June 06, 2012Your right it is old news :)
I first saw the extended version on the DVD box set that came out years ago, and more recently on the bluray set.
It's not a director’s cut as we would traditionally think of it as the director washed his hands of the project and didn’t want anything more to do with the film.
Alien 3 had a troublesome production, with the studio heads interfering on every level, which led to the final result being a disjointed movie. I think it went through a couple of directors, if my memory serves me right? By the time they came to film it they already had the sets built with no script to work with, apparently they were writing the script on the day of filming!
It's sad really as I believe Alien 3 had so much more potential. The extended cut makes for a far better film in my opinion, and the ox was the original chest buster but they decided to change it at a later date. In the extended cut I find the pacing of the film much better, and there are quite a few extra scenes which fleshes things out a little bit.
I quite liked the overall sad and depressing felling of the film, as the aliens are relentless and in the end they got Ripley, even though she put up a dam good fight in the process! It did have quite a poignant felling to it.
The only thing I didn’t like about the extended cut was the removal of the queen chest buster. In the theatrical version is was quite a strong and dramatic scene, and the music was spectacular, but I feel the extended cut weakened the scene by removing the queen and cutting a section of the music out.