Alien³

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This article is about the film, for the video games of the same name see Alien³ (video game), Alien³ (SNES) and Alien³ (Game Boy).

Alien³ (sometimes pronounced "alien cubed") is a science fiction/horror movie that opened May 22, 1992. It was the feature film debut of director David Fincher. The third installment in the Alien franchise, it is preceded by Ridley Scott's Alien and James Cameron's Aliens and is followed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien: Resurrection.

[edit] Plot

Having escaped from LV-426 after the disastrous Marine rescue mission, Ellen Ripley crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a maximum security work correctional penal colony inhabited only by men whose "double-Y" chromosome patterns mark them as extremely violent and dangerous offenders (an absolutely false scientifically discredited stereotype).<ref name=allanson>Allanson, Judith E.; Graham, Gail E. (2002). “Sex chromosome abnormalities”, in Rimoin, David L.; Connor, J. Michael.; Pyeritz, Reed E.; Korf, Bruce R. (eds.): Emery and Rimoin's Principles and Practice of Medical Genetics, 4th ed., London: Churchill-Livingstone, pp. 1184-1201. ISBN 0-443-06434-2.</ref><ref name=milunsky>Milunsky, Jeff M. (2004). “Prenatal Diagnosis of Sex Chromosome Abnormalities”, in Milunsky, Aubrey (ed.): Genetic Disorders and the Fetus : Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment, 5th ed., Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 297-340. ISBN 0-8018-7928-0.</ref> In order to rehabilitate — though there is really no hope of their release — the prisoners have embraced a fanatical apocalyptic, millenarian brand of religion led by Dillon (Charles S. Dutton). As Morse, one of the inmates points out, sexual relations (with either gender) are prohibited by this faith; Ripley's presence therefore has a disturbing effect on many of the prisoners.

Both Newt, the little girl Ripley bonded with as a surrogate daughter and rescued in Aliens, and Cpl. Hicks to whom a closeness was also formed, are killed off-screen in the crash landing. Only Ripley survives, with Bishop irreparably damaged, offline and discarded in a scrap pile. Ripley soon befriends and shares a mutual attraction with the penal colony's doctor Clemens (Charles Dance), a former inmate. She meets the warden of the prison, Andrews, who is skeptical of her tale and is intimidated by her. She also meets his assistant, Aaron, nicknamed "85" for his low I.Q. Ripley remains anguished by the loss of Newt, who mysteriously drowned in her cryo-tube. Skeptical herself, she and Clemens perform an autopsy, only to find no evidence of an embryo. It is here that Ripley begins to break many of Andrews' rules that confine her to the infirmary. She also shaves her head when informed of the prison's lice infestation.

During Ripley's rescue, a dog had been implanted by a Xenomorph facehugger (In the extended version it is not a dog getting implanted by an alien facehugger, it's an ox. The dog is cut from the extended version (presumably because of bad reactions by fans, and is only used in the theatrical and original DVD versions of Alien³.). A eulogy is held by the inmates for Newt and Hicks, who are cremated; at the same time elsewhere, a modified Xenomorph tears through the dog---skittering away. Ripley goes to thank Dillon and the others for their words, but Dillon angrily warns her to keep away ("You don't wanna know me, lady. I'm a murderer and rapist of women.").

Then the deaths begin. The first is of Murphy, the dog's owner, when he is sprayed with acid and tumbles into a ventilator fan. The next are of prisoners Boggs and Rains, who are inspecting lights in the complex's basement. Only Golic survives, covered in blood and driven insane. These murders do not go unnoticed by Ripley, who pleads with the warden for some sort of investigation or hunt. Andrews replies that there are "no weapons of any kind" in the prison, leaving everyone defenseless. The rescue ship, however, which will arrive to pick up Ripley, may carry some sort of protection. Ripley's incessant urging bothers the warden as well as Clemens, who has been risking his job in helping her investigate. He tells her where to find Bishop.

Ripley finds the android in the scrap heaps of disposal. Bishop is in even worse condition than before; he is barely recognizable from the crash. Ripley gathers what is left of him when she is assaulted by several prisoners, who attempt to rape her. She is saved by Dillon. Taking Bishop back to the infirmary, she hooks him up to the Sulaco's flight recorder to act as a channel. Resuscitated, he tells Ripley that an egg had in fact been stowed away on the Sulaco---interrupting their hypersleep. Bishop then asks her to disconnect him for good. Ripley forlornly complies.

Andrews confronts Clemens on his activities with Ripley, shortly before apprehending her. In the infirmary Ripley asks Clemens about his hinted past. He discloses his story: as a respected ER doctor, a morphine addiction led him to accidentally kill several patients. After serving time in Fury 161, he became the prison's medical officer. Ripley, in a show of affection, reveals her trust before he gives her a shot. But suddenly the alien, which had snuck into the room, appears behind a curtain and attacks Clemens, killing him. After "inspecting" Ripley, the creature disappears into the ducts with the doctor's remains. Stunned, Ripley dashes to mess hall to alert the others. The warden is unmoved by her hysteria; he has little time to react, though, before the alien snatches him from the ceiling. The remaining inmates now finally know of the Xenomorph's presence.

Ripley discovers that she too has an alien embryo, a queen, growing inside of her, the true reason why a 'rescue' team is on its way. She unites with Dillon to gain the support of the inmates, while he agrees to kill her along with the unborn queen.

An attempt to blast the creature with liquid explosives backfires miserably, killing several more. The survivors now face certain death, but a speech by both Ripley and Dillon rouses their spirits:

"They might kill you just for having seen it but they're not gonna kill it. When they first heard about this thing, it was 'crew expendable'. The next time they sent in the marines... they were expendable too. What makes you think they're gonna care about a bunch of lifers who found God at the ass-end of space? You really think they're gonna let you interfere with their plans for this thing? They think we're crud. And they don't give a fuck about one friend of yours that's died. Not one."

"You're all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet - or on your fucking knees, begging? I ain't much for begging! Nobody ever gave me nothing! So I say *fuck* that thing! Let's fight it!"

Their final effort involves luring the alien, through a mazelike series of tunnels, to the leadworks. A dizzying, bloody chase kills all but Ripley, Dillon, and Morse, but they discover that Ripley can serve as a human shield, because the alien will not kill its queen's host. They eventually succeed when Dillon traps the alien in the lead mold by sacrificing himself, giving Morse and Ripley time to pour the hot lead onto the beast. When the drenched alien subsequently leaps out of the crucible, the fire sprinklers spray water over its burning form, shattering it just before the Weyland-Yutani team arrives.

The leader of the rescue team is a lookalike of Bishop who claims he is the creator of the android, and attempts to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the queen-embryo. The Bishop doppelganger smoothly tempts Ripley with the promise of a viable life and children; she refuses and steps onto the leadworks platform. Despite being shot in the leg by a Company soldier, Morse manages to steer Ripley over to a fiery pit of molten lead. An infuriated Aaron, convinced that this tempter is in fact an android, smashes him across the ear with a spanner and is promptly gunned down. In the extended version of the movie it is clear that Bishop's wound is bleeding, which suggests that he is, in fact, human.

With the wounded Bishop begging her to reconsider, Ripley sacrifices herself for the future of humanity. She is seen plunging into a fiery death, her arms outstretched in a cruciform fashion, just as the creature bursts from her chest (in the DVD extended version, the creature was edited out). Thus the film is seen as a religious allegory, with Ripley the Christ-figure.

The film ends with a sequence of shots showing the prison being closed down. The final scene is a shot of the escape pod playing the recording of Ripley's final lines in the original Alien.

Although the Fury-161 facility is shut down and the sole survivor, Morse, reassigned, the struggle against the Xenomorphs would resume two centuries later when Ripley and the embryo were cloned in Alien Resurrection.

According to the Alien Resurrection novelization, and the original sequel Original Sin, Morse wrote a book (later banned) detailing his experiences on Fury-161; it was this work which motivated Annalee Call in her efforts to kill the resurrected Ripley.

[edit] Reception

Upon its initial release the film was poorly received by critics and fans of the preceding two films in the franchise. It was considered not to have advanced the story in any meaningful way, instead merely rehashing the first film's formula of a monster lurking in dark corridors killing off people one by one. This stood in stark contrast to Aliens, which presented itself as an action movie, establishing its own identity rather than trying to imitate what made Alien so successful.

Other unfavorable comparisons to Aliens were made, especially in the way Alien³’s large supporting cast of prisoners lacked any individuality, being perceived as little more than stock characters whose sole purpose was to be killed by the Alien. In Aliens, while many of the Colonial Marines could be considered stereotypes, director James Cameron still took pains to make most of them defined characters.

In later years, some fans of the franchise became more sympathetic to Alien³ as the story of its troubled production came to light. David Fincher was brought into the project very late in its development, after a proposed version with Vincent Ward (What Dreams May Come) at the helm fell through. Fincher had little time to prepare, and the experience making the film proved almost agonizing for him, as he had to endure incessant creative interference from the studio.<ref>Wreckage and Rape: The Making of Alien³ – Stasis Interrupted: David Fincher's Vision and The Downward Spiral: Fincher vs. Fox (Alien³ Collector's Edition DVD)</ref>

However, the film is still seen as a disappointment to some fans of the series as even the original script (with Ripley landing on a spherical space station inhabited by low-tech colonial farmers) still killed off Newt, Bishop and Hicks and still would have killed off Ripley (as Sigourney Weaver had grown tired of the franchise). Furthermore, a number of cast and crew associated with the series, including Michael Biehn and James Cameron, have expressed their frustration and disappointment with the film's story. Cameron, in particular, has called the decision to arbitrarily kill off Bishop, Newt, and Hicks "a slap in the face" to fans of the previous film and the characters. Biehn, upon learning of his character's demise, demanded and received as much money for the use of his likeness in one scene as he had been paid for Aliens.<ref>Wreckage and Rape: The Making of Alien³ – Development Hell: Concluding The Story (Alien³ Collector's Edition DVD)</ref>

[edit] Special Edition DVD

An alternate version of Alien³ with over 30 minutes additional footage was released on the 9-disc Quadrilogy box-set. Many fans and critics judge this version to be vastly superior to the original and some even regard it to be the "definitive" version of the film. Yet, Fincher himself, although giving 20th Century Fox his blessing in releasing this enhanced work print to DVD, was the one director from the entire franchise who declined to participate in the DVD set, even to record a commentary, as he is still reportedly deeply bitter about the experience. This special edition contains many new scenes including:

• New opening scenes with Ripley blackened, lying on the beach, Clemens finding her and bringing her into the facility, with oxen towing the EEV.
• Dog chest burster is completely replaced with the original ox chest burster, as well as the briefly flashed Superfacehugger.
• The baiting of the alien into a nuclear waste storage unit by Junior, the inmate who assaulted Ripley.
• A scene where Ripley and Aaron send a message to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation asking to kill the creature, and receiving a message that says the creature must stay alive.
• Golic setting the alien free, thinking the monster was some type of god and he its servant.
• The original Ripley suicide without chest-burster appearing.

The bonus disc for Alien³ in the 2003 set includes an interesting documentary on the film's rough production, but again, lacks Fincher's participation. The website The Digital Bits posted a harsh criticism of this disc, pointing out that the studio had cut the documentary to delete a handful of behind-the-scenes clips in which Fincher openly expresses his anger and frustration with the studio.

[edit] Plot Holes

• The storyline suffers from a major flaw in that it seems highly unlikely that an egg could have found its way aboard the 'Sulaco'. After the alien queen was ejected from the ship, it seems somewhat implausible that the highly paranoid Ripley would not have made an inspection of the dropship bay where the queen had hidden herself. Also, considering the immediacy in which the Queen chose to reveal herself (directly from her hiding place within the dropship's landing gear, during the epic ending of Aliens), and the immediate battle afterwards, there was no idle period in the action where the Queen could have settled and laid her egg.

• There is much argument over the "super facehugger," which was apparently able to implant both Ripley and and Ox/Dog with an Alien embryo. It is not made clear in either cut of the film whether this is truly the case, or if there were perhaps multiple eggs hidden aboard the ship.

[edit] Prequel

2004: Alien vs. Predator, considered a stand-alone by director Paul W.S. Anderson

[edit] Alien Quadrilogy

1. 1979: Alien, directed by Ridley Scott
2. 1986: Aliens, directed by James Cameron
3. 1992: Alien³, directed by David Fincher
4. 1997: Alien: Resurrection, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

[edit] Cast

• Sigourney Weaver .... Ellen Ripley
• Charles S. Dutton .... Dillon
• Charles Dance .... Clemens
• Paul McGann .... Golic
• Brian Glover .... Andrews
• Ralph Brown .... Aaron
• Danny Webb .... Morse
• Christopher John Fields .... Rains
• Holt McCallany .... Junior
• Lance Henriksen .... Bishop II
• Christopher Fairbank .... Murphy
• Carl Chase .... Frank
• Leon Herbert .... Boggs
• Vincent Nicoli .... Jude
• Pete Postlethwaite .... David
• DeObia Oparei .... Arthur

[edit] Director

• David Fincher (replacing Vincent Ward and Renny Harlin)

[edit] Writers

• Vincent Ward... Story
• David Giler... Screenplay
• Walter Hill... Screenplay
• Larry Ferguson... Screenplay
• Dan O'Bannon... Characters
• Ronald Shusett... Characters

A very early script treatment was written by noted science fiction author William Gibson. At the time of his involvement, Sigourney Weaver "seemed doggedly unwilling to participate," so the main narrative focus became Hicks and Bishop. It is considered by many to be a superior script. The version available on the Internet is, according to Gibson, "about thirty pages shorter than the version I turned in. It became the first of some thirty drafts, by a great many screenwriters, and none of mine was used (except for the idea, perhaps, of a bar-code tattoo)." [1]

Other notable screenwriters to work on the project were Eric Red, David Twohy, John Fasano and Rex Pickett. The proposed scripts from all these writers can be found on the Internet.

[edit] Producers

• Gordon Carroll .... producer
• David Giler .... producer
• Walter Hill .... producer
• Ezra Swerdlow .... executive producer
• Sigourney Weaver .... co-producer

[edit] Other crew

• Alex Thomson .... Cinematographer (replacing Jordan Cronenweth)
• Terry Rawlings .... Editor
• Elliot Goldenthal .... Music composer
• Richard Edlund .... Visual effects supervisor
• Alec Gillis/Tom Woodruff Jr. .... 'Alien' creature effects

[edit] Visual effects

The movie contains two CGI shots of the alien's head cracking apart and a brief scene of sunset shortly after Ripley is rescued. Other alien effects were created with suits, animatronics and rod puppets composited optically. In the Special Edition DVD, a shot of the Oxburster was completed using CGI.

[edit] Video game

The official licensed video game was released for multiple formats by Acclaim and Virgin Interactive, including Amiga, Commodore 64, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive and Master System. Rather than being a faithful adaptation of the film, it took the form of a basic platform action game,where the player controlled Ripley using the weapons from the film Aliens in a green-dark ambient environment.

[edit] References

[edit] References in other works

• In an episode of the animated Comedy Central series Drawn Together, Princess Clara has a vagina that appears to look like a cross between a snake and an octopus. While in a rage, the monster creeps under a door where the other housemates are hiding and hisses at Xandir and taunts him with its inner jaws.

[edit] See also

Alien series plot summary

[edit] External links

• Alien³ at the Internet Movie Database
• Alien³ at the All Movie Guide
• The Big Picture—article portraying Alien³ as an AIDS allegory in Issue 203 of Socialist Review, December 1996
• Alien³ script drafts - including proposed scripts by William Gibson and others

Alien, Predator and Alien vs. Predator

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