Topic: Alien 3

Some people are meaner to this film than we are. I don't want to cast any sort of aspersion, but it might be that they see it as the failure it is, and we see it as the success it is.

You know, the success of a dark, brooding, downer sci-fi film that doesn't belong in the fucking Alien franchise.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Alien 3

You guys kinda gloss over this, so I'm gonna drop it in the thread: does anyone have any idea what a 'Double Y correctional facility' is? Women are XX, men are XY. What is YY?

And I totally disagree that killing off the Aliens characters was a bad choice. I love that every Alien movie wipes the slate (aside from Ripley) of the previous one. Just because Cameron's Alien movie was awesome doesn't mean the next film has to be tied to it.

I was in no way distracted for the first act waiting for Hicks and Newt to be still alive. They told us they were dead, so OK, they were dead. We then watch a movie dealing with Ripley being as surprised and saddened as we were.

I'll admit that Alien 3 has its problems, but starting with a gut shot—oh crap there's still a live Alien, and it killed most of our leads—is perfect.

Also: you guys need to do Serenity.

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

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Re: Alien 3

http://i985.photobucket.com/albums/ae340/downinfrontshow/alien3.jpg

Pick up Alien 3 on DVD as well as the soundtrack by Elliot Goldenthal at the Down in Front store

Alien 3 on IMDB.

Alien 3 20th Century Fox logo fanfare

Construx!

Van Ling was hired by James Cameron, after building his own working copy of the power loader from Aliens

H.R. Giger's concept art for Alien 3
http://www.littlegiger.com/movies/alien3.jpg

RIP Dan O'Bannon, thanks for giving the world Alien
http://cinemagia.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/dan_obannon.jpg
September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009

Walter Hill, along with David Giler and Gordon Carroll form Brandywine Productions

The Double-Y Chromosome stereotype, debunked since 1968

Richard Edlund, and Boss Film Studios

Fincher started out at Propaganda Films, which also produced such names as Michael Bay, Michel Gondry, and Alex Proyas

Fincher's music videos, and commercials

A breakdown of Fincher's music video for Nine Inch Nail's Only, with work by Digital Domain who most recently worked on Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Express Yourself

Alien 3 teaser trailer

Steve Perry's three part series Earth Hive, Nightmare Asylum and The Female War present and alternate continuation from Aliens; just swap the names Wilks for Hicks, and Billie for Newt

Perry also penned a three part Aliens vs. Predator series Prey, Hunter's Planet, and War

*I heartily endorse these novels, and if you can find them, the Dark Horse graphic novels on which they are based.  Both do an excellent job of fleshing out the Aliens and Predator universe.  Perry's work on the Predator universe is especially impressive, going so far as to invent terminology for the Predator culture and technology.

Joss Whedon's Alien Resurrection script
*Alt-F, search for Morse

Hitchcock cameos

At least 10 main characters are killed off in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The Sulaco
http://bobburns.mycottage.com/baseIMAGES/38.jpg
Care of Bob Burns

Predators trailer, and website

Adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game

The unused Queen facehugger

Star Wars Infinities is what I was thinking of

Shadows of the Empire

Anamorphic lenses produce flattened bokeh

Several of William Goldman's books are available at the store

Perfect Movie

Alien 3 theatrical trailer

Studio 60

Vincent Ward was hired based on his work on The Navigator, and would later direct What Dreams May Come

The Glossary!

Non-sequitur

David Mamet

Łódź, Poland

Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell, available at the store

Asperger syndrome

Tyler Perry

Laser Cats!

Save the cat

Saint Crispin's Day speech, originally from Shakespeare's Henry V
*Taken from Renaissance Man

Tom Woodruff Jr and Alec Gillis formed Amalgamated Dynamics after Aliens

Laine Liska

Silicon Graphics

Now go listen to the Se7en commentary

Re: Alien 3

Gregory Harbin wrote:

You guys kinda gloss over this, so I'm gonna drop it in the thread: does anyone have any idea what a 'Double Y correctional facility' is? Women are XX, men are XY. What is YY?

Just for you Greg.

The Double-Y Chromosome stereotype, debunked since 1968

Re: Alien 3

This isn't appearing on the main page for me. Luckily for me I'm savvy enough to guess the url it's stored at, so it's downloading as I post this, but I thought I'd let you know in case it's not just me.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Alien 3

This will be interesting to revisit. I haven't seen it since I walked out of the theater at the end in 1992, disappointed. I was hot for another Aliens, as was the entire rest of the world, and Fincher was clearly trying to shift the tone again. But it didn't help that this was yet another film that starts out by saying, "You know how the previous film ended? Yeah, I'm throwin' that out."

Last edited by Zarban (2010-04-26 03:25:10)

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Alien 3

ShadowDuelist wrote:

This isn't appearing on the main page for me. Luckily for me I'm savvy enough to guess the url it's stored at, so it's downloading as I post this, but I thought I'd let you know in case it's not just me.

It's up now.

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

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Re: Alien 3

Not on my screen, it shows Star Trek as the latest.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Alien 3

ShadowDuelist wrote:

Not on my screen, it shows Star Trek as the latest.

What if you go to this link?

http://www.downinfront.net/archives.html

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

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Re: Alien 3

Tried that already, Star Trek is still latest. And yes, I tried a hard refresh, a couple times, no luck.

Last edited by ShadowDuelist (2010-04-26 03:39:09)

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Alien 3

Hard refresh (Ctrl-F5) doesn't work. In Firefox, Tools, Clear Recent History. Then refresh.

Or www.downinfront.net/episode/54.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Alien 3

I'm inclined to think, in the main page description, you mean "left behind and forgotten."

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Re: Alien 3

Shouldn't have to clear the cache if you do a hard refresh. *grumble grumble* My browser was damn sure var curEp = 53, and the only way to get it to change it's mind was to clear the cache. Stupid Firefox.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Alien 3

Mike wrote:

Thing.

Nah, remembered. As in, merely remembered. Phantom Menace gets forgotten, this is just not revisited by normal folk.

Shadow wrote:

Thing.

Yup.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Alien 3

downinfront wrote:
Mike wrote:

Thing.

Nah, remembered. As in, merely remembered. Phantom Menace gets forgotten, this is just not revisited by normal folk.

I would say that TPM is more "remembered" -- and reviled -- than Alien3, which just fell off most peoples' radar and is probably not much remembered.

The sentence doesn't communicate the idea I am inclined to think you want it to. But if you're happy with it then there it is.

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Re: Alien 3

Looking again, I agree with you.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Alien 3

This is a film that's gone through all the five stages of grief. Now it's pretty much accepted, with special thanks to Fincher's current popularity (I bet if this was directed by John Hopkins, people wouldn't be half so willing to give the film a second, third and so on chance). I think it's mostly rubbish.

You guys note most of the issues with the film. It's very premise is a false start, the presence of alien eggs on the Sulaco makes no sense and then the story kills off Hicks and Newt, rendering the previous film a pointless waste of time. It's disrespectful to the audience and it's disrespectul to Cameron's story. Aliens found a way to logically follow on from the first movie without taking a shit on it.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

I love that every Alien movie wipes the slate (aside from Ripley) of the previous one.

Everyone died at the end of Alien. The only movie that wipes the slate clean is Alien3.

Then the film turns the franchise into a gory slasher film. The horror of seeing characters that we know (and love) brutally killed by the alien has been replaced by a long string of gory killings of a bunch of almost identical nobodies by a beast that is acting contradictory to the behaviour that we've seen so far. The alien is killing all the potential hosts that are needed in order for its species to reproduce!

The best part of the movie is the chase through the tunnels, and that's because it's visceral. Dramatically speaking though, we're just watching a bunch of bald heads getting killed in increasingly confusing circumstances - the geography of the scene is awful.

All the scripts for this third movie were awful (and they all start with an inexplicable aliens on the Sulaco premise):
- David Twohy's prison script (which led to Chronicles of Riddick and reminds me of Christopher Lambert's Fortress)
- Eric Red's weird space station story
- Vincent Ward & John Fasano's wooden planet/monk story

William Gibson's (though it's considered a fake)script on a moonbase is probably the best of the lot. Ripley is in a coma and Hicks and Newt are the protagonists.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: Alien 3

Gregory Harbin wrote:

And I totally disagree that killing off the Aliens characters was a bad choice. I love that every Alien movie wipes the slate (aside from Ripley) of the previous one. Just because Cameron's Alien movie was awesome doesn't mean the next film has to be tied to it.

I was in no way distracted for the first act waiting for Hicks and Newt to be still alive. They told us they were dead, so OK, they were dead. We then watch a movie dealing with Ripley being as surprised and saddened as we were.


That's not exactly what we took issue to.  Trey and I were of the opinion that if you want to kill Newt and Hicks, fine.  But don't do it pre credits, and off camera.  It felt rushed, and it gained ud little.  And while Ripley was sad, she sure got to boning very quickly.  It was this odd series of choices that just felt incongruent with what the first two movies established.  There are ways to do your own movie while not ignoring the films that came before  The Harry Potter franchise does this very well. 

My whole thing is if you're going to kill Newt, Hicks, and Bishop, have it count for something, and use it to tell the story.  Like Trey rightfully pointed out, If the ship just ejected Ripley out of the Sulacco, the rest of the movie doesn't change at all.  Its not that they died thats the issue, its that their death was a missed opportunity.

Eddie Doty

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Re: Alien 3

Also, I want to give a shout out right now to Matt for those fucking awesome show notes.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Alien 3

^ My pleasure.

Chad reminded me of the Gibson script, so I've gone ahead and found (I think) all the other proposed scripts, as well as a couple other resources. 

Wiki article on the various writers

Excellent breakdown of the writing process with links to the following scripts by:

William Gibson
Eric Red
David Twohy
John Fasano, based on Vincent Ward's story
Walter Hill and David Giler rewrote the script after Ward left production, and Rex Pickett did a rewrite after David Fincher was brought on

The "final" draft is credited to Giler and Hill, and most closely resembles what appears in the Assembly Cut.  In editing at least 40 minutes hit the editing room floor for the theatrical cut.

Re: Alien 3

Still listening to the commentary, but I have one very important comment:

Gilmore Girls was good. Really good.

Except when it eventually became bad.

Last edited by Hansen (2010-04-26 21:31:31)

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Re: Alien 3

Mayhew, which DVD do you have? To my knowledge Fincher has never done a DVD commentary, but I'd certainly like to hear that.

In other news, I can't seem to find Elliot Goldenthal's score anywhere online (at least not, ya know, legit).  Not on Amazon or iTunes; real shame, great score.

Also I came across some details regarding the (eventual) Blu-ray release box set of the four films.

And hopefully it's good news, but Ridley Scott says his next two (that's right TWO) projects will be Alien prequels. Here, and here (care of www.collider.com).

Oh yeah, and they'll be in 3D...

Re: Alien 3

Hansen wrote:

Still listening to the commentary, but I have one very important comment:

Gilmore Girls was good. Really good.

Except when it eventually became bad.

Gilmore Girls had a great first four seasons, then slowly died a horrible death for the next two, and then Dan Rosenthal really pulled the show out in the final season.

And Amy Sherman has gone on to make absolutely nothing good since.

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http://trek.fm

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Re: Alien 3

Okay, so I promised you guys retribution for your sins … but then you went and gave a very moderate, even forgiving commentary.

Dang.

Here's my thing, though. Pretty much everything you guys said you disliked about the movie, I love about the movie. I even loved the fact that Newt and Hicks were killed. I even loved the way they were killed!

I get where you guys are coming from; you think it was maybe an okay movie, maybe even a good one, but that you didn't like it as an Alien movie. I can see that. But I don't agree with it. I think it was an exemplary Alien movie.

See, in my opinion, the Alien movies all use the alien as a blank canvas and project some primal truth about life onto it. (I'm not counting Resurrection here; if anything, I'd say that one is the one that doesn't belong in the set.)

The first Alien was very much about rape, thematically. Rape, penetration, violation, subjugation, whatever you want to call it; it's the theme of the movie. The fact that Ripley ended up being a woman and the alien ended up being sheathed in phallic imagery — while I doubt either of those was on the page — didn't hurt this interpretation any.

The second movie was about motherhood. Ripley's daughter, Newt's mom, Newt herself, the queen; every aspect of the movie revolves in some way around motherhood.

The third film is about death. Everything revolves around death, and what it means, and how we react to it. Newt and Hicks die off-screen, while Ripley's asleep and can't do anything about it; that's the capriciousness of death. Bishop asks Ripley to deactivate him; Ripley asks Dylan to kill her. That's seeking to control death. The prisoners are all rapists, yes, but also murderers. And they turn to God, the ultimate symbol of power over death. Hell, even Ripley's love interest is a murderer. And just in case you weren't catching on, the first and third acts of the film both end with funerals.

Alien 3 is a powerfully thematic movie. Maybe even more so than the first two, frankly; everything in the movie, practically every shot in the movie, serves the theme. Cause of that, I think it fits in perfectly with the rest of the series. If anything, in that respect … I think it's the best of the series. Not most entertaining, not best-made, not favorite. But on the scale of what's-a-theme to everything-is-symbolic, I think Alien 3 scores highest of all of the movies in the series.

Lemme just say this, then I'll stop being pretentious as hell. I think Alien 3 is a mature monster movie. In an immature monster movie, the audience is expected to care very deeply about who is and who is not going to die. But in a mature monster movie, the audience is expected to know that everyone's going to die, and to care deeply about how they die. Alien 3 is a mature monster movie because Ripley's death was inevitable from the first frame, but the story emerges from how she chooses to go out.

Anyway. That's how I see it, for what that's worth.

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Re: Alien 3

Gregory Harbin wrote:

Gilmore Girls had a great first four seasons, then slowly died a horrible death for the next two, and then Dan Rosenthal really pulled the show out in the final season.

And Amy Sherman has gone on to make absolutely nothing good since.

There are some people who just have one good story in them, and there's nothing wrong with that (unless you're that person and have to keep making a living)

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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