hicks explains.

Ripley regains her composure, but her voice is still quivering. She sees the reason behind Hicks' plan. "Ok. And then we can keep her frozen in the pod so the Gateway docs can get that thing out of her."

"Exactly. We made it off that rock, we can get through this, OK?" Hicks says.

Ripley lets out an anguished sigh, trying to keep her thoughts away from the horrifying things the Company has done to Newt.