STOP PUTTING ALIEN 3 DOWN

i think alien 3 is the second best of the films after the first one. as others have commented, the plot got a little messed up but when i saw it originally it didnt hurt the film in my eyes. its not quite as powerful as the original film but i think its far better than aliens. i think it has an excellent mood, look, and feel to it. the set designs are amazing, the score is awesome, and i think the alien looked really great - even though the composite shots using the puppets look a little too pasted together, i think the actual look of the alien itself was excellent. im not a big fan of the way they were done in aliens or after alien 3. i think resurrection is ok, and a fairly cool film on its own, and so is aliens, but for me alien and alien 3 are far better. aside from a few special effects that fall a little short of todays standards i cant find any real fault with it. personally i thought it was a great move getting rid of hicks and newt right off the bat, a great way to start with a clean slate instead of re-hashing a lot of things from a prior film. also charles dance! too bad he was only in the first half or so. i dont understand why people seem to consider this a sub par film but everyone has their own opinion- most people seem to like aliens the best and although i think its a really well done film, im not very fond of it as part of the alien series - aliens is just not my cup of tea really. every david fincher film ive seen has been really good and im often puzzled why this one was so poorly recieved - other than that everyone seemed to want a more direct continuation of aliens. im personally glad that didnt happen. i know the making of this film was fraught with disaster and re-writes, and seeing the re-cut of the film a few things make a lot more sense, but even in its original version i really dont see much of anything wrong with it. to me it had much better mood and pacing than the more action like films. it would have been cooler if more of h.r. gigers designs were used but i do think that this alien fits pretty closely with his style and looks really interesting. this has long been one of my favorite all time films - again not quite as good as the first one, but to me still in the neighborhood. but thats just my opinion and thats all any of this stuff can be, so hopefully people dont get too bend out of shape over it.

Growing up I was very childish about Alien 3. I blamed Fincher for it's failure and held some sort of pathetic grudge against him for a year or two. I had seen it after becoming fond of the characters in Aliens. You can criticize that film for a couple of reasons, but I did like the whole dynamic between the characters that survived to the end. It was only when I was older, watched the documentaries on the box-set, and gave the special edition another watch that I finally 'got' it. Really, it's amazing this film came out as well as it did. Starting without a coherent script, writing around sets instead of characters, that's just a nightmare. You can tell through the film that Fincher was suffering, but somehow that worked with the plot. You can talk about what it could have been, something better or worse, but that's not what we have. We have Alien 3. A movie that was so fucked from the very beginning that we were lucky enough to get it, to see the conclusion of Ripley's story arc, at all. By this film I just felt so bad for her, for Bishop, and for everyone else. The scene where he asks to be disconnected is upsetting for me. Ripley getting a well-deserved conclusion was cathartic. Is it a better movie than Aliens? No. There are too many production problems for that. Could it have been a better film without all of the shit going on behind the scenes with the studio? Absolutely. It was a step towards the complexity of the original. The original script involving the 'wooden planet' and Ripleys' evolved relationship with the Alien would have been more intriguing. But still, I enjoy it for what it is. (I even like the puppet, because it's a puppet, and not the CGI things from Resurrection)

I don't mind it but... The use of the word "F!ck" and all of it's variations is ridiculous. I curse like a sailor, but come on now. Lazy writing! CGI is shite! Use the original suit, setup, etc... Bishop/Weyland tie-in was a little thin.

I personally really enjoyed Alien 3 and Alien Resurection. Not just because they were Alien films but because I enjoyed the idea, plot etc etc. behind them. I'll admit ilthey aren't Oscar, Golden Globe or Academy Award worthy but they were still good movies, IMO. However people are always going to have different opinions and feelings toward the films and you can't ask them to shut up or stop dishing a movie because you like it.

@wseaton; I thought David Fincher did a great job since he had no real script to work with. The studio really screwed up on that movie.

I like the movie. I saw it in theatres and have seen it several times recently. Very atmospheric with an epic ending, IMO.

The problem with Alien 3 was the director - David Fincher. Fincher is a really odd duck who either makes films with a lot of facinating nuance light 'Fight Club' or 'Zodiak', or makes you wince and get bored like 'Girl with the Dragon Tatoo'. Fincher had the visuals down right in Alien 3, and if you ask his production crew that's all he talked about - getting the look right. Fincher however has no feel for the type of execution that a sci-film in the Alien Universe requires. It could have been about werewolves or mutant hamsters - The film would have been the same. Otherwise, I've grown to respect Alien 3 more over the years, and love the art direction, but it's a disjointed film that lacks a solid concept. Oh yeah...gonna get flamed for this, but Sigourney Weaver should have stayed out of Alien 3 alltogether.

Can't believe Alien3 came out 20 years ago. Where does the time go? Anyway, I hated it. Right off the bat, I hated that they killed Newt and Hicks, especially after you rooted for them to survive the last movie. That has been my biggest beef with A3. They took the lazy way out and instead of figuring out what to do with them, they kill them off. They could have sent them elsewhere through another escape pod instead of killing them outright. Maybe they should have sent Bishop and Ripley down to Fiorina and Newt and Hicks become separated. Maybe there was a malfunction with the escape pod system. My second problem, the magical eggs that appeared out of nowhere. The queen wasn't even in that part of the ship. Lazy, lazy, lazy. And my third issue with Alien3 were the prisoners. With the exception of a handful, all the characters looked alike with their shaved heads. One guy I thought had been killed showed up a couple scenes later. And who cares what happens to a group of rapists and murderers anyway? To paraphrase Ripley, in Alien you had the working class truckers, in Aliens you had the colonists and marines, who cares what happens to a group of criminals that found religion at the back end of space?

I like Alien 3, It's an atmospheric slow burn thriller that worked well as an antidote to the crash, bang , wallop of Aliens and brings the whole Ripley arc to a satisfying conclusion, granted though, the story was a bit disjointed (the assembly cut works better imo) and the effects were rather below par for a big name Hollywood franchise. Each to their own though, what one likes another doesn't. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece but it wrapped the whole Alien saga up neatly for me.

Sorry, but I found Alien3 and Aliens:Resurrection horrible. Alien3 was ridiculously disjointed, utterly predictable, terribly acted, poor special effects, and a banal storyline. Character development was lacking and the costumes...? Please! The plastic coats worn by the W-Y scientists/guards? Ripley's birth to the chestburster? I could go on and on. Aliens:Resurrection suffers from much of the same. Horrible acting again, a "leap of faith" in continuity, and the incestuous scene with the ugly "Baby"/Queen was utterly ridiculous. Ripley was an emotional automaton until this scene, the scientist fascinated/infatuated with the Aliens...he was better as Piter De Vries in "Dune" and he was horrible in that role. Sorry, but I will rag on Alien3/Aliens:Resurrection to my dying breath.

I likes any movie with Alienz in them...

Big Dog 1 --- I couldn't agree more with your assessments. Logan Marshall-Green was a horrible decision and I admit that all the trailer scenes that include him resonate your points of "melodrama and cheese". I don't get the sense that the characters in Prometheus have any substantial fortitude in supporting the film. This is where "Alien" and "Aliens" stole the show. I haven't memorized the characters in Prometheus, but Shaw, David, and Vickers appear to drive the plot and intensity somewhere...and I'm on the fence with Vickers (although I could watch Charlize Theron all day and night). If you look at the characters in "Alien" and "Aliens" they are all memorable, yes all. I can't recall any character names from "Alien3" other than Ripley. I liked the doctor but he didn't last long. Aliens:Resurrection? I remember Cole and Ripley, that's it. Look at the characters in "Alien" and tell me you couldn't write up a bio on each of them (and looking at my D&D dice, you could easily give them stats). "Aliens" is the same.

I just got my Blu Ray of Alien 3 so I get to watch the extended version. I thought 3 was O.K. in the theaters and again on tv. I think killing off Hicks and Newt right from the start via quick text on a screen disappointed so many of us, no matter how good the movie was it was never going to be what we wanted, leaving an unhappy audience. You could tell Fincher had issues because the writing didn't match up. 1 minute some of the characters were one way, then the next scene it's written for them to be 180 degree opposites. It seemed like 1 writter did this, then they brought in another one who took over and did that, then they were out and another comes in, etc. From what I've read these missing 30 minutes in the Assembly Cut really improve the film, so I can't wait to watch it this weekend in HD on my plasma tv. Just saw Alien in HD on fiOS for the 1st time. :) I'll pop in the Blu Ray of that + Aliens and be ready for Prometheus next week in Imax 3D.

I liked Alien 3. It's true that the effects were disappointing and much of the intelligence behind the story was lost in hack editing. But I liked it. I thought it was smart to kill off Newt and Hicks, and I didn't mind Ripley's bald head or the Newt autopsy scene (for me, that was the core horror scene of the movie, not for the gore but for the strong emotional effect). Alien 3 was more in the keeping of the original Alien. I can't stand Aliens. I don't like any of the characters save for Ripley, Newt, and Bishop. And then only because I was already emotionally invested in Ripley, cannot NOT be invested in a cute little girl all on her own with monsters trying to get her, and appreciated Cameron trying to redeem androids with a sympathetic one for a change.

Regarding to Alien 3 returning to the first films 'roots' I see where people are coming from, with the killing off of Newt/Hicks/Bishop, understandably since Aliens is the black sheep between the original three. The franchise started with Ripley, and it was a obvious thing to end it with her. The problem comes from people who did like Aliens (including me, with all of it's flaws included) and got into the characters. The entire third act was about saving Newt. A good chunk of the movie was 'oh dear, will she make it? Will Ripley reconcile with Bishop and 'look at that manmuffin Hicks'. That all worked out and Ripley got a happy ending. Enter Alien 3. Hicks and Newt killed off screen in the opening credits. Ouch. Bishop massacred into pieces. Shit. Autopsy and showing the funeral. Ow, right in the heart. For all of Aliens flaws, the characters are what I liked. They kept me emotionally invested even with simplifications of the Alien. Take those characters away and I'd look at Aliens far less favorably. But Alien 3 invalidated the entire second half of the film. A film, with all of it's flaws, that is still technically and narratively better. To me, the first is the best. Hands down. I like the other ones, Aliens-Alien:Res., for different/multiple reasons, including Alien 3. But Alien 3 was the only one to leave a bad taste in my mouth. As my previous post said, not because it was a bad movie, but because it was so depressing. I can't feel the same about Aliens because I liked the characters, and picking on Alien: Res. by this point is like mocking a kid at the playground for being slow.

@Big D! wrote, "If you look at the characters in "Alien" and "Aliens" they are all memorable, yes all. I can't recall any character names from "Alien3" other than Ripley. I liked the doctor but he didn't last long. Aliens:Resurrection? I remember Cole and Ripley, that's it." Yes but is that because Alien and Aliens have the better characterizations, or is it because they are the oldest of the Alien quadrilogy and have been played on television over and over and over again? I don't find the characters in Aliens very well drawn at all. The space marines are homogenously loud, arrogant, and obnoxious; Hicks is, as somebody put it, a "manmuffin"; Newt is the cute little girl whose only motivation is to be cute, little, and girlish; the company guy (forgot his name) is slimy; Bishop is good robot to Ash's bad robot. Even Ripley is less complex than she was in Alien. Stereotypes, all. Alien 3 has some mushy characterizations of its own, to be fair, but at least they are more complex and less obnoxious. It's hard to make an audience care about prisoners in a criminal facility, but I remember feeling for the religious leader played by Charles S. Dutton, the doctor played by Charles Dance, even the poor sod played by Pete Postlethwaite. (True I don't remember their names, but hey, I remember who played them!) Aside from anything else, the acting in Alien 3 was better! I guess my point is, even if you think that the characterizations in Alien 3 were poor compared to its predecessors, you do have to admit that it starts off from a more challenging place. Hardened criminals are harder to care about than cute little girls. But then, I'm a movie-goer who doesn't like my emotions to be manipulated with lowest common denominator stereotyped characters like that (even if the manipulations work!), so for me Aliens loses points just on that score.

The biggest mistake they made in Alien 3 was killing off Clemens (Charles Dance) so early. He was by far the most interesting character in that film and they kind of wasted him for no reason.

I think it's one of the ballsiest endings to a franchise ever (Resurrection doesn't exist in my eyes) & is actually a great film with an interesting premise. The franchise's heroine & the scum of the universe sacrifice themselves to save humanity. One of my favourite & most powerful scenes in the entire franchise, is the Hicks & Newt memorial cremation. You've got Dillon's prayer about the promise of new life, juxtaposed with the poor dog 'Spike' giving birth to said life & all to a melancholic, yet rousing soundtrack. The chestbursting is also much more "birth-like" than the previous films. It's a shame Fincher wasn't given the same opportunity afforded to Scott & Cameron and been allowed the creative freedom to film & release his vision. His subsequent career has shown that he was a good choice, so why did the suits choose him & then clip his wings. I actually haven't seen the 'Assembly Cut', which apparently improves the film immeasurably. Although I think the alien being born from a live pet dog instead of a dead ox is not only more logical based on the Xeno's look, behavior & movement, but also more upsetting for animal lovers.

I am not sure If I told you all here yet, but IMHO the "directors cut" Of Alien 3 is a MASTERPIECE !

Those of you who think the script for Alien3 was bad have obviously not read the first four drafts of the movie. The best one was the fourth one, written by Vincet Ward (the wooden planet idea mentioned earlier, but it was Ward and not Gibson who fathered it). And it was Ward who was fired as director. But I'm not sure he was the right one to direct anyways. He went on to direct the Robin Williams vehicle What Dreams May Come, which I can't remember much of except that it was confusing. The other three scripts were horrendous. One had a Leviathon-type Alien that was as big as a planetoid and absorbing ships and people. Another was Friday the 13th with people being slaughtered in unusual ways just to be slaughtered (i.e. people having sex in zero gravity when they are both impaled by an alien). I personally thank the producers of Alien3 for sticking to their guns and not submitting to what could've been the utter degradation of the franchise. It's no wonder they couldn't trust Fincher, after reading scripts like these I would've been paranoid too. What we got was not Fincher's greatest work, but in my opinion a bad Fincher film is still head and shoulders above the rest. I love Alien3. It's a beautiful film to me. Especially the autopsy and funeral scenes. It's film noir at it's best. But in space. Space noir, if you will. Long live Alien3!

im a huge fan of the aliens universe but why kill of hicks and newt after everything they went through, they wer amazing characters and would have been great in alien 3

Alien 3 was the perfect end to the triology. Its not all about big special effects its about a good storyline. The only thing i didnt like about it is they didnt have many surprise moments.

I really enjoyed Alien 3 and I am certainly not with the people who deem it a poor movie. The FX was pretty shitty in spots (I'm surprised to hear it wasn't CGI too!) but not enough for me to cringe. It was only light matching and some movement issues really. The opening sequence (while nicely shot) was really the most painful part of the script... the egg being on the Sulaco made sense... I could believe that the Queen had the ability to lay an Egg but where it seemed to be on the ship did not make sense. Also... now facehuggers can impregnate twice? I guess the only thing that could make sense would be if it was a special facehugger that carries a queen embryo, that may give it the ability to implant her embryo in one host and a drone in another. None of these things though were given any credibility in the film. Outside of those two points, the film was fantastic. Great cinematography. The mood was perfect, the colors perfect, the sets were great. The composition of the shots, the lighting... all really powerful. The cast was AMAZING. Great characters, superb acting. The cast and their ability to bring a sense of realism to a film like this was just as spot on as in Alien and Aliens. The writing was great too. Great monologues. I think this was really Signourney's best acted Alien film. I really felt her emotion and pain. I completely understood her character, now more than ever. The Alien was also great. I thought it was a fresh take on the Alien creature. I loved how Fincher expanded on the idea that the Alien takes on characteristics of it's host. I thought that was a great way to continue the Alien tradition and bring something new to it. The Alien was also well designed. Alien 3 also had some very memorable scenes. The birth scene with the dog was great mixed with the memorial was powerful. The scene where Ripley and the Alien come face to face (literally) was so incredible! The death by candle-light scene (or lack there of) was perfectly shot. The ending was also great... Ripley needed to die. It felt complete. It was a great ending to an amazing series. Alien: R then fucked that allllll up. David Fincher did a great job for being a new director AND for what he had to go through with FOX. He pulled a solid movie out. Sure, it has flaws... flaws which Alien and Aliens definitely did not have, but it still was it's own powerful film in the great tradition of the franchise.

Loved alien 3... And Think that it had the prefect ending for such a dark and gritty series....

I liked the idea that ALIENS adopt the characteristics of their host... but it didn't have the spines on it's back, therefore the entire movie sucked. @ItsLikeAnAnthive: Cool username.

I think Alien 3 is a good film as a stand alone, and enjoyable, if you disregard where it's picking up from. but for me it's a terrible follow on, and I blame the writers for that. It was a very bad move killing New and Hicks off screen like that. There are two unnamed characters killed off screen in Prometheus and most of us didn't even notice. Alien 3 killed two great and believable characters while the credits are still rolling. Newt was adorable, traumatised, brave, and still a kid, who wanted someone to look after her, missed her parents and her brother, and bonded with Ripley. Great acting from Carrie Henn in her only on screen role. Hicks was brave and focussed, but not cocky gung ho like Hudson, or bossy like Apone. He cared about his fellow grunts, and knew the right buttons to push to motivate them. And he made a good partnership with Ripley. We know nasty situations suck, and not everyone survives, but this is gilding the lilly. Hadley's Hope went from 158 colonists, to just 1frightened but resourceful little girl, and she was rescued with great effort and sacrifice, flamethrowers, battles, Alien Queens, elevators, nuclear explosions... just so she could drown? And Hicks the quiet spoken hero gets nailed by a beam? They could have had the same result, if Ripley stayed on the Sulaco, and nuked the site from orbit while the Marines were doing their recon. Very poor storytelling. They should have gone with Gibson's original script which would have been a bit like Prometheus, - find the home world, except it's Hicks taking over from Ripley (who finally gets to go home, and be a mother again to Newt) . That makes sense. She's not a marine, and doesn't want to be one. And he is good at killing these things, and doesn't want the company getting it's hands on them. It was Eric Red's re-write that killed those two off. Of course, Carrie Henn, had aged a few years, so she couldn't play the part of Newt if they were going straight on from the end of Aliens. I think, they screwed up a brilliant character by repeatedly throwing Ripley back into the nightmare. It's believeable that she went back in Alien's. She was scared, but she wanted those things dead, and there were families at risk. After that, the idea of her just having shitty luck again is stretched too far. After all the effort to save Newt, to have her and Hicks drown off screen is a kick in the teeth, especially when you consider... This is Ellen Ripley we're talking about... a woman who will never again close her eyes to sleep before checking every dark corner. ... and somehow, a hitchhiking Alien Queen, managed to lay a hidden egg on the Sulaco while hunting for Newt, and fighting Ripley in the powerloader? They should have cut forward a few years, Ripley is trying to tear down Weyland Yutani back on Earth, with a slightly older Newt, and Hicks is off hunting for the origins of these things to wipe them out,... and having to compete with company mercenaries at the same time, trying to bring it back for the labs. THAT would have been one hell of a film IMHO. Instead, Ripley, who had plenty of humanity and maternal instinct and credibility in the first two movies, is slowly edging towards cardboard superhero (like Bruce Willis as Detective John McCalin - not matter how often this New York cop is caught up in huge terrorist plots, he's never got PTSD or considers a new career, and he at least gets some normality in between.) Ripley spends 57 years asleep, finds out her daughter died of old age, then goes back to LV 426, picks up a new daughter who she rescues from an Alien Queen... only to have her drown in an escape pod... and then finds herself the only woman in a prison full of murderers and rapists... if you leave out the hyper sleep, this all happened in a few weeks of waking time.... and she doesn't crack up? Anybody would crack up. I could believe Ripley behaving like she does in Alien 3, if this were the opening of the first film... good acting, claustrophobic setting etc. But after all she's been through... this is not a good end for a trilogy. What has been done with Prometheus, flawed as it is, is miles better than the fourth film. Shaw is no Ripley... she's got a toughness, but she's not very assertive, not very practical and not very calculating like Ripley. In fact she's a fool. (and her choice is men is far inferior to Ripley's compare Hicks to Holloway) Ripley's a dangerous woman to stand next to simply because she is unlucky in one movie, heroic in the second, and then stupidly unlucky again in the third. Shaw on the other hand seeks out danger, not even knowing what she's doing. First she thinks she's been invited by her creator... ignoring any signs that should make her think that her conclusions are ill founded... the big scary skull on top of the dome being a classic "[i]hey, maybe think twice about coming in[/i]" sign... which NOBODY sees... and the ready made atmosphere being another "[i]who was this for[/i]?" open question. Shaw despite being tough enough to undergo the c-section, and quick thinking enough to release cuddles, is not a character I would admire. She puts blind faith ahead of reason, and ignores evidence to the contrary of what she dreams lies ahead. She's the type that would naively walk you into Freddie Kruger's house if you wanted a nap. Alien 3 once you get over the travesty of killing off Newt and Hicks and dumping Ripley into another nightmare, at least is a fairly credible night mare. The 4th film... is a crock. A CLONE of Ripley (from WHAT exactly that hair that was shaved off her head?) that somehow also has Alien DNA in it... and they go all comic book with Ripley's character. Just as far from a characters origin as one can get. A working mom, on her way home... to a clone who can do better tricks than Bishop, and go all Bruce Lee on the hard ass smugglers. The women in that magazine Ash tried to choke Ripley with, were more realistic that the RIpley Clone. Horror is scarier when the characters are more like us. Alien 4 lacked that. Alien 3 also did, but not as badly.... but murderers, rapists, and woman who has worse luck in space than the crew of Apollo 13 are a bit hard to identify with, and when the film is all out depressing from the start, by killing off the only two people alive she has any kind of bond with, and then killing the doc she mates with... her death at the end is just style over substance. Arms out like a crucifixion pose, sacrificing herself in the fire to stop And even at that, Alien 4 just takes a huge dump on her efforts. Oh, you died? Well, we cloned you, and got the Xenomorph anyway. Where Aliens gives us good reason for Ripley to return to danger, 3 and 4 just mock her at every turn. If any character in this franchise is like the greek Prometheus, who gets mocked by the gods by a new torture each day... it's Ellen Ripley/Ripley Clone. [/rant]

Do you remember the buzz that existed in the sci-fi community when the first talk of ALIEN 3 began to circulate around '91? Do you remember what we were told? "We're going to destroy the Alien homeworld" What did we get? "Bald headed Ripley being chased by an Alien. Again." That's why it sucked.

Sparts right ,,if you have not seen the "directors cut you have not seen Alien 3 [img]http://www.avpgalaxy.net/images/films/alien3/deletedscenes/alien3del009.jpg[/img]

Alien 3 was a not a very good movie. The acting was very good. But the script was horrible.

The future set of prison or the asylum that they painted was very negative IMO. I mean that is the type of future we all hate to see, and for me personally such intergalactic asylums or prison or rehab center are crazy to imagine. That was one turn off point plus the rest of the acting and pace of the movie was bad too. But whatever floats your boat.