"Alien 3" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Spark Of Spirit]

Infestation is a pretty good mid-quel between Aliens and Colonial Marines.

Is that the WayForward game? Can't believe I forgot about it!

It's kind of a mix between Aliens and some of the old comics, story-wise, but it's got a lot of character and heart. WAY more enjoyable than either of the last two films, either way.

[Foggle]

Cool, I might pick that up soon, then.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Cool, I might pick that up soon, then.

Just don't get Beta in your party.

You'll thank me later.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I mean it doesn't have any bearing on anything that comes after it short of why Ripley is in Resurrection. In its own little world where David Fincher spat all over James Cameron and everyone who was in or loved the second movie it changed everything for the worse... But because it's so hated, they never continued after it which made it inconsequential.

To be fair, David Fincher was brought into the project REALLY late into development and the movie also had a ton of scrip-changes and re-writes being done as it was being made in the middle of production, so Fincher (who was a newcomer as a director at the time and pretty inexperienced), was at the mercy of the studio. He claims that they also interfered with the production of the movie and made changes to it post-production without his consent, though I'm not sure if any of that is true or not. I'm not trying to defend the movie, though, as its a piece of garbage that should have never been made, especially since Aliens was a perfect ending to Ripley's story (any other Aliens movies should have just been their own thing, and completely separate stories, IMO). I will defend Fincher a little bit, though, since I don't believe he's a bad director. He's directed some good movies in his career, IMO, but I feel that he clearly didn't understand the characters or mythos of the Aliens series, and I also don't have a hard time believing that Alien 3 in general is one of those projects that was in development hell and doomed from the start, regardless of who they got to direct it.

Honestly, I noticed that a lot of people say Alien Resurrection is at least better than Alien 3. Personally I think its just as abysmal. Sure, it doesn't affect the main canon of the story-line from the first 2 movies in any way, but its still a piece of shit movie no matter which way you look at it. I'm not sure why people like to defend it at all.

[Foggle]

Resurrection is absolutely horrible, but it's funny bad. 3 is just bad.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, I mean it doesn't have any bearing on anything that comes after it short of why Ripley is in Resurrection. In its own little world where David Fincher spat all over James Cameron and everyone who was in or loved the second movie it changed everything for the worse... But because it's so hated, they never continued after it which made it inconsequential.

To be fair, David Fincher was brought into the project REALLY late into development and the movie also had a ton of scrip-changes and re-writes being done as it was being made in the middle of production, so Fincher (who was a newcomer as a director at the time and pretty inexperienced), was at the mercy of the studio. He claims that they also interfered with the production of the movie and made changes to it post-production without his consent, though I'm not sure if any of that is true or not. I'm not trying to defend the movie, though, as its a piece of garbage that should have never been made, especially since Aliens was a perfect ending to Ripley's story (any other Aliens movies should have just been their own thing, and completely separate stories, IMO). I will defend Fincher a little bit, though, since I don't believe he's a bad director. He's directed some good movies in his career, IMO, but I feel that he clearly didn't understand the characters or mythos of the Aliens series, and I also don't have a hard time believing that Alien 3 in general is one of those projects that was in development hell and doomed from the start, regardless of who they got to direct it.

Honestly, I noticed that a lot of people say Alien Resurrection is at least better than Alien 3. Personally I think its just as abysmal. Sure, it doesn't affect the main canon of the story-line from the first 2 movies in any way, but its still a piece of shit movie no matter which way you look at it. I'm not sure why people like to defend it at all.

Yeah, he did disown the movie. I don't totally blame him, but the movie could have still been done without killing off the survivors from Aliens. At the very least he could have tried to salvage some respect for it. And as bad as the movie is, at least that would have shown some tact instead of not only being awful, but a total waste of time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I always just assumed that they killed off the surviving characters at the very beginning of the movie (and off-screen, at that), save for Ripley who only died at the end of the film, because they couldn't get the original actors who played them to reprise their roles or something like that, but to be honest I have no clue what the reasoning behind that was.

At any rate, I'm not saying that Alien 3 turning out to be a mess wasn't Fincher's fault, because as director he should get the primary brunt of the blame if he agreed to take on the job and couldn't handle it. I'm only just saying that its not "all" his fault, as I could believe him when he says that the studio really interfered with the production of the movie, and if I'm not mistaken he wasn't even originally supposed to direct the movie (I think they had someone else lined up to direct it until disputes at the last minute). Its just one of those movies where its not just one entity that is to blame for its failure, but pretty much everyone involved played a part in making it the train wreck that it became due to some severely unorganized production.

The ONLY thing I'll praise the movie for is the special effects on the Alien. As always they were done really well and I'd still prefer that to any CG rendition of the aliens any day.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I always just assumed that they killed off the surviving characters at the very beginning of the movie (and off-screen, at that), save for Ripley who only died at the end of the film, because they couldn't get the original actors who played them to reprise their roles or something like that, but to be honest I have no clue what the reasoning behind that was.

IIRC, Michael Biehn was never even approached.

Like I said, the movie and everything behind it such a mess that it's best forgotten. Which is why it stuns me that Fox won't just go the extra mile and just gutting it out. An Alien film now wouldn't have anything to do with Ripley anyway, and as it is if Prometheus is good, then we'll have a real and proper trilogy instead.

But enough talk about this... Let's talk about something better-

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Prometheus DOES really have me intrigued. I know everyone is hyping it up as a "prequel" to Alien but I don't think that's what Ridley Scott is going for with this movie even though it technically is. At its core it seems like a stand-alone film in which Scott is trying to remake the same concept of the 1st Alien movie with and exploring space crew isolated on a remote planet with strange creatures/beings. It seems like it'll have a lot of atmosphere and build-up to it like Alien had, and generally seems to have the same heir of mystery surrounding it as that film, but something about it makes me believe that it may in fact have what it takes to surpass the first Alien, which is saying a lot for Ridley Scott to outdo what I personally consider to be one of his best films. That said, I think it'll be a great film whether it surpasses the original Alien or not. Its easily one of my most anticipated films of the year (which reminds me that I should probably talk about it on the most anticipated movies thread).

[Spark Of Spirit]

Is this still being made?

[talonmalon333]

As of March, it sounds like it is according to Neill Blomkamp, Sigourney Weaver, and Michael Biehn,

Hopefully we can wash away the stench of Alien 3.

[talonmalon333]

Blomkamp denied his intention to undo the third and fourth films, saying instead that he simply favored the first two and wanted his film to tie into their stories.

So... are they writing 3 out of the canon or not? I'm hoping that they are, and are simply trying to avoid the topic. Especially considering that, a month after this claim, Michael Biehn was supposedly contacted to be part of the fifth movie. And we all know how Alien 3 stupidly killed him off. So yeah.

[Spark Of Spirit]

If Hicks is there then 3 is non-canon by default. They kind of can't bring him back without explaining away 3.

I think he was saying he didn't specifically write it to make Alien 3 and Resurrection non-canon, but that he wanted to write a story more like the first two. Which makes sense, since most people like them the best.