Legally Blonde

Short Answer: Elle's continued ascent

Let us pause to appreciate what an achievement the Legally Blonde series is. In a world in which a franchise, to be successful, seems to need to be an action or special-effects driven poperty, this little comedy that could be getting a Part 3, and already had a spin-off introducing new characters (Elle's cousins) AND a musical version (of the original film). 

(So... where IS Part 3? Well, it was scheduled for 2020, but then we had that pandemic...)

Along with the success of the so-far three-part Pitch Perfect series (not a stage musical yet-- really?), this should prove that comedies-- including ones with women protagonists-- can do just fine, thanks.

OK, but where does the Legally Blonde series go next? It depends on the faith it has in itself.

If it it has a lot, then Part 3 has Elle starting her own firm, and then Part 4 has her running for Congress.

If it doesn't, then Part 3 starts with Elle already as the head of a successful law firm... who decides to run for Congress. See, at the end of Part II, she glances at the White House and winks. But we can't have her run for president just yet...

Since the movies thus far have hinged on Elle's knowledge of fashion (the first one) and her love of animals that drives her to fight testing cosmetics on animals (the second one), then the next movie should deal with one of two other major issues that mar the fashion industry.

One is that many clothes are made, still, with sweatshop labor. If your T-shirt costs $10, then everyone who dealt with that shirt on its way to you made less than $10 per T-shirt... right?

As awful as that is, it may be too awful to contemplate for a lighthearted comedy.

Which means the movie should deal with the other issue: pollution. Making clothes, especially the production and dyeing of fabric, is awful for the environment. Rivers downstream from jeans plants run denim blue.

In the first film, Elle had to confront a fitness guru she was a fan of for lying about how she lost weight. In the second, she had to confront a cosmetics company she was a fan of for testing on animals. This time she should confront a clothing designer she is a fan of for polluting... say a beach she loves to frequent.

In the start of the movie, Elle is running this law firm specializing in fashion-related clients. One major case is about the plagiarism of a design, perhaps. 

In any case, she sees that her favorite beach is polluted. Maybe she has her dog swim the water-- "Wow! The water so beautiful! I have never seen it so... blue!"-- but he emerges dyed blue!! She starts to go all Erin Brockovich and traces the source to the clothes-dyeing plant, which she then traces back to her fave designer. 

Her passionate drive to clean up her beach and punish the polluters (and her blue dog) get her headlines, and she is scouted by a political party to run for Congress. She goes up against the incumbent, who is funded by the dye plant, and everyone underestimates her (again), to their detriment (again).

Oh, stupid people... when will you ever learn never to bet against blonde?

In the one after this, we start will Elle in the Senate, and she runs for president.

Alien

Short Answer: Who is Yutani?

There are two sets of bad guys in the Alien series. One set is hive of predatory creatures just doing what they do: consuming, and killing anything in the way of more consumption.

The other set is the Xenomorphs.

Yes, the real enemy is not so much a species minding its own business when humans disturbed it, as much as the humans who did the disturbing and, when they saw the destructive capacity of the Xenos, tried to weaponize-- and monetize-- it.

The corporation with employs, then endangers, the rest of the humans (and androids) is Weyland-Yutani. Over the course of several films, we meet members and learn the stories of members of the Weyland family, including the corporation's founding Weyland.

But... who is Yutani? Aside from a passing glance in one of the versus-Predator crossovers, we don't meet or know anyone from this family who is part of the business, or story. Just one pistol handed to one person.

So, follow that up. What happens next? How does the merger with Weyland happen? And why?

Also, one physical place the story has not gone yet is an Earth colony on the Moon or Mars. We have seen Xenos in many situations, but not in low gravity like the Moon's. Or make it Mars and maybe the Xenos adapt to breathe its CO2 atmosphere, and also, with lower gravity, almost fly.  

Yeah, flying Xenomorphs. That'd be a problem.

Conan the Barbarian

Short answer: Adapt the stories, already... into a TV show.

We are in a golden age for fantasy entertainment. The Tolkien-verse is getting a prequel. The Potter-verse prequels keep coming. Game of Thrones is getting a prequel series. Also on TV, The Witcher is going full steam (stream?) ahead. And Dungeons & Dragons has, perhaps inevitably, merged with Magic: The Gathering to become one gigantic game. 

Older by far than all of these is Conan the Barbarian. The character first appeared in pulp magazines in the early 1930s. The line to Conan probably starts as far back as Hercules and Beowulf.

It could be argued that The Witcher is today's answer to Conan the Barbarian-- a hero whose power mostly lies his his muscles of iron and will of steel. Conan of Cimmeria-- unlike Geralt of Rivia, or Thor of Asgard-- has no magic powers. Conan also is not what you would call a philosopher, but years of battle have taught him many strategies and tactics. 

And there is something compelling about Conan, or he would not have survived as long as he has. In turn, he has inspired characters like He-Man and Thundarr the Barbarian, both of whose series add sci-fi elements to the basic fantasy swords-and-sorcery premise. Elements of the Mummy series-- especially the Scorpion King spin-off-- also seem indebted to the Conan franchise.

There have been two Conan films with Schwarzenegger: The Barbarian and The Destroyer. A planned third film, The Conqueror, was instead turned into Kull the Conqueror. 

Then was was the Red Sonja spinoff, a 2011 reboot (with Jason Momoa!), and another attempt at either a sequel to that or to the original 2... that never happened. Plus two animated, and one live-action, TV show. Reports of both Netflix and Amazon having a go at a live-action series surfaced as recently as 2020.

And, I agree. An episodic, TV-show approach might work better than a feature-length movie. The movies have, aside from the cult-classic status of the first one, been disappointments. But the highest-rated (on imdb, anyway) installment in the Conan franchise has been an animated TV show. And for most of his early years, he was a character in a series of magazine stories. Even the original intent of the first movie was to create a James Bond-level series.

The model for a Conan show, for me, is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. It ran for 6 solid seasons and still holds up. Plus, it spawned Xena, a hit show in its own right. Kevin Sorbo proved a likable strongman with two strong senses-- of duty, and of humor. That Conan has been relentlessly grim in most depictions is unfaithful to the pulp stories... and ultimately boring for audiences. 

A concept of hero on a long quest, who performs acts of heroism along the way, has stood us in good stead from The Lone Ranger to The Mandalorian (which is, as its Honest Trailer points out, a Western at heart). 

So if Conan is going to make it to his centennial, it should be as a hero of this nature:

Roaming from town to town in search of-- well, for most of his stories, the man who killed his parents (as with Inigo Montoya and many others), he provides aid by defeating localized baddies. And maybe, it turns out these local thugs and gangs and monsters all work for one Big Bad who-- surprise!--  was the same guy who killed his parents all those years ago. And the Big Bad, from his end, starts to wonder who this new hero is who keeps ruining all his plans, and sends a hit squad out for him.

Inspired by his courage, Conan collects some loyal friends among his fellow outcasts, each of whose has developed a survival skill-- say, an archer, a thief, a novice sorcerer/healer, a falconer, a pirate-type with sailing skills, a (very lost) ninja, etc.-- all played by faces familiar to those in the fantasy/sci-fi fanbase, each representing an action-hero archetype.

Eventually, he amasses a band of Merry Men/Women loyal to him and his cause-- to free the land of the iron grip of the Big Bad (and also avenge his parents). 

Counter-program against The Witcher by making it family-friendly (see the aforementioned Hercules show and the 2008 Merlin show) and... ta-da.

With today's effects and some self-aware dialogue, along with the original magazine stories as the plot templates, Conan could once again ascend his skull-encrusted throne and rule the myth-franchise-verse. 

Thor

 Short Answer: When Thor met Throg

Of all the MCU characters, Thor is the one with four movies already. Clearly, they are going to keep making these, clearly they are going to keep the same cast and production team...

and clearly, they are going to keep getting even weirder.

Which, this being a comic book-based series, is not a problem.

Sure, we could start to explore the stories in which Thor loses his powers and becomes Dr. Donald Blake. But... pardon me while I yawn. Also, we already have a Hulk who powered down into a nerd. And Thor already lost his powers in his very first movie. And the "superhero loses his powers" thing has been done by everyone from Superman to Disney's version of Hercules. And... no.

No, the way to go is to follow the lead of the Spiderverse. And get animated.

Why? To tell the story of how Thor... became a frog, while still having the power of Thor. He meets a human-turned-frog who gains the power of Thor and changes again, into Thor-frog... or just Throg, for short. As we learned in Love and Thunder, Thor-ness is at least temporarily transferable. 

Yes, while all this cosmic stuff is happening, a lot is also happening on a very small scale which-- as we saw in the Ant-Man movies, can be just as epic. And yes, Ant-Man is getting another installment called Quantumania, but why not have him make an appearance here, too? We haven't had a Thor/Ant-Man team up yet. Two of the funniest MCU quipsters in one movie? 

Still not Deadpool, but still pretty good.

The Marvel stories are going to keep getting weirder-- Dr. Strange has the multiverse, Ant-Man has the Quantum Realm, Wanda can create her own realities, the Guardians of the Galaxy are interplanetary, Iron Man made time travel a snap (oooh! Too soon?), America Chavez can open portals...

So why not ride the wave with Thor, who already can zap across space on the Bifrost? 

And when we need to dial the MCU way back down and re-ground in reality, we can always have Thor become Dr. Donald (yawn) Blake.