The script had to be rewritten by Coppola & Puzo once Duvall dropped out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather_Part_III

According to Coppola, the movie feels incomplete "without Duvall's participation." Had Duvall agreed to take part in the film, the Hagen character would have been heavily involved in running the Corleone charities.

I like the theatrical cut because it feels more complete and has the slightly better ending.

Yes, I am one of the people who didn't like it because there was only one Alien, and it felt like a step backwards in the series, just like Karate Kid 3 and Rocky V felt. It seemed like Earth would have been a better progression, plus, the set and alien design was so much better in the first two films. The alien seemed more like a typical monster, just running around eating people. The previous films they showed some intelligence like cutting the lights, hiding in the spare shuttle, etc.

That said, on it's own, it's a very good film. The set design is very unique, as well as the direction of the film, taking place on a prison planet, isolated, etc.
I actually enjoy the film.

It's just disappointing because it didn't further expand on the Alien mythos.

And Godfather 3, IMO, was bad because it was an unneeded sequel. GF1 showed how in the end he turned just into the man he said he wouldn't become. GF2 was the bookend, showing Michael becoming an inhuman monster, and winning for good, even though he lost it all.

The movie was just too damn depressing and dark, no change in environments, no killer action compared to Aliens, and most of the main characters sounded and looked the same with the British accents and shaved heads.

I still have yet to see the Assembly cut, I did like the prison colony and the one alien approach but I think the killing of Newt and Hicks ruined the potential of a real Earth-bound sequel. Perhaps if the story was concurrent to Newt and Hicks being transported somewhere else and some of the crazed prisoner/religion device was excised.

But changing the sequence where Dutton eulogizes juxtaposed to the dog was a bad move, I agree. It's probably telling on a personal level that I haven't seen it since the early 90's yet have seen the other three many times since.

And that 2 of the 3 characters from the lived at the end of #2 open the movie dead. So whenever you watch ALIENS you know the ending isn't all that good.

The movie lost me in those first few minutes where Hicks and Newt were killed off (after all they went through in Aliens) and I had a hard time enjoying the rest of the film. It was like a big F U to fans of the 2nd movie. It took me many, many, many years to decide to rewatch it again. I watched the original Alien and Aliens dozens of times over the years, but even though I owned this, the memories of it just sucked too much to give it another chance.

After recently rewatching it, I like it better than I did the first time, but it was still such a missed opportunity. To think of what could have been...

I would prefer a hybrid of the two as I mostly like the assembly but there is a few things from the theatrical that are way way better.

I liked the theatrical version and I've always liked this more than most. I prefer the assembly cut, it just feels like a fuller experience. That said however, I've always found the film a little limp in terms of tension.

Regardless of everyone's feelings about Alien 3... I think everyone can agree that it's better than every Alien movie since.

Agreed. Although the first Alien vs Predator movie wasn't THAT bad. Kind of a guilty pleasure for me.

Pretty much how I felt about it the first time. Especially when you consider all of the major technology and equipment utilized in the second. I understand now that the third was meant to be a counterbalance to that, but at the time it was disappointing.
I was actually hoping that 3 would end up a dream when they started writing part 4. While it would have rightfully been seen as a cheap way out, it could be explained at the end of Aliens when Newt asks Ripley "Can we dream?". The set up was there, but it wasn't taken.
Part 4 was actually entertaining to me, until the last act when they started pulling of that newborn stuff. Then it became the biggest pile of drivel I can remember in a long time.

I think you can either thank or blame Sigourney for the fact that number 3 was so different than 2 and was at least closer to the first one. Unless she was just blowing smoke she said that there were too many aliens in the second one and sort of thought it was too over the top so she wanted the third one to be much closer to the original.

I mean it is very similar--one alien against unarmed and outmatched humans where in the second one it was...I don't know...hundreds of aliens against a small team of elite, highly trained soliders with a lot of weapons.

The first 2 were polar opposites but we got the best of both worlds--we got a great suspense, thriller movie with the original and with the second we got a great action movie, plus we were introduced to one of the coolest villains in movie history--the aliens themselves are cool enough, but the queen just kicks major ass. The third one was really just a retread of the original, but minus pretty much everything that made the original great.

It probably would have been crap but I would have liked to see Vincent Ward's movie. At least it would have been totally different than anything we'd seen before.

I have no doubt that Weaver might have played some part in the lackluster action quotient in III. Given that she was receivng the highest salary ever paid to an actress at the time (I seem to recall that being the case) , and Fincher was just a music video director, she most likely had a fair amount of creative control. I also think it's safe to assume she didn't ever want to play the role again given the end, although that didn't work and they wound up paying her an even larger sum of money to come back again!

These are the reasons why I like Alien 3. It did an exact 180 of what people were expecting. People were expecting Hicks, Newt & Ripley fighting buttloads of aliens or basically a continuation of Cameron's film.

I watched some of the Alien 3 doc the other other night--didn't make it through everything.

Anyway, I believe Sigourney was on board with Ward's totally off the wall idea of the wooden planet deal and all that jazz, but originally he had her surviving in the end. She told him and the executives that she absolutely wouldn't do the movie if Ripley lived. Ward's ending had her walking into a wheat field that was on fire or something and dying that way. They sort of worked the fire aspect into the final film, but in any event, she told everybody that she wouldn't do it unless she died.

Eh, Weaver was on board when Ridley Scott was going to come back and do Walter Hill and David Giller's two part action-packed script.

Again, they didn't have to kill Hicks and Newt to get the same response; they could have had it where Ripley was rescued separately, I.E. some people board the drop-ship in space, find an unharmed Newt and Hicks to de-board but leave Ripley, Bishop, and the alien egg to crash into the penal colony.

I don't remember if it was kept in the Assembly Cut, but there's an incredibly brief scene where Aaron (a.k.a. "85") wipes away the fog on a bathroom mirror, the same way Ripley did earlier. I'm not 100% of the significance of why that scene's there, but my guess is it symbolizes he would soon become another victim of the Weyland-Yutani company just like Ripley. I thought it was an interesting touch.

It's stuff like that in "Alien3" that makes it possibly the dramatically potent and character driven of the trilogy (I don't count "Resurrection" as a genuine follow-up).





And can I get a witness for Elliot Goldenthal's *amazing* score?

I refuse to believe that this film (along with Godfather 3 and Matrix 2 & 3) even exists.

I think there are only three real positives that came from Resurrection: The clone room, the hybrid, and Kim Flowers.

The Hybrid? You mean...."the baby" that thing was ugly...not in a good way. Good tech work I guess but...meh.

Yeah, the baby; I think it was a good idea in that it starts to branch out from the single generational idea of the alien taking the characteristics of the host. But when it's treated in a hokey manner, like how they introduced it with Dourif cooing it, then there's no real point.

Maybe if it was treated in much more serious horrifying manner of sorts, maybe serious is what I mean..than I'd be ok w/ it.

Yes, as others have said, the fate of Hicks and Newt, and the general gloomy, dreary tone of the whole movie turned me off. I do respect them for going in a different direction, and I thought it was a well-made film---just not one I enjoyed.

Haven't seen any cut other than theatrical.

You mean different direction than Aliens right? 3 really wasn't much different than the original--just worse.

The Newborn from Resurrection was an underrated creation in the series. Its introduction and ending were a little silly, but it was still an effective creature.

As for Alien 3, I prefer the theatrical cut because Ripley's death, I feel, is much more emotional.