Alien 3

After the success of Alien and the massive success of Aliens, everybody wanted to do the next Alien sequel. Most early scripts had a recurring theme of Ripley (the star of the franchise) and Hicks (the military survivor from Aliens) teaming up and taking the fight to either the Alien homeworld or battling the creatures on Earth. Unfortunately, none of these scripts proved different or even suitable enough for filming.

Having already invested much money into the development and hiring of various Hollywood writers and directors, Fox eventually settled on Vincent Ward's bizarre idea of a wooden planet populated by religious monks who've turned their back on technology. Some time into the development of this idea, studio execs suddenly produced a list of changes, which angered Ward and forced him to leave.

This left the pre-production process in some what of a mess, with half built sets and a muddled script. Fox went on to hire David Fincher, who was willing to follow their changes made to Ward's story, making the wooden planet an old mining colony instead. The problem that everybody was now faced with was that Fox had already set a release date, and without a finished script, there was no choice but to begin production and make things up as they went along.

During the production process, Fincher was constantly being undermined by Fox, who would tell him to cut various parts of the film or simply not to shoot some scenes. In the end, Fincher walked out during post-production, which explains how the movie was released with the butchered theatrical cut and sub-standard special effects. Fox then invented a smokescreen to cover themselves of any wrong doing, instead placing the blame on Fincher. Even the featurettes of the Alien Quadrilogy release were cut down by Fox to cover themselves of any wrong doing.

The story of the film, then, is a surprising direction after Aliens. Many were expecting the previously mentioned battle with the aliens on their homeworld or Earth. Instead, Alien 3 dealt more with the character of Ripley than the alien. This storyline was difficult to embrace by the viewing public because of its dark atmosphere, where Ripley is once again on her own after the other survivors from Aliens (Hicks and Newt) are killed off-screen during the opening titles. Aliens director James Cameron called this "a slap in the face" to Aliens fans.

Similar problems included an inexplicable facehugger egg on the Sulaco at the beginning with no explanation as to how it got there, nor any way it could fit with events seen at the end of Aliens. Due to cuts made by Fox, several sub-plots involving religious prayer and a disturbed prisoner named Golic were removed, when they were actually important to the storyline. This left the theatrical release with a number of plot holes and some disappointing post-production effects.

When the Quadrilogy set was released, a new restored version of Alien 3 was seen for the first time, solving many of the plot problems above, though obviously not un-doing the deaths of Hicks or Newt nor explaining the presence of the egg. Still, this new version, which is the version included in this definitive edition, is so much better than the theatrical version. Unfortunatley, while better, Alien 3 is still not the classic that Alien or Aliens were. Maybe if Fincher had been allowed to properly finish the film, it may have fared better.

This film was never going to have an easy ride after the sucess of Aliens (1986) and has been heavily slated. I can understand why people hated it so much, the incredible downer after the "happily ever after" ending of Aliens, the lack of "gung-ho" weapons, the claustrophobia of Fury 161's prison complex etc.

I really rate this film. I think alot of people were put off by the fact that the film was so depressing but I think that this really added to the Aliens saga showing the really "dirty sci-fi" concept originally introduced by "Star Wars", - "no women...no freezers...no f**king ICE CREAM!" was a particularly funny example.
The introduction of the "Bishop" human character was also a great, yet disheartening scene at the end of the film and is further enhanced by a couple of additional shots of "human reacting to being hit over the head with a metal bar" which the lack of in the original left some question as to the actual identity of the "real Bishop".

The CG Aliens in this film was pretty appauling and although this was made at the dawn of the "digital age", a man in a suit combined with 1st person camera angles and under-cranked shots would have made the "CG" scenes more convincing rather than using CG for CGs sake.

After watching the "Special Edition" I felt extremley satisfied at how much the extra footage improves the film. The characters were given alot more room to develop and the "trap" scene was an excellent addition. The audio can be quite bad in some of the extra scenes, with the "reverb" on the voices cutting out strangly and some incredible hiss over some of the diaglogue which was quite distracting.

I can imagine how frustrated Fincher felt, this was his directorial debut and having to proove yourself as a director when the studio keep covering everything in red tape can not be easy.

All in al, I reccomend the special edition to any "real" Alien fans.

In 1992 I went to the cinema to see Alien3 having seen the previous two only on video. At the time,the excellent extended version of Aliens had just been released,Alien3 had a lot to live up to. Initially it was amazing, a scary credit sequence and the wonderful trashing of Jim Cameron's 'happy ending'(always the weakest part of Aliens).Then it all started to go wrong. Despite incredible sets and great acting from Weaver, Dance and Hutton the story just didn't work and some of the effects were embarrassingly bad. You got the sense that there WAS a good film in there but we just hadn't been given it. 11 years later and the extended version reveals the near masterwork Alien3 should have been.This version is a worthy successor to the works of Scott and Cameron. The subplot of the religious cult on Fury 161 fully fleshed out, the alien effects properly developed, the outside walk by Charles Dance used in the trailer but cut from the movie and the caging of the beast sequence a revelation not even hinted at in the original version. The film proceeds at a slower and more effective pace, the dank world of Fury 161 is delved into in much greater detail, lice and all.
This is a wonderfully dark 3rd act where arguably the series should've ended (unless they do the alien homeworld movie Alien3 was once going to be).The excellent documentary films on disc 2 are a masterclass in how NOT to make a film and show what inspired ideas were wasted in the development of the film. It's a great pity David Fincher himself is not interviewed but considering his experience in making the film this is hardly surprising.This is by far the best and most surprising of the Alien special edition set- a butchered film returned to it's full glory THIS is what the DVD format was made for!