Over the next few days my friend and expert on the horror genre Lizzy will be recapping the Alien quadrilogy, reminding us what happened in the previous films and giving us some analysis, trivia and background about this classic series, then she'll be taking on prometheus, including thoughts on the alternative start and endings. Hope you enjoy reading these as much as I have! Beware though, ahead are quite a few spoilers.
Alien3 (1992)
Director: David Fincher
Rotten Tomatoes rating 42%
Start running…again
Alien3 had a troubled birth. When shooting began there was no finished script. The proposed director was cut before the shooting started and David Fincher, who had never made a feature film, was brought in at the last minute. Fincher was never given complete control of the script and the film was hacked to pieces without the director’s knowledge. Fincher went on to direct several Oscar winning films and has completely disowned Alien3. Unlike the Scott, Cameron and Jeunet, Fincher did not record an introduction for the box set.
As the opening credits of Alien3 , the assembly cut, unfold a facehugger crawls across the cryo-tubes and a pod jettisons from the ship Ripley and the others were escaping on. The pod crashes on Fiorina 161, a planet housing a maximum-security penal colony.
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor and her arrival courses ructions with all male population. Some seem overjoyed at her arrival while others are angry pointing out that they have all taken the pledge. Super Andrews (Brian Glover) mindful of the fact that most of his charges have been convinced of sexual offences decrees that Ripley will stay in the infirmary until the authorities come to pick her up.
In the infirmary Ripley awakens as she receiving an injection from the doctor Clemens (Charles Dance). He tells her what happened to the others and she demands to see the wreckage. Newt is reported to have drowned in the cryo-tube. Her body was intact and was taken to the morgue. The body that is shown of Newt is in fact one of the dummies of Carrie Henn for the escape sequence in Aliens.
Ripley demands an autopsy citing a contagion. Clemens performs this and finds nothing he did not expect to see but before he can confront Ripley Andrews arrives. Clemens lies to Andrews telling that he was making sure that there was no outbreak of cholera. Andrews responds by informing Ripley of the scum that populate his prison and warning her to stay away until the rescue ship arrives.
As Andrews precedes over the cremation of Newt and Hick the carcass of an ox –in the cinema release this is a dog- begins to break apart. The religious text delivered by preacher Dillon (Charles S. Dutton) is intercut with scenes of the unobserved baby alien breaking out and running away. At the same time Ripley has a nosebleed.
Ripley, who is now shaven headed and in prison fatigues, causes heads to turn as she enters the canteen. She tried to thank Dillon for his words but he tells her that he is a murderer and rapist and she doesn't want to know him. He then informs her that he is waiting for God to return.
Sitting above the others Clemens explains the religion that the prisoners have. Those that remain on the planet practice a fundamentalist hybrid of apocalyptical faith. They have also chose to stay on Fiorina. Having explained this Clemens asks Ripley to tell him why she really wanted the autopsy. She does not tell him.
In the pipes far below the alien claims its first prey just before Ripley is seen waking up next to Clemens who is revealed to have a barcode on his back. He tells her that he is not a prisoner but demurs when she asks for an explanation.
Clemens is called to the alien’s victim. The unfortunate man was pulled into a fan. It is assumed that the air carried him in after getting too close but there is a burn in the metal of the fan the same as the one that was on Ripley’s pod.
After seeing this, the doctor goes to find Ripley. He finds her searching the wreckage for the flight recorder. She asks for an audio computer, which the colony does not have. Instead she decides to find Bishop’s remains.
Clemens is called to Andrews. The network is interested in Ripley. They want her closely observed. When Clemens tries to walk out Andrews bullies him into staying. He hints that knows something has been going on between Clemens and Ripley and demands details about her. Clemens gives the bare minimum.
Ripley meanwhile searches the rubbish tip and finds Bishop’s remains. As she carries him back inside she is attacked by a group of prisoners. Before they can gang rape her, an angry Dillon comes to her aid and re-educates them.
In a darken chamber the alien claims its second victim. This time there are witnesses. As these men try to escape, in a rather confused way and while screaming, the alien picks another one off.
Ripley reconnects Bishop’s melted top half. She asks him to access the flight recorder. From this she discovers that there was an alien aboard the ship. She asks if the company knows and Bishop informs her that they know everything. He then asks her to be disconnected stated that he would rather be nothing than not be top of the line.
The alien survivor Gollic (Paul McGann) is found burned and raving. He states that a dragon killed the others. Andrews prefers to belief that the man was responsible for the deaths but Ripley tells another tale. When she informs him of the alien threat she is horrified to learn that the colony has no weapons and the only link to the outside is a monthly supply ship.
Gollic continues to rant as Ripley receives treatment for a number of minor symptoms. He tells Ripley that she is going to die. Clemens curtains him away and then reveals the reason he is on Fiorina. He was a morphine addict and accidently killed a patient. When his sentence was up he chose to stay.
Across the room Gollic struggles against his restrains. Feet appear underneath the curtain and a shadow fills the space. The alien reaches out grabs Clemens and kills him. The alien, who appears anatomically different from those in previous instalments, presses its head to Ripley’s but it does not kill her.
Andrews has called the prisoners together to quash the rumours. As he is doing so Ripley runs in to tell him about Clemens. Andrews doesn’t have time to take this in as the alien grabs him and pulls him into the airshaft.
The men appear disorganised without Andrews and ask Ripley to be their leader as she is the closest thing to an officer they have. Bizarrely her rank in this film seems to her increase to Lieutenant. Ripley agrees and with the help of Mr Aaron (Ralph Brown) formulates a plan. They will burn the alien out and then trap it in the foundry.
As Ripley helps cover the walls with pitch she doubles over in pain. The fire starts prematurely burning out another couple of prisoners. Ripley, Aaron and Dillon try to lead the men to safety but the alien drags one away.
With the alien again on the loose and Ripley’s symptoms worsening. She gets herself to a medi scanner and with the help of Aaron runs the test. She is looking for haemorrhage but Aaron sees something different. Inside Ripley’s chest these is the embryo of an alien queen.
Ripley tells Aaron to get the rescue team to turn back. He refuses because he is due to go home on the next rotation. Ripley tries to make him understand that the company will not kill the alien but Aaron is desperate to get back to his wife and kid. When Ripley goes to confront the alien knowing that it will not kill her while the queen is gestating the company makes contact and ordering Ripley to be quarantined.
Ripley goes to confront the alien. Despite having already seen that the alien will not attack her she tries to goad it into doing so. Ripley knows that she is under a death sentence and that they company will want the queen inside her. Yet feels unable to commit suicide. She explains this to Dillon who is sceptical about the alien. Ripley asks him to kill her but he refuses on the grounds that he needs Ripley to kill the alien. He promises that once it is dead he will euthanize her afterwards.
Dillon tries to rally the prisoners for a suicide mission. Aaron refuses to belief that the company won't help them and thinks that they should wait for the rescue team. Ripley repeats the crew expendable order and after some stirring words from Dillon they decide it is better to go out fighting.
The plan is to trap the alien in the foundry and burn it in the molten lead. Once the alien is trapped men in white suits arrive. The first thing that they ask is if Ripley is still alive. While she is luring the alien through the lead works they storm through the canteen.
Meanwhile Dillon sacrifices himself to pin the alien down. Unfortunately the agile creature is able to jump out of the lead and though burning it's still alive. Ripley turns the sprinklers on it causing it to cool and shatter.
Before she can relax she comes face to face with Bishop. Only this Bishop is not an android. He is the designer for the company. He tells Ripley that they are not interested in the creature and that they are going to cut the queen out of her and destroy it. The human Bishop tells Ripley to trust him. For moment she appears to do so but then escapes to the walkway below. Aaron at this point realises that Ripley was right and hits the company man over the head, which results in Aaron being shot. Bishop then tries to reason with Ripley but she takes a swan dive into the lead and escapes the company forever.
Many people will say that they do not like Alien3. What many people are unable to explain is why. So far the most honest that I’ve heard was from my dad who said he didn’t like it because of Newt dying.
There is a theory that a flawed production creates a vibe that follows the film. This does not mean that the film is bad just that it will always be viewed as less than perfect. It may not be fair to view the film as tainted but there were definitely problems on set.
There are two stories about what went wrong with the editing of Alien3. The first is that David Fincher got so pissed off with the lack of control in the project that he walked out before it was finished. The other is that the film was edited without his knowledge.
Another completely apocryphal suggested that there was a completely different version of the film, as happened with the Exorcist prequels a few years ago. This is not true. There is no director’s cut of Alien3 instead there is the assembly cut release in 2003. This is 31 minutes longer than the theatre release and is basically the unedited version. Incidentally this edition contains more unreleased scenes than the director’s cuts of the other three films put together.
The original teaser trailer suggested that the film was set on Earth. Apparently it used the tagline On Earth Everyone Can Hear you Scream.
This idea was based on the graphic novels that had been released after Aliens. When the studio decided to change the official timeline of what happened to the survivors these had to be reissued with the character’s names altered. The little girl went from being Newt to Billy.
Then a draft of the script was started with the action set in a monastery. They actually started building sets for this and then altering them to fit the prison.
This was also the reason for the chastity pledge and the religion that the prisoners follow. There were many changes to the script but this was one of the ones that work best. Monks would not have been as interesting as characters. As it is Ripley is forced to band together with men who are deeply flawed and disturbed human beings. It explains the motivation that they have for sacrificing themselves. They are all searching for some sort of redemption.
According to David Fincher’s account the studio was so desperate to repeat the success of Aliens that they did not want to lose control of the picture. What they ended up though with was a film that got lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating out of all the Alien films.
- Lizzy
- Lizzy
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