One Reddit theory has suggested that most of the Alien franchise could have, been a dream, perhaps explaining the poor quality of the franchise after the massive success of 1986's Aliens. Despite producing films consistently since 1979, the Alien franchise has seen its fair share of negative criticism, mostly attached to projects following the second film in the franchise, which saw James Cameron take the reins and lead the franchise in a more action-focused direction. Several Alien projects have been shelved since the 1990s, including a much-anticipated film by Neill Blomkamp and even a return of Cameron to the franchise, leading many to wonder where Alien might go next.

Even though Alien creator Ridley Scott has confirmed his development of another Alien film, it's unclear whether it will connect to the ongoing prequel series featuring Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Also, Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez is producing a standalone film in the Alien universe, so everybody wants to move away from the more recent, messy Alien films.

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Alien 3 (Ripley's Dream)

ripley alien 3 dream

The original Alien films followed Ellen Ripley, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, a warrant officer aboard the Nostromo in Alien, who is then taken on the Colonial Marines' mission in Aliens due to her experience with the Xenomorph. In the final moments of Aliens, Ripley and the other film survivors enter hypersleep on their journey back to Earth, with Weaver's character expressing to the young Newt that they would "dream all the way home." This feeds directly into the Reddit theory, which mentions that, in the opening credits of Alien 3, Ripley loses her entire new family and is left to fend for herself in a "desolate, careless world."

As the only woman on Fiorina "Fury" 161, Ripley is unwanted and uncared for by everybody except for the prison facility's doctor, Clemens, leaving her to fight a Xenomorph alone once again. Only this time, Ripley's nightmare from Alien comes true, and she finds herself impregnated by the creature. She's not just carrying any normal embryo but that of the Xenomorph Queen. Her response to this revelation is "victory and death," since Alien 3 ends with Ripley sacrificing her own life to stop both the Xenomorphs and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, led by a man with the face of the android, Bishop (who she didn't trust in Aliens), from winning.

Alien: Resurrection (Hicks' Dream)

hicks alien resurrection dream

It was controversial for Alien 3 to kill off most of the previous film's cast in its opening moments since many wanted the relationship between Ripley and Corporal Dwayne Hicks of the Colonial Marines, played by Michael Biehn, to develop further. If this theory upholds, however, Hicks could still be alive, with the events of 1997's Alien: Resurrection being theorized to be his dream, or perhaps, more accurately, a nightmare. The fourth film in the Alien franchise is packed with military violence from the get-go, potentially just what a soldier such as Hicks would imagine, but there are several more similarities between Hicks' story and the Resurrection events.

Both in Aliens and Alien: Resurrection, it's the Xenomorphs' ability to change and adapt their strategy that costs lives, with Hicks' unit getting picked off one-by-one in the former, just as the crew of the Auriga and the Betty are in the latter, and in both cases, it's the superior officers who are killed early on. Resurrection is also full of sexual connotations, which could "boil down to Hicks' primal, unconscious desires for Ripley." Hicks and Ripley become close in Aliens. He is fascinated by her and her knowledge of the Xenomorphs, which translates into the stronger, sexier, more confident characterization of the Ripley clone in Alien: Resurrection.

Related: Why Aliens Has Been So Hard For The Alien Franchise To Beat

Prometheus (Bishop's Dream)

bishop prometheus dream

As the first film in a proposed trilogy leading up to the events of the original Alien, Prometheus started to tell the story of the Xenomorphs' evolution. Prometheus is David's story, the android aboard the USCSS Prometheus, played by Michael Fassbender. This leads the Reddit theory to suggest that this could be the electric dream of Bishop, the surviving android from Aliens. Aside from the fact that "every human in this movie is an idiot," Prometheus relies heavily on trying to answer the big questions: who created us, and why? This idea relates to the human characters searching for the Engineers and David dissecting his own purpose.

David drives the narrative of Prometheus from the film's first moments, which see him as the only character awake on board the vessel. He is the one who experiments with his human comrades, exposing Charlie to the black goo and informing Shaw of her unusual pregnancy, which links directly to Ripley's story of the faulty Ash, which she relayed to Bishop in Aliens. Both androids even suffer a critical dismemberment throughout their respective films. The Reddit theory suggests that David is the personification of Bishop's fear that Ripley could have been right not to trust him, as he wonders whether he does have free will, as David regularly exhibits.

Alien: Covenant (Newt's Dream)

newt alien covenant dream

The final survivor of Aliens is perhaps the most tragic character to lose in the opening credits of Alien 3, young Newt, who survived alone on LV-426 but was killed by a Xenomorph nonetheless. Her dream is theorized to take the form of Alien: Covenant, which features a colony ship filled with thousands of colonists and human embryos traveling across the stars, who take a detour and come face-to-face with David and the Xenomorphs. Perhaps the most obvious connection is that Newt is from a human colony on LV-426, which was decimated by the Xenomorphs just as the crew of the USCSS Covenant was during the events of Alien: Covenant.

The events of Aliens and Covenant are remarkably similar, so Covenant could easily be the events of the previous few days in Newt's life being retold from a child's perspective. Both films even end with a selection of survivors making it off the Xenomorph-infested planet, only to battle a rogue Xenomorph, blast it out of the airlock, and enter hypersleep safely, but with danger looming nevertheless. One running theme throughout every project in the Alien franchise seems to be that surviving one film makes no difference, as both in Newt's case and the case of the Covenant crew, they won't be making it too much further anyway.

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