Continuity mistake: Any shot of the alien which isn't made using a guy in a suit has a green glow around the alien's body but any guy-in-a-suit shots do NOT have a green glow.
Alien 3 (1992)
2 reviews
Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Paul McGann
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(8 votes)
I own this movie on DvD.
If I could rate this 3 1/2 stars, I would. It's not 4 star worthy but not bad enough for 3 stars either.
I just recently watched this again with my girlfriend, since I've been showing her these movies.
This movie I feel is very under rated, getting an unjust bad rep due to the circumstances around it. And often times the hate towards the 4th film in the series tends to splash up onto this one as well.
Alien cubed... I mean Alien 3, is not by any means a bad film. But it just doesn't live up to the previous two films in the slightest, which those two were near perfect for their time, and even hold up to this day.
Alien 3 suffers from a seemingly rushed plot and some spotty effects. The CGI in some moments is definitely a product of it's time and stick out like a sore thumb.
But the premise of the film is an interesting one at least. Though spoiler warning now!
A lot of the hate that this movie gets, and it is justifiable, is that two of the main characters from the previous film are unceremoniously killed off between films, showing just some brief moments of how it happens during the opening credits where they shoehorn an alien egg onto the space craft they escaped on that gets into the ship and causes the death of Newt and Hicks where so that they don't even get any screen time in this film. Where they had basically became Ripley's new family at the end of the second movie.
The ending of this movie is also a bit of a sour note, and unfortunately does lay the ground works for the horrible 4th film in the franchise.
However, again this movie itself is not all that bad. It just doesn't live up to it's predecessors, and gets unjust hate towards it mostly as fallout from the next film, Alien Resurrection.
Some of the extra characters are fun, though one is killed off suddenly in an unsatisfying way.
The idea of taking it back to a single alien, but this time being the horror of a prison colony with no weapons and only the factory they live in as their means of defense, is a cool idea. And some aspects of this were implemented pretty well. You also get a first look at what happens when a Xenomorph takes half of it's DNA from something other than a human this time, with the one in this film having burst from the chest of a dog. So the alien in this film is far more canine than humanoid.
Just a lot of the execution and very dated CGI hinder this film. As well as an unsatisfactory opening and ending. But that's my opinion.
Mistake Status: I'll get to it some day after I do the first two films.
Alien 3 finds the heroine Ellen Ripley stranded on a particularly run-down former refinery/prison planet managed by a custodial staff of violent inmates, a surly warden and his somewhat intellectually-limited assistant, along with a disgraced doctor, utterly unprepared for an encounter with a different kind of vicious Xenomorph. Ripley is left reeling from tragedy upon awakening from hypersleep and with little left in her to fight the latest menace before the Company closes in on her and it. Alien 3 suffers from a patchwork script, trying to cast unlikable inmates as victims, starting off with killing popular characters, and having Ripley as a worn down, fatalistic protagonist just looking forward to her end. In the end, Alien 3 wasn't the best direction to take the franchise, justifying Alien: Resurrection.
Andrews: We're 25 prisoners in this facility. All double-Y chromos. All thieves, rapists, murderers, child-molesters. All scum. Just because they have taken on religion doesn't make them any less dangerous. I try not to offend their convictions. I don't want to upset the order. I don't want ripples in the water. And I don't want a woman walking around, giving them ideas.
Ripley: I see. For my own personal safety.
Andrews: Exactly.
Trivia: Originally, the movie was going to be shot by cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, but Cronenweth suffered Parkinson's Disease midway through filming and was let go by the line producer, being replaced by Alex Thomson. However, impressed by Cronenweth's work, David Fincher later worked with Cronenweth's son Jeff in nearly all of his future movies, resulting in two Academy Award nominations.
Question: Is it true that there was going to be a scene at the start of the movie where the Sulaco exploded, and why wasn't it filmed?
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Answer: According to the Alien 3 Movie Special magazine from 1992, yes, there was a scene where the Sulaco explodes as the EEV pod ejects, damaging the guidance systems. Apparently it was filmed but not included in the final cut.
Sierra1 ★