12 ms·

William Gibson’s Never-Filmed Aliens Sequel

158 points by andyjohnson0 9y ago

fivestar 9y ago
Still waiting on a Neuromancer film or better yet, a mini-series.
- elvinyung 9y ago
  It's just going to look exactly like Blade Runner [1] :) [1] http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.as...
- Fricken 9y ago
  An adaptation of Pattern Recognition is supposedly in the works. I've always been a big fan of Gibson penned Johnny Mnemonic, which, if you can get past the bad acting and wooden dialogue, has plenty of trademark Gibson cyberpunk tropes.
  - elvinyung 9y ago
    Actually, there is also a film adaptation of New Rose Hotel, which is in the same setting as Johnny Mnemonic and the Sprawl trilogy. [1] http://imdb.com/title/tt0133122/ http://imdb.com/title/tt0133122/
    - angersock 9y ago
      Yep! With Christopher Walken, no less--it's one of my favorite obscure gems of the cyberpunk film genre.
- phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
  The BBC produced a radio drama a number of years ago. I don't have a good source for it now, though.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  I feel like the window of opportunity for a Neuromancer film has closed... so many of the tropes that it invented have now become clichés that at this point the film would just feel stale. That's what happened with the Ghost in the Shell movie and Neuromancer would have it even worse.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    Nah, the original Ghost in the Shell movie still feels fresh. What happened to the Ghost in the Shell movie, was a mixture of whitewashing, script butchering, and plain-old bad direction, etc. Not to mention that it was "reinventing" something that already existed, in a sub-standard way.
- 64738 9y ago
  I agree, and I would also like to see something from the Shadow World rpg realm. I think movie technology has progressed to the point where a really cool adaptation could be done.
  - jungletek 9y ago
    I'm thinking you meant Shadowrun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun ) and not Shadow World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_World_(role_playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_World_(role_playing_gam... ). I'm not familiar with the latter, but the description of 'high-fantasy' suggests to me that you meant the former. That said, the Shadowrun universe is certainly an interesting mashup of magic and technology, and the fact that it exists outside of a particular story or stories seems like it would lend itself to interpretation and exploration beyond that of an adaptation of a static tale.
scandox 9y ago
> An alien (left) and William Gibson. Rather rude caption.
- moron4hire 9y ago
  Gibson seems like a person who'd appreciate the joke.
- ghostDancer 9y ago
  It's the same joke on the wikipedia with the penguin and the bagpiper.
- Aron 9y ago
  It's rude but I can take a joke when it's about someone else.
jvzr 9y ago
Without spoiling anything (I hope) for those that haven't yet seen Alien Covenant, there are lot of similitudes between that script and the new movies, it's almost uncanny.
- talmand 9y ago
  Much of what I read in the article about what he wrote reminds me heavily of Alien: Resurrection.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Alien: Resurrection. That was a really, really bad movie. Jeunet had absolutely no idea what he was doing directing that movie.
    - badosu 9y ago
      I find it no worse than Alien 3, at least it had some aesthetic style.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        I think the key here, in retrospect, is that this would have been Gibson in his 30s, immediately after writing Count Zero (and Neuromancer before that). I can't think of a better thematic match to continue on from Aliens. Also incredibly annoyed that the noted reason it got shot down was "not being innovative enough." I feel like most movies die from overly innovative scripts, whereas most of the classics, reduced to script form, are really simple ideas executed well. I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens.
        badosu 9y ago
        > I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens. I am a huge Alien fan, but I can't understand the fascination with Aliens, it always seemed like a cheap action movie when compared with the true psychological horror of the first one.
rbanffy 9y ago
That's nonsense. The Apple //c never had a version of Microsoft Word for it.
- andyjohnson0 9y ago
  I noticed the article on MetaFilter [1] and there's some discussion about the word processor in the comments there. Some people are suggesting Apple Writer or Word Perfect. [1] http://www.metafilter.com/167000/Sulaco-has-entered-a-sector-claimed-by-the-Union-of-Progressive-Peoples http://www.metafilter.com/167000/Sulaco-has-entered-a-sector...
- kbenson 9y ago
  They are probably thinking of Word Perfect.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pawadu 9y ago
  It has been said he used AppleWorks on Apple II when his typewriter broke but went back to a (new) typewriter pretty quickly. Also, why are we discussing this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
  - freeflight 9y ago
    Wouldn't surprise me at all considering he didn't understand computers at all back then. In an audio interview [0], he explains how he contacted Apple support because his Apple II's disc drive was so loud. In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology". [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5oU2Xx6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5oU2Xx6s
    - ethbro 9y ago
      > In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology" I mean, aren't we still at this point? Some historical artifacts (e.g. Sutherland's Sketchpad demo, AmigaOS) still blow modern systems away in terms of UX.
aaron695 9y ago
I always liked the monk idea, but had never read Gibos script. Some many better ideas - http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3/33600/alien-3-the-story-ideas-that-never-made-it-to-the-screen http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3/33600/alien-3-the-st...
toyg 9y ago
It's funny how Gibson's screenplay was marked "not innovative" but now The Master himself, Sir Ridley Scott, is basically churning out the same movie over and over again (Prometheus and Covenant). In the end, Hollywood franchises will go on no matter what.
- cvwright 9y ago
  And Gibson is still churning out books with the same ideas -- even sometimes essentially the same characters with different names. Crazy rich guy driving everything from behind the scenes? Check. Voodoo beliefs transplanted into modern/futuristic society? Check. Cayce Pollard vs Hollis Henry? They are essentially the same character. I still enjoy his work, but it's impossible not to notice the repetition, going from the Pattern Recognition trilogy all the way back to Count Zero.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Yup. Read the Sprawl trilogy, the Bridge trilogy, and Burning Chrome, and you're done.
    - sleepybrett 9y ago
      While the bigend trilogy isn't his strongest work there are some interesting concepts toyed in there that are certainly achievable in todays world. Garage Kubrick, Secret Brand and Serious Political Trickster. The peripheral, however, is not to be missed.
  - et-al 9y ago
    Yes! I had the same reaction when I finished up the Bridge Trilogy. It's the same overarching plot in almost all his novels. However, I don't think one reads Gibson for the quality of plot or language, but rather for technological concepts he conjures up.
pseingatl 9y ago
I can remember reading this; it was posted in its entirety on Usenet. Here's a link to the screenplay: http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tarikjn 9y ago
> But there’s an alternate universe where the series’ propulsive momentum only increased — a reality in which the third Alien film featured advanced xenomorphs [...]; where cold-warring rival space stations of communists and capitalists race to outdo one another with their genetic experiments on the aliens’ tissue; where a flock of the phallic horrors flies through the void of space, only to be beaten back by a gun-toting robot. There were already a few similarities between the Alien and Starcraft worlds, but this definitely pushes it closer.
- xenihn 9y ago
  SC1 draws lots of inspiration from other works of fiction in it's domain. Aside from the Zerg being Blizzard's take on xenomorphs, the SC1 Goliath design is pretty much the Robocop enforcement droid, and the Protoss are their take on Predators. I'm always surprised by fans who defend game designers and state that it's just a coincidence, or even that there's anything inherently wrong with taking something from another IP and repurposing it for your game and/or paying homage to it, since what you're using probably wasn't a completely original thought either, and was in turn inspired by something else. I know a few game devs/designers and have gotten to experience the design process at a major game company first-hand, and they're completely honest about using other stuff as an inspiration or template for their concepts, but they're not allowed to admit it publicly for a variety of reasons (lawsuits I guess...). Stuff from other IPs is directly referenced when brainstorming and designing. I think people who don't know anything about game design or universe building don't realize just how much media the people involved in these fields consume. It's silly to think that they won't be basing their stuff off things that they're fans of.
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    "Milspec ED 209 on", yeah, there's a bunch of little easter eggs in starcraft. Protoss always seemed more like "Eldar" from warhammer 40k. I vaguely recall the old rogue trader saying Eldar warp in to the battlefield, just like the Protoss. They probably drew from everything they'd ever read and seen, not at all surprising there are a bunch of references.
davidw 9y ago
I hated Aliens 3 - it's like the guy who got it basically wanted to say "f* you" to Aliens, which was a good, fun, if not particularly deep movie.
- vernie 9y ago
  Alien 3 was actually a famously troubled production and a prime example of "development hell".
snake_plissken 9y ago
I like Alien 3. I don't know exactly what it is that I like, but it's there. Maybe it's the religious penal colony theme? The Quake-esue feel to the setting? The different direction in style and setting it took from the other two? Alien 3 is a lot like Temple Doom (which I also like). It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better, I think everyone just writes off the remaining film.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Interesting you mention Quake in this connection - I feel like at least someone on the Dead Space 2 writing or design team must've seen Gibson's spec script at some point. Some of the Anchorpoint sequences in the script match pretty closely with some of the game's sequences in the "Sprawl" station - and I mean, the station is called the Sprawl, so it's not exactly a far reach to suggest the game devs had some Gibsonian influence going on. Not a criticism, I should note - I feel like that's some of the strongest material in Dead Space 2, which is admittedly very uneven, but when it's good, it's good indeed. If we couldn't have Gibson's version of Alien 3 - and I agree with the article author that we'd have been better off with that one than with the one we did get - then it's nice at least to see some of it end up surfacing in another venue.
- awkwardtortoise 9y ago
  > It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better Alien 3 is a fun/exciting movie. But it never lived up to Ridley's Alien nor Cameron's Aliens standard. It is not a terrible movie by a long shot. But when you compare it to the two masterpieces that preceded it, it disappoints.
callmeed 9y ago
My 12 yo daughter loves sci-fi movies and we just started watching the Alien franchise in preparation for Alien: Covenant this weekend. My plan was to show her Alien, Aliens, then Prometheus. I hadn't even planned to watch Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection (or any of the spinoffs like AVP). But after reading this, maybe we should at least watch Alien 3. Any suggestions?
- fnord123 9y ago
  I recently reached alien 3 thinking it doesn't get a fair shake. It's possible that it's overly maligned. But it's not good.
  - RobertKerans 9y ago
    Yeah, it's a complete mess, but it's an interesting mess at least. Resurrection is kinda the same level of mess I guess; a few amazing scenes, really interesting underlying ideas that seem to have been gimeped by rewrites/lost in the edit.
    - fnord123 9y ago
      Resurrection is unwatchable in my opinion. I didn't even bother with the AvP films.
  - fnord123 9y ago
    s/reached/rewatched/
- scarecrowbob 9y ago
  FWIW, I think that AVP is interesting in that it juxtaposes two diametrically opposite creatures. It's a fun literary exercise with kids to point out all the ways that a dichotomy is expressed, and IMO it makes "reading" the Aliens franchise easier because its tropes are easier to see in relief. For instance, both creatures (or whatever you want to call em) have an approach to technology... one uses tools, one embodies the tech. There are a good number of tropes along those lines which, IMO, bring out a lot of interesting ways of thinking about the aliens. Just a suggestion from a literature geek.
vilhelm_s 9y ago
Another interesting never-realized Alien film is Vincent Ward's version of Alien 3. Among other thing, it was set on a space-monastery made entirely from wood (looking like the interior of a medieval church, and powered by windmill), and the main monster was a an Alien-Sheep (made by incubating in one of the farm animals). The set-piece would have been the Alien attacking our heros in an indoors wheat-field. https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/wooden-world-vincent-wards-alien-iii/ https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/wooden-world-vi...
- throwanem 9y ago
  I remember reading that script, some years ago. I feel like it would've ended up like Jodorowsky's Dune if they'd tried in a serious way to make it - failing that, like Lynch's, with the same heroic but ultimately foredoomed struggle to carry a burden of story and symbolism that's just too heavy for a feature film to bear.
sleepybrett 9y ago
Alien 3 is clearly a lesser alien work, but it's still very interesting to watch as an early david fincher work.
pixel_fcker 9y ago
Just read the script from the link in the article. It's... not good. Pretty obvious why it never got made.
effie 9y ago
Alien 3 traditionally gets a lot of flak, but it is actually quite a remarkable movie. It left strong impression on me and is so rich in story and emotions I watched it many times over. The premise and setting are very depressing, yet the prison, its visuals and inhabitants quickly get intriguing. This is a great narration of how people that have nothing but each other and their faith realize that their only real chance of survival is to work together and fight the beast. It is also a story of one strong woman who wakes up in a world where every hope of hers gets destroyed one by one. Just when you think things cannot get more dire, there is another bad luck, another loss, another jolt of despair. Extremely strong emotions, thrilling chase and a great finale where Ripley's final decision is the perfect and only possible conclusion of a life that destroyed her hopes and gave her nothing except for a chance to fight for others, and win. The film's music is beautiful and visuals are very good. I think people say bad things about the film mostly because they expected Aliens: the sequel where Cameron's vision would continue. Don't get me wrong, Aliens is a great film, and the novelization by Foster a great book to read. But if you take Alien 3 as an independent vision of the theme, you will enjoy it.

158 points by andyjohnson0 9y ago

fivestar 9y ago

Still waiting on a Neuromancer film or better yet, a mini-series.

elvinyung 9y ago
It's just going to look exactly like Blade Runner [1] :) [1] http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.as...
Fricken 9y ago
An adaptation of Pattern Recognition is supposedly in the works. I've always been a big fan of Gibson penned Johnny Mnemonic, which, if you can get past the bad acting and wooden dialogue, has plenty of trademark Gibson cyberpunk tropes.
- elvinyung 9y ago
  Actually, there is also a film adaptation of New Rose Hotel, which is in the same setting as Johnny Mnemonic and the Sprawl trilogy. [1] http://imdb.com/title/tt0133122/ http://imdb.com/title/tt0133122/
  - angersock 9y ago
    Yep! With Christopher Walken, no less--it's one of my favorite obscure gems of the cyberpunk film genre.
phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
The BBC produced a radio drama a number of years ago. I don't have a good source for it now, though.
Analemma_ 9y ago
I feel like the window of opportunity for a Neuromancer film has closed... so many of the tropes that it invented have now become clichés that at this point the film would just feel stale. That's what happened with the Ghost in the Shell movie and Neuromancer would have it even worse.
- fao_ 9y ago
  Nah, the original Ghost in the Shell movie still feels fresh. What happened to the Ghost in the Shell movie, was a mixture of whitewashing, script butchering, and plain-old bad direction, etc. Not to mention that it was "reinventing" something that already existed, in a sub-standard way.
64738 9y ago
I agree, and I would also like to see something from the Shadow World rpg realm. I think movie technology has progressed to the point where a really cool adaptation could be done.
- jungletek 9y ago
  I'm thinking you meant Shadowrun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun ) and not Shadow World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_World_(role_playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_World_(role_playing_gam... ). I'm not familiar with the latter, but the description of 'high-fantasy' suggests to me that you meant the former. That said, the Shadowrun universe is certainly an interesting mashup of magic and technology, and the fact that it exists outside of a particular story or stories seems like it would lend itself to interpretation and exploration beyond that of an adaptation of a static tale.

scandox 9y ago

> An alien (left) and William Gibson. Rather rude caption.

moron4hire 9y ago
Gibson seems like a person who'd appreciate the joke.
ghostDancer 9y ago
It's the same joke on the wikipedia with the penguin and the bagpiper.
Aron 9y ago
It's rude but I can take a joke when it's about someone else.

jvzr 9y ago

Without spoiling anything (I hope) for those that haven't yet seen Alien Covenant, there are lot of similitudes between that script and the new movies, it's almost uncanny.

talmand 9y ago
Much of what I read in the article about what he wrote reminds me heavily of Alien: Resurrection.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Alien: Resurrection. That was a really, really bad movie. Jeunet had absolutely no idea what he was doing directing that movie.
  - badosu 9y ago
    I find it no worse than Alien 3, at least it had some aesthetic style.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      I think the key here, in retrospect, is that this would have been Gibson in his 30s, immediately after writing Count Zero (and Neuromancer before that). I can't think of a better thematic match to continue on from Aliens. Also incredibly annoyed that the noted reason it got shot down was "not being innovative enough." I feel like most movies die from overly innovative scripts, whereas most of the classics, reduced to script form, are really simple ideas executed well. I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens.
      - badosu 9y ago
        > I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens. I am a huge Alien fan, but I can't understand the fascination with Aliens, it always seemed like a cheap action movie when compared with the true psychological horror of the first one.

rbanffy 9y ago

That's nonsense. The Apple //c never had a version of Microsoft Word for it.

andyjohnson0 9y ago
I noticed the article on MetaFilter [1] and there's some discussion about the word processor in the comments there. Some people are suggesting Apple Writer or Word Perfect. [1] http://www.metafilter.com/167000/Sulaco-has-entered-a-sector-claimed-by-the-Union-of-Progressive-Peoples http://www.metafilter.com/167000/Sulaco-has-entered-a-sector...
kbenson 9y ago
They are probably thinking of Word Perfect.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pawadu 9y ago
It has been said he used AppleWorks on Apple II when his typewriter broke but went back to a (new) typewriter pretty quickly. Also, why are we discussing this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
- freeflight 9y ago
  Wouldn't surprise me at all considering he didn't understand computers at all back then. In an audio interview [0], he explains how he contacted Apple support because his Apple II's disc drive was so loud. In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology". [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5oU2Xx6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5oU2Xx6s
  - ethbro 9y ago
    > In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology" I mean, aren't we still at this point? Some historical artifacts (e.g. Sutherland's Sketchpad demo, AmigaOS) still blow modern systems away in terms of UX.

aaron695 9y ago

I always liked the monk idea, but had never read Gibos script. Some many better ideas - http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3/33600/alien-3-the-story-ideas-that-never-made-it-to-the-screen http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3/33600/alien-3-the-st...

toyg 9y ago

It's funny how Gibson's screenplay was marked "not innovative" but now The Master himself, Sir Ridley Scott, is basically churning out the same movie over and over again (Prometheus and Covenant). In the end, Hollywood franchises will go on no matter what.

cvwright 9y ago
And Gibson is still churning out books with the same ideas -- even sometimes essentially the same characters with different names. Crazy rich guy driving everything from behind the scenes? Check. Voodoo beliefs transplanted into modern/futuristic society? Check. Cayce Pollard vs Hollis Henry? They are essentially the same character. I still enjoy his work, but it's impossible not to notice the repetition, going from the Pattern Recognition trilogy all the way back to Count Zero.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Yup. Read the Sprawl trilogy, the Bridge trilogy, and Burning Chrome, and you're done.
  - sleepybrett 9y ago
    While the bigend trilogy isn't his strongest work there are some interesting concepts toyed in there that are certainly achievable in todays world. Garage Kubrick, Secret Brand and Serious Political Trickster. The peripheral, however, is not to be missed.
- et-al 9y ago
  Yes! I had the same reaction when I finished up the Bridge Trilogy. It's the same overarching plot in almost all his novels. However, I don't think one reads Gibson for the quality of plot or language, but rather for technological concepts he conjures up.

pseingatl 9y ago

I can remember reading this; it was posted in its entirety on Usenet. Here's a link to the screenplay: http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tarikjn 9y ago

> But there’s an alternate universe where the series’ propulsive momentum only increased — a reality in which the third Alien film featured advanced xenomorphs [...]; where cold-warring rival space stations of communists and capitalists race to outdo one another with their genetic experiments on the aliens’ tissue; where a flock of the phallic horrors flies through the void of space, only to be beaten back by a gun-toting robot. There were already a few similarities between the Alien and Starcraft worlds, but this definitely pushes it closer.

xenihn 9y ago
SC1 draws lots of inspiration from other works of fiction in it's domain. Aside from the Zerg being Blizzard's take on xenomorphs, the SC1 Goliath design is pretty much the Robocop enforcement droid, and the Protoss are their take on Predators. I'm always surprised by fans who defend game designers and state that it's just a coincidence, or even that there's anything inherently wrong with taking something from another IP and repurposing it for your game and/or paying homage to it, since what you're using probably wasn't a completely original thought either, and was in turn inspired by something else. I know a few game devs/designers and have gotten to experience the design process at a major game company first-hand, and they're completely honest about using other stuff as an inspiration or template for their concepts, but they're not allowed to admit it publicly for a variety of reasons (lawsuits I guess...). Stuff from other IPs is directly referenced when brainstorming and designing. I think people who don't know anything about game design or universe building don't realize just how much media the people involved in these fields consume. It's silly to think that they won't be basing their stuff off things that they're fans of.
- jfoutz 9y ago
  "Milspec ED 209 on", yeah, there's a bunch of little easter eggs in starcraft. Protoss always seemed more like "Eldar" from warhammer 40k. I vaguely recall the old rogue trader saying Eldar warp in to the battlefield, just like the Protoss. They probably drew from everything they'd ever read and seen, not at all surprising there are a bunch of references.

davidw 9y ago

I hated Aliens 3 - it's like the guy who got it basically wanted to say "f* you" to Aliens, which was a good, fun, if not particularly deep movie.

vernie 9y ago
Alien 3 was actually a famously troubled production and a prime example of "development hell".

snake_plissken 9y ago

I like Alien 3. I don't know exactly what it is that I like, but it's there. Maybe it's the religious penal colony theme? The Quake-esue feel to the setting? The different direction in style and setting it took from the other two? Alien 3 is a lot like Temple Doom (which I also like). It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better, I think everyone just writes off the remaining film.

throwanem 9y ago
Interesting you mention Quake in this connection - I feel like at least someone on the Dead Space 2 writing or design team must've seen Gibson's spec script at some point. Some of the Anchorpoint sequences in the script match pretty closely with some of the game's sequences in the "Sprawl" station - and I mean, the station is called the Sprawl, so it's not exactly a far reach to suggest the game devs had some Gibsonian influence going on. Not a criticism, I should note - I feel like that's some of the strongest material in Dead Space 2, which is admittedly very uneven, but when it's good, it's good indeed. If we couldn't have Gibson's version of Alien 3 - and I agree with the article author that we'd have been better off with that one than with the one we did get - then it's nice at least to see some of it end up surfacing in another venue.
awkwardtortoise 9y ago
> It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better Alien 3 is a fun/exciting movie. But it never lived up to Ridley's Alien nor Cameron's Aliens standard. It is not a terrible movie by a long shot. But when you compare it to the two masterpieces that preceded it, it disappoints.

callmeed 9y ago

My 12 yo daughter loves sci-fi movies and we just started watching the Alien franchise in preparation for Alien: Covenant this weekend. My plan was to show her Alien, Aliens, then Prometheus. I hadn't even planned to watch Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection (or any of the spinoffs like AVP). But after reading this, maybe we should at least watch Alien 3. Any suggestions?

fnord123 9y ago
I recently reached alien 3 thinking it doesn't get a fair shake. It's possible that it's overly maligned. But it's not good.
- RobertKerans 9y ago
  Yeah, it's a complete mess, but it's an interesting mess at least. Resurrection is kinda the same level of mess I guess; a few amazing scenes, really interesting underlying ideas that seem to have been gimeped by rewrites/lost in the edit.
  - fnord123 9y ago
    Resurrection is unwatchable in my opinion. I didn't even bother with the AvP films.
- fnord123 9y ago
  s/reached/rewatched/
scarecrowbob 9y ago
FWIW, I think that AVP is interesting in that it juxtaposes two diametrically opposite creatures. It's a fun literary exercise with kids to point out all the ways that a dichotomy is expressed, and IMO it makes "reading" the Aliens franchise easier because its tropes are easier to see in relief. For instance, both creatures (or whatever you want to call em) have an approach to technology... one uses tools, one embodies the tech. There are a good number of tropes along those lines which, IMO, bring out a lot of interesting ways of thinking about the aliens. Just a suggestion from a literature geek.

vilhelm_s 9y ago

Another interesting never-realized Alien film is Vincent Ward's version of Alien 3. Among other thing, it was set on a space-monastery made entirely from wood (looking like the interior of a medieval church, and powered by windmill), and the main monster was a an Alien-Sheep (made by incubating in one of the farm animals). The set-piece would have been the Alien attacking our heros in an indoors wheat-field. https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/wooden-world-vincent-wards-alien-iii/ https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/wooden-world-vi...

throwanem 9y ago
I remember reading that script, some years ago. I feel like it would've ended up like Jodorowsky's Dune if they'd tried in a serious way to make it - failing that, like Lynch's, with the same heroic but ultimately foredoomed struggle to carry a burden of story and symbolism that's just too heavy for a feature film to bear.

sleepybrett 9y ago

Alien 3 is clearly a lesser alien work, but it's still very interesting to watch as an early david fincher work.

pixel_fcker 9y ago

Just read the script from the link in the article. It's... not good. Pretty obvious why it never got made.

effie 9y ago

Alien 3 traditionally gets a lot of flak, but it is actually quite a remarkable movie. It left strong impression on me and is so rich in story and emotions I watched it many times over. The premise and setting are very depressing, yet the prison, its visuals and inhabitants quickly get intriguing. This is a great narration of how people that have nothing but each other and their faith realize that their only real chance of survival is to work together and fight the beast. It is also a story of one strong woman who wakes up in a world where every hope of hers gets destroyed one by one. Just when you think things cannot get more dire, there is another bad luck, another loss, another jolt of despair. Extremely strong emotions, thrilling chase and a great finale where Ripley's final decision is the perfect and only possible conclusion of a life that destroyed her hopes and gave her nothing except for a chance to fight for others, and win. The film's music is beautiful and visuals are very good. I think people say bad things about the film mostly because they expected Aliens: the sequel where Cameron's vision would continue. Don't get me wrong, Aliens is a great film, and the novelization by Foster a great book to read. But if you take Alien 3 as an independent vision of the theme, you will enjoy it.