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"Alien" was the first deeply dark, surreal and frighteningly intense movies made in the late 70s. It gave a whole new meaning to "horror in space". This masterpiece by Ridley Scott had fans screaming for more, and spawned many flicks similar to its theme. James Cameron took the Alien franchise further with the superbly made "Aliens", which combined action with the intensely gripping storyline. It was a change from the normal sequels of a successful movie, and Cameron's genius could be clearly seen in every frame. Cameron's more-than-worthy sequel is rated very high by movie-buffs and critics alike, and its in the top 10 list of many fans of the horror genre. Also, it gave a new name synonymous with kicking ass. Ellen Ripley.

Alien 3 basically killed the series. The excellent characters surviving at the end of the Cameron movie were killed off almost instantly, and the characterisation suffered from lack of imagination. The direction was ok, given Fincher had to show a new side of Ripley, but the script itself fell apart in many places while trying to be a poor copy of the Ridley Scott-original. It showed a more tragic recurrence of events, leading to the death of Ripley at the end.

Alien 4:Resurrection tried to combine the elements of the Cameron sequel plus the original. We had plenty of aliens running around, a brooding dark spaceship with laboratory experiments galore, a cloned Ripley with alien blood in her, and a group of characters who serenaded as the Marines of the Cameron sequel, with their overtly loud characterisation and antics. Winona Ryder couldnt prove herself worthy enough of being a replacement for Lance Henriksen's Bishop. A new species of the aliens was revealed at the end, who had a humanistic bond with the Ripley clone, but with that interesting premise, plus reaching Earth at the end (something which hadnt happened in the series before), the series stopped.

After around 10 years, Alien vs Predator released and added a twist to both the franchises. The combination of both these horror icons was immensely successful at the box-office, with a new storyline (most of it taken from the successful video-games and the comics) and a new approach was given to the humans vs predators vs aliens theme.

But it also generated another aspect. The Alien series was killed off. Apparently Cameron and Scott had their own version of a script already finalised to make Alien 5, but with AvP, that got scratched. Cameron was supposed to write and produce, with Ridley Scott at the helm of directing the 5th installment.

On February 8 this year, in an interview with IGN, James Cameron said, "Ridley (Scott) and I talked about doing another Alien film, and I said to 20th Century Fox that I would develop a 5th Alien film. I started working on a story, I was working with another writer and Fox came back to me and said, 'We've got this really good script for Alien vs Predator,' and I got pretty upset. I said, 'You do that you're going to kill the validity of the franchise in my mind,' because to me, that was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other. So, I stopped work. Then I saw Alien vs Predator and it was actually pretty good. I think of the 5 Alien films, I'd rate it 3rd."

For Cameron, developing or taking a franchise further according to a Hollywood studio's wishes is something he has already gave up on. For the fans, a Ridley Scott - James Cameron teaming up for Alien 5 was a mouth-watering prospect. Unfortunately, after AvP, that will NEVER happen.