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.