This one just goes to support my theory that the guys running Fox are all functionally retarded Mensa rejects. They sat out almost entirely on Aliens, which turned out to be one of the greatest sequels of all time. Oh, but it was successful, and they weren’t about to make that mistake twice! They demanded a second Alien sequel from producers David Giler and Walter Hill, more or less forcing them to fashion a story where there wasn’t one.
The challenge in following Aliens is that, for all intents and purposes, the alien species was good and eradicated from the universe. At least, the beasties from LV-426 were, and the films somehow never saw fit to open up its world and determine just where they first came from. Bringing aliens back into the Ripley scenario would almost certainly stretch credibility, and furthermore Ripley’s story was more or less totally resolved too.
It seems the Ripley issue was at least acknowledged, since the first of many, many screenplays commissioned redirects the focus upon side characters Hicks and Bishop, granting Ripley a glorified cameo, then placing her into a film-long coma. (The idea now was to make a two-film arc, ala the Back to the Future sequels, with Ripley making her grand return for the fourth film.) This script, by “Neuromancer”’s William Gibson, is available online for all to see. I vaguely recall having skimmed it in the past, on one of my more bored days. It ups the action ante from Aliens by a factor of four, seeing Hicks leading Marines in an off-Earth Anchorpoint station against an inexplicably thriving xenomorph threat. Gibson makes some modifications to the species, necessary to “improve” upon the alien homeworld-set Aliens. Seemingly, the little buggers now spread their infection aerially like a plague, in a way I don’t fully understand at the moment. But whatever, main moron man Joe Roth didn’t like this Ripley-lite script, and so Fox’s inexplicable anti-Ripley sentiment was totally reversed – Come hell or Tabasco sauce, Sigourney Weaver will return for a third Alien, $5 million asking price or no!
An entirely new script was drafted by Eric Red, writer of horror semi-classics such as Near Dark and The Hitcher. Again, the screenwriter was free to arbitrarily set the new location the Sulaco wound up at – now a small town America-style space station – and to also define the weird new genetic skills the aliens pick up – now crossing with other species such as mosquitoes, cattle, dogs and chicken. That’s…just…crazy. This notion sounds dependent upon a good director; sadly, at the time their director was Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island, Deep Blue Sea, Exorcist: The Beginning, and all suffering on this Earth). But to the immeasurable benefit of the Alien franchise, Harlin left to botch up Die Hard 2 instead, leaving this latest iteration without the proverbial paddle, its release date growing ever closer.
The next screenwriter, again fashioning an entirely new screenplay, was David Twohy, later director of Vin Diesel’s Alien-esque Pitch Black. Finally an idea appears which would get reused in the final film – the prison planet setting. Most of the other material in this script sounds precisely like the plot of Alien: Resurrection, so we’ll leave it be for now.
Now there was another director set in place – Vincent Ward, also writing. This guy would later go on to do What Dreams May Come, so at least they had a visual stylist on their hands. This time, the setting was an all-wood monastery planet, which sounds more interesting than the standard rotation of space stations ever could. Here is a natural religious angle – the celibate monks believe the latest alien monster is the Devil in the flesh, sent to punish them for their impure thoughts concerning Ripley. This version went through major pre-production, with some of the design ideas making their eventual way to the Internet, and to certain “Alien Quadrilogy” DVDs (apparently they forgot a four-entry series is called a “tetralogy”). Behold!
For whatever reason, Ward also dropped from the film – I like to think he was upset with excessive studio-meddling. Be that as it may, the release date was now imminent, again without a workable script or director. For better or worse, long-term franchise producers Hill and Giler took it upon themselves to create the new screenplay (with help from a certain Larry Ferguson). They opted to reuse the worst element of Ward’s effort (the plotline), while jettisoning the best part (the wood planet). Random unrelated ideas are incorporated from other drafts, so now the setting is again a prison planet, but with a plot means for monks. Because we’re not already jumping through enough hoops to create another Alien movie.
The poor jerk they finally wrangled into directing the film was first-timer David Fincher, who would go on to later success with Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac (and sure, Academy, fine, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well, whatever). It’s interesting how, in retrospect, the main Alien franchise has been a haven for recognizable auteurs. At the time, though, Fincher was a mere music video director, and try though he may have under a strained production with an unfinished script, but his efforts to inject seriousness into this entry merely betray that origin. Hell, Fincher’s pretty much disowned this movie entirely.
The picture finally released was one Alien3 (Alien to the Power of 3, only I can’t figure out how to do a superscript in Blogger), a desperate, weird sequel naming aberration presumably meant to distract viewers from how the title indicates a retread. It does not even reflect Fincher’s vision, as Fox inexplicably nitpicked to little effect even following the film’s completion. With all this disaster leading up to Alien3, it’s a testament almost entirely to Sigourney Weaver (and the production design) that it’s as good as it is. Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s a travesty of a sequel.
Alien3 opens by breaking a vast number of sequel rules, so whatever technical qualities it may have are founded upon an avalanche of bad ideas. And what’s the first mistake they make? To kill off everyone except Ripley! The entire point of Aliens was for Ripley to rescue others from the aliens, a part of her character’s evolution. But this can never stay, not when money’s in the air. And how are these “extraneous” characters (Hicks, Newt, Bishop) knocked off? Seemingly, that multi-tasking alien queen Ripley dispatched in the last outing somehow found the time to lay an egg during her massive battle sequence (she wasn’t on the Sulaco long enough to do it at any other point). This egg is in plain, audience-friendly sight, suggesting Ripley must have been feeling uncharacteristically lazy to miss it before putting everyone to hyper-sleep. So basically, there’s an egg here because a sequels demands so. Sucks to be Ripley and friends.
All this is conveyed on screen through quick, unrewarding glimpses, the sort of technique I might almost compare to a…music video. A facehugger emerges from the egg and, not finding a face to hug, it…does something. A scant amount of acid blood gets out of it at some point (to little ill effect for the beastie), and this is all it takes for the sturdy Sulaco to turn into a smoking wreck and jettison the “EEV” escape pod possessing our sleeping human heroes. Man, a far huger amount of dripped acid couldn’t damage the far-homelier Nostromo in Alien, so I’m clearly thinking this stuff through more than the movie did.
Now, the trailers for Alien3 had a better idea for the movie than like a dozen screenwriters could come up with. They promised, indirectly, it would take place on Earth – this has become something of a holy grail for Alien fans ever since then. And just as we’re expecting a mayhem-happy crash landing on Earth, instead the EEV crashes onto that damn prison planet. The dialogue (and DVD captioning) list the planet as Fury 161, but on screen text and the Internet would have me believe it’s Fiorina 161. Ah, little discrepancies do not inspire confidence.
Now, you could imagine some pretty wild things when imagining a prison planet, and they are nothing like Fury 161. Due to the plot structure demands of an Alien film (at least an Alien film that wishes to be little more than a retread of Alien), this so-called prison is merely a motley crew of 25 guys, totally lacking in any and all means to battle the inevitable rampaging alien (things such as guard weapons, which surely a prison would have). And because of the film’s convoluted pre-production, the scant remaining prisoners have all taken religion – late movie exposition provides oddball “justification” for this, something so awkward it merely raises more questions. The prisoners are an uninteresting lot, lacking proper introductions, personalities or identifiable traits; they are forever an “other” to us. The biggest problem with them, though, even from a simple filmmaking standpoint, is their baldness. See, take a physically similar bunch of white guys, all with Aussie and Kiwi accents (a seemingly clever “Australia was once a prison” joke gotten out of hand), and see if the audience can tell ‘em apart. The ants in Antz have more distinguishing features than these crackers. This really hurts things once the climax starts up.
The major problem with Alien3, even if we accept its forced explanation for perpetuating the xenomorph species, is how intently it’s a mere Alien retread. Following Aliens, the example was set for how not to be a remake in sequel’s clothing. Audiences expected it now, making this reversion all the more inessential. A couple of scant milk bones are tossed to alleviate these issues, but they hardly make an impact.
Getting back to the plot recap – The various prisoners, who aren’t really prisoners except when the movie wants them to be, crane the EEV back to their pathetic little prison colony – apparently the only structure on this whole unlivable planet. The production design makes some token attempts to depict both the planet and the prison as Hell. This would be a nice idea – if they followed through with it! Rather, the overstated design elements start off interesting enough (all industrial concrete, chains and molten iron), but soon just bore us with their omnipresent orangeness. At least the look doesn’t mimic design ideas from the first two films, but after a while it’s all just a murk. Why do some many big budgeted movies and video games insist on monochrome palates that undercut their visual excesses?!
Okay, I’ve gotten sidetracked again. Promise, from now on I’ll just bitch about the plot. So anyway, that EEV is lifted to the prison, and a random Rottweiler named Spike is allowed to ride in the craft – where it has an unfilmed encounter with that cute, tenacious little facehugger. So this doggie shall soon play hound host to the alien. Originally, under Fincher’s guidance, the animal host was an ox, which surely grabs your attention more – Apparently Fox switched it to a dog, because people love dogs. What the hell kind of logic for a reshoot is that?! Whatever, dog or ox or jackalope, this affords the film’s one mere new wrinkle to alien biology: the beasts pick up traits of whatever creature hatches them. Following the vast bug-like colonies of Aliens, this is minor trivia, surely not enough to base a film around. Besides, the ox/dog alien’s redesign isn’t distinct enough as seen to make this change evident…On second thought after a bathroom break, this is a far less effective alien design, made worse because the original iconic design never makes an appearance.
Man, I can just rant endlessly about this franchise, huh? Anyway, we get to know the few notable members of Fury. There is medical officer Clemens (Charles Dance), grotesque, fat warden stereotype Andrews (Brian Glover), and his assistant of low normal intelligence (that is, IQ 85) Aaron (Ralph Brown). There is also religious leader Dillon (Charles S. Dutton), who is the only prisoner I can positively tell apart, partly because he’s both black and wears reading glasses. Good job, guys, give two all-essential distinguishing features to one guy!
Ripley awakes, sensing audience restlessness, and asks to see the wrecked EEV. Noting an acid burn on Newt’s pod, she asks to see Newt’s body. It’s not enough of a middle finger for them to kill off Newt, but Ripley now wants her to be gorily autopsied on screen. (This movie flirts with vicious gore, but usually shies away – it’s still the bloodiest Alien yet, compensating for its faults.) We know Ripley is searching for an alien incubating in Newt’s chest, yet Clemens doesn’t know this. In fact, the plot is clear enough to series fans that I barely notice there is no explanatory exposition. Either we understand Ripley’s predicament, or we think she’s nuts. Ripley demands a cremation of both Newt and Hicks, and now out of nowhere Clemens reveals another strange, needless detail about Fury – every man there is a “double-Y chromo.” Considering the prison’s original thousands of inmates, it’s astounding how this awful future had so many hyper-males with Australian accents. There’s a joke in there somewhere.
Dillon oversees the ceremonial body cremation, performed in the prison’s foundry – its purpose, beyond plot purposes, is never explained. Here Fincher fashions himself a Copolla, recreating the Godfather baptism scene by intercutting between Dillon’s religious service and the xenomorph’s birthing. It bursts forth from Spike’s chest, giving new meaning to “gorehound.”
Soon Ripley shaves herself – No, you sicko deviant, she shaves her head! You thought the same filthy thing when given V For Vendetta’s plot synopsis, didn’t you? And much like Natalie Portman after her, a shaven-headed Sigourney Weaver is strangely enticing. (It helps to remove attention from her always-unbecoming Ripley haircut – that’s just my problem.) The movie’s brief explanation for this odd style choice is…”lice.” Hmm, those dirty people in my apartment building never had to shave when they were infested. Anyway, Ripley heads to the mess hall and – Hey look! It’s Peter Postlethwait in a completely useless role! Drat this movie to heck!
The body count official starts, as the “teenaged” xenomorph goes all dilophosaurus on Spike’s handler, spitting acid in his eyes and thus sending him tumbling into a great big old spinning fan blade. There’s enough blood and entrails here to frighten the squeamish, but not enough for horror fans. Who was this meant for? (Studio executives.)
This accident means everyone can acknowledge the death, but can remain ignorant about the alien’s presence. Damn it! The first two films kept characters and audiences knowing the exact same things, so using this hoary old “don’t believe the survivor” cliché in the third entry is really unappealing. Also, we don’t learn the victim’s name (Murphy) until after his death, a sure sign of a lesser, more exploitative movie.
Speaking of exploitation, let’s threaten Ripley with rape! Oh yeah, that’s was we all came to Alien3 to see. Whatever, a movie too prudish to show proper gory viscera isn’t about to follow through with a filthy rape scene – this is 90s mainstream, remember, not 70s grindhouse. So along comes Dillon to rescue Ripley in a “hard ass” action scene that is totally out of place here.
Looking over the shot clock, it’s time for another scene of alien carnage – Violence is always inevitable when we spend inordinate time in the company of minor characters doing nothing. So three bald, interchangeable guys are busy doing some sort of unspecified work down in the lower foundry kilns when various candles go out. Oh yeah, they light stuff with candles here. One guy goes to relight them (what an odd little setup), only to get a standard death-by-xenomorph. You know, the one where he screams a bit, the alien’s toothy tongue shoots at the camera, followed by a tasteful insert of scant blood. Get ready to see that about seven more times in this movie. The other two guys flee the alien. One of them (an honest to goodness black guy) gets this movie’s other alien kill – the patented dragged-screaming-into-the-ceiling moment, with that same tasteful quantity of blood dribbling down. The other guy screams in terror, and we cut scene. Surely he’s dead now, right?...Right?
Ripley alone is here to keep things involving until the alien’s presence it made clearer. At this stage, she proceeds to recover the EEV’s black box, hooking it up to the mangled remains of Bishop the android (Lance Henriksen, returning largely as a special effect). Here she learns for certain about that lovable little facehugger’s antics aboard the Sulaco. She also knows that the Company knows, and is presently sending an evac crew to pick her up. Following Aliens’ depiction of Weyland-Yutani as an incompetently bureaucratic entity (courtesy of Burke), here they are back to Purely Eeee-vil, ‘cause you gotta have a human villain in your crazy monster movie for…some reason. And they still want that danged xenomorph for a little biological testing – Geez! Can it really yield that much?! Then Ripley performs robo-euthanasia on Bishop, because this movie certainly knows what the audience wants – and totally avoids it.
That third guy from the last alien attack gets dragged into med lab, babbling about a “dragon.” So I guess he wasn’t killed. Lazy alien. Its actions here are driven more by plot demands than pure animal instinct, making it more of a garden variety slasher than I’m accustomed to in my xenomorphs (and the first movie was a slasher). Everyone except Ripley blames Golic (for that’s the guy’s ridiculous name) for killing the others – Oh, yeah, that makes the most sense. It’s with all this stuff that warden Andrews’ idiotic obstinacy becomes necessary,
Clemens begins to believe Ripley’s fears, even though she still inexplicably refuses to reveal the whole truth to her fellows. They’ve even started up a little physical relationship together, not to satisfy any character motivations on Ripley’s part, but to satisfy some executive’s dumbass feeling that an Alien movie needs a throwaway romance. Ah, but this romance truly is throwaway, because there’s that darned alien, tongue cracking Clemens’ shaven skull wide open! It may act by the whims of the plot, but at least that plot is contented to kill off useful characters halfway through. This is something of a surprise, and by normal rules the beast would then proceed to mercilessly kill Ripley right then and there. Indeed it looms in, head closer to hers than my ears are to each other, in Alien3’s most iconic moment. Then the alien simply leaves Ripley unharmed, sensing something far more dire than her billing. Okay, the movie later explains this one. It doesn’t, however, bother to explain why the alien is now comfortable leaving Golic alone, even though he’s right there too. (I’ve no idea what happens to Golic following this scene, since once they get that blood cleaned off his face, he just blurs in with all the other baldies.)
Ripley flees to see warden Andrews, who is just then addressing the entire remaining prisoner community. She arrives just in time to see the xenomorph perform a Number 2 upon Andrews (the ceiling yank kill), right in full view of everyone else. Then it just leaves, though it could’ve gone and killed everyone right then and there had it so wished. Lazy beast! So the good news is that now everyone is on board with an alien hunt. The bad news is that most of our main characters are dead, leaving only Ripley and Dillon as developed leads at this stage. This is where second-in-command Aaron really makes his presence felt. It’s too bad he’s quite literally a moron, with an IQ on a par with Forrest Gump.
Ripley tries to assess the situation. For the prisoners’ sake there are no weapons on Fury – only fire axes. Um, yeah, you just toss masses of fire axes into a normal prison and see how that plays out, why don’t ya? But apparently there’s a massive amount of explosives around, and somehow these explosives are meant as a means of luring the hungry, hungry xenomorph into…a giant trash can (?!). Ah, but here’s the real reason for the explosives. The baldie brigade prepares their vague scheme when one guy is killed off (ceiling grab). He drops his “boom stick,” which goes and explodes…however many other guys the filmmakers wanted to kill off at this point. Just…whatever. So sprinklers turn on, and the quick temperature change causes a metal bucket to warp. Let’s remember that pointless little detail for later, okay?
Okay, they’ve left us in the lurch long enough. Why did the dogly/oxly xenomorph politely leave Ripley in peace? Well, she heads to the EEV to undergo a neuro-scan, to learn – da dum dum – there’s an alien embryo incubating in her chest. Now…how’d that get in there?! Seriously, it makes no sense! One possibility (which I’d lamented when considering Aliens) is that Burke’s pet facehugger succeeded in impregnating Ripley with even greater ninja-like efficiency than our egg-laying queen could lay her sequel egg. But Ripley knows about neuro-scans, and we’d have to think her quite the Fox executive idiot to not bother checking until now. The other option is that the facehugger from the opening credits went and…did something. Either alien biology permits facehuggers to create multiple impregnations, or…uh? Either way there’s the greater problem about the duration of Ripley’s pregnancy. That dog (or ox) died pretty quickly, yet Ripley remains alive throughout the film. They’re playing way too fast and loose with the biology in this one.
Oh, we also have to have a countdown timer during the climax. Here’s Alien3’s: the Company’s evac ship is a mere two hours out. So…in place of an explosion, it’s an evacuation? We really have to buy into the Company’s innate Eeeeevilness to buy into this. Furthermore, Ripley must both kill the free-range xenomorph and commit an alien abortion before they arrive. Of greatest importance, this creature inside her is a queen alien, allowing the species to perpetuate indefinitely if it survives.
So, the xenomorph won’t kill Ripley because she’s “pregnant.” It’s pro-life! This rather undercuts whatever suspense is left, because Ripley cannot die until she decides to, and she wants to die. I guess we could still fear for the assorted bald men, but they’re so expendable it barely matters. The only suspense is if they can kill the big bad alien in time…of course they can! For me, Alien3 really falls apart under all these choices. I actually think I hate this movie more than even most people – it really betrays the first two!
The prisoners are initially in favor of waiting for the Company’s arrival, expecting salvation. Ripley hypothesizes (pure guesswork) that the Company will just go and kill them all instead – Oh yeah, just like they did to the surviving Ripley at the start of Aliens…Wait, that isn’t what happened? Okay, whatever, now the prisoners are okay with helping Ripley, and inevitably dying in the process. Whatever shortens your presence in this movie, right?
Their half-assed plan involves luring the beast into the central foundry, then dousing it in molten iron. Simple enough. The ill-advised moment arrives when they realize they’ll have to bait themselves…Wait, that sounds like a masturbation euphemism. It’s even more absurd as shown than it sounds.
Here comes the alien, finally ready to kill off everyone at its leisure. We first see it as an exceptionally dated bluescreen effect feasting over a fresh, bald corpse. It then goes and chases this one guy, the alien’s movement endlessly communicated through the use of Raimi cam. You know, The Evil Dead? I love that film, but it’s not the right tone for an Alien sequel to strike – repeatedly, again and again over a fifteen minute sequence! Okay, so the alien cam chases identical-looking guys down identical-looking hallways, with a series of doors getting shut and not getting shut behind and in front of it. Since we lack the barest sense of the prison’s geography, this is all just a muddle rather than exciting. This is the climax. Stuff happens, Postlethwait’s character dies (a Number 1), other guys die. I’ve officially lost interest when I cannot be bothered to recount gory deaths.
Intercut with all this is the Company’s dreaded arrival, a bunch of Asian dudes in hazmat suits. Come on, Fox, you own the rights to Star Wars, use the Imperial March here!
Finally the alien is lured into the central foundry, the moment it’s decided it’s reached its daily kill quota. Both Ripley and Dillon are down here with it, and one has to remain to hold it in place as the other climbs out and releases the molten iron. Well, Ripley wants to die anyway, so…Dillon stays. Why the hell?! The alien takes its sweet ass time in killing Dillon. Meanwhile, Ripley calls out to this one bland bald guy who’s apparently survived, a guy named Morse who I’d never even noticed up until now. The baldness was a mistake. Whatever, Ripley has Morse dump the iron, because damned if she’s gonna have the final heroic moment. So molten iron drenches the alien below, and that is that. [Dusting off of hands.]
Oh, you knew it wasn’t! Out leaps the red-hot thing, now chasing Ripley, queen fetus be damned. Ripley manages to turn on the sprinklers. Seeing as they’d set this up from before, this sudden change in temperature just causes the alien to outright explode! I like this. It’s original, and it’s suitably distinct from the previous films.
Meanwhile Aaron, that sad little mongoloid, has surrendered himself to the Company team. So only he has survived, along with Ripley and the anonymous Morse – Aaron totally doesn’t deserve to be among the last standing. I swear, Ripley aside, I couldn’t have guessed these guys would live to the end, and I’ve seen this movie before!
Now Lance Henriksen approaches Ripley with an offer to save her and remove the queen. Ripley thinks this Henriksen is another Bishop android, but he explains he’s the guy who designed the android – if I ever make a robot, I ain’t makin’ it to look like me! Naturally Ripley refuses Lance’s offer, rather slooowly moving herself out over the lava pit (I got tired of typing “molten iron”). Surely Lance’s violent hazmat goons could just shoot out Ripley’s kneecaps here before she escapes. Rather, they shoot out the knee of…some bald guy. It ain’t Morse, so I guess some third guy I cannot identify survived. As for Morse, they just flat out murder him (with bullets), something “engineer” Lances seems pretty blasé about. Okay, maybe one of these guys was Aaron, but damned if I can positively ID anyone here.
What year did this come out? 1992. So, okay, Ripley’s self-sacrifice in a fiery pit is a total rip off of 1991’s Terminator 2. Ripley’s death, plunging into the flames mere moments after the baby queen (princess?) bursts from her chest, still carries a lot of weight. If that can’t prevent any further sequels, then nothing can! (By the way, Ripley displays no pain prior to death, entirely unlike any other chestburster victims we’ve seen, including Spike from this movie.) And the very instant she dies, the vat turns off, the music swells, the sun rises, unicorns frolic and flowers bloom…Okay, I made up those last two.
A final screen cap reveals the Company went and murdered the remaining Fury survivors (whoever they were). Ah, the feel good movie of the year!
This movie really makes me angry, because it’s one of those sequels that retroactively taints its predecessors. Knowing Alien3, it becomes very difficult to fully enjoy Aliens – that happy ending now has no meaning. Sure, this is a return to the treasured nihilism of the original Alien, but here it feels unearned in the context of so many problems. The entire fact of the species’ survival becomes an enormous plot hole, Ripley’s suicidal character arc is underdeveloped and unwelcome, and it’s flat and unmoving. This is a total mess of a movie, despite its surface-gloss professionalism. It’s proof of how astounding Aliens is as a sequel, since this is what we all could have honestly expected the first time around. Oh well, two all-time classics in one film franchise ain’t bad.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Alien (1979)
• No. 2 Aliens (1986)
• No. 4 Alien Resurrection (1997)
• No. 5 Alien vs. Predator (2004)
• No. 6 Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
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