Movie Defense Force: Alien 3

[Chairman Miaow]

Alien 3

Jim Sterling takes famously "awful" films and sees the good in them.

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Really happy to see this, I was just the other day telling a few people in the Brovengers chat why I thought it was so hard done by.

Although I must admit, I'm surprised you didn't talk about Assembly/Director's cut vs. regular release.

Thank god for you I guess.

P.S. Good idea for a new series, looking forward to seeing more.

P.P.S. You have released a lot of stuff recently... Not that I'm complaining, but it must be hard work.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I recommend to everyone who liked the movie to read the book Alien 3. I think it's even better than the movie, and I wish they had done all the things in the book, in the movie. Perhaps they would have, if it hadn't had so many production problems.

I did really like Alien 3, but the book is so much better. As for Alien 4, I just couldn't stand the way they made the cell the aliens were housed in dissolvable by their blood. Good grief, they knew all about them by then.

I just never understood how there were reproductive aliens onboard the sulaco after the queen got blown out the airlock. Just a plot contrivance so there could be aliens in the next movie.

Or the queen laid the eggs while she was there waiting for them at the landing pad.

 

[Daveman]

Well, I like those points. I'm certainly going to have to watch it now. Though I must say the Xenomorphs look retarded in it and not even remotely scary, which is a bit of an issue. It did look better than resurrection at the very least.

 

[Trollhoffer]

What I do love about Alien 3 is that it's the first (and last) character movie of the franchise. This doesn't just come through the prisoners and their keepers, but through Ripley as well. For the first time, she's an inherently interesting character in her own right, with or without an Alien or twenty threatening her. Where the first film was a haunted house movie in space and the second was an optimistic Reagan-era military thriller, Alien 3 is first and foremost about people and about the redemption of those many of us dismiss off hand. Turning murderers and rapists into sympathetic characters isn't easy, but Alien 3 pulls it off.

Another thing I really enjoy is the Alien as something implicitly supernatural or paranormal, or at least as a creature experienced as supernatural. The first film was rife with this, through the Jockey ship to the bizarreness of the creature itself, but the second film brought a hive-like structure and a firmer biology to the creature that demystified it to some degree. In turn, this paved the way for a lot of awful expanded universe media that is only somewhat redeemed by the Alien vs. Predator games. But Alien 3 knows what horror is and I fully support the notion that the Alien always wins. Throughout the arc of films one to three, Ripley's victories are Pyrrhic at best. After all, this is not an American horror franchise as such, but the brainchild of Dan O'Bannon, Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger, and there is no cultural requirement that the good guys truly "win" -- unlike many purely American horror franchises and films.

So I appreciate Alien 3 for being true to the potential of the Alien as a monster, but also its attention to characterisation. It's not a movie in which a lot really happens, as such, but there's a lot of character interplay that lifts the potential of the series, and it does that without losing sight of the horror of the Alien itself. And most of all, it leaves much of the details of the Alien up to interpretation apart from its strength at environmental adaption. It's not clear how conscious the Alien is of its actions, nor are its intellectual or physical limitations made perfectly clear. A monster without mystery is no monster at all, and that's what a lot of Alien-related stuff has forgotten since Alien 3.

 

[Namechangeday]

I see that they gave you a second show. Congrats!

 

[Knusper]

I'm liking this show, but I think the intro goes on way too long. I know you can skip it, but I think 45 seconds is too long regardless.

 

[Gene O]

I'm happy for the new series. I'm even happier that Jim decided to defend my favorite Alien movie.

Thank God for Jim.

 

[Lincoln Thurber]

I still like the first film best. I like the stark lack of sci-fi conventions its has and the seemly random nature of who survives. I found Aliens to be too much of a pop-corn movie, too much cowboy and too little thought. I can appreciate what Aliens 3 does, but I still enjoy the creep some what straight-played 'killer on a train' story...just because the killer is a bug doesn't take away from the classic story trope of being trapped on a moving vehicle that has a killer on it with you. JMO Thank Jim, a nice new show.

 

[rcs619]

Waitwaitwaitwait... we get Jim Sterling multiple times a week now? Good god, I don't know if the world is ready for that.

Seriously though, I think more than a few valid points were raised. I never understood the hate Alien 3 got. Yeah, Newt and the marine guy getting killed off screen was kind of disappointing, but overall it was a much better movie than people gave it credit for, and really did tie up a nice little trilogy with the others by going back to the series' roots one last time. It was about Ripley and the alien, Ahab and the whale, and the inevitably hopeless struggle against a force of nature. And that is how a movie series like this should go out

It really is a great thing that they've let the series retire since then. I am so glad they didn't screw everything up by making a bunch of half-assed sequels and prequels that really only mess with up established canon and basically throw the main themes of the series out the window. I mean, geez, that'd be about as bad as if they went and made another Terminator movie after the second one.

 

[TheScottishFella]

It's a shame that some of the points in this had been covered in the past on Podtoid.

show of hands, who here on the escapist knows of Podtoid?


(if not, fix that!)

I do. Fantastic podcast.

Good show Jim, I'm looking forward to seeing the others

 

[RTR]

I have to appreciate how Jim doesn't bother with introductions and just hits the ground running with this.
Good job.

 

[Right Hook]

I get the feeling I'll like this show quite a bit, great first episode at any rate.

So I gotta admit, Aliens will always be my absolute favorite from this series of movies. Although over the years I've slowly come to like 3 for what it is, it is a decent film but I will never love it after it slaughtered Hicks and the team behind the project basically told Michael Beihn to go fuck himself. I get that Hicks isn't an extremely well-developed character but he is so perfect at what he is, someone who is in way over his head but manages to hold it together.

The simply fact that people are coming up with insane conspiracy theories involving how it was a clone in the cryo-pod and he'll appear alive in the new game is proof enough that killing him was a questionable, if not a moronic choice, even if it made sense to an overall theme. If he really does come back in the game, does that invalidate Jim's argument? Randy Pitchford has actually said that the game would make Alien 3 a better movie, so what happens if you already like it?

I for one would welcome the return of Hicks...

After all, it is about time somebody woke this guy up.

 

[ECasThat]

You have sparked my interest sir, count me in.
although the show need a bit of a shorter intro in my opinion.

 

[Meatspinner]

Thank you Jim!

I honestly thought I was in a minority here. Aliens 3 was first movie of the franchise I saw, so i guess you could say that the previous movies didn't color my view of it.

Could you maybe shorten the intro though?

 

[Milanezi]

Alien 3 IS my favorite right after the first movie I just enjoyed the grimy characters in desperation and the whole extremely unforgiving prison the movie takes place in, made me wonder about the UNIVERSE it all happens, what would happen to inmates in such a condition, how they came closer to living as a sole community once there was no easy way to "get out". Ok, maybe I love this movie for all the wrong reasons, but still...
Plus, I remember when it was first released (I was a young kind, but I had seen both Alien movies already), there was all this criticism not toward the movie, but at Sigourney Weaver because she had "shaved her hair for for real for the movie", as if that was a capital crime lol.

 

[Reptiloid]

Thank Jim for more Jim!

While it's not my personal favorite of the series, I've never been one to bash Alien 3, and quite frankly never got why so many seemed to hate it.

You presented some solid arguments, and this series is looking quite promising. Looking forward to the next episode... I absolutely hated every aspect of Freddy Vs Jason, so it shall be interesting to see what you have to say about that one.

One thing I strongly disagreed with though, Newt wasn't remotely annoying. Don't diss the Newt!

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I love the Alien films. All of them. I've posted about my love for this series a multitude of times on the Escapist. Hell, I just bought a second copy of the "Alien Anthology" box set on Blu-Ray so that I could get the spiffy Japanese collector's edition bonuses.

I don't think I'd call Alien 3 the best of the five (including Prometheus). It's still a good movie, but I don't think it's the best. It's a movie that had a ton of really, really good ideas for the franchise... it just didn't execute them quite as well as it could have (possibly due to the studio interference and constant re-writes - fun fact, Pitch Black was originally an Alien 3 script). I would say it's on-par with Alien and Aliens, but certainly not better. It excels where Alien and Aliens didn't, but it falters in pretty much every place where Alien and Aliens excelled.

Also, I think the argument that Alien 3 is the best because of how frequently its aesthetic is reused is kinda weak, seeing as how the aesthetic (and even overall stories) from Alien and Aliens are also constantly reused in both film and gaming. Adding in that particular bullet point kinda made it feel like you were grasping for anything to back your point.

 

[Jon Shannow]

It has Tywin Lannister and Obadiah Hakeswill, how could you dislike Alien 3?

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Well spoken as always, Jim.

While I don't personalyl feel that Alien 3 is the best of the series, or even second best, I still have to marvel at people who singlemindedly hate it.

Alien Resurrection on the other hand...

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

It's a shame that some of the points in this had been covered in the past on Podtoid.

show of hands, who here on the escapist knows of Podtoid?


(if not, fix that!)

googling podtoid to figure out what it is.... in 3 ...2 .... 1

They gave hitman absolution 8.5 ........... our tastes don't align.

1) Podtoid is Destructoid's podcast. They do not do reviews on it.

2) When your tastes don't align, that's not enough to write off an entire site. That just makes you petty.

3) dicks