Neill Blomkamp‘s forthcoming installment of the Alien movie series isn’t just ignoring the existence of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection — it’s also returning to the hardware of James Cameron‘s Aliens, according to a new Instagram peek from the director.
“We all knew there would be pulse rifles. Obviously,” Blomkamp wrote in the caption of a photograph of a redesigned version of the Space Marine weapon from Cameron’s 1986 movie. He’s not that wrong — although latter Alien movies moved away from the militarized feel of Aliens, the weapon was a particular favorite of Michael Biehn‘s Dwayne Hicks in that movie, so much so that he described it as a “personal friend” at one point. With Hicks set to return in Blomkamp’s movie, the idea that he’s bringing along his favorite gun isn’t too surprising.
The rifle Blomkamp shared isn’t exactly the same as the one that appeared in Aliens; as the director notes, there’s “added RIS” this time around, as well as what looks to be some kind of laser aiming addition mounted on the side. Whether this means that the Space Marines will have updated their hardware in the intervening time between movies, or that Hicks has been making some additions on his own, remains to be seen. Either way: game over, man.
