Very few films have been through as much of a development hell as Alien3. It went to shooting without a finished script, the script was rewritten many times during filming, studio execs intervened and overruled many decisions and the director had only directed MUSIC VIDEOS prior to this film... and he refuses to acknowledge he worked on it!
I'll admit that the 2003 Assembly Cut is an improvement over the theatrical release, but it's STILL a clusterfuck of a movie.
Yea yea, I already said the movie had problems.. so what? It doesn't matter aslong as the final product is good, and it is. At least the assembly cut is.
Assembly cut is almost an entirely different movie than the theatrical release, so theres that.
When talking about alien 3, I always only refer to the assembly cut.. that's the true experience. Everybody should disregard the theatrical release. I thought this was common knowledge already since its been so long since the movie was made. Assembly cut on 1080p bluray is a fucking fantastic movie.
I will argue that their deaths has a strong impact, it serves to further show how alone ripley is, and how desperate she has become.. and how bleak her world is now... she is truly at the end of her ropes.. that's the entire point of alien 3.... depression, fear, and hopelessness.. everything turns to shit.. Bishop at the end of Alien 3 makes sense for its time. I will disregard the atrociously bad Prometheus, though.
I like this far more than aliens, which is basically a pop-a-mole rpg in space with some relatively interesting characters to boot and funny one-liners and action packed scenes.
When Alien 3 was released, Charles Dance was Just Another British Drama Actor. The film is full of them, like they came at a bulk discount. Pete Postlethwaite is also in there, Paul McGann ("I" in "Withnail and I") is in there and he was probably the most well known of them at the time with the possible exception of Brian Glover.
As much as I hate to say this, because I know that Charles Dance is an excellent actor today... this is not his finest hour. He pretends to be the doctor but he's actually an inmate with a medical degree. Something even my 13-year old self spotted when I saw the film in cinemas when the film premiered. I had no clue who he was at the time, but I did recognize him again as the villain in The Last Action Hero, where his performance is much better. Trying to say that Alien 3 is "better" somehow because Charles Dance is in it... it's fanboyism. But then again, your tag.
Lol? Again keep using that old trope. Alien 3 IS better because of reasons like charles dance, sigourney weaver and Dillon. You might have guessed who he was right away... so what? He's performance as an actor is still top notch in the film.
The CGI is fine in the theatrical version. Unfortunately the theatrical version is a poor film. The Assembly Cut is better, but one of the downsides of that cut is the less-than-stellar CGI. Considering that neither of the prequels used CGI, this was a mistake no matter how you look at it.
How come there's an alien egg aboard the Sulaco?
How come ONE facehugger could impregnate TWO individuals? (Ripley and the quadruped)
These two unanswered questions form the ENTIRE BASIS for the plot and story of Alien 3.
Superfacehugger. They ran out of time to fully display that and flesh out the story more, but it WAS supposed to be there. There's pictures of it on the net.. and the assembly cut makes it even further to show this was the intention. watch the assembly cut again. I will agree that the CGI was less forgiving, as I have already said. But it's not really enough to make the film bad.. it's just something you deal with..
Actually, the suflaco egg plothole etc. doesn't entirely break the story in half. It has some problems sure, but this has been debated alot in the past. There were supposed to be a superfacehugger, capable of laying two eggs, and also the queen at the end of aliens, made it to the escape pod to plant the egg for the super facehugger to manifast out of... it's abit wonky.. but that was the original intention.. there's even a picture of the superfacehugger in the assembly cut.. so that actually makes sense.
Generally, the assembly cut of Alien 3 is really really good, and that is the one I'm talking about, of course. How is consistency thrown away in alien 3? Some characters die, ripley lives on, is now alone with a new set of characters.. just like the start of aliens... she survived the encounters from aliens and now she is alone on the prison planet... dont' see problems with consistency there.
And yes the first Alien IS better than Alien 3: assembly cut, like I said, but I still think most of the characters from alien 3 are quite memeroable, at least they were to me and alot of others. The point of alien 3 is exactly bleakness and darkness and depression. We don't GET to know most of the characters, because that's the intention. We do get to know quite a few of the main characters, which serves well.. also the endgame of the movie.
It's worse than Alien, but better than Aliens in my opinion. But whatever. I love all of the 3 films, even the 4th for being a guilty pleasure.
