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-Movie Recommendation- Alien³
16 years ago
Some wonderful artists well worth your time:
Alien³: Assembly CutAs Ripley and company try to escape on the Space Marine ship, a fire breaks out. Getting out on the escape pods, she is the sole survivor as it crash-lands on a nearby prison colony. Or so she thinks. It seems that something has followed her, something determined to finish her off for good (and everyone who gets in its way, or even stands nearby).
Well, it's a new decade. And what better way to break it in than by losing my credibility on movie opinions? But if you'll all just hold your pitchforks for a moment, I can explain.
First, yes, I realize that it's a film that doesn't quite match up to the previous two entries into the series (but then, what could? The sublime Alien and the phenomenal Aliens (still Cameron's best) is a damn tough act to follow). Yes, it's got some serious CGI problems. And yes, it immediately does away with several beloved characters from the previous film. But underneath all those issues, there's a dark, moody, and ultimately very interesting movie that I think is quite underappreciated.
To start, it is a very dark movie. Bleak, unforgiving, and so forth. This is a bit of a niche thing I realize, but I love movies like this. Just so... down. It creates an atmosphere of dread that really fits for the series, a nice little return to the horror of the first entry (it's not nearly as scary, but the idea is there). It even ditches the weapons once more, having everyone rely on new tactics to try and defeat their new foe. This goes for all the characters too, who are a much rougher bunch this time around. The condemned aren't exactly the most likable of protagonists, but they have a fascinating edge about them that makes them interesting to follow nonetheless.
The Xenomorph itself has changed as well. While it's mostly presented in some rather awful CGI (this point I can't argue with, especially after the life-like animatronics of previous entries), given that it came out of an animal here instead of a human, it's much more agile and slick. This gives some more bio backstory to the creatures, and makes for a very cool "Alien vision" camera towards the end.
I say the Assembly Cut at the of the page, because that's really the only way to watch this movie. It fixes many problems present in the theatrical cut, including two big changes. The first is a greater emphasis on the religious aspect of all the inmates. Given that this is a large part of their existence and personalities, this goes a long way towards fleshing them out.
The second is the addition of a subplot involving a prisoner, Golic. In the normal cut he's last seen wallowing away in a hospital bed. In the Assembly Cut, he develops a strange fascination, worship even, of the alien (he calls it a Dragon). It gives a lot more strength to the middle of the film (no random explosion that wipes out half the cast anymore), as well as further adds to the (rather twisted at this point) religious beliefs of him and the other inmates.
In conclusion, I would go so far as to call this (the Assembly Cut at least) a good movie. It's got a crop of interesting, flawed characters and it takes the franchise in interesting directions. And I believe that if one overlooks the crappy computer graphics and go with how depressing this movie is compared to the more optimistic first entries (especially the ending), you'll find a rewarding movie to be seen.
Right, that's all I got. You may commence with the tarring and feathering.
Trailer: There isn't really a good trailer for this one, sorry.
After reading what you said, I think Alien 3 would have done better as a stand alone story completely separate from the Ripley stories, in my opinion.
Besides, the guns from Aliens is part of what made Aliens as bad ass as it was. Did you ever listen to how they sounded?? AMAZING SOUNDS! I wish I knew how they made those sounds for the pulse rifles and smart guns. :) The characters in Aliens made you care about them since in less than a few moments after their first appearance you could tell what kind of people they were. Cameron was always good at that in my opinion. The Abyss was another great example of good character development.
Anyway, Alien 3 made all the crap they went through in Aliens practically pointless. :( I know it's a case of "shit happens", but as far as movies go, why would you do that? Also, there were some flaws in the movie in terms of how the biology worked. I've argued this before, but you can't lay any eggs without the egg sac. I'm thinking the xenomorphs are insect-based aliens considering the hive-like way they do things as well as the egg sac the queen had, which laid the eggs the face huggers came from. How did she manage to lay an egg or two after she got on the Sulaco?
If they'd have followed the Earth Hive novels/graphic novels that took place directly after Aliens, we'd have had a much better story. I'd suggest looking up the Aliens 2-part graphic novel that took place after Aliens: Hicks was a washed out drunk trying to get back on his feet, Newt was grown up but still having issues, Ripley, you're not sure where she went, but she comes back with some wicked looking guns, Bishop got fixed up and a new religion was based on the xenomorphs the Company brought back to Earth for research.
I hear the argument that the third one basically negated Aliens a lot, but I don't really buy it. I mean, the whole "shit happens is pointless" thing works for the movie, considering how depressing it is. And having the characters die at the beginning of this one is just the same as having loved characters die at the end of a movie they're in (I'm speaking in general about movies here). Such things happen, but you still enjoy them while they're around. And the alternate continuities in the comic books (which I know about but still need to read) let them live on.
As for the egg thing, I actually do have a theory about that. The Xenomorphs have always been portrayed (or at least described) as the perfect creatures, so I assume they've got a way to survive through anything. With the Queen, maybe in times of stress or danger she can lay a few "emergency" eggs, even without the egg sac (she would've done this at some point after she left the dropship and started skulking around the bay, probably when Ripley was getting into the power suit). With a species like this, another trick up their sleeve is always expected. Plus, their biology is already pretty strange (like if you consider the "Kill me..." scene in the Director's Cut of the original Alien canon, then there's a single hunter Xenomorph that's managed to set a whole breeding thing up by itself).
Finally, having it a stand-alone story would've been interesting, but I think it works as a finale to Ripley's tale. Again, a downer way to go, but it's still an ending. In fact it's Alien: Ressurection that bugs me about that, since it seemed to say that there couldn't be an Alien movie without Ripley. That's a restricting problem, and I hope Scott's upcoming prequel does away with that.
However, several years ago I found a comic book series called Aliens: Outbreat. The series was was relesed before the third movie, which actually gave a "what if Alien 3 didn't happen"-impression. I actually liked the story a lot. In fact, I believe the story was so good that the main story of Resurrection is actually taken from the comics itself. Here's a wiki-file for that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens.....8comic_book%29
And I'll be reading those comics sooner or later. You guys aren't the only ones to push them on me :P