Alien 3
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| Alien 3 | |
|---|---|
 The original 1992 theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | David Fincher |
| Produced by | Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill |
| Written by | Characters: Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett Story: Vincent Ward Screenplay: David Giler Walter Hill Larry Ferguson |
| Starring | Sigourney Weaver Charles S. Dutton Charles Dance Paul McGann Lance Henriksen Pete Postlethwaite |
| Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Cinematography | Alex Thomson |
| Editing by | Terry Rawlings |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | United States: May 22, 1992 United Kingdom: August 21, 1992 |
| Running time | Theatrical Cut: 114 min. Special Edition: 144 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $159,773,545 |
| Preceded by | Aliens |
| Followed by | Alien Resurrection |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Alien 3, styled as Alien³, is a science fiction/horror film that opened May 22, 1992 (see 1992 in film). As 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. The film also stands as the feature film directorial debut of David Fincher.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
In deep space the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop in cryonic stasis. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male former inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns. As the inmates recover the pod's passengers, an alien facehugger is seen approaching their dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens (Charles Dance), the facility's doctor, and learns that she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian religion which forbids sexual relations, and Ripley is warned that her presence among them may have extremely disturbing effects.
Suspicious of what caused the escape pod to jettison and what killed her companions, Ripley demands that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt. She fears that Newt may be carrying an alien embryo in her body, though she does not share this information. No embryo is found in Newt's body, however, and the colony's warden becomes increasingly angered that Ripley's unusual behavior is agitating the prisoners. They perform a funeral for Newt and Hicks in which their bodies are thrown into the facility's gigantic furnace. In another part of the facility the dog goes into convulsions and an alien erupts from its body. The alien soon begins to attack members of the colony, killing several and returning one man to his former insane state. Ripley tells the warden of her previous encounters with the aliens and demands that the group hunt it down, but he does not believe her and informs her that there are no weapons at all in the facility. Their only hope of protection is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged Bishop, who reveals that there was an alien facehugger stowed away with them on the Sulaco.
Back in the facility's infirmary, Clemens is killed by the alien, which also approaches Ripley but does not kill her. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to witness the alien kill the warden. Using the Sulaco's medical equipment Ripley discovers that she has the embryo of an alien queen growing inside her. She also finds that what the Corporation really wants is the queen embryo and the adult alien, hoping to turn them into biological weapons. Deducing that the alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon (Charles S. Dutton) to kill her. He agrees to do so only if she will help the inmates kill the alien first. After a failed attempt to trap the creature that results in several deaths, they form a plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead. The plan results in the deaths of nearly all the remaining prisoners including Dillon, who sacrifices himself to keep the creature in the mold. The alien, covered in molten lead, escapes the mold and is killed when Ripley sprays it with water from the fire sprinkler, causing it to cool rapidly and shatter.
Just as the alien is killed the Weyland-Yutani team arrives, including a man who looks like Bishop and claims to be the creator of the android. He attempts to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the queen embryo. Ripley refuses and commits suicide, throwing herself into the gigantic furnace just as the alien queen begins to burst forth from her chest. The film ends with a sequence showing the facility being closed down, the last survivor, prisoner Morse, being led away, and a shot of the escape pod playing the recording of Ripley's final lines from the original Alien.
[edit] Cast
- Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, reprising her role from the previous two Alien films. Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina-161 and once again faces a threat from one of the Alien creatures.
- Charles S. Dutton as Lenard Dillon, one of Fiorina-161's inmates who functions as the spiritual leader of the prisoners and attempts to keep the peace in the facility.
- Charles Dance as Clemens, a former inmate who now serves as the facility's doctor. He treats Ripley after her escape pod crashes at the start of the film and forms a special bond with her.
- Brian Glover as Harold Andrews, the warden of the prison facility. He believes Ripley's presence will cause disruption amongst the inmates and attempts to control the rumors surrounding her and the Alien.
- Ralph Brown as Francis Aaron. Aaron is assistant to Superintendent Andrews and serves as the prison guard. The prisoners refer to him by the nickname "85," after his IQ score, which annoys him. He opposes Ripley's insistence that the prisoners must try to fight the Alien, preferring to wait for the Weyland-Yutani rescue ship to arrive.
- Paul McGann as Golic. Golic is one of the more disturbed members of the prison's population and becomes fixated on the Alien.
- Danny Webb as Robert Morse, one of the prison's inmates who assists Ripley in combatting the Alien.
- Lance Henriksen as Bishop II. Bishop II appears in the film's final scene, claiming to be the human designer of the Bishop android from Aliens. He wants the Alien queen which is growing inside Ripley for use in Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division. Henriksen's likeness was also used for the salvaged Bishop android which Ripley interacts with during an earlier scene (the android in this scene was animated using animatronics).
Additional prisoners were played by Christopher John Fields (as Rains), Christopher Fairbank (as Murphy), Phil Davis (as Kevin), Vincenzo Nicoli (as Jude), Leon Herbert (as Boggs), Deobia Oparei (as Arthur), Pete Postlethwaite (as David), and Carl Chase (as Frank).
[edit] Special Edition DVD
An alternate version of Alien³ (officially titled the "Assembly Cut") with over 30 minutes of additional footage was released on the 9-disc Alien Quadrilogy box-set in 2003. Nearly 3/4 of the scenes in this version contain footage not included in the 1992 theatrical release. Director David Fincher, although giving 20th Century Fox permission to release this enhanced version to DVD, was the one director from the entire franchise who declined to participate in the box-set, even to record a commentary track.
The Assembly Cut edition has several key plot elements that differ from the theatrical release. The alien gestates in an ox rather than a dog, and one of the inmates discovers a dead facehugger which is visually different from those seen in the previous films. Some scenes are extended to focus more on the religious views of the inmates. Most notably, in the Assembly Cut the inmates succeed in their attempt to trap the alien, but it is later released by the disturbed inmate Golic. Some differences in the final scene include the alien queen not bursting from Ripley's chest as she falls into the furnace.
[edit] Writing
A very early script treatment was written by 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. 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] In copies of Gibson's treatment, unlike almost all other Alien-related material, instead of "chestbursters" erupting out of human hosts, humans become alien warriors, through an unspecified method that apparently works similarly to a virulent, contagious disease.[2]
Other notable screenwriters whose names were linked with the project were Eric Red, David Twohy, John Fasano and Rex Pickett. Scripts in the names of some these writers can be found on various online script sites.[1]
A draft of the script for Alien³, written by John Fasano and Vincent Ward (who was attached to direct at the time), had Ripley's escape pod crashlanding on a monastery-like, wooden planet. The Alien³ special features disc also explains how they would come about creating the story for a wooden planet. However, the inhabitants of this planet would view the arrival of Ripley as that of a religious trial from their "god." By having a woman on their monastery planetoid, their trial would be one of sexual temptation. To avoid this, the Monks of the wooden planet would later lock Ripley into a dungeon-like sewer. The early draft, which featured the Alien creature coming with Ripley, had the wooden planet Monks believing that the Alien was in fact the Devil. There are scenes and illustrations featured on this disc that show the "Wooden Planet." Aspects of the monastery/Monks of the early draft were later utilized in the final production of the film by having the male inmates participating in the religion shown.
[edit] Music
The film's composer, Elliot Goldenthal, spent a year composing the score by working closely with Fincher to create music based primarily on the surroundings and atmosphere of the film itself. The score was recorded during the L.A. riots of 1992, which Goldenthal later claimed contributed to the score's disturbing nature. The choral segment featured in the opening titles, performed by boy soprano, is "Agnus Dei", from the Catholic Requiem Mass, and was included as a reference to the prisoners as lambs being led to the slaughter.
[edit] Adaptations
A novelization of the film was authored by Alan Dean Foster. His adaptations includes many scenes that were cut from the final film, some of which later reappeared in the Assembly Cut. Foster wanted his adaptation to differ from the film's script, which he disliked, but Walter Hill declared he should not alter the storyline. Foster later commented: "So out went my carefully constructed motivations for all the principal prisoners, my preserving the life of Newt (her killing in the film is an obscenity) and much else. Embittered by this experience, that's why I turned down Resurrection."[3]
Dark Horse Comics also released a three-issue comic book adaptation of the film.[4]
[edit] Visual effects
Alien 3 was nominated for an Academy Award for best visual effects.[5]
The alien is played by Alien Effects Designer Tom Woodruff, Jr. wearing a costume designed by himself and Alec Gillis, and also appears in the form of a rod puppet filmed against bluescreen and optically composited into the live-action footage. A mechanical alien head was also used for close-ups.[6]
Director David Fincher suggested that a whippet be dressed in an alien costume for on-set coverage of the quadrupedal alien, but the visual effects team was dissatisfied with the comical result and the idea was dropped in favour of the puppet.[6]
A small number of shots contain CGI elements, most notably the cracking alien head. Other CGI elements include shadows cast by the (rod puppet) alien, and airborne debris in outdoor scenes.[6]
[edit] Reception
[edit] Box office
Alien 3 was released in the United States on May 22, 1992. The film debuted at number two of the box office, behind Lethal Weapon 3, with a Memorial Day weekend gross of $23.1 million. It screened in 2,227, for an average gross of $8,733 per theater.[7] The film was considered a flop in North America with a total of $55.4 million, although it grossed $104.3 million internationally for a total of $159.7 million. It is the second highest earning Alien film, excluding the effect of inflation, and had the 28th highest domestic gross in 1992.[8]
[edit] Critical reception
From its initial release to the present day the film has incurred mixed reviews by critics, generally being unfavourably compared to the preceding two films in the franchise.[9][10]
In later years, critics of the film have become 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 written by 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.[11]
A number of cast and crew associated with the series, including actor Michael Biehn and James Cameron, expressed their frustration and disappointment with the film's story. Cameron, in particular, regarded the decision to kill off the characters of Bishop, Newt, and Hicks "a slap in the face" to him and to fans of the previous film. Biehn, upon learning of Corporal Hicks's demise, demanded and received as much money for the use of his likeness in one scene as he had been paid for his role in Aliens.[12]
The bonus disc for Alien³, in the 2003 Quadrilogy set, includes a documentary on the film's production but lacks Fincher's participation. Despite giving the Quadrilogy set high marks, TheDigitalbits.com directed criticism at the bonus 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.[13]
[edit] Video game
The official licensed video game was released for multiple formats by Acclaim and Virgin Interactive, including Amiga, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Game Boy, Mega Drive/Genesis, and Sega 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
- ^ William Gibson talks about the script. WilliamGibsonBooks.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
- ^ Draft of Gibson's script on Scifiscripts.com
- ^ Alan Dean Foster. "Planet Error", Empire, April 2008, pp. 100.
- ^ Steven Grant (w), Christopher Taylor (p), Alien 3 #1-3 (June – July 1992) Dark Horse Comics
- ^ IMDB awards
- ^ a b c Fredrick Garvin (Director). The Making of Alien³ [DVD]. United States: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
- ^ Alien 3. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2008-02-07.
- ^ 1992 Domestic Gross. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2008-02-06.
- ^ Rotten Tomatoes review collection
- ^ IMDB ratings
- ^ 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)
- ^ Wreckage and Rape: The Making of Alien³ – Development Hell: Concluding The Story (Alien³ Collector's Edition DVD)
- ^ Criticism of Bonus Disc. The Digital Bits. Retrieved on 2006-12-15.
[edit] External links
- Alien³ at the Internet Movie Database
- Alien 3 at Rotten Tomatoes
- Alien³ at Allmovie
- Alien³ at Box Office Mojo
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