MEMORIES:
Mikey remembers...The horror didn't stop and this movie certainly doesn't take a back seat to any of the classic horror films ... More »
Posted on 02/08/08
CATCH PHRASE:
While the second film, Aliens, benefited from a strong James Cameron script from the very beginning, confusion clouded the air leading up to the filming of the third movie in the spectacular Alien series. Rumors – from the story taking place on Earth to Ripley spending most of the film in a coma – circulated with wild abandon. Screenplay treatments by David Twohy, John Fasano, Eric Red, and Rex Pickett float around the internet to this day. Many consider an early William Gibson treatment that focused on Bishop and Hicks (from the second film) instead of Ripley to be far superior to the actual shooting script. Filming actually shut down for three months while the script was reworked. All told, it amounted to more than seven million dollars worth of sets alone that never made it into the final picture.
Sigourney Weaver returned as Ellen Ripley, this time with a shaved pate (thanks to the head lice condition in the story’s setting). Renny Harlin passed up the chance to direct in favor of Die Hard 2 while Vincent Ward was fired after contention with the producers. That left music video director David Fincher – who would go on to direct such classics as Se7en and Fight Club – as the third director in as many films. Fincher would later disown the film because of studio meddling, walking out before the film had even begun editing. Charles S. Dutton and Charles Dance provided the only real star power in an unknown supporting cast. But of course, by this time, producers had discovered twice before that the real star was a hostile, slimy, acid-blooded alien.
After her escape from the alien infested planet LV-426, Ripley crash lands on a male-only correctional penal colony where a fanatical brand of religion brands her as an immediate threat. Of course, everyone soon discovers that Ripley’s crash was the result of a face-hugging alien stowaway who has happened to impregnate a Rottweiler (an ox in the extended edition). Unfortunately, Ripley has also been infected with a queen alien embryo, giving her an unusual advantage: the alien won’t attack her in order to protect its queen.
With no weapons and nowhere to hide, the colonists band together to try and kill the creature before it can destroy them all. Complicating matters is the treacherous company who started it, arriving on the heels of the creature’s death to try and lure Ripley (with her embryonic potential) to a possible cure.
Because of a production budget that ballooned due to wasted time, Alien3 didn’t make back its money in the domestic market, though it did almost $160 million worldwide. The film was nominated for a Visual Effects Academy Award and performed well enough to substantiate the desire for a fourth film, Alien: Resurrection.
