Alien and Aliens are tough acts to follow. Ridley Scott’s 1979 original is a true testament to the power of suspense and atmosphere while the 1986 sequel takes those elements and morphs them into a sci-fi action hybrid that is nearly unparalleled. By the time Alien 3 arrived in 1992, it was wrapped in hype and anticipation but the end result was met with mixed, albeit mostly negative responses. The fact that it opened to a then strong $23.1 million opening weekend before fizzling out quickly at $55.4 million, shows that the response was certainly polarizing, to say the least. I didn’t see the film in 1992 but I did watch them all after the release of Alien: Resurrection on home video and I definitely felt the dip in quality between the second and third film. It was largely disjointed and felt like it was tackling a lot of ideas that weren’t fully realized.
I didn’t learn until years later that this production was rifled with problems. During production, the film shot on occasion without a script and with several writers and directors attached to the project. By the time David Fincher come on board, who was making his feature film directorial debut after starting in the world of music videos, the film was well into pre-production and definitely out of anyone’s hands at that point to turn it into a credible motion picture.
So does knowing this information make me go a bit easier on Alien 3 after watching it for the first time in years? I would have to say it does even just a tad. The fact that anything could come together with such problems is a miracle and not even the most talented of directors could have righted the ship to make the film truly work. What we end up with is still a mangled mess but it does offer up a few memorable visual sequences and a reliable force in Sigourney Weaver as Ripley.
Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor when she crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak wasteland inhabited by inmates of the planet’s maximum security prison. Once again, Ripley must face skepticism and the alien as it hunts down the prisoners and guards. Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley leads the men into battle against the terrifying creature.
There is potential with the setup but it’s not fully realized. This is obviously an issue of too many cooks being in the kitchen without a true leader to take charge. It’s weird to talk about David Fincher as if he’s some amateur because as we all know he went on to achieve greatness after this but he was a small fish in a big pond back then. He had to deal with a lot of problems during production and probably an enormous amount of studio interference. Alien 3 wants to be a bit Alien and Aliens in its approach but it lacks the suspense in one area and the action is routinely dull in the other. The setting and atmosphere is the perfect backdrop to achieve this but it ends up being a place inhabited by a series of lifeless characters. The atmosphere is suitably dark and dreary but there aren’t a lot of people on display worth rooting for.
The characters are paper-thin in large part because there are too many of them. Had individuals been better-developed, their uniform unlikability might have been interesting, but, as it is, this trait is off-putting. The few denizens of Alien 3‘s prison planet given any personality are treated badly by the script. There are a number of action scenes, but, because of certain plot contrivances and an inability to feel for the characters, there’s little excitement or suspense.
It probably seems redundant to call the script a mess because, as we know now, there wasn’t a shooting script at times and there was no clear vision. Knowing this information does make one a bit more forgiving about some of the plot holes and inconsistencies. They were out of Fincher’s hands and not much can be done with the product that the studio was willing to release. The fact that there is a surprise or two in the film makes them all the better because you certainly don’t expect them from the confusion on screen but they aren’t enough to save the film either.
Sigourney Weaver still remains a positive force, even if her performance here doesn’t quite equal what she achieved in the first two films. By 1992, she had already received two Oscar nominations (the first being for Aliens) so her dramatic range had improved a bit but she doesn’t reach incredible heights because she’s let down by the script. At this point, the character was so iconic though that you welcome her as the lone saving grace in an otherwise muddled production. Actually, you also welcome the xenomorph creation that had also become iconic and the two of them do create some memorable moments – one being a scene that has the xenomorph coming face to face with a closed-eyed and sweaty Ripley as its horrifying mouth opens and extends itself to our heroine.
But these fleeting moments aren’t enough to save a misguided film. Rightfully David Fincher has disowned the film and he was unfairly blamed for a bit of the disaster it turned out to be. There is nothing that can be done when a clear vision isn’t brought to the table from the start and Alien 3 is definitely a victim of a vision that wasn’t completely realized long before the cameras started rolling.
Reel Talk gives Alien 3 1 Reel
