After last night’s Oscar mediocrity, I’m plunging ahead with rewatching “Alien 3.” This and “Alien 4,” or whatever the fuck it’s called was included in the blu-ray set I purchased. I really should have waited for the individual titles to come out, but they got me, so I’ll watch these final two movies which I hated upon first viewing. I think the movie studios are too cynical to care - they are, of course, in it for my hard-earned cash. They got it. The first two movies are so good, that I’ll spend the extra scratch on the last two. Not before I trash them on the internet to the 2 to 3 of my friends who might actually read this.
I hope I was previously mistaken.
Hmmm. I remember being SO EXCITED. DAVID FINCHER, right? Fire in cryogenic compartment? Uh oh. Ripley’s doing the chicken. Not good. Jettisoned into space. I guess? Her jettisoned tube becomes a lego piece? Or were they separate, jettisoned pieces? Either way it’s a maximum security prison planet. Maybe this post-apocalyptic priest will tell us. Ripley’s washed upon the beach, covered in black! RUN! Wake up, Ripley! Ripley coughs up water out of her lungs! She’s alive! Run! Get the water buffalo! Too bad for Hicks. And Newt.
WTF? YOU KILLED NEWT? WHAT KIND OF HEARTLESS HOLLYWOOD BASTARDS ARE YOU? Glad I caught that off the green-screen monitor. So much for the past? Let’s get this prison/pseudo-religious drama going!
The black priest speaks of sinning, and, apparently, black power! The followers are celibates, but are still upset by the prospect of a woman being in their midst. They bang on railings... lots of cockney accents... aliens coming out of water buffalos... lots of reilgious exposition...
Oh fuck it.
I have nothing to add to this. Except I agree.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you can use this same review for Alien 4, mostly. Mostly.
OK, I have a bit more than that.
ReplyDeleteFirst off - Hicks (Biehn) got whacked by the studio for asking for too much dough/being difficult. I'm not sure why Newt got nuked, other than it might have "complicated" the cockney 'carceration planet (in the future only cockups from Blackpoole will commit crimes).
At several points in the script's development there was supposed to be a hybrid alien-bull and alien-machine (wtf?).
And Weaver had to fight to play Ripley with the skin head and her eye all bloodied up for a third of the movie.
You know the best thing about Alien III...was Alien III for Sega-Genesis.
NOW I've said all I can say about this flick.
I don't have the heart to put Alien 4 in the tray.
ReplyDeleteGood for Biehn for bailing. I'm guessing Henn or Henn's parents had enough from the blunt-force trauma of "Aliens."
Artistic logic would dictate, it would seem, that WE'RE DONE, then. Marketplace logic, of course, dictates otherwise.
Maybe, then, go in an entirely new direction? Maybe? Mostly?
I tried, goddammit.
I remember seeing this in the theater.
ReplyDeleteThe scariest part was that credits sequence. And since killing off Hicks and Newt ruined the whole point of Aliens, the rest of A3 was just a big "whateves..." for me.
Just think of A3 and A4 as "special bonus features" for the first two movies.
--Kaiju