I Ain't Mad At Alien³

I frequently have obsessions with subjects of arbitrary interest. The spells usually last a fortnight. For instance, last year, all I could think about for 2 solid weeks was the band Journey. I became completely obsessed with the big hooks, hilarious haircuts, and awful music videos; most notably the awesomely bad video for "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."

These last 2 weeks, I just haven't been able to shake the Alien movie legacy from my microcosmic mental zeitgeist. What I did to alleviate this geek pressure was to go into a full on onanistic viewing of the Director's cut of Alien (Dir. Ridley Scott), Extended version of Aliens (Dir. James Cameron), and the Assembly cut of Alien³ (Dir. David Fincher), just to gain additional perspective and to follow up on my glowing review of Prometheus. 

As a singular moment in cinema (to quote myself) Alien stands alone in its majesty. It's dark, it's scary, it's xenoclaustrophobialicious. James Cameron expanded the battlefield and peppered it with even more aliens, which by all accounts, reduces the terror factor of being stalked by a single creature and frankly dilutes the xenomorph's ferocity when you're mowing them down with phase plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, flame throwers and sonic electronic ball breakers. But hey, it's so damn fun to watch! Cameron shifted gears and jumped genres from Scott's dark sci-fi space horror to an action adventure, subterranean warfare movie.  

So why are people so angry with Alien³? I believe it's because audiences were expecting to see a rehash of Cameron's vision, though we did not take into account that there was no precedent set for that. There was no reason that the third installment should just be Aliens 2. These movies should be viewed as 3 distinct visions, all with the central characters of Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), and the demon that haunts her fate. It is evident that Fincher's intention was to interpret this dynamic through his own lens, just as Cameron and Scott did before him. 

At the end of Aliens, Ripley, Newt, Corporal Hicks and the android Bishop are the only remaining characters. They all go into cryosleep after successfully ejecting the queen alien into space, in an epic final battle. Alien³ immediately follows with their ship experiencing an onboard fire and is forced to launch an escape pod. We see an x-ray of a face hugger attached to one of the crew members as the onboard scanner monitors their vitals. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, A planet populated by only a couple dozen residual XYY chromosome prisoners who have turned to religion, but aren't any less dangerous. The 10 year old Newt is killed in the crash, along with Corporal Hicks and Bishop is destroyed beyond repair. Ripley somehow manages to escape death, is rescued by the prisoners and is forced to shave her head due of the lice infestation. Hardly the manace they are all about to encounter.

Let's stop here for a second. Fans could not get past the fact that Ripley was the only surviving character from the preceding movie, which retroactively renders Aliens anticlimactic. So what's wrong with that? It's not a very Hollywood path to take, nor was it at all what audiences were wishing for, but it's not an entirely unreasonable scenario, even though it feels like a kick in the balls. Their deaths feel arbitrary, but this movie is an illustration of how life/fate can be downright cruel. There is genuine grief that the fans felt for these characters, which conveniently dovetails into the melancholic, nihilistic world that Fincher creates in his installment of the franchise.


It just so happens that a couple of stow away face huggers respectively impregnate Ripley and a local Ox (or a dog, depending on which version you watch) with the alien embryos of a queen and drone. You may ask; "Hey, how did these dang eggs get there?" This was a source of controversy for many fans, but I'm happy to answer that with sci-fi logic; Presumably by the egg laying queen at the end of Aliens. I mean her job is laying eggs, right?  Those alien buggers are so flippin' sneaky!  Perhaps before the crew went to sleep, they should have done a final sweep to check for any left over Xenos, just for good measure. But ultimately, I ain't mad at that point of contention.

Hardly a shot is fired in Alien³, as a main plot points is there are no weapons of any kind on the entire planet. This is a bit of a leap in the opposite direction of Cameron's bang bang, shoot'em up world. It's a smart way to go if you want humans to be the helpless underdog in your story as there are no worldly possessions among this monastic community. It is a true showdown of Woman v Nature. Did we really want to watch another 2 hours of bullets vs acid blood? Maybe... but that's why they made Alien: Resurrection, which is decidedly stupid and a complete waste of time.



Like Prometheus, there is an element of religion in Alien³, though in this film it mainly serves as a pacifier for the troubled convicts who are terminally criminal and knowingly beyond retribution. They use religion as a crutch, and don't seem to have genuine faith. Charles S. Dutton deftly plays the angst ridden Dillon, the religious leader of these societal outcasts. There is a well orchestrated undercurrent of cynicism throughout. Dillon redeems himself, in one scene by saving Ripley from being raped by inmates, and finally by luring the alien into the lead pit to take it on Mano a Xeno. An illustration of how, regardless of religious distractions, humans are the moral animal.

At the end of the film, Lance Henrickson makes an appearance as Michael Bishop (Bishop II), and is purportedly the human who designed the Bishop android in his likeness.  This is where the religious imagery starts to get heavy.  Bishop II claims to be Ripley's savior, but he is really just a chess piece (pun intended) for Weyland Corp.  He is a false prophet, and we never really know whether or not he's another synthetic human even after getting whacked on the head with a pipe. Surely no human could withstand that abuse and maintain consciousness, but he is clearly bleeding red blood. He seems more annoyed than in pain. This is a great artistic stroke on the behalf of the filmmakers. Ripley proves to be the one true savior of mankind and knowing that she is carrying the alien queen embryo, plunges herself into the furnace below in a Jesus Christ pose.

This film is about sacrifice and was meant to be the end of a trilogy. It may not be what the fans wanted, but it does bring a sense of closure to the purgatorial struggles that Ripley withstands in these movies. It is she who becomes the eventual master of her own destiny and the savior of humankind.

In a vacuum, Fincher's filmic vision is a magnificent, artsy effort in its own right. Even though most involved with the picture felt they were being pulled in all directions, this flick is still hinged on a good script and a good director, which yielded a good bit of cinema. As a sequel, it struggles to compete with expectations. It's overall tenor of despair, hopelessness and genuine terror hit a lot of the right, albeit dour notes, but audience expectations were simply unmet and that's why it gets a bum rap.

Blowmetheus

Hollywood has gotten fat, lazy and super stupid.  The American public is in lockstep with the dumbing down of the deep space genre that was legitimized by the likes of Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), and perpetuated by none other than Ridley Scott (Alien) himself.  

Though I did not completely despise Prometheus, my problems with the film are aplenty.  I caught the midnight premiere of the much anticipated and long awaited nerd-a-thon, with my trusty 3D goggles in tow.  This film marks Ridley Scott's "triumphant" return to the dorktastic Sci-Fi genre, though a triumph it is not.  After watching this movie, I get the feeling that Scott jumped back into the space game because it was a sure thing regarding revenue, and not because he was passionate about the project.

(Paging George Lucas!)

The movie opens magnificently with a humanoid alien "Engineer," who looks much like an ancient Greek or Roman statue, standing atop a waterfall on primordial Earth.  He sacrifices himself in order to seed our planet with the molecular ingredients for life. I immediately saw this as a religious ceremony, as in; "Oh, I get it, they created us, so they are the gods of man, but who do they worship?"  I thought this was a great concept and hasn't really been represented in a major hollywood film before. (Well not since Zemeckis' adapation of Sagan's Contact anyway...)  

What I LOVE are the overarching themes, such as the creation and eventual (self)destruction of mankind.  The literal Prometheus allusion being that once man is given the privilege of fire, he is unworthy of its power.  This, I think, is the string that connects all of these movies together in that the pursuit of obtaining the unobtainable will forever tantalize humanity and all its hubris.  

The film goes right in its absolutely awe inspiring spectacle and there are quite a few redeemable elements.  One of which being Michael Fassbender's uncanny portrayal of David 8, a synthetic human developed by the Weyland corporation.  For his Peter O'Toole invoking performance alone, the movie is worth seeing. But sadly, breathtaking CGI and a single actor's talents, does not a movie make.   

There is a great parallel between Weyland Corp. and the Alien Engineers in their mutual terraforming pursuits.  Weyland Corp. creates synthetic humans, the Engineers create human beings.  Who created the Engineers?  It's a fun dynamic that is looped and played around with as David is aware of his creators, while we are in search of ours.  I also like the speculation that Theron's character may in fact be an android herself, but it just so happens that she's David's human sister; hence their rivalry.  Well played.

Noomi Rapace plays, Elizabeth Shaw, the scientist who discovers where the engineer aliens have been hanging out.  She kinda looks like a stubby, baby version of Sigourney Weaver.  Her performance is okay, and kudos to her for managing to get the alien surgically removed from her womb on her own.  (Which, by the way, is a bit of a plot hole in that NOBODY tries to stop her, after she just ran away from 1 and a half people who were emphatically trying to stop her!) It's a very memorable scene, which showcases an automated surgery phone booth, but is blatantly telegraphed earlier in the movie when they essentially say "Hey, what is that surgery machine doing on board?!  Um, never mind that now, we'll get to that scene later."  Her baby alien squid wasn't all that scary, though it ultimately manages to grow to the size of the room it's trapped in without consuming any biomass whatsoever. Illogical, captain. 

This movie goes wrong, not in its connection to Alien, but with it's attempt to distance itself from the franchise.  It desperately introduces all sorts of random, biotech aliens which are no where near as creepy and vicerally repulsive as H.R. Giger's aesthetic provided.  There are also too many script problems, and nonsensical character motivations.  Why the heck would the two scientists who were scared shitless in a previous scene, all of a sudden want to pet the space cobra?  Why would you take your helmet off on an alien planet, when any number of bad things (the least of which would be an unbreathable atmosphere) could infect, poison, or spectacularly eviscerate you. After everyone on board has been violently killed, and even after the Engineer alien tries to kill Shaw (repeatedly), she immediately wants to go after them - on their home planet?  Really?  I don't buy it. I find that to be an insulting ploy to string us along for sequels, and it was one of the many movie moments that felt completely disingenuous.  

At one point the movie becomes John Carpenter's The Thing, and anything that comes in contact with the oozy space puke (i.e. mealworms, mediocre actors, etc.) turns into a belligerent asshole of a beast.  Just beating up and killing everything in their path.  Why?  I couldn't tell you.  It seemed perfectly obvious that the Xenomorph from the original Alien was such a dickface, because it was always so dang hangry (hungry + angry)... And humans indubitably look like a bunch of bacon cheeseburgers to a hangry xenomorph.  It stands to reason that it had to consume the Nostromo crew in order to have grown 10 feet tall in the 12 or so movie hours that it lurked upon the ship.  Fair attempt at space logic there, captain! 

I think the only reason why I keep watching Prometheus over and over (not through any illegal means, I assure you) is because it gives me that methadone equivalent to Alien's heroine. It's bits and pieces of something that I wanted for a long time, and if I keep going over those bits, I'll some how feel better.  But sadly, it hasn't been working. I still feel that the movie goes off in all sorts of misguided directions, throws in a few red herrings, and leaves me wanting less. 

It appears that being clever with the script has gone by the wayside when it comes to making a sci-fi space horror flick these days.  I love Ridley Scott's epic, visionary films, and Alien shall forever remain untouched as a singular moment in cinema. Prometheus was a bit too Hollywood, with a syrupy score and ideas too big for its britches. Perhaps the last 33 years wasn't a long enough period for Scott to find a better screenplay to work with.