Retrospective Review: Alien 3 (1992)

If any film is proof that studios need to be kept as far away from the creative process of a film as possible, it’s Alien 3. To a lot of fans, myself included, Aliens didn’t really need a sequel, it ended perfectly. The queen’s hive destroyed, most, if not all of the Xenomorphs wiped out, the Queen dead and Hicks, Newt and Ripley entering cryosleep on the Sulaco, on their way back home. Yet one of the early ideas pitched to the studio when Alien 3 was given the green light was Hicks fighting a bunch of Xenomorphs. Rehash of Aliens? Sure, but how fucking awesome would it have been? Given that Hicks was the most badass non-Ripley character, that would have been one epic sequel. Instead, we got a Franken-movie; a movie pieced together from different scripts and ideas, almost none of which are fully realized. Alien 3 is better known among the Alien fanbase for its troubled history and its extremely convoluted execution. Which is sad, because there are so many ways this film could have been fantastic.

What made the previous films great is a culmination of many things; the first film, Alien, directed by Ridley Scott is a beautiful, poetic interstellar nightmare; and has some of the prettiest cinematography and even amazing special effects made in the tail-end of the 1970s. This was also obviously before the advent of CG; everything was practical- sets and puppets and K&Y jelly. In addition, it had a meditative slow-burn pace which allowed for a claustrophobic and uncomfortable feeling. We rarely got to see the titular alien, at least in its full form, until the final 10 minutes, which was a wise choice- in fact, said artistic decision resulted in half the audience of an early test screening walking out due to sheer fear before anything scary happened during one scene. By contrast, the sequel, Aliens, made by James Cameron seven years later, was a sequel that upped the series’ game and raised the stakes; this time it was an action movie. There were more Xenomorphs, more characters, more twists and more suspense, and it worked- in fact, it’s a rare example of a sequel being better than its predecessor. Said film has stuck with me for a long time since I saw it as a child. It’s that kind of film that I can watch over and over and not get bored. The action scenes are thrilling and the intense, brooding atmosphere of the predecessor isn’t lost, even despite the more action-driven direction. Furthermore, it actually made sense to take the series in this direction. James Cameron showed us how you follow up one of the best movies ever made and make everything bigger while not sacrificing everything that made the original so great.

I’ve seen the film more times than I could care to count, and this scene still scares me shitless every time.

But more importantly, both films succeed because both filmmakers were allowed to bring their own visions to the films, and faced little to no pressure from the studios to make the film their way. This is because back in 1979 and 1986, 20th Century Fox didn’t take sci-fi films as seriously as they do today. This is because they looked at the films as nothing more than just creature flicks that could help kick start projects from other studios too. Of course, that all changed not too much later after Aliens’ release; because of the popularity of said film, they almost immediately felt pressure to make a sequel. James Cameron was out immediately, because he felt that Aliens was indeed the end of the franchise. So they went through several scripts including a concept from William Gibson, and a revolving door of directors before settling on poor, inexperienced David Fincher (it’s amazing he survived this train wreck of a production). Production costs spiraled upward and years and years of production ensued, and the whole thing was a clusterfuck, resulting in a mess of dumb ideas that passes as a film.

Of all the dumb ideas in the film, it’s hard to argue that the dumbest of ideas happens right at the very beginning: for some reason, an egg magically ends up in the Sulaco, causing a facehugger to hatch, and love up someone who we later find out is Ripley. Newt drowns in her cryotube, and Hicks is crushed to death. Now as much as I hate to say it, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Hicks and Newt leave the film- in fact, given that filming started 5 years after the release of Aliens, it almost seemed a given that she either wasn’t going to be in the film, or was going to be replaced. But if you’re going to get rid of them, FFS don’t kill them. There seems to be no reason for their deaths at all, other than pure shock value. Anyways, Their escape pod cashes into a prison planet called Fury 161, a planet full of baldies, religious nuts and rapists. One of the very few likeable characters, played by Charles Dance (who gets nicked off by the Xenomorph not long after), finds her and nurses her back to health in the prison hospital. Ripley decides she wants to go find out what happened in the escape pod, and we are treated to shots of bloodied Hicks and drowned Newt. Ripley then subjects us to the awful sight of a child’s autopsy only to find out that Newt was completely unscathed by the facehugger, so obviously it had to be Ripley, right?

Oh, it gets worse.

Yep. It is. The main idea of the film is that Ripley was impregnated by the facehugger at the beginning. Which is why the Xenomorph refuses to attack her. This would be a fascinating concept if it weren’t so ham-fisted.

Anyways, there’s two other huge mistakes that the film makes in terms of plot. For one, why are we supposed to be impressed with the sight of Ripley being bullied by her cellmates and almost being gang-raped? Wasn’t the facehugger at the beginning rapey enough??? And the other mistake that costs the film dearly: reverting to the “back to basics” style. Why are we supposed to be scared by just one mid-sized alien? That worked in the first Alien due to it taking place almost entirely on the Nostromo, a ship full of small and claustrophobic hallways and spaces. This is a gigantic prison planet. With large open spaces to trap the alien in from above. The worst part being is that there seems to be no weapons on the planet. Now I do realize that this is mostly because Sigourney Weaver was part of a gun control group and was offended by the amount of weaponry present in the original script, but it’s still no excuse for not coming up with a plausible compromise.

Too bad this scene isn’t in a better film.

Anyways, fortunately there is one upside to this film. Well, a couple. Though he only gets a few minutes of screentime, Paul McGann’s performance as Goric is simply fantastic. This was a pre-Doctor Who McGann, and even if he didn’t get the role of The Doctor, he’d have gone on to star in more stuff thanks to this film. It’s nice to see Lance Henriksen again, as both Bishop and a human equivalent who is sent by Weyland-Yutani to collect the baby Xenomorph. Dillon is pretty cool too- he’s a scumbag, but a likeable scumbag and is capable of delivering epic speeches. Sigourney herself? She always gives fantastic performances, and hell, the scene where she describes her pregnancy with the alien justifies the film’s existence in a way. Well, almost.

But then all is undone by two huge mistakes: first, the chase scene near the end would be thrilling if not for the POV shots. Why would we want to see from the Xenomorph’s POV? That completely ruins any and all mystery behind what they see. Especially when you consider that there was this theory floating around long before the film’s release that they couldn’t see, that they were blind like bats and used echolocation to get around. Now of course, H.R. Giger’s original concept art showed the Xenomorph with eyes, but that didn’t make it into the film, and for a reason. And then, Ripley sacrifices herself by throwing herself into the boiling hot lead at the very end of the film. Now, I won’t lie, everything about the scene is magnificently crafted. In fact, it’s extremely beautifully shot, and Elliot Goldenthal’s score helps give it a magnificent touch (some of his score made it into Titus about seven years later, including a remixed version of “Wreckage and Rape“, which plays over the dinner table massacre), but it’s pointless when you consider that A) it doesn’t tie together any loose threads and B) there’s an entire ship of Alien eggs still out there.

Additionally, why should said shots look like they were done on shitty home video?

If you haven’t seen the movie and thought it was a total shitshow reading it, well, as I mentioned earlier, it was a total shitshow behind the scenes too- just as much, if maybe even more. To begin with, when filming began on January 14th, 1991 in London, England, the crew blew $7 Million of the film’s budget on the same day. To make matters worse, the film’s script wasn’t even completed before filming, with most pages either finished on the day of filming or made up as they went along. Fincher was particularly pissed that William Gibson’s script ended up not being used, as he was a fan of Gibson, and was most impressed with his script. To make matters worse, a few weeks into filming, the original director of photography fell ill with Parkinson’s disease, and a new one had to be hired on the spot. Multiple suits fought with David Fincher and, with Rex Pickett, abandoned Fincher altogether, leaving him to come up with much of the second half on the fly and putting up with Fox’s bullshit. They referred to him as “a shoe salesman” during production meetings, and even when they came back to give input, shit didn’t stop. When Fincher was stymied by the studio who tried to prevent him from shooting important scenes, he had to go shoot them behind their backs. Then came the re-shoots. The scenes that needed re-shooting included the finale. And given that release was approaching, this meant that Elliot Goldenthal was forced to come up with a piece of music in a single day. After all of this, Fincher walked away for good, especially bitter over being locked out of the editing room by the executives.

With all this in mind, I guess it is amazing we got an Alien 3 at all. That said, the film is still a pile of shit. Fincher disowned the film and it’s not hard to understand why. Sure, there’s Sigourney’s excellent performance and the film looks great, but that’s all it has going for it. And this isn’t even the worst Alien film, believe it or not. With this and Alien: Resurrection, the two AVP films made for the sole purpose of pandering to weirdo fans who battle over which is better, and Prometheus. But Alien 3 was the beginning of a long shit streak.

“D’oh.”