Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 2)

 

Movies I Wish I Had Seen in 2020 (Part 2: Alternate & Unfound Sequels) 

 

I’m back with more ideas for movies I wish I had seen in theaters in 2020! If you didn’t see part one of this fictional year of cinema, check it out, otherwise this might seem a little confusing. Either you’ll think you missed out on one of the best years of movies ever, or you’ll think I’ve lost my mind, and at least one of those isn’t true!

Let’s start off with a new sequel to the Alien franchise. No, I don’t want a continuation of the last one, Alien: Covenant, which tried to bridge the gaps between the terrifying original Alien and the divisive sci-fi adventure/thriller Prometheus. What could’ve originally been one movie was turned into an extensive, questionable, convoluted vanity project for director Ridley Scott, who is trying desperately to do two things: return to his directing roots, and explain away the origins of the creature he introduced audiences to way back in 1979. Mr. Scott needs to give it up; at this point, I don’t really care how the xenomorph came to exist. But, I still love the monster and the fictional world and the series as a whole, so what I want to see is Neil Blomkamp’s Alien 5, which is another movie that almost became a reality.

A few years back, there was all this concept art leaked and discussion about a new sequel to Aliens (that’s the second movie) from the director of District 9, and this sequel would take the same route some other major franchises have taken, such as Terminator and Halloween. It would follow an alternate timeline that ignored the morose Alien 3 and goofy Alien Resurrection, instead featuring an aged Ripley and bringing back fan-favourites Hicks and Newt, who were unceremoniously killed at the start of Alien 3. Details on the story were vague, but the concept art showed the return of the Queen, the power loader, and Ripley in some sort of biomechanical armour made of xenomorph exoskeleton. It might not have turned out that great even with its good intentions (see Terminator: Dark Fate), but at least it would’ve played to nostalgia in a more engaging way than only bringing back just the creature stuff and plot elements the way Prometheus and Covenant did. But, this concept for Blomkamp’s Alien 5 is, as far as I know, completely dead, because the studio thought it would confuse viewers and conflict with Ridley Scott’s prequel series, and now with the rights to Alien resting in the hands of Disney thanks to the 20^th Century Fox merger, it’s almost a guarantee we’ll never see it.

On the topic of alternate sequels that will never happen, there’s one I dreamed of seeing ever since I was just a little kid, and what a perfect sequel to include in my imaginary release schedule of 2020 movies. This one actually did happen…just not the way I was hoping. I always wanted to see Jurassic Park 4, and for years, it was rumored. After Jurassic Park III in 2001, I was psyched for more. Bring back Dr. Grant and Dr. Malcolm! Bring back the Spinosaurus and have it killed by an even bigger meat-eater, the Giganotosaurus! Feature my favourite dinosaur ever, the Allosaurus! Give us more dinosaurs, more destruction, a new storyline! I waited, and waited, and finally, a new Jurassic movie was announced, but it wasn’t called Jurassic Park 4, because by the time it got the green light, we were firmly in a new age of soft reboots. Straight sequels to major franchises and remakes of classics didn’t go extinct so much as they, like the Indominus Rex, became a new hybrid; essentially reintroduce audiences to something they’ll be nostalgic for by retelling the same story, but keep it in continuity with the originals instead of restarting the story. Thus, we got Jurassic World.

Look, I don’t think Jurassic World is that bad, but I also don’t consider it the true Jurassic Park 4 I always wanted. I don’t even consider it part of the Jurassic Park franchise, really, even though it’s part of the continuity. It’s a monster movie series at this point, full of action and cgi and fan service, with none of the skillful filmmaking from the original, none of the amazing practical effects, and definitely no high-quality original writing. We didn’t get any of the original characters back for the first Jurassic World, but now everyone is set to return for the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion, so this third Jurassic World flick will be as close to a Jurassic Park 4 as I’m going to get. At this point, it feels like too little too late. My fourth Jurassic Park would have brought back the shaving cream can from the first movie, and while the DNA in that can would no longer be viable, the company that gets its hands on it is still able to recreate their own dinosaurs, and they breed them for destruction. These dinosaurs are unleashed on Isla Sorna in an attempt to exterminate the native creatures there, but as we know, life finds a way, and our heroes from the previous three movies find their way to the island once again to witness the potential end of the new age of dinosaurs. I would give it the same title many fans had speculated would be the title of a fourth film, Jurassic Park IV: Extinction.

Even a different sequel to Jurassic World than what we got would be cool to see, and I had an idea for that one, too. It would be called The Lost Park: Jurassic World 2 (as a reference to the sequel to the original Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, see what I did there? I switched it up!) and it would feature the rival company from the novels, Biosyn, creating their own island of dinosaurs, originally to compete with Jurassic World, but now they are poised to replace them as the number one place in the world to see live dinosaurs after the disaster in Jurassic World. Here’s a twist: Biosyn’s dinosaurs are more accurate in behaviour and appearance to the real-life creatures, and we get an explanation that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park/World looked the way they did because of so much genetic tampering (there’s actually a line about that in Jurassic World). It’s revealed that Jurassic Park/World’s scientists were just creating dinosaurs that would fit the public’s perception of the extinct creatures, and this would explain why in real-life the dinos in Jurassic don’t really look the way they were supposed to. The plot would basically follow a team hired by Jurassic World executives sent to infiltrate this new park and steal info, but then things go wrong and a similar disaster to the previous one occurs. It would be exciting, different, and do what the original Jurassic tried to do: make these creatures as realistic as possible with the science available. Instead, we got Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The less said about it the better.

I started out talking about the Alien franchise, and I’m going to wrap this up with the same franchise. It’s not really an alternate sequel so much as a sequel I was hoping for but never got. I’m minorly nostalgic for the two Alien vs. Predator films, strictly because they (mainly the first one) introduced me to both franchises, and while clearly inferior to the originals of either Alien or Predator, they still had some good ideas in there and were made by fans of both. We got AVP: Alien vs. Predator in 2004, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007, and in my alternate universe version of 2020, I got the long-awaited Aliens vs. Predator 3D! This would essentially be Aliens vs. Predator 3, but like the third Friday the 13^th, you have to include 3D as part of the 3 in the title, and yes, it will actually be shot and presented in 3D.

There are so many possibilities with this one, and I’d be tempted to go in one or two directions. Here’s my first idea. In this version of reality, the actors from the original films are totally game for appearing in this movie. So…far, far into the future, we have the last known tribe of Predators out in the depths of space, and they discover humans have brought back a creature they thought had gone extinct long ago: the dreaded xenomorphs! That’s right, this sequel goes all the way past Alien Resurrection; it’s as much an Alien 5 as it is an AVP 3. They find out the last xenomorph has arrived on earth, and earth is basically in ruins because it’s so far into the future (also that’s consistent with the ending of Alien Resurrection). The Predators arrive on earth and find the Ripley clone, played once again by Sigourney Weaver, is the only one who has survived since the ending of Resurrection. How did an Alien get to earth if they were all destroyed at the end of Resurrection? Well, one last extra egg containing a Queen facehugger was jettisoned from the ship in Resurrection that we didn’t know about and it ended up on earth, and soon the whole planet will be overrun. The Predators aren’t here to team up with Ripley, though, because they know what she is (human-alien hybrid) and want her dead, too, but Ripley has back up…enter the Predator Extermination Unit!

We get a nifty little flashback to 2018. The government is fully aware of the threat Predators are to humankind following the destruction of Gunnison, Colorado at the end of AVP: Requiem and the discoveries made in The Predator. They put together the best Special Forces team you’ve ever seen to hunt down the leader of the Predator race and kill him. Roll call! We have Dutch, played again by Arnold Schwarzenegger! Yes, he’s back! So is Danny Glover as Detective Harrigan from Predator 2! And, finally, we have Boyd Holbrook from 2018’s The Predator returning as McKenna, because we have to keep the continuity of the pre-existing Predator movies as best we can, too. One bit of continuity we’re going to alter though is getting rid of that stupid “Predator killer” suit from the ending of The Predator. We don’t need it, we have the most badass team of killers since the colonial marines in Aliens!

This team is put into hyper sleep aboard a space ship and sent out to find the Predator home world, but they are knocked off course and drift through space for as long as the hyper sleep cycle can last, which we’re going to say is a couple hundred years, so they awaken and find themselves in a far flung future, then return to earth, which is in ruins, but they eke out a living. Now the predators are back, they can finally fulfill their mission, and they have the ultimate weapon to help: the Ripley clone! So we have a badass team of humans trying to kill both the last predators and the last xenomorphs, on a post-apocalyptic earth setting, with the xenos trying to kill the humans and the predators, the predators trying to kill the humans and the xenos, and the winner will claim the title of dominant species of earth!

If you liked that story, maybe you’ll like this different version of AVP 3D, too. In this take, the original actors aren’t coming back, which would be more consistent with the majority of both series. Alien was the only one to have the same main character over four films, but now with the prequels, even that series has new protagonists with every film, and the Predator films never have the same cast. This story will take place not too long after Prometheus, with a new crew on a small exploratory spaceship bound for another planet, but they come across a Predator ship and find a way aboard. At first, the ship seems deserted, but soon, they find a xenomorph Queen has stowed away in the engine room and started a nest. Dozens of xenomorph drones patrol the hallways, and then, the ship gets more company: a pair of predators arrive to exterminate the xenos, or detonate the ship if they can’t. They didn’t expect to encounter humans, who are caught in the middle of the two warring species.

Even though this would probably be enough to constitute the film’s full runtime, we’re going to have an unexpected “fourth act” which is a trend that started with the original Alien: you think the creature is dead, the last survivor is safe, but then it turns out the danger isn’t over yet. The last human survivor will be seemingly trapped by the last surviving Predator, and in the last second, some strange being arrives. The Predator is unable to defeat it. The human will have no idea what this being is, but fans will recognize it as one of the Engineers from Prometheus! Through subtitled dialogue, the Predator and Engineer will have a conversation that will reveal the Predators and Engineers have been at war for centuries. This Engineer was a prisoner aboard the ship, and managed to escape. Predators are seen by the Engineer race as a savage, disgraceful species, and they stole the xenomorphs from them generations ago. Now, they are determined to wipe out the Predator species. The Engineer kills the Predator, and the last surviving human stows away on the Engineer ship that comes to pick up the prisoner Engineer, and the Predator ship is destroyed. The Engineer’s ship’s is a warship. The cargo hold is loaded with xenomorph eggs, and it’s bound for the Predator home world. But, this Engineer has a chestburster inside of it, and dies in the pilot’s chair, which knocks the ship off course. The ship came by remote, so there are no other Engineers aboard. The one human can’t figure out how to pilot the ship, and is captured by the xenomorph spawned from the Engineer and placed in a cocoon deep in the ship, just before the ship crash lands on a desolate planetoid: LV 426. Boom: we’ve led into the original Alien, and now we don’t need to worry about Ridley Scott’s prequels anymore.

Both of these movies could exist in continuity with both franchises, and actually, they wouldn’t contradict one another, so both could have come out in 2020. A few more notes: they will be R-rated. None of that PG-13 crap. And remember, this will be in 3D, so there are going to be chestbursters coming out of people and popping right out of the screen, predators slicing their wrist blades toward the audience, blood and slime spraying everywhere, making it feel like you’re getting splattered! It would be a prime sci-fi/horror theater-going experience.

You might have thought this was the end…but I actually have a few more ideas to share, so to avoid this one going too long, I’m just going to assemble a part 3. Stay tuned!