I think it's time that I actually see it. I was all set to see it when it opened but was called into work.. My brother and friend went and saw and needless to say I heard what happened and made a vow to never ever see it. I loved Aliens and it' still one of my favorite movies. But I am also a big Fincher fan and my curiousity has been peaked some time. I think enough time has passed for me to give it a fair viewing. I am sure I will always be ticked off that they made the decisions that they did but I'm going to try to give it a fair shake. Now all I have to do is get the Alien Quadrology set.

And my interpretation of the movie would be that they have put Ripley back in the same old "safe zone" for her character. Ripley fighting off an old nemesis *AGAIN*, Ripley trying to get others to believe the alien is real *AGAIN*. People complain when other movies go the safe route when it comes to the story (MIB2 would be a prime offender) but to me "Alien 3" was the series equivilant of a "safe movie".


The movie doesn't lose so much credit with the Newt/Hicks thing so much as the whole facehugger thing. I can overlook the deaths of those characters but I can't possibly take this movie seriously when viewing the intro. The opening is handled in such a way that it is clearly written half assed and makes no effort to be logical.

The intro alone tells me that this movie had script problems more than anything else.

I guess the question is: why did the Alien series turn on Ripley? I mean Alien really was a strong ensemble movie - sure Ripley was the focus, but the other characters were given a lot to do and played important bits in the movie.(especially Tom Skerrit and Ash).

Aliens gave Ripley a bit more backstory (especially the directors cut) but also introduced a lot of characters that played strong roles (i.e. most notably Bishop, Hicks) and a bunch of other characters.

I felt like Alien3 was just all Ripley, all the time. Its obvious when all the other characters looked the same, talked the same, and were pretty much the same (with the exception of "Roc" and the "Doc"

Alien4, I don't even want to talk about it. Its obvious that as Sigourney Weaver got more producer power through the series, Ripley's character became more and more central.

I agree. Emotionally investing in characters is really nerdy.

Straw man? Just because a person disagrees with a plotline doesn't mean they don't "get it."

Look, ignoring the effect that it had on Ripley, Hicks and Newt dying in the sleep chambers is not a fitting end to their character arcs. It's like the Chief in <i>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</i> escaping the mental ward at the end, but in the process of his escape tripping over a rock, rolling down a hill, and falling over the edge of a cliff. Or Roy, the last replicant in <i>Blade Runner</i>, dying from a kidney infection in the final scenes of the movie. It's just not a satisfying conclusion to their stories. Justice should always be meted out in some way or another. In real life bad, random things happen all the time, but fiction isn't real life; nothing happens without a purpose, and the purpose here is to isolate Ripley. That could have been done any number of other ways that don't crap all over the triumph of the human spirit that was shown at the end of <i>Aliens</i>.

From Ripley's perspective, it's also not the most difficult situation she could have faced. The most difficult situation would be having to <i>choose</i> to separate herself forever from the people she loved in response to what she knew she had to do. Personal desire versus duty (or fate). That's conflict. Not the "oops, everyone is dead, guess I don't care anymore" bullshit.

Nah, for those people who dismiss the whole movie with that simple wave of a hand, they get my own equivalent dismissal. :)

That's where we differ, then. That's why I love it so much. Because real life is full of many such futilities, and we SO rarely see it reflected in movies. It was bold and unexpected. And unfortunately it immediately closed peoples' eyes and minds to the rest of the movie.

I guess it depends how you view the Alien series. And I certainly don't view the films as "character arc driven" sequels. I view them as loose sequels from different directors. And to me the series is about the Ripley character, everybody else is expendable. And as others have pointed out, nothing good can happen to Ripley as long as she's around those aliens. That might be too dark and nihilistic for some, but it works perfectly for me. And it works a hell of a lot better than the standard formulaic "now that Ripley has a love interest and a little girl to take care of, she will now fight for her "family"!" Blah... Moreover, having Newt and Hicks around would not have worked in the context of Alien 3.

And for Breakfast with Girls, your comparisons are silly. Newt and Hicks didn't die from a disease or by stumbling over rocks, they were killed by aliens.

Also, why don't we ever hear people bash Cameron for having turned a great suspense/horror film into a mindless popcorn action flick with (mostly) cardboard characters? You can't mess with characters but it's ok, in a series (after all people seem to want continuity right?), to mess with genre/style? Come on now. The reason people disregard this is because they like Aliens. Most people bash Alien 3 not for what it is but for what they wanted it to be (it's not on earth! they killed Newt and Hicks!). That's hardy convincing criticism.

Except that the rest of the movie was no gem, either. :)

I will say that I haven't seen the director's cut. I was happy to hold off on the Quadrilogy (my passionate dislike for nearly all aspects of <i>Resurrection</i> didn't make it too difficult) and buy the first two films when they came out individually.

I just don't think they should have been in the movie at all.

As for silly, that's what I thought when there was some egg that magically appeared in the ship. It was a gimmick.

And yeah, like most people, I think <i>Aliens</i> is great. It's a popcorn flick. And? It's a lot of fun, and it still manages a few scares. It's not an atmospheric horror movie, but that's one of the reasons I like it -- the sequel wasn't a remake of the original (unlike <i>Alien 3</i>).

Yeah, because adding a love interest and a kid...A KID FOR GOD'S SAKE...isn't playing it "safe"!? How dreadfully formulaic.

Well said!
:bow:

I dont even think the studio knew what they wanted. Dozens and dozens of scripts were written, There were many directions the character(s) could have gone in, and they settled for this messy plotline?


Keep in mind that Sigorney was the one that didnt want guns in Alien3 which may have suited her tasted but no one elses.

First, Cameron didnt shit all over already established info we have of the species (super facehugger) and he didnt kill off characters for the sake of putting Ripley back in the "safe" story of fighting the aliens by herself. Cameron at least had respect for the movie that came out before his, and all he did was add something to what was already established.

Whoever the hell decided to use the script that Fincher ended up using had no respect for the immediate prequel or the first movie. The intro we ended up with was a inane attempt at justifing the movie we ended up recieving.



Personally, direction that "Alien 3" went to be very formulaic given the series that it in. I find that repeating the storyline of "Ripley is alone in her quest to destory the alien and she must make other people believe this thing exsists."
That is the same old stuff, that is the "safe" story for the Alien series.

But why have the character grow when you could just plop her down on some random planet/spaceship/spacestation and have her fight off an alien once again? It worked in 1979, why not again and again and again? Alien 3 is just "Alien" on a planet but with a cast of character we care less about.


The only thing i will ever admit that "Ressurection" did partially right was introduce another character who felt the same way about the aliens as Ripley did. At least Call exsisting led to the idea that perhaps others out there wanted these things dead and gone other than Ripley.

By the time Alien3 came out, there were already a million Alien clones (Alien on a ship, Alien on a submarine, Alien in a high school). Alien3 turned that convention on its head with the locale, the characters (all male religious zealot prisoners!) and the no weapons angle. The setting and characters were something we had never experienced before, and the opening shocked you immediately and let you know that things were going to be bad, and real different.

Then again, I like darkness and depressing storylines and bleak futures. Happy ending formulaic Hollywood action films are about my least favorite movies. I was literally rolling my eyes when Newt first made her appearance in Aliens. Adding a kid to the cast is the tried-and-true cheapest, most manipulative way to buck up any franchise, just look at every single failing sitcom in history.

Ripley always loses something between the films; after Alien she goes into stasis for nearly six decades and after that very long slumber she finds out that her seven year old daughter died a lonely old women with no family and to make matters worse, she loses her old job and gets laughed out of a debriefing conference after vainly telling the authorities about the Xenomorphs.

I remember the other three Alien movies, but I'm not familiar with Alien 3. I read one review that complained that the profanity was very high - like 120 f's. Is that number right? I don't recall the profanity being that heavy in the other three movies.

How does going back to the original movie turn things on its head? The original Alien only had one other female cast member, and they didn't have guns in that movie either. (they did have a flamethrower but thats not a gun)

Profanity was on the high side, especially since it seemed like the same person kept repeating the same dialogue, because all of the dudes looked the same.

Good for shock value maybe but that's about it. Then you have the rest of the movie to sit through.

I like Dark and bleak movies, sure, when they are done well.

I enjoyed the movie, though not as much as 1 and 2. I was bothered by the accents, however. You had Ripley, a guy from Baltimore then a whole bunch of guys with heavy, British accents. It just didn't make sense. I mean, was this an exclusive prison reserved only for Mary Poppins castoffs (plus room for Roc)?

First off, I think Alien 3 was a well directed movie. It was really depressing but I thought the sets and acting were good. I initially liked Alien Resurrection better because it was more similar to "Aliens," but looking back that movie has alot of awful in it.

Anway, the reason I didn't like Alien 3 was that it was underwhelming. The first movie was a suspenseful/scary sci fi movie. The second was a more exciting action sci fi movie. The third returned to the former but still didn't match up. The first one had a mysterious planet, a strange alien ship with the "cargo," a few suprises with the alien birth and life cycle, the robot...
Alien 3 just had the alien killing off the prisoners of a prison planet. There were no new suprises unless you consider the revelation that a face hugger can produce 2 aliens.

I didn't like that the alien was dog-like. Made more sense that the alien resembles whatever creature it is birthed from but the humanoid alien looked much scarier and creepier than the Alien Cujo.

I didn't like that the Alien design didn't look very Giger-esqe (yes, I know he designed the original prototype for the dog alien).

I never saw the teaser whe it came out but I think that the logical thing would have been to have the Aliens infest earth with Ripley and co. trying to stop them.

I don't have a problem with depressing movies, but if the story isn't great people aren't gonna like it.

It's pretty high, but at least in the theatrical cut, I don't think there's a single "fuck" spoken until Brian Glover is snatched by the beast. Just another sign of the deterioration of the fragile pious "civilization" created by the prisoners.

I'm a quiet fan of Alien 3 - I enjoy it, but won't defend it.

I didn't like the showdown at the end, with its fast cutting and wonky POV camera angles of the alien running along the walls and ceiling, which made it really confusing. I couldn't figure out what the hell was supposed to be going on until I rewatched the scenes in slow-motion on my DVD player.

The not going to Earth thing, I believe, was another Sigorney Weaver decision. She didn't want guns or to go to Earth.

I remember reading on, I think, the avp site that Sigourney was saying it was either predictable or boring to have it on earth, that in space was so much more interesting.

Did Alien 3 get a big budget? I think to pull of an Alien sequel at that time with the aliens infesting earth would have been way to expensive to produce.

How about now? No time like the present.

After seeing Alien Resurrection and AvP I don't think the people designing the aliens (or maybe it's the directors fault) can make them that scary anymore. They seem to be straying from the original visual design of a bio-mechanical species.
Not to mention, Weaver brought so much to the Alien movies, and without her, the movie would lose something.

Which is one reason I'm in the boat of happy campers. To me all three were great and different in their own right. The entire series is depressing, four being the only one that stands out as different. That's kind of the point and what makes the Alien series vary from others out there.