Alien 3 is among the most unwanted sequels of all time.
When it released back in 1992, it under-performed at the box office and critics weren't all that receptive of it. It had a very troubled production and filming history due to executive meddling, constant script re-writes, and an inexperienced director. David Fincher himself largely disavowed the film due to his experience, believing that the executives at Fox screwed him and didn't have faith in him. Even James Cameron, director of the previous film Aliens, didn't like the movie due to how it unceremoniously killed off key characters of Aliens: Bishop, Newt and Hicks. Michael Biehn and the movie's novelist didn't like this move either and the later even went as far as to turn down writing a novelization of Alien: Resurrection.
Smart Move.
Since then, an "Assembly Cut" of the film had been released and that edition is largely better received. Some even come to slowly respect the film for it's themes, character exploration and bringing Ripley's story full circle. The creature effects and design were also warmly praised especially since the team behind the "Runner" Alien were novices recommended by the then-unavailable Stan Winston. And considering the less than stellar response of later sequels like Resurrection, the AVP films and Ridley Scott's Alien Prequel films, it appears as though people are becoming more appreciative of Alien 3.
As for me? I like it...to a point.
The good stuff just barely outweighs the bad. Furthermore, the film is fairly polished and well edited considering all of the background crap going on. So I'm going to take a few moments to go over what I thought were the major pros and cons of the movie. Why some people may hate it and why others may like it.
0) Background and previous movies
I don't need say much about the previous movies that isn't already said.
The first Alien movie is a hallmark of horror suspense thrillers. The xenomorph's design and methods evoke the metaphorical fear of rape, impregnation and the unknown all in one package. The original design for the alien was very phallic, it's head resembling a giant penis to convey a fear of sexual violation. However, most of the terror came from the build-up in between the alien's attacks and not knowing who was safe and who wasn't.
John Hurt's facehugger attack and later chestbuster scenes combine equal parts horror and brutal gore that still holds up today. The cast was fleshed out and likable to where you feared for what was going to happen to them. Ellen Ripley stands out as a competent commanding figure and actually tried to prevent the infected John Hurt from getting back on the ship to protect the crew. She also turns out to be a very resourceful and determined character who eventually outsmarts and defeats the alien before going into cryo-sleep with her cat.
The second movie and my personal favorite was more of an action movie. But it was an action movie in the same way that Predator was. Both movies were centered around a cast that you would find in a generic action movie who are dropped into a horror movie against a foe that terrifies and overwhelms them. Some complained that the movie made the aliens into generic target-practice aliens. Except that the alien hive actually wiped out the marines and some only survived the first major fight because of Ripley's actions. Later, the only marine who survives is Hicks and he's still badly injured with the rest dying to the Alien soldiers.
It also developed Ripley as both a leader and gave her a pseudo-maternal bond with the colony survivor Newt. Ripley had just learned that her daughter had died when she was in cryo-stasis and was very emotionally torn by that knowledge. Yet, she's not using Newt as a substitute for her lost daughter, she actually comes to care for Newt and Newt in turn bonds with her during their mutual struggle for survival. The final battle between Ripley and the Alien queen is more than just a heroine fighting a monster, it's about two mothers fighting for their children.
So Aliens ends on a fairly high note. The Alien hive (at least the one we know of) is destroyed, the Queen Bitch sent out into space and Ripley and company reenter cryo-stasis as they fly back to Earth. The story ends on a fairly closed note, there's nowhere left to take Ripley's story at this point.
Unless you got...really creative...
Which leads to the biggest problem with Alien 3...
1) The base premise is a story-breaking plothole
I'll take this back if anyone can come up with a logical, in-universe explanation to this one question.
How did the egg get on the ship?
Aliens showed the Queen detach it's egg-sack when it pursued Ripley and Newt. Then it stowed away in the landing gear of the escape ship and that's how it got on the mother-ship, the Sulaco for the final showdown. But that movie didn't show it go anywhere else or that it had time to go anywhere else. So there doesn't appear to be any way for the queen to have laid an egg on the main ship or the landing gear. And why wouldn't anyone have seen it? Wouldn't it make sense for Ripley to check every inch of the ship to make sure that another alien didn't sneak on like the queen did?
There have been several fan theories going around, though none of them really stand up to scrutiny in relation to what is shown in the 2nd film. Some fan theories include the following: (1) The Queen either carried the eggs with her from the hive in Aliens and planted it on the Sulaco or simply laid the eggs there, despite having torn off her ovipositor (the ovipositor being simply the means to lay the eggs, and not the source of the eggs); Bishop retrieved an egg and later planted them on the Sulaco; or an Alien warrior/drone planted the egg on the dropship when Bishop was inside taking care of Hicks and waiting for Ripley.
Furthermore, Director David Fincher himself has stated in interviews that it is something the audience just has to accept in order for the story to move along. This more ore less confirms the queen egg, the super-facehugger and everything that came from it are artificial contrivances created for the sake of the movie. Every movie has plotholes, but this one is so major that the entire movie's existence hinges on it. The egg is what causes the heartache for Ripley, the thing that hangs the sword of Damocles over her head, the device by which the entire story is started.
And it makes no sense.
Furthermore, how did Ripley survive the crash? Neither cut of the movie has a plausible explanation for Ripley's survival. In the theatrical cut, the facehugger apparently fixed Ripley's pod and sealed it after breaking in. In the Assembly cut, Ripley washed ashore when the ship crashed into the very dirty sea and she's completely fine. That's another story-breaking plothole, but it's not surprising considering that the egg on the ship is a major plot contrivance in itself.
2) The death of Newt, Hicks and Bishop
On top of two story breaking contrivances, Ripley and the audience learn that all of the other survivors from the last movie are dead. They died in the crash with Hicks being impaled through a support beam and Newt drowned in fluids. The already damaged Bishop is salvageable, but soon after he's reactivated, he asks to be euthanized as he'd rather be nothing than continue on as a scrapped android.
To make things worst, Newt's body is displayed and dissected to ensure that she didn't have an alien in her. Then her body and Hicks' bodies are dumped into the furnace. Fun fact, the film crew actually filmed a rather gory and up close autopsy that test audiences found so grotesque that it didn't even see the light of day in the Assembly Cut. Hell, it's bad enough that that they dropped a bridge on Newt and then force Ripley to watch as her body's cut open to satisfy her paranoia.
This isn't beating a dead horse.
This is beating a dead horse, dragging the corpse across the field, cutting off its genitals, bleeding it out, mounting its head on a wall, turning the rest of the body into glue and forcing every other horse to watch for shits and giggles.
There isn't a bigger crime that a sequel can do than to systematically render everything done in the previous movie pointless. Ripley fought off the Alien Queen and destroyed an Alien Hive to save Newt! And now it was all for nothing! Hicks and his crew were on that colony to save anyone that they could and wipe out the aliens. Ripley grew as a character as she led these toughened soldiers against a nightmare out of hell and now that was all for nothing as the last survivor is dead. Bishop earned Ripley's trust and was one of the stand-outs of the previous movie, and now he's gone too.
That's what the death of these three characters represents. It represents a slap in the face to Aliens and anyone who was invested in what happened there or the characters who we grew attached to. And it was all done to cash in on a new Alien movie. No one sat down and thought of whether they should do this. No one sat down to think of how to make a new Alien movie to make money off of WITHOUT INVALIDATING THE PREVIOUS MOVIE!
3) Most of the cast is unlikable
To make things worst, I don't give a fuck about the majority of the new cast.
Apart from Ripley herself, the only new cast members worth caring about are Dr. Clemens played by Charles Dance; and Dillon played by Charles S Dutton. Everyone else is a mix of murderers, rapists and assholes. A group of them even try to rape Ripley until Dillon helps fight them off. Worst yet, is that the warden seems to place the blame for the threat of rape and murder on Ripley FOR BEING THERE AND BEING A WOMAN! Hell, in the assembly cut, one of the prisoners actually FREES the alien because he's crazy and thinks the alien is a god. Another prisoner suggests it would be easier to murder Ripley to make things easier on the inmates.
And I'm supposed to care about these people just because the alien is killing them?
The story tries to portray these prisoners as seeking redemption. They've been isolated on this former prison colony for their crimes and thus turn to religion as a means of atoning for their sins. But apart from this informed trait and the fact that they do give their lives to try and kill the alien, I don't see or feel enough about these people to be invested in them. So when they die, it becomes akin to watching dumb college kids get murdered in a slasher film. I'm not terrified or instilled with any sadness or dread for their deaths.
Worst is that when they do actually start to act in a heroic manner, they die anyway. At the end of the movie, Dillon convinces the surviving prisoners to use themselves as bait to lure the Alien into a hot lead mold and drown it. I was actually starting to like these dredges of morality and humanity, but they get killed off before I could really become invested and attached to them enough to care.
Clemens and Dillon are the exceptions due to the acting ability put into their performances. Furthermore, they're shown in fairly sympathetic lights despite their past crimes and even get several moments to display how they've changed and become better people. There are even moments where the prisoners consider the alien divine retribution or don't give a damn if it wipes out humanity if it escapes. But they all die anyway, so what's the point?
4) On the edge of Full Grimdark
The best way to sum up the Movie's problems is that it went to the edge of Full Grimdark for no reason than to try and be dark.
Everyone knows that you never go full grimdark. And now for some homework, cause this is something I'm going to bring up in future reviews.
Full Grimdark is when a story is so bleak and devoid of any conflict or character worth investing in, that the audience stops caring about it. Grimdark is largely my personal shorthand for Darkness Induced Apathy. Something I've accused past movies and games of falling into such as Rebuild of Evangelion 3 and Dragon Age 2 with very good reason. Here, I believe that while the movie isn't fully grimdark, it's grimdark enough to where I don't care as much as I did in previous movies.
Let's check off a few examples that are not Full Grimdark so that you know what I mean:
Halo: Reach - The darkest Halo game ever made. All of the main cast except for Jun dies including your character. Nothing you do will save Reach as it's fall is already written in stone. You are merely a spectator to history and despite being as badass as the Master Chief, your character isn't immune to the sword of damocles that swings down at them. However, it's not grimdark because your actions do have impact and meaning. The destruction of the Supercarrier deprives the Covenant of a powerful weapon even if Jorge's sacrifice didn't save Reach as he wanted. Your aid during the evacuation and escort missions allow many civilians and military personnel to have a chance to safely evacuate Reach including people like Buck and Johnson. Furthermore, your Spartan passes the Torch in the form of Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn and they in turn light that torch into the fire that saves humanity.
Dark, but not grimdark.
Batman: The Killing Joke - Barbara Gordon is crippled by the Joker and the ending is fairly bleak as neither Batman nor the Joker won their latest fight. Hell, both the hero and the villain are right regarding the speeches they give at the end. The Joker's right in that it only takes one bad day to turn someone insane as what happened to him and Batman. However, Batman is right that people have the will to resist that one bad day and stay good people as Gordon did and perhaps those who fell had already fallen before that Bad Day. Gordon doesn't break and insists on bringing in the Joker the legal way despite what the Joker did to him and his daughter. And if you think Batman killed the Joker at the end, this can be seen as a good thing considering that letting the Joker live is a constant recipe for people getting killed.
So very dark and bittersweet, but not grimdark.
The Silmarillion - Elven heroes rise and fall; Kingdoms are destroyed; tragedies feature fathers killing their sons; friends murdering their rescuers; brothers marrying their sisters and both kill themselves; and all of the deeds of heroism and courage are nothing compared to the declarations of fate. Even the final defeat of Morgoth is accomplished only after Beleriand is destroyed and the sacred jewels that everyone killed each other over are lost to the sea, the earth and the sky anyway.
However, through all of that sorrow there remains good in the world. The survivors of that horrid conflict are made the wiser by the conflict and go on to build a new home in Middle-Earth or Numenor. Furthermore, each tragedy was a stepping stone that built on each other so that good may endure until evil's day was over. The suffering of the characters was never in vain nor was there no purpose to it.
Very dark, but not grimdark.
Dragon Age Origins - Dark? Yes. Somber. Yes. Bloody and pessimistic at times? Definitely. But the Grey Warden's actions ultimately save the country and if he plays his cards right, he could become king of said country! That ain't grimdark!
Unlike Dragon Age 2...that game went full grimdark for reasons that don't need to be repeated here.
Alien 3 was an inch away from full grimdark. As said before, the conflict is devoid of meaning as its an artificial construction and it's debatable as to whether or not Ripley's death actually has a good purpose. Key characters from Aliens were killed off by said contrivance and the cast who replaces them are mostly unlikable and anyone who is likable or has a chance to become likable dies anyway.
The only thing that keeps it from being definitively full grimdark is whether or not all of the death was worth it in the end.
In truth, we don't know enough about the alien/xenomorph species to know whether or not Hadley's Hope or the LV-226 was the only hive. We know for certain that the aliens are not native to the planet and eggs crashed there many years ago aboard an Engineer/Space Jockey ship. For all we know, there could be another planet where the aliens are thriving or another ship with alien eggs on it. Even with Alien Covenant, it's unclear as to whether David was the one who created the Xenomorph species or if he just replicated what the Engineers had already accomplished considering the xenomorph carving in Prometheus. In short, there's a high probability that the xenomorph species is still alive in some shape and form.
If this is true, then Ripley and all of those inmates died for nothing. Then the movie is truly full grimdark. Nothing truly mattered at the end, even Weyland-Yutani is only momentarily halted and could just try another suicidal attempt to get a xenomorph elsewhere.
On the other hand, there is a probability that while the aliens are not native to LV-226, that ship contained the only clutch of xenomorph eggs. Therefore, the colony's destruction would wipe out those eggs and Ripley's sacrifice would ensure that the aliens were completely wiped out. Thus all of the dying and pain would have had some meaning and benefit to it.
Unless someone was stupid enough to magically retrieve Ripley's dna from the colony and it's still viable enough to not only clone Ripley, but the alien queen inside of her. But...that would be stupid and...impossible right?
Right?
Come one guys...don't leave me hanging...
It's not like there's a warrior species who keeps around alien queens to bred out more aliens to be hunted for sport and coming of age contests...right?
Right?
Why are you looking at me like that?
5) So what did I like?
Since I've spent so much time tearing this movie a new asshole, it would be fair to talk about the good things. The things that make me actually like this movie despite how it went full Grimdark. Furthermore, the Assembly Cut did a good polishing job of bringing the story as close as possible to the Director's original vision before Executive meddling screwed him.
A) Dragon Alien
This is a no-brainer. The Aliens, also known as Xenomorphs (which also means alien) are one of my favorite antagonists of all time. They are powerful, they're stealthy, they're creepily and artistically designed, and they are parasites who use their victims to increase their numbers. They're even so adaptive that they take on traits of their host such as the Deacon in Prometheus which was born from an Engineer and the Predalien born from a Predator.
The Dragon of Alien 3, also known as the Runner, is no exception. During production HR Giger actually referred to the base design as the Bambi Alien. Which one can see, as it was born from a four-legged animal (dog in the theatrical cut and a dead cow in the Assembly cut) and walks on all fours. This makes the creature especially agile and fast when the alien was already shown to be fast in previous films.
You'd think that this wouldn't be as scary after Aliens already showed Ripley facing off with tougher and stronger soldier-caste aliens and an entire hive of them too, right? Wrong. In Aliens, Ripley had weapons and a squadron of Colonial Marines to back her up and "even" the odds. Here, the Runner is facing foes who have no weapons to kill it with. They are practically helpless and must rely on teamwork, strategy and the mechanisms of the colony to trap and destroy the Runner.
Granted, I don't think it's a smart idea to try to guard a colony of prisoners without some kind of weapons. You know...in case they try to start a riot...kill other inmates...I know that the colony is isolated and the prisoners would basically have nowhere to go if they escaped...but I still question how that colony ran for as long as it did when the guards have no weapons or means to subdue the prisoner population. Then again, the movie would be very short if Ripley could go to a weapons locker, grab a gun and shoot the Runner and then shoot herself.
But they weren't going for another Aliens movie, they were clearly trying to make something closer to the first movie.
B) The Setting and Suspense
In terms of cinematography, setting and lighting, this movie is a masterpiece.
The prison is designed with two thirds of it dominated by either darkness or by fire. It truly reflects a place that metaphorically stands on the edge between life, purgatory and hell. A labyrinth inferno where isolation is king and corridors could contain the spawn of hell itself waiting to pounce on the souls of the damned. The molten lead vats look like lakes of fire and even normal areas like the medical office have the look of morgues as if those within are just waiting to die.
The shafts and tunnels give a false illusion of a path out of hell only to be taken to another part of the inferno. In scenes where the prisoners gather together, several prisoners are seen sitting in these pipes above the others as if holding onto a false path out of their nightmare. But in truth, it doesn't matter where these prisoners sit, they're just as damned as the ones on the floor.
It's also a great place for an antagonist like the Dragon to thrive. There's so many knocks and spots for the creature to stowaway in wait until it can strike. If you look at the Dragon as a symbol for a demon or even the devil himself, then it could look like this monster knows the metaphorical hell better than the inmates because it's from hell. And the setting merely empowers the beast to pick off the prisoners one by one. You just never know where the Dragon will strike from next. Even when the prisoners start to use the environment to their advantage to trap and destroy it, the alien still whittles down the prisoners because the setting favors it over the prisoners.
C) Ripley's Dilemna
Ripley is in hell.
Everyone she's come to care about is dead, she's stuck on an island of misfit rapists and murderers, an alien is on the loose, and she's been impregnated with a queen.
Yet, she doesn't break.
She's clearly at the end of her rope in terms of sanity, but pushes on to finish off the aliens once and for all. When she finds out she's carrying a queen, she is willing to let Dillon kill her to destroy it. However, Dillon convinces her to help destroy the Dragon Alien before she kills herself.
Then she takes a dive into the molten lead, the alien busts out of her and she uses the last of her strength to hold onto the alien to keep it from escaping. She fought to her last breath and died knowing that she won.
Furthermore, she's not intimidated by the prisoners. She's faced xenomorphs who embody everything that these men are guilty of and won, she's not intimidated when Dillon bluntly tells her what he's done to scare her. She just makes a short joke about it and Dillon actually finds it funny. Despite the antagonism and the attempted rape scene, Ripley still manages to rally the prisoners through force of will to fight the alien. Hell, her first plan to capture it actually works and it was only released because a prisoner went crazy.
When faced with the loss of everything she cared about, when faced with her own death and when faced with monster from hell, Ripley just stood up and looked all of these things in the eyes. I'm not going to bother talking about how Sigourney Weaver portrayed the character, everything that could be said has already been said. This movie had many problems, but Weaver was not one of them.
D) Dillon
This guy is the most memorable character in the whole damn movie.
He has a lot of memorable lines and speeches, all of which are excellently orated by Charles S Dutton. He's a strong leader for the prisoners and seems to be their moral center. He's apparently the one keeping them on their path to redemption and spiritually guiding them through their metaphorical purgatory.
It's ironic that I found myself liking this guy so much when he's an admitted murderer and rapist. Perhaps I still like him because I can plainly see how he's repented of those past deeds. At one point, he actually saves Ripley from several inmates trying to rape her and beats them fairly bloody. I see enough of him to where I'm convinced that he's genuinely on a path of redemption unlike most of the other inmates.
When confronted with the alien, he's at first apathetic. But when he sees that Ripley is willing to die to kill off the aliens, he's convinced to make the ultimate sacrifice and convinces the other inmates to do so. His speech is one that has influenced my life:
"We're all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet? Or on your fucking knees? Begging? I ain't much for begging! Nobody ever gave me nothing. So I say fuck that thing! Let's fight it!"
He's come to accept that he may very well die fighting the Alien. But he chooses to die fighting, to die standing up to it. Dutton does a really great job of conveying a rather morally complex character. One sullied by his past sins and yet stands on moral ground as a righteous man in the end. It may be helped by Dutton's real life experience as a past inmate for manslaughter and possession of a deadly weapon. He can really play Dillon because in a way, he was Dillon at one point in his life and Dutton draws on that experience to make Dillon more life-like.
Conclusion
As I've said before the story of Alien 3 really has no narrative legitimacy. We're free to ignore or substitute the events of the 3rd movie with one of our creation and our version will be just as valid as the film. Hell, there's really no reason for it to exist apart from that Fox wanted to make more money.
But it's not a bad movie. It'll be hard to be as attached to the new cast as you were with the previous two movies and the bleak overtones create a clear distance between the audience and truly investing in this story. However, when accepted as it is, it's at least an entertaining watch. It has several strong performances, an interesting setting, a menacing antagonist and Ripley just cements why we all love her and hated to see her go.
I'm very mixed...there's not enough for me to say don't watch it and yet there's value to be had from watching. I personally find it easier to watch by considering it an alternate reality or perhaps a really bad dream that Ripley's having while in cryo-stasis. Again, as the movie's existence is a contrivance, I consider that explanation as valid as the movie itself. And as an alternate reality movie, it's good. It's certainly way better than the later Alien movies in spite of it's production problems.
In all, I'll just say that the first two alien movies are the only must watches of the series. Feel free to skip this one, but if you do watch it then make up your own mind on whether it's worthwhile or not despite it's problems. Me? I don't hate it and there's plenty that I like about it, but I can't recommend it to Alien fans or general moviegoers as there's just...better movies to watch than this.
If you must watch Alien 3, then watch the Assembly Cut. It's the best version available and its the best presentation of this hit-and-miss tale.
Nuff Said.
THE END
Disclaimer: Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 are all the property of 20th Century Fox
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