Guilty Pleasures: Alien 3
WEEEEEEEER WEEEEEEER WEEEEEEEEER
Can you believe after all this time Prometheus is finally coming out? I feel like we’ve been hearing about this movie for 2 years. Throughout all the waiting there’s always this debate of “Is it in the Alien Universe” or not. I don’t have a clear cut answer (mostly because I’ve been avoiding spoilers) but just in case I figured Guilty Pleasure better be Alien 3
Both Aliens sequels are kind of depressing. They both had so much potential. Nowadays people hate whenever a sequel is announced. This isn’t really something too new. I’m sure in the 80’s when they were on the 8th Friday the 13th people were like ‘Do we really need ANOTHER one? Are we that out of original ideas’ blah blah blah (we’ve been out of original ways to bitch about the lack of original ideas)
But as a kid I remember EVERYONE being pumped up about Alien 3. There were advertisements in all the comics and magazines I read and they released an Aliens action figure line as a tie-in. I mean this was a hard-R sequel to another hard-R sequel and everyone was going crazy for it (and advertising to kids… the 90’s was a weird time)
However the movie opened to almost a resounding WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. This maybe have been in part due to false advertising. Check out this trailer about how the aliens come to Earth.
The alien’s do not make it to Earth. They don’t make it there in the 4th entry either. They didn’t touch down on our planet until they wanted to brawl with the Predator.
Alien 3 picks up where Aliens left off, except it immediately kills off everyone that we loved (except Ripley). The ship crash lands on a colony inhabited by male inmates with violent backgrounds.
An alien explodes from a local dog (mixing with the dog DNA) and begins to attack members of the colony. Ripley also realizes she’s carrying an alien baby and must sacrfice herself to save the rest of the inmates.
What makes me sad about both Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection is that they’re both decent ideas, from talented people but for some reason the pieces of the puzzle just didn’t fit together properly. Alien Resurrection was written by Joss Whedon who almost always at least presents and entertaining script with fun turns and was directed by Jen-ierre Jeunet the director behind visually fascinating films like Delicatessen, City of Lost Children and Amelie’.
Regardless of a talented screenplay writer and visually gifted director Alien Resurrection still fell flat on it’s face and in a painfully bad way.
Alien 3 however isn’t that awful! It doesn’t live up to the hype of Alien/Aliens or the overwhelming advertisements, but David Fincher’s camera work is well placed, the new alien design is a welcome change and the story contains plenty of mother-symbolism to keep the film interesting. The Alien birth sequence is gruesome, eerie and dark and the kills throughout are top notch. Ironically despite the negatively this movie has recieved it actually contains one of those more iconic moments in the Alien franchise.
Alien 3 is worth giving a second shot!
