The first ALIEN movie i know like the back of my hand, and ALIENS is a classic of a different genre. this movie however, i don't think i have ever seen before.
Alien 3 is a 1992 American science fiction horror film directed by David Fincher and written by David Giler, Walter Hill, and Larry Ferguson, from a story by Vincent Ward. After escaping death by the skin of her teeth in the inhospitable exomoon, Acheron, in Aliens (1986), Ellen Ripley crash-lands on the weaponless, maximum-security prison-planet, Fiorina "Fury" 161, a penal labor colony of hardened male criminals. But, under everyone's noses, a stealthy Xenomorph manages to escape and mature in the vast correctional facility's labyrinthine ventilation-duct system, and as it picks off the unprotected inmates, mass hysteria starts to spread. Now, a handful of survivors have to make do with their primitive weaponry and hope for a quick death. Can Ripley, the veteran Alien-killer, eradicate the evil within?
With the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox approached Brandywine Productions on further sequels. But Brandywine was less than enthused with an Alien 3 project, with producer David Giler later explaining he and partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll wanted to take new directions as "we wouldn't do a repeat of one and two". The trio opted to explore the duplicity of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and why they were so intent in using the Aliens as biological weapons. Various concepts were discussed, eventually settling on a two-part story, with the treatment for the third film featuring "the underhanded Weyland–Yutani Corporation facing off with a militarily aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society."
With ALIENS, there is this sense of excitement about being back in the series. this movie feels a lot more like Oh fuck, we are back in this franchise, and The death of Newt mixed with this chain smokers living room color pallet is a really dark and uncomfy way to open this movie. but even with how shitty as this opening feels, the more this movie goes on the more i found myself enjoying it. As a whole this isn't a good movie, but it is packed full of small bits that i really love.
Setting wise we have gone from H.R. Giger to a more standard sci-fi steam punk sewers, and once i adjusted to its yucky i found it makes quite a good setting for a horror movie. Hundreds of miles of tunnels, some classic Victorian architecture mixed with the sci-fi metal fetishists' wet dream really helps make everything feel real, and the unquestionably had the budget to make this movie look as good as it does. and speaking of how good this movie looks, all of those little bits i talked about loving are a direct result of Stan Winston's protégé team. Winston recommended Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis, two former workers of his studio who had just started their own company, Amalgamated Dynamics.
if that name doesn't mean much to you, maybe knowing that there company was responsible for the effects in several TREMOR's movies, at least one SCARY MOVIE, Sam Raimi's SPIDERMAN films, JUMANJI, Mars Attacks!, THE X FILES, and countless more classics will.
Even before principal photography had begun, the practical effects crew was developing models of the Alien and the corpses of the Sulaco victims. for the first time in the series a small number of shots contain computer-generated imagery, most notably the cracking alien head once the sprinklers cause thermal shock. Other CGI elements include shadows cast by the rod puppet alien, some airborne debris in outdoor scenes, but nothing that felt to distracting or kills the immersion. i often pray at the throne of practical effects, and this movie is a great example of how to blend the 2 methods in a way that feels totally invisible.
Considering there are 4 different versions of this movies script that were all pulled apart and put back together again, this movie is a miracle. and hey even if you don't like this version of the movie, the audiobook version of William Gibson's unproduced screenplay of Alien 3 was released and made available on Audible for your listening pleasure. still don't like that version? 2021 saw another adaptation of the screenplay as a novel written by Pat Cadigan from Titan Books, so maybe give that one a try.
Perhaps I'm only thinking about this because of the fan deaths similarity to Indiana Jones, but this movie belongs in a museum.
7/10
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