Review: Alien 3

Alien 3 Promotional Poster

The third Alien movie was a bit of an uneven entry in the series, and it was highlighted by a considerable amount of disagreement within the production staff for the movie. Initially, after the success of Aliens back in 1986, the people at Fox wanted to push forward on the success of that film by developing a sequel. Gordon Carrol, David Giler and Walter Hill were all on board to serve as producers for the new movie, and they begin approaching various filmmakers and scriptwriters to make the story. Renny Harlin was a filmmaker that they’d contracted with to develop the story, and they began exploring ideas. Initially, they came up with some scripts about going to the alien homeworld and later even developed a story about if the aliens had actually come to Earth. Though excited about the ideas, Harlin was not convinced that he could develop a story that was unique enough or interesting enough to separate itself from the previous films in the series. Ultimately, Renny Harlin left the project, and the producers were forced to look elsewhere.

Finally, they contacted a scriptwriter named Vincent Ward, who developed the basic story for the third Alien movie. However, Ward’s take on the story was initially rather different than what actually became the final film. Ward wanted to infuse a medieval feel to the film by having Ripley and the other survivors from LV 426 crashing on a man-made space station filled with devout monks. These monks were essentially a group of religious people that had rejected technology and constructed a self-contacted world where they’d live out their lives in solitude. Though intrigued by the idea, the producers decided to take the story in a slightly different direction. They changed the setting to an old mining colony on the planet Fiorina 161, and the colony was controlled by a group of prisoners left to care for this world. Also, bits and pieces of the dialogue and characters were changed from the original plot.

Yet, eager to get the movie into theaters, Fox studios pushed on, set a release date for the movie and David Fincher was then selected to serve as the director for the movie. Coming into the movie late in the process, Fincher was forced to piece together the bits and pieces of the movie with sets and characters that had already been developed for the movie. He had some ideas about how to make the movie work, but having a background mostly of making music videos, the producers decided to keep a tight rein on his work. As a result, there was a strong feeling of pressure between the producers and the director. The resulting film was far from perfect. Even David Fincher’s own approach left the film with mixed results. For instance, he had the prisoners all have shaved heads, which actually makes it rather more difficult to tell one actor from another in the action scenes.

Since its release, there are now two slightly different cuts of this film – the theatrical cut and the special edition. Is one better than the other? Not necessarily. The 2003 special edition of the movie, basically re-inserts a lot of cut footage from the film and makes a few alterations to the story. The result is a slightly longer film. Much of the dialogue has been added back to the film and it explains more of the characters backgrounds and history. Also, instead of an alien “facehugger” attaching to a dog, it does it to a cow. At a later point, the alien creature is actually captured about the inhabitants of the planet and is later released by one of the more fanatical members of the prisoners. The special edition is largely just an alternative version the movie and would do little to change anyone’s opinion on the quality of the film.

The plot is fairly simple. During the return voyage from LV 426, the ship, Sulaco, is badly damaged and destroyed. The survivors are all killed except for Ripley (played again by Sigourney Weaver). Michael Biehn’s character was favored by James Cameron to return and develop an almost family-like relationship with Ripley, but this never came to be. His character was killed off in the explosion at the beginning of the film, and Ripley again is the last survivor. Once on the planet, she begins to develop a relationship with the prison’s medical officer, but she is not as well received by the others. Again, she learns that an alien came with her and is on the loose inside the colony. However, the prisoners don’t initially buy into her ideas until the death toll begins to mount. With no weapons to speak of, they are forced to resist this creature to their end, but what will Ripley do when she discovers that she’s carrying the fetus of an alien queen inside of her.

When you consider the development issues that went into the movie, it is easy to understand how the movie came to its demise. While it does have its strong moments, including some innovative special effects and techniques, the ultimate result is still not all that surprising. David Fincher’s style, while unique, is more suited to music videos and other types of movies. As a result, this movie was less of a science fiction or horror movie and more of – something else. Ultimately, I agree that Alien 3 was one of the weaker entries into the series and I echo the sentiment of many other fans of the series.