TAKE ONE Presents... - The Xenopod 3: ALIEN³ (1992)

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

You've crash-landed on a futuristic ore refinery and penal colony based on outdated ideas of genetic destiny and find that two British men are talking to you about David Fincher's first feature film, ALIEN³. Simon and Jim discuss the film's unfortunate scripting issues, the troubled pre-production process, and how this exemplifies the Alien franchise's identity crisis.Content warning: body horror; death; animal death; sexual imagery; sexual assault; suicide; abortion; Christian fundamentalism.Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remixFull references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/43G7D6DF

Get away from her, you bitch away from her, you bitch! Hello and welcome back to the Xenapod, a podcast where we're watching all the alien franchise films in order, contextualizing them, and critiquing them. I'm Simon Bowie, and joining me is my co-host, Jim Ross. Hi, Jim. Hello there. How are you doing? Good, good.

I think approaching this episode was on trepidation, though, because I think it's about to all start coming off the edge of a cliff in terms of quality after this. We'll discuss Alien 3 in particular, but I think we start to disappear down a deep chasm after this, to be honest. Yeah, so at the end of the last episode on aliens, you started discussing the identity crisis that it causes for the alien franchise. And with that in mind, we are discussing Alien 3,

Alien Cubed Alien to the Power of Three directed by David Fincher Some basic stuff about the film The film was released 22nd of May 1992 A budget of 50 to 60 million Box Office of 159.8 million So it does well

But it's not as well as 20th century Fox wanted it to be This is about the same box office as aliens Aliens made a little more but aliens budget was a lot, lot less than this so they spent a lot more and returned a lot less production of this of Alien Free started immediately after aliens and we'll get into the production process of it

because there was a lot of it but it began almost immediately after aliens William Gibson was brought on board in September 1987 Alien Free Alien to the Power of Free Yeah I'm pleased to see in prepping for this everybody you're as anales I am about doing the the alien, like, cubed stylization. That's how it's presented, and that's how it must be.

Alien to the power of free, which means if alien is alien one, but if one to the power of three equals one, then alien free, alien to the power of free, is just alien. But I do have a serious point about the title, is that it is alien free, and yet there was no alien two. there is aliens but there's no alien two we go straight from alien to alien three

kind of it does it does feel pointed though like I'm sure we'll get into this but it feels more like alien than aliens that's clearly what I was going to say I think this is symbolic of the identity crisis that you mentioned exactly the last episode it's

fairly emblematic of this film's clear intent to undermine the previous film which it seems to despise Yes Yeah Yeah, it's true I think

I find it interesting as well Because like Obviously this is David Fincher's first film Right You know He's gone on to be a kind of celebrated Otter type And I think a lot of people

You know the either Basically I think once you know David Fincher directs this film Like people attach certain expectations to it Right And it either becomes You know The one that everybody prefers to forget

Because of studio interfune And you know that's not true David Fincher Or you can become a major apologist for it and kind of like see the seeds of his later filmography in there where I think after reviewing it again

I probably fall into that category a little bit or frankly you just you would never know David Fincher directed it I think you do I think there's elves I think there's seeds but yeah but it's

that one of them is his complete disdain for what has gone before in terms of aliens I think it's very, you know, I think that's, that's pretty clear. I do have thoughts on that, which, you know, what we'll talk about. But yeah, it's very clear. It's another sort of like handbrake turn in approach, right? And like you said, we finished, you know, the last episode talking about aliens kind of engendering this identity crisis in the franchise.

This is really the first, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, it sounds like a trite thing to say. because of course it is. It's the first film after aliens, right? But I think it's really pretty obvious in this film, the effect that this is now. I mean, it doesn't really know what it wants to be. I think the fact that this is also the first film, we're famously, there's the theatrical cut, which is the one that we're going to be talking about primarily here, and the assembly cut, which seems to have the consensus that is better. Don't know about that myself, but anyway, the consensus that's better. The very fact that there's these two cuts, which are almost kind of like given equal status, is really an indication of that...

You've got this identity crisis with this one film, well, the film itself is splintering. I was just... We're talking about the theatrical release, directed by David Fincher. I was looking at some details of the assembly cut before we got on the recording, and it troubles the idea of authorship

in an interesting way, because David Fincher did not want to be involved in putting together a special edition for the Alien Quadrology box set, unlike the other directors. So he wasn't. Instead, the box set's producer, Charles de Lazarega, put together the assembly cut. So in some sense, he has the directorial presence on that, on that cut, in a way that's not often mentioned. And it's a pretty big difference as well. I mean, I think the, you know,

when you talk about kind of like the director's cut of alien, I don't think, it's not a huge amount of extrafuge. It doesn't completely, to my view, anyway, it doesn't completely like turn the film on its head in terms of what it does. But in this one, I mean, It's like a half hour more footage. There are characters in it that are much more prominent. There's complete changes in the way that the kind of situation develops. Like it's a pretty stark difference, to be honest. Yeah, all subplots and stuff.

And what I was going to mention is, in terms of the identity crisis, is contradictory scenes. So there's scenes that happen in the theatrical release that are contradicted by themes in the special edition, which creates a problem for canon, if you're interested in that kind of thing, and does trouble the idea of, identity across just this one film. So I did want to ask about your experience with Alien Free.

Like, how many times have you seen it? You know, when do you do first see it? Do you think? So we've mentioned the alien quadrilogy DVD set on the show before. And my first experience of it was there. Now, I don't know off the top of my head what cut was on that one. It was very. What I do know. Yeah. Okay. And I think basically I then re-watched it again around about the time

I saw aliens in the cinema which was a special kind of rep screaming on it I think it was 70mmy which I've mentioned before in the last episode

so I haven't watched it for at least 10 or 13 years probably saw it for the first time about 20 years ago maybe something like that what I found quite funny watching this again

is I think most of my memory of it is actually the assembly cut because there are certain things that weren't in this showing that I've just completed which I kind of remember

the effect that has on the film I actually rather enjoy dealing three on another go right and I've always been a bit of an apologist for it right not that I put much stock in Rotten Tomatoes scores but if you look at kind of like the catalogue of reviews they've gotten there, it comes out like, I don't know, it's 40-something percent or something like that. You know, it's definitely kind of like the weakest considered of, you know, these first three films. I don't think it really merits that. I think it's got a lot going for it and we'll get into that. So I've always quite liked the film. I'm kind of surprised by how much I liked it on this viewing. It does have problems. It does have a lot of problems. But in terms of the way it's looking to approach things, I actually found it quite engaging in a lot of ways. So that's kind of my experience with it.

I've never placed it above alien or aliens in terms of the quality of the film. But I've always rather liked it, and we'll see what I make of it when we get to our next episode on Alien Resurrection. But I've always considered it better in Alien Resurrection. So, yeah, I think that's where I would say I was going into this viewing. and I wouldn't say I've turned around on it completely. I think I'm a little bit more comfortable being an apology for it, though, having re-watched it again. There's a lot of you're to like, I think.

It's got a kind of, it wasn't regarded well when it came out, but it's gained a kind of cult classic status as, like you're saying, not as good as alien and aliens, but better than people think it is, better than people remember it as. So similar to you, I watched it from the Alien Quadrilogy box set, and I think I realised while watching it this time I don't think I've ever seen the theatrical release

I think I've only ever seen the assembly cut because this was quite a different experience than I remember in the past I might be wrong but I don't think I've ever seen this release of it and it did not come off well oh dear I've got like this because it sounds like we've basically started the same place before we watch this

and then I've gone one way and you've gone the other way, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I think the reason I remember, I think is definitely the theatrical cut that I watch first is I don't remember things like, you know,

like the ox and washing up on beaches and stuff like that. I don't really remember a lot of that, to be honest. You know, if you're in a room with Alien 3 on, an easy way to find out if you're watching the assembly cut or the theatrical release is the alien comes. out of a different animal. Like it comes out of a dog on the theatrical release and it comes out of

an ox in the special edition assembly cut. But I thought I remembered it coming out of the dog. The scene seemed entirely new to me. No, it was interesting because I do remember watching the cut that has, you know, the ox. I remember seeing that. But at the same time, I also remember seeing the version of the dog, right? So I've clearly seen both versions before. I don't I think I'd really aligned in my head which one was which. I just knew there were different ones. Yeah. So the film had a troubled production process,

which I think he's pointing mildly. Immediately after aliens, 20th century Fox, wanted Brandywine Productions to make further sequels. Brandywine productions were hesitant about this, but eventually decided they wanted to explore the Wailene-Dutani Corporation and how they're using the xenomorphs as biological weapons,

which has been alluded to in alien and aliens. So the concept was this kind of Cold War metaphor where the Wayland-Utani Corporation is on one side, and there's some kind of other force, socialist, Marxist, space force on the other side. They approached William Gibson to write the script. William Gibson noted a cyberpunk author and science fiction writer, And he wrote a script involving space communists coming into conflict with a research station for the company.

His treatment has the Union of Progressive Peoples, which is a kind of space Soviet Union. And ahead of this episode, I did reread the graphic novel adaptation of his screenplay, which Dark Horse Comics put out a few years ago. It's very much a sequel to aliens. It follows Hicks and Newt, Ripley's barely in it, and it's very much about expanding that universe that James Cameron sets up. I didn't think it was particularly interesting. I think it expands aliens in a fine way. It clearly leads towards a sequel where they're going to find the alien homeworld

and track it down and get rid of the aliens once and for all. I think there's a novel adaptation. as well. Yeah, which I had, and I haven't had the chance to get through the whole thing ahead of this unfortunately, but I think the thing that I find striking about the Gibson script is quite a lot of the ideas pop up in this franchise again later on actually. Yeah. You know, I think that, I think that was, you know, I mean, I think one thing that's certainly, it's certainly in that graphic novel versus this, this idea of kind of like genetic alteration on contact. Yeah, so what happens what happens in the Gibson screenplay

is that they do some genetic the company do some genetic experiments on alien DNA and create a kind of pathogen that turns humans into aliens the alien DNA subsumes any human DNA and you become a kind of

human alien hybrid which we will see again in the next film Alien Resurrection but yeah but the funny thing is actually that that notion right it actually kind of crops up in Prometheus and Alien Covenant as well. It's strange how these kind of ideas

kind of like recycle themselves and like the airborne part of it is like obviously all part of this. And the fact that you know the idea of it being an engineered creature that obviously plays directly into alien into some of the ideas that are an alien coven. So it's just strange you can have the same ideas popping up in this franchise

and they kind of really rework and you know rejig themselves for a slightly different focus. And that was just something I found quite interesting about that. They don't make it into this this film really but they make it into quite a few of the other ones really yeah yeah so it's a very action-oriented screenplay it's very aliens uh sigoni weaver didn't really want to be involved as rippley so that's why she's her character is basically written out she's in a coma for the entirety of the screenplay eric red went on to do a screenplay which has a kind of biodome in space

uh with aliens attacking it david toie was brought in to do a script but that had to be changed because the Berlin Wall fell while they were producing this. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War storyline that the studio wanted didn't really make sense in the current climate.

So they basically had to rework the whole thing. They invited New Zealand director Vincent Ward in to take a crack at it and he comes up with an interesting idea that he describes as the name of the rose in space. This kind of monastic

order, this monastery floating through space, a wooden vessel three miles round he describes it as, where Ripley lands on this monastery, the alien gets out, they treat the alien as a demon as the devil, yeah, it all shakes out from that premise. So Goni Weaver said of that that there was no story and that Ward didn't understand the Ripley character. The studio wanted to combine this kind of structure with a prison plan. which David Tui had come up within his script and Vincent Ward did not want to do a prison planet so he left the project. But yeah, I've always heard of this wooden monastery, this wooden planet idea and been really intrigued by it. Like it's always stood for me as like one of the great unfinished projects, you know, like Yoderovsky's June or David Lynch's Return of the Jedi as this great idea that never got made.

and so I was surprised in watching this how much of Vincent Ward's ideas are still present I mean he gets a story credit at the start because his basic structure is there it's just not in a monastery but the religious order stuff is there this idea of being confined with a load of celibate men is there the basic structure is still there

from his script so Vincent Ward left the producers Walter Hill and David Gilli decided to get together and just amalgamate kind of all these scripts that they had got from these various writers. And boy does it show. And so you end up with

the prison planet from David Tui. You end up with some of the biological weapon stuff from William Gibson and you end up with the basic structure and the kind of monastic order from Vincent Ward's script. Fox approached

director David Fincher he was a music video director I believe he'd done Madonna's music video by this point, a music video for Madonna, but this was his first feature film and from reading between the lines of the Alien Evolution documentary

I think they got Fincher because they wanted someone young that they could push around and it turned out Fincher did not like to be pushed around and was very resistant to this Yeah, I think my accident basically ended up with the director

is a very anti-definition of low-maintenance and maly. Exactly, yeah. I think they wanted a work-horse journeyman director, and they ended up with future otter, David Fincher. Yeah, yeah. By this point, Sigourney Weaver had come back into the main cast. She was a producer on the film, and she was happy with the expanded role for Ripley.

Again, from the Alien Evolution documentary I watched, Charles Dan said that Weaver didn't want to come back but was paid, in his words, quite a sum of money. Yeah, I mean, actually, I didn't actually know the budget before you said that. That's a lot of money for... It's a surprising amount of money. Like I say, aliens was 18 million. And, in my opinion, aliens looks a lot better than this film.

We're going to have to discussion about that, I think. But anyway, okay. So, yeah, that's the broad story of how the film came to be in the production state. We can talk more about how it was produced and edited and whatnot as we go through. But let's discuss where the film goes. So we start immediately after the events of aliens. The USS Salarco is on its way back to Earth. when a facehugger stowed away in an egg on board

hatches and kills Newt, kills Hicks and causes the escape pod to be jettisoned to a prison planet Fury 161 which is an ore refinery and penal colony immediately we're sort of wiping the slate of what happened in aliens it sort of immediately resets Ripley to

the character she was at the start of aliens and gets rid of the plot development with Higgs and Newt. I think it's pretty clearly like we've alluded to representative of a disdain for Cameron's film. Yeah, the opening is actually quite interesting and yes it does it does show a disdain for Cameron's film which we've said but I find myself in two minds about the opening right because it seems to be this is one of the most controversial aspects of the film right because you've got these

in particular Newt, this character that Ripley developed a connection with across the entirety of the runtime of that film and Hicks and even Bishop, right? You know, it'd become part of that kind of unit that that film finishes with and it's kind of an iconic sort of set up that that's how it finishes.

Yeah, I called it an Oursat's family I know that's nuclear family in the last episode. You know, Higgs as a dad, Newt as the daughter, Ripley as the mum. And it's one of these things where yes it is a bit of a slap in the face that film but given this film exists right and you know you can have you know you can have arguments about how essential this film is and whether it should exist right

but you know again that's one of the kind of like weird beauties of this franchise it doesn't really need to exist but given it does exist I actually think this is the perfect opening for this film right because I'd actually argue it doesn't reset Ripley as a character because it then makes her one completely scarred by loss and tragedy, right? And I think that then informs basically, I think, everything that she does in the film after that, right? So I think it, I do find myself in a weird position with the opening of this film, right? I see why it annoys people. I see why it's seen as kind of a slap in the face of the previous film. But given this film exists, I can't think of a better way to open it, right? And particularly with the way the story

goes, I think it's in fact in the central part of the film. Yeah, given what the film is doing with kind of nihilism and despair and the darkness and negativity of the film, it does make sense. I can also see it as, well, you say a slap in the face, that's exactly how James Cameron described it. Like, those are his words. From the aliens' DVD commentary, he says, I understand the instinct, which is you have to make it your own. I just don't think you should make it your own at the expense of what people like, which I think expresses kind of Cameron's populist attitude to making these films. Like, he was making a popcorn blockbuster. It expresses his, it expresses his adepardous as well, frankly. We discussed what

dickhead James Cameron was in the last episode. It's like, the notion, you know, the inherent implication there is that he knows what people like, and David Fincher does not what people like, and it happens to be his film. Yes, exactly, right? So it speaks to a couple of things there. Yeah, and I can see what you mean about the negativity and how this structure makes sense for what they're doing with Ripley as a character.

I think there is a callousness, though. I think there's a cruelty to the way that Fincher does it. I'm thinking particularly of the scene where Ripley stands over Newt's body while Charles Dancy's character performs an autopsy. And there is cracking of bone, there's blood splattering onto the floor. It's a really brutal scene. Well, Ripley just has to stand there and watch this daughter figure from the previous film get literally dissected.

Yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm in two minds of it. Like, I feel like that, you know, and in a way, right, Richard, you know, what are the strengths of the first film, right? is the fact that this this thing was amoral right it had no it had no idea

of kind of like right and wrong it was just you know it was just doing right it was doing what it was you know

what its instincts are to do it is by its very nature quite callous right and the entire kind of like said that I feel it is that this thing is completely callous it has no feelings

about the matter now there's one key aspect here which we'll probably come to which kind of undermines what I'm about say admittedly. But in a way the opening and then Ripley needing to watch

this autopsy and the way that people are dispatched in the film, it reflects the callousness of that first film and frankly, of the creature, much better than aliens does, in my view. And I find that I find that refreshing when aliens

did get into some silliness with this. You know, like we spoke about the negotiation scene at the end and like the fact that they're, you know, basically in making them more intelligent they haven't made them more intelligent and animalistic way and to a certain extent James Cameron's film like anthropomorphised them in a little

little sense right this doesn't it goes completely the other way even to the point where regardless of what cut you watch the thing that terrorises them for the vast majority of the runtime doesn't even burst out of a human being it comes out of an animal you know and it's designed you know by kind of virtue of the effect

in the first one because it was played by a guy right but you know this this one the creature here is a lot more animalistic right you know to hilarious effect with you know we've posted on social video about how they tried to get a whip it to play the

the xenomorph at first and it looks ridiculous right and there's some pretty wonky CGI which is required for it to make to make that to try and achieve that animalistic movement but in a way this is what this is actually what I kind of liked about to film on the second go around

We'll get into it more as we go in, but it's like, I feel like it's kind of got a more than aliens I'm comparing to here. I feel like it has a more coherent thematic vision, right? And I feel like the shots and the scene choices and the dialogue and various things, they're all singing from the same hymn sheet in that regard. Now, bits of these don't work, right? Some of the dialogue is properly hokey. Some of the effects are clearly being rushed, right? And that's why it's not as good a film as I think it could be.

but it feels like a more to me it feels like a more coherent vision at times than aliens right aliens is a better executed film but i feel like this has the more complete kind of what's the word of it has a more kind of like coherent coalescence of theme visuals and tone i think right than previous i think i hear what you're saying uh coherent is not one of the words i would use to describe this film. But I understand what you mean in terms of bringing together its various elements. On the look of the film for a moment, I think there's some beautiful cinematography in this first half. I think the scenes of the escape pod being picked up on the beach is beautiful. There's some amazing lighting, some great composition. But I feel like that doesn't continue through the film. And I know they don't film films. you know, in order but David Fincher's initial cinematographer

Jordan Cronan Rev worked only for two weeks on the film and then he started developing Parkinson's disease unfortunately and had to be replaced he was replaced by someone called Alex Thompson and in the there's a wreckage and rage documentary about the making of Alien Free

again directed by Charles de Lazareka I didn't rewatch it because it is 60 minutes longer than the film it's discussing. I didn't have time to re-watch it, but I returned to some notes I made the first time I watched it, and I think there's a pretty clear indication that David Venture resented having a different cinematographer, despite it not being anyone's fault.

He didn't get on well with his cinematographer replacement. So, Ripley is revived, and we discover that she's landed on this prison colony, this colony of, oh yeah, it's described as a double chromosome prison facility, and I wasn't aware what that meant. I just took it as some science fictiony jargon, but reading Ros Kavanese's work on Alien Free, she points out that this is related to the discredited theory that criminals can be detected through chromosomes. and that violent male criminals have an extra Y chromosome. I had no idea this was a thing. So I looked into it a little, and yeah, it turns out by 1976, this theory that X, Y, Y, chromosome people were more violent

and could be found to be violent psychopaths, was entirely discredited. So I just had no idea that that was a kind of background part of the film. Nor did I It's funny actually I would argue through some of the actions As a prisoner's art The film actually probably goes on To try and discredit it actually

I don't know if that's a conscious choice It probably is it I don't even know I don't know it probably isn't frankly But it's interesting It's just a kind of You know In dealing with these ideas of punishment

And you know Salvation and sacrifice And all the sort of things A lot of these A lot of these guys are You know Painted to be a lot more nuanced than, you know, some of the descriptions at Ripley's given at the start we'd indicate, basically.

Well, exactly. We soon discover that there is a conflict in the prison system between the administration and this sect of leftover custodial prisoners who have formed a kind of cult. Charles Danse's character refers to it as an apocalyptic, millenarian, Christian fundamentalist cult, who are kind of, they've done a vow of chastity. They are very, fairly apocalyptic, they're very devout, and have this kind of religious fervour, which is all held over from Vincent Ward's monastery script. Even the canteen appears to have stained glass windows. So it's like the prison is kind of a cross between a monastery and a prison.

A facehugger emerges from an egg, and it infects a dog. It infects a prison dog called Spike, and during the cremation of Newt and Hicks's bodies, the xenomorph emerges from the prison dog as a kind of more live, more predatory, more animalistic version of the xenomorph than we've seen before. They got H.R. Giga back. H.R. Giga was free to do the creature design on this, so he designed this new version of the alien, which is referred to in the film as the Dragon but he didn't do all the production design

unlike on Alien so you end up with kind of bland generic sci-fi corridors but this quite interesting creature design and another thing from the wreckage and rage documentary H.R. Giga came up with loads of concept art for this film and they just didn't use it

it was just too much so the creature soon begins killing people as the xenomorphs I want to do it attacks an unstable inmate played by Paul McCann who calls it a dragon and who gets into this kind of

idea of the xenomorph as as demon Ripley recovers the remains of bishop who verifies that there was a xenomorph on board and who requests to be deactivated because if he can't be he didn't want to be imperfect

he says if he can't be perfect he doesn't want to live which again gets into the kind of nihilism of this film Rose Cavaney says this is a bleak film about disappointment in which everything goes wrong for everybody except for those who realise what they want is death

Just to touch on kind of like the emergence of the new xenomorph right re-watching that that is one of my favourite parts of the film right because you've got the character Dylan who goes on to be quite an important character one of the feud that gets a coherent arc

amongst the prisoners I would argue He's the cult leader. Yeah, yeah. And that entire sequence, right, I think that's kind of a really good example of what works about this film. Because it also said, to clarify something I was saying earlier, like, where I say sort of like all of the different elements are working together and there's a coherence there, right? I think there's a coherence between all the different elements. I think what we'll discover as we go through this is within those individual elements, there's a distinct. lack of coherence at times, right?

You know, like there's bits of the script that just do not work or contradict each other misfits out. Yeah, right? So whilst I think they're all kind of like working towards the same goal, like individual parts of it, and I think the script is probably the chief culprit here, are deficient, right? You know, and I think there are certain costuming decisions

and hay and makeup decisions that don't help this, right? Everybody, you know, it's a prison planet where there's apparently a lice problem, so basically everybody's weighing the same clothes and they've all got shaving heads, right? So it automatically now become, and sure, you could maybe make some thematic argument about, like, how that's meant to play out. It doesn't really help when they are making attempts to delineate between, you know, the prisoners and their different characteristics and what they bring to the story. But this particular sequence, I think everything works really well.

For starters, I think the scene where it bursts out with the dog, right, and it's worth pointing out here during the sequence, we are cutting between the emergence of the xenomorph and the cremation, right? The bodies of Newt and Hicks are being lowered into the, or dropped into the refinery, into the molten lead or whatever, and it's cross-cutting between this sermon that Dylan, the leader of the cult is delivering, and the emergence of the alien dog hybrid. And he's kind of talking about new life coming out of depth,

So there's kind of thematic parallels. It is very good. I like this sequence a lot. Yeah, and in particular, I think the effects for the dog sequence are really good. Like, I actually think they're excellent. And there's real echoes of kind of like that sort of gnarly crafting the gore and disgusting that you'll see in things like, you know, 7 is probably the one that feels the most obvious. Yes, another David Fincher film.

with other David Fincher films and that entire sequence I think works really well and I think that if you take that on its own right that's very emblematic I think of what works about this film there's other sequences we can talk about later which I think are very

emblematic of what does not work about this film but I think this particular bit this is actually probably my favourite part of the film I think and it's the bit that works the best I think if everything achieved what I wanted to in the same way that that sequence does and I think we'd actually genuinely have a really good film but unfortunately it just doesn't

it doesn't come together quite as well as the sequence does. Yeah, there's a particular shot in that scene of blood splattering onto the floor that is very visceral in a way that even the chest-bursts sequence in Alien isn't quite. This blood splatters out in this huge red puddle over this kind of brown floor

that looks great and it kind of echoes the blood splattering on the floor during Newt's autopsy. It works really well, and I do like that sequence a lot. Yeah, in terms of the alien and xenomorph, it comes out of a dog. We've already mentioned they tried to get a whip it dressed up as a dog, a xenomorph, to play the alien. Didn't work. So this xenomorph is a puppet that they composite into scenes to varying effects.

I think it looks fine in this first off. Later, when we get to, like, hallway chases and stuff, it looks bad. It does. It looks bad. And I'd actually argue with that some of the choices made later in the film, which we'll deal with when we come to that point. But I think they knew it didn't work. You know, like there are strange shot choices made during the climax of the film, I would say primarily, that kind of speak to the idea that they knew it didn't work. And I think when it's an actual physical puppet, it's not being composited in, right? Because there are scenes where it is the puppet. I actually think it looks fantastic. I think it looks really, really good. The scenes where it needs to be composed, they look terrible. I mean, they're not good.

I don't think they even look particularly good for the time, right? So, you know, we'll deal with that one, but you're right, and it's weird, right? Because you know films aren't shot linearly, but it does really feel like it's a tedious. It feels like it loses steam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like it starts off.

And I went into this kind of remembering that, you know, people don't like the effect and think the alien looks fake and the, you know, the CGI or the compositing doesn't work. And I remember watching these first few, you know, this is a physical point. This actually looks really good. What are people talking about, right? And then as the film goes on, I'm like, ah, okay, yeah. Yeah, I think that kind of speaks to how they started filming without a script. So you end up with this very firm start based on the scripts that came before, particularly the Vincent Ward one. But it sort of falls apart towards the conclusion. as they realize they have no conclusion

and that the script isn't finished and it isn't coherent. So Ripley befriends Clemens, the prison doctor, plays by Charles Danz. It's implied that she sleeps with Charles Danz. All the other prisoners have taken this vow of chastity. They're not interested in women.

They are afraid of having a woman in the prison to quite an extreme degree. There's a kind of toxic masculinity theme emerging, kind of in contrast to the monstrous feminine of the previous two films. These men seem to hate women quite a lot. Dylan at one point says he's a murderer of women and a rapist of women. With the xenomorph free on the station, free in the prison, they have no weapons because it is a prison, and Andrews, the prison administrator, calls a rescue ship from the company

from Whelan Dutani. Clemens, played by Charles Dance, sort of confides in Ripley. They talk about their past. He talks about how he was addicted to morphine and how that ruined his career as a doctor. There's a tender scene between the two, and then he is immediately killed by the xenomorph. It sort of comes up from behind him and takes him through the curtain. We get that iconic scene of the xenomorph head coming up to Ripley, and the alien not killing her just walking away.

Again, I think this speaks to the callousness and the cruelty of the film. Like the first time that Ripley confides in someone, confide trust in someone, he is immediately killed and in quite a gory and excessive way. Again, I don't think it quite works. I think I can appreciate the callousness, the sense of nihilism. I don't think it makes for a great film. and I think Fincher becomes better at this kind of cruelty, this kind of callousness in his films,

but here I don't think it quite works. Yeah, despite the fact that I have come out of this quite liking the film, I think this is one bit where it doesn't really work, right? I see why the film does it, and I think it does work on some levels, like I say, you know, reinforcing the kind of the callousness of it, I do think just from a, you know, just from a production kind of pleasure of watching standpoint, the film loses something when it loses Charles Dance, right? Oh yeah, Charles Dance is great.

Yeah, like his performance is really good up to this point, and it gives it a certain, you know, kind of like, especially when you're going to do that scene where he's confessing, it kind of impuged the people outside Ripley with a little bit more character and regretful humanity of some sort. Yeah. that you're not really getting from the other the other prisoners and I think it would have been useful to have that hanging around in the script until the conclusion of the film I think it would have given it a bit more I think it would have given it a bit more weight basically um so I think in that respect whilst I see why the film does it and it makes for a very good sequence like

and a technical kind of like you know arresting visual but I like that again I like this sequence but I think unlike the the other sequence that I rather like that we spoke about the, you know, the sermon and the chest burst that are coming out with the dog. This one, despite the fact it's a very well executed scene technically I think the film after this

really suffers from the lack of that character, basically. Yeah, I do feel like this is an inflection point in the film where it goes from quite enjoyable and building up to something good to somewhat disappointing. I think it does suffer

because, like you say, Charles Dent, you you miss Charles Danz I think he is pretty clearly the most well-developed character, new character in the film perhaps followed by

Dylan the cult leader. I don't think the other side characters are developed nearly as well and I was thinking of the sequences in the few brief scenes

with the Marines in aliens where they're all sketched out very quickly and developed very well in such a short time. and this film really needed something like that for the prisoners. Yeah.

I wanted to mention Pete Possellfoyt in particular, who is absolutely wasted. Like, his character gets nothing to do, and Pete Possiblefait is an amazing actor. Yeah, I kept watching it. And I'd say, I haven't watched this in a long time, and I haven't watched this cut in particular in an extremely long time, and I kept watching this kind of going, like,

so when, I wonder when Pete Posselthwaite's getting his, moment. When did he get to do something? When does he become a character? It's his moment going to be. When's that, you know, because it's Pete Possible for God's sake. And it just doesn't happen. Yeah. It just does not happen. You know, and I remember like then watching, you know, I mean, you know, it's not a spoiler alert. This is an entire, entire show about the franchise, right? When he does get to his death scene, I was like, oh, okay. There we go. That's a complete waste of one of the most celebrated actors of his generation. Yeah. I think there's a, there's a quote from Ralph Brown

who plays the kind of prison deputy administrator who gets promoted to administrator when the administrator is killed. Ralph Brown says in the Alien Evolution documentary that the film still could have worked if Fox hadn't screened it to a bunch

of brain dead teenagers and took their advice because their advice was that there's too many bold English guys and I think there is too many bold English guys. I think there are too many bold English guys. I see what you're saying. I don't want to with the studios, but they do need to be distinguished to some extent. Yeah, and I think, it's something that hadn't occurred to me, actually, is your point about

the way the characters of the Marines in the previous film are kind of like just established kind of very quick. Very quick, like lines that tell you everything you need to know about the character. Yeah, exactly, and it doesn't necessarily make for kind of like, you know, deep characters, but it makes for character dynamics at work and you understand, right? And that's the thing here, you don't understand it. And the film suffers when Charles dances removes, because once he's done that confessional scene, like to me, it feels like he should then become the vessel for like a lot of the themes that I spoke about the film having earlier.

You know, the line that stood out to me during that is, so he's talking about the fact that, you know, he went away and got drunk and there was a big accent. He was called back into the hospital and, you know, a bunch of folk died because he gave them their own painkiller, he said. He gave their own dosities. to prison. Yeah. And he has this line where he says, I think I was let off likely, right? It's this idea of like, you know, does he deserve forgiveness? Does he deserve rehabilitation? Does he even want it, right? And that's kind of like laced through the whole thing with the prisoners and kind of like the way that they react to this. And it's kind of like, you know, the way that they react

to the presence of the xenomorph. And in the case of Ripley, it's kind of like a, it's a different kind of, you know, thing where it's kind of regret and tragedy and, you know, kind of wanting it to be over. So it's one actively wants for the end, right? And that speaks to kind of that Ross Cavaney observation you mentioned earlier. But then on the other hand of it, you've got Charles Dance as one where it's a case of do I even deserve this? Yeah, right? He's not... But then the character's dispatched immediately. It doesn't matter what any of that. You know, it's not given any time to develop in opposition with the kind of like

relentless force of the xenomorph right it is not given a chance to question it it's just it's gone and to that end it then undermines a lot of you know I was talking about the coherence of the different elements but they're incoherent within themselves

this is the point where in my view the incoherence of one of those individual elements in this case the script and the decision that they make to kill them off then starts to kind of unravel the whole thing, right? And it loses momentum and it loses much of the sense. So I think you're really right about it being a turning point, an inflection point in the film, the scene being.

And I think this is the point for me where it does start to, it doesn't fall apart completely for me, but it definitely, it really does lose that coherence I was talking about earlier at this point, I think. I love the idea of him yearning for this kind of redoubt, redemption, but not being able to take the kind of easy way out of siding with the cultists, with the religion, of accepting a kind of God's redemption. He wants his own redemption.

He wants a secular redemption within himself that he cannot reach for. And the question of, can he get that kind of redemption? Could saving Ripley, could saving others, could his career as a doctor redeem him from this one horrible mistake is really rich and is cut off like you say but provides a nice contrast to the kind of religious fervor of the zealots so Ripley is suffering from pain she was not killed by the xenomorph she scans herself back in the escape pod and discovers that she's carrying the embryo of a xenomorph queen she saw starts to bring together the prisoners to chase down the xenomorph, to take it out, and to rally the inmates to get rid of it.

But she also asks Dylan, the religious leader, to kill her. She says she can't live with this queen inside her, this cycle needs to end, she needs to be dispatched. And he refuses to do so. He wants her help to get rid of the queen before, to get rid of the alien before he grants. her death. Again, this is kind of the theme of religion. This is a religious leader, refusing to give a woman both an abortion and euthanasia, refusing to kill her, refusing to end her suffering, and refusing to get rid of the life that is growing within her. See, at this point, I think a lot of the coherence falls apart. I think we get into a somewhat endless action sequence at this

point of baiting the xenomorph into various corridors, cutting it off, and directing it to war, this molten lead pit where they're going to drown it in molten lead in the refinery. Which leads to a couple of shots that are a bit luny tunes like to be perfectly honest. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean

so I mean the idea is that they're you know, they're going to bait it and lock off these corridors until they get it into this you know, this mechanism which will then allow them to, as you say, drown it in molten lead and there was one part like towards the end

of it, we'll talk about the sequence and in more detail, right? Because as you say, this is where it starts to fall apart, I think, and it feels a bit endless. But there's one particular scene where, like, it's near the end, and it's kind of this narrow, you know, this final, final, need, a nondescript narrow corridor that happens to have a piston going down the middle of it. Yes. And basically, at one point, the xenomorph just kind of, like, runs from right to left or left to right across it, like, in one door and out the other. And, like, this is the sort of thing that you've seen cartoons. You know, it's, it's a really bizarre, see,

this. I don't know, I'd love to know, kind of like, the decision-making process for, like, framing the final confrontation this way, because it's truly weird. So, Ross Cavani goes big on this point, saying that the penal colony is a maze of rooms, and the internal arrangements of them are not clear, when, in fact, that clearness, that clarity should be pivotal to the conclusion, should be pivotal to this final action scene. she compares it specifically with aliens where the base is we have a good idea of the base is internal geography and when there is a crawl space that the aliens emerge from in the ceiling in aliens we've seen that crawl space

we've observed it even if we haven't seen it consciously in this it feels like the alien just comes out of the ceiling willy-nilly it comes out of spaces it's being driven down these corridors We're not sure what relation they have to one another. We're not sure of the relation between the prison complex and the refinery. It's all very unclear.

But Ros Cavani does refer to this as, this whole sequence, as an elaborate quasi-sexual metaphor. The convicts set themselves as bait for the alien, shutting doors on it when it pursues them in order to drive it into a chamber where a giant piston will shove it into a mould into which molten lead can be poured. is a constant emphasis on the fact that the piston can only be used once and it takes a while to get it ready for use again. See where this is going? Where in other films that Alien is seen as a vast walking sexual metaphor, alternately penile and vaginal, here it's to be shoved by a vast penis into a slot trap that will subsequently be filled with hot liquid. And it's quite the analysis because once you read that, you cannot unread it. Yeah. That was quite something. I think

there's a serious point in how sexualized the alien was particularly in alien. We talked a lot about the kind of penile and vaginal nature of it, a lot of which comes down to H.R. Giga's production design. And in this one

the alien is entirely sexless. It's just a monster. It's just a creature. Yeah, it's interesting. In a lot is made about the prisoners and you've kind of gone from this in the, less so

in aliens, right, but more so, as you say, an alien, you've gone from this idea of kind of like the the xenomorph itself representing, albeit implied, rather than explicit, like some sort of sexual threat, right? Yes. To, it doesn't here,

right? It doesn't. Even, as I say, to the extent that it emerges from an animal. So, I mean, if there is any of that, it's not attached to the humans. And basically, it's kind of like, it's off-loaded that aspect of it to the inmates, right? Because a lot is made about

how Ripley won't be safe. Indeed, there is a scene where basically... There's a scene where they attack Ripley with an intent to rape her, right? And it's cut short by... I think it's Dylan, right? The leader, right? So I find that an interesting aspect of it

because it's... They want to retain that element, but they've farmed it out to a bunch of faith... like, you know, fairly nondescript characters. And I think that's another place where the film does kind of lose something compared to previous entries. Again, I kind of see why it's happened, because it's trying to go with different, it's trying to attach different things to the xenomorph here.

But it's just, I find it, I find it interesting that that element is still there. It's just, it's much more, it's been made much more explicit, and thus it's much more poorly dealt with as a result, basically. Yes. So the alien is led down these, these various. corridors and lead into the trap, it kills a lot of prisoners along the way, but he's led into the trap where the molten lead is to be poured on it. Dylan distracts the alien by kind of accepting, taking himself as a sacrifice and having the alien attack him, and they lower the molten lead onto the alien. The brief sequence where the alien jumps out of the molten

lead, it's still alive, and they pour water on it, which, you know, Ross Cavan he's very good the objectivity in these reviews I've been reading over these last few films, she barely hides her disdain in the alien-free one because she's like, well, it wouldn't just explode when it gets water on it, the molten lead would solidify. Yeah, well, this is kind of my reaction. Because I'd forgotten about this aspect of it completely, right? Now, to give you a little background, right, okay,

I did chemical engineering at university, right? So I know about the concept of thermal shock and I had two reactions to this. My first one was, I don't think that's how thermal shock works. Right? That's the first thing. Right? But then the second

part of it is, does I'm going to sound very patronising here, right? But I don't think it's without, you know, does your average Joe punter who's watching Alien 3 know about thermal shock? Like, you know, I mean, it looks like they just douse it in cold water

and the thing explodes. I mean, like, if you don't know what they're meant to be going for, even if you accept it, it works that way, which it doesn't, right? Why? Like, why? You'd be watching that if you didn't know about the concert going, like, sorry, why did it explode? This looks ridiculous. I did. And it does.

Yes, I did philosophy at university. I am not a scientist, and I'm discovering the term thermal shock in this moment. Right. Yeah, well, it's the same idea. You know, it's the same idea. I mean, the way, the classic example of thermal shock is like, is you, you know, you've put a glass in a freezer for ages, right? Or, you know, or get a beaker and heated. Actually, this is where I've actually experienced it firsthand, actually, right, in the chemical lab. If you get a beaker or a test tube or something, you put a Bunsen burner under it and you heat it up a lot, right? That happens to me in science class in high school. Yeah, right. Right, that's thermal shock, right? And then you put some cold water in it.

The thing will burst apart. The bottom of the beaker bricks. It goes all over your bunsen burner. You get in trouble. Right. I remember. Yes, yeah, it's true. I was shocked.

I experienced the thermal shock. That's what we're talking about, right? It's for the person that sees it. Yeah. But it's like, but I just look at it like, you know, I, It just seems like a really weird way to dispose of the scene of art for this film. Like, in some ways, it would have been better. It would have been better if they'd actually, like, just had it drown in the molten lead,

rather than this weird attached thing to it. It was just weird. I find that whole bit really odd. Totally. It builds up to this whole thing, and then it does this, like, weird comical explosion effect, which, yeah, it's weird. It's very odd. Yeah, it doesn't work, and the film doesn't need it.

No, exactly. But the Whaling-Dutani team arrive. These are the team that the prison administrator Andrews called. These commandos, these blank-faced scientists, move into the facility, and they approach Ripley, who is ready above the molten refinery to finally kill herself and the Ealing Queen inside her. A man who looks identical to Bishop,

emerges and says he's Bishop's creator he's what is it Bishop Wayland Michael Bishop Wayland the Wayland of Wayland Utani and the originator of Bishop and he tries to

persuade Ripley that they'll do surgery to remove the Alien Queen Embio and then destroy it and Ripley will be fine and she will survive and I found myself loving this scene. I really like this final bit

of Bishop as this quite seductive face of the company of capital and I think this brings together a lot of themes from the William Gibson script from the Davy Toey script that didn't get properly developed in this film because I love this idea of the head of Whelan Dutani suddenly turning up and demonstrating you know how his company seduce the whole galaxy like we all hate Elon Musk and Tesla and what Elon Musk stands for but I imagine he must be

quite a seductive personality in person, certainly not online, to actually persuade people. I mean given the inverted commas success Elon Musk has found I mean you'd have to hope so otherwise I'm completely

even more mystified than I am anyway but I like this kind of representation that Whalen Dutani has a figurehead who is good at seducing people, who is good at persuading people to do what you wants. And that's how the company, that's how capital, gets away with treating people as disposable. There's also this great line where Dylan talks about the company saying, what makes you think they're going to care about a bunch of lifers who found God at the arse end of space?

and that idea of the company as disposing of people and treating people as nothing is interesting and I think brings over the bio-weapons theme and this is the thing right the thing that I like about this there's plenty of things I like about this scene

this is where this final scene is where to an extent there's some fairly shoddy effects work right but we'll come to that in a minute but this scene in kind of like concept is where it starts to get some of that coherence back again, right? And I think it's, you know, it's obvious that the bit in the middle,

that set piece that leads up to this, is the bit that doesn't work. And I alluded to it earlier, I had some weird choices. Like there's some weird point of view shots that are meant to be from the vision of the xenomorph. Yeah. It's a kind of, you know, distorted lens. Fitch-eye lens to show. Yeah. And it's weird.

It's weird. It doesn't work. And to me it kind of removes a lot of mystery is the wrong word, right? Because we know what the creature is by this point. But something that the first half of the film does very well is something that the first alien did where it kind of like it keeps it, you know, it doesn't linger on the creature too much. And it kind of recreates a little bit of that, you know, lingering threat. That goes out the window for this. It's like I said, it's like a Luritunes chase scene or something.

thing. It's ridiculous. And so again, it feels like a real handbrake turn to go through that entire sequence and get to this sequence where you've got Lance Henriksen coming in again as you know, this face of the company. And the thing that I quite like about this is it brings in this is the, this is probably one of the few things beyond the creature's self that actually ties it back to the other two films, right? Because, you know, Ripley bangs onto them by kind of like, you know, the company doesn't care about you. It only wants us for its bioweapons division, blah, blah, but they're kind of throw away lines. This is the first time where it's kind of like

it's given, you know, it is manifest in the film itself. And this idea, it's a very good point you've made about kind of like the idea of the seductive, charismatic figure of the company, because that's something which will then pop up again in other films,

even films that are also ignored by this very franchise. It will pop up in Alien versus Predator, which will talk about surprisingly soon actually. And then it's actually quite a big point, I would argue, in the Prometheus and Neil Incovent films. You know, this idea of creators and, you know, what that, you know, what that then kind of like imbues that person with in terms of their sense of self or what other people project onto them as a result and then linking that into kind of like

these ideas of capitalism and exploitation. It's kind of fascinating in this film. It does do it. It's just it's emblematic of the things that don't work about the film. that basically it gets about, you know, it gets two very good minutes and then that's it. Yes, I think I've got a few points from that. On the point of view shots of the alien, I think you're right. It does take away some of the mystery. I like the idea that the alien doesn't even have visible eyes. So we don't really know what its senses are like.

They are so different from ours. I like that idea. I think the original, I watched another documentary, which I'll go off on a tangent in the minute. Oh, it's another little documentary on the DVD box set where the first alien, the first xenomorph model actually had like skull holes, eye holes in its skull, but they're not visible particularly on the film because it's quite dark on the Nostromo.

And then I think from aliens onwards, they got rid of the skull holes entirely, so it's all smooth. Yeah. That was in this documentary about this private collector in the United States who Fox gave all the props to and I thought that was such an American thing to do to give all your props from a well-regarded movie franchise

to some private dude who keeps it in his garage rather than say a museum or a publicly owned body who can look after it properly you know I'm watching this documentary where flakes are coming off the original face hugger and like that's not being preserved properly that needs to be in a temperature-controlled

you know regulated environment anyway anyway yes my other point what was my other point there's so many to make with this film it frankly it's kind of like

it gives it just shows what this film is like that basically we're making so many points and are occasionally forgetting some because that's kind of what this film does frankly it makes a lot of points and it forgets about some of them yeah very good that is very true

the coherence of our critique is dying along with the coherence of this film and the script. You know, it's a meta comment on the film itself. Yeah, no, my other point was to pick up on what you mentioned is about Whelan Dutani and Wheland coming to the fore

as this kind of figurehead of the company. And I do think it would have been better if Whelan Dutani was the protagonist of the franchise rather than Ripley. Like if the company was the protagonist And I was thinking of Succession while I wrote this note because I think there's a good argument to be made that Waystar Royco is the protagonist of Succession.

The company itself is the protagonist, not any of the Roy siblings. Because I think the show leaves off where it does because the company doesn't care about those people. It doesn't care about the fate of the Roy siblings. The company, as it was, has ceased to exist with the merger with Mattson's company. Spoilers for succession, by the way. But the company has ceased to exist.

And so, as far as it is concerned, the human players in that drama are over. Like, you could very convincingly continue the series from the perspective of any of the Royce siblings, but they don't because it's the company that is the protagonist. And there's also an interesting parallel in Wayland, Eutarnet, and Wei Star Royco, which is by the bye.

I don't think that means anything. You have made an interesting point, though, I think the series, it kind of makes hints towards that, right, in the sense that, you know, this being one of the common threads throughout it. And I think it would be better if it took something like that approach. The thing that I find interesting about it is you could actually make that another, another franchise that would be improved by that approach. And it does sort of do it, yet it doesn't, would actually, to, you know, bring a James Cameron, Lincoln again, the Terminator franchise would actually kind of do better with that. If we, if you look at

from the perspective of being about cyberdyne systems and their kind of reckless endangerment of humans in the attempt to pursue kind of like, you know, SkyNet, right? And SkyNet takes various forms throughout that series, right? It has this kind of, you know, amorphous network idea. There's the terrible Terminator Genesis, but like the idea there was kind of a similar sort of thing,

the role SkyNet takes. There is something to be said about, would you get more mileage out of this? series, particularly these early ones, when instead of looking at it purely as a Ripley thing, right, you take the company and its obsession with weaponising this kind of destructive force of nature and the impact that then has on the people that it supposedly cares about, right? And it just shows up the idea that they don't because the first film does that, the second film very much does that. And then the third one makes this kind of weird nods towards it at the end.

And then we'll talk about the other films as well. But there is that common thread. And I think in this search for kind of like a Ripley-like figure, it kind of undermines a lot of the other films, right? I mean, here, in my view, they kind of get away with it. In the next film, which, you know, not to jump the gun, we'll talk about that when we come to it. They fail that so spectacularly. They basically have to bring back Ellen Ripley, right? And it does not work for me.

It just does not work. So it's an interesting point you make there. and that I think these films would have a lot more mileage if they did that and, you know, I'm reluctant to say that because, you know, we strayed dangerously close to kind of like critiquing what we want the film to be rather than what it is.

But it's not as if these elements are not there and I think it would make for a kind of more interesting stable of this, kind of this first phase of the franchise. Yeah, I do think they were on the right track moving on from Ripley and perhaps focusing on Higgs, on Newt for this sequel, moving on from Ripley I think would have freed up the franchise

to become something different to continue in the vein that aliens did while expanding on what alien did as well and not just disregarding aliens the way this kind of does but then yeah 20th century Fox said Ripley was really the only female warrior we have in our movie mythology

and drove a dump truck full of money up to Sigoni Weaver's house I think that, you know, I mean, to talk about kind of like when this film released it, one could argue that this, she was the star of these films, right? You know, and this is the franchise that made her a film star. And I think this and the film, you know, the film will talk about next Alien Resurrection. Arguably, those are kind of like the last films in this series that are really in the age of the film star, you know? Like, once you start getting towards the more recent things, you know, a lot of. has been written about kind of like how the, you know, film stars are not really a thing anymore, which I do, which I'm not 100% convinced by, but certainly... There's only Tom Cruise. There's only Tom Cruise left. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, some... And anybody else, right? I mean, okay, you could probably make a case for maybe Jennifer Lawrence, I suppose, and, you know, regrettably, maybe Chris Pratt or something like that.

But it's, you know, none of the other films are built on Star Power, whereas I think this one is to a certain extent. It's like, you know, you know, Sigourney Weaver's back. And then the next one, it's definitely Sigourney Weaver's back. But then after this, it's like you say, I mean, the only person who's kind of like selling tickets based upon their name alone these days is Tom Cruise. And I think by the time you get

to beyond alien resurrection, right, we're into that age where that's not really happening anymore. And I think these films, the two that we're talking about, well, the two I'm talking about, now Alien 3 and then the one after us, they suffer

as a result, because they're so focused on getting a story centered around this character so they can get that actor back. They don't really think about what might actually work with the series as a whole. It's all about kind of like getting that name on the poster, getting the lead billing being the person

that people go, oh wow, she's gone back for it and it's less about, you know, you're then compared us to, you can talk about the, you know, you can talk about the quality of the films any which way you want, but like, I would argue that nobody in the Prometheus cast, for instance, was really a star at the time that film came

out, you know, I mean, certainly not in the lead, like, Numerary Pace is kind of like, you know, she was best known for the Swedish language versions of the, you know, the girl with the dragon tattoo series. Not at all. I knew Michael Fastbender from sharing, but he wasn't, that's not a star film, like that's a what is that, Steve McQueen?

That's a small, relatively small indie film. You know, so like, I don't want to jump the discussion on them, but it's just, I think it's important, it's an interesting point to bring up for this film and the next one. the reason these exist is because they got Sigourney Weaver back into the role and that's why I bring it up when you say sort of dump truck of money up to her because frankly this film and I mean Alien 3 in a more general concept right not just

this specific version of it without her Alien 3 does not exist because I think we're in that age where you couldn't create an alien film that did not have Sigourney Weaver attached to it no definitely certainly in these four films she becomes a major creator force. Like I say, they started out planning without Ripley and eventually brought Ripley on as a producer to somewhat drive the direction of the films. She makes it clear in, she is explicit in the Alien Evolution documentary that she was on David Finch's side. She was on David Finch's side rather than the studio's side. And yet there is this kind of bridge from her to the production, to the studios

because she is like say the studio star she is the bankable star she says at one point in alien evolution the kids see these things as installments which I read as kind of

an attempt to justify the financially driven desire for sequels you know it's reframing these not as sequels not as continuations but as installments in this kind of

continuing what we'd now call cinematic universe, I guess. Yeah, I just, I find that, you know, because you think about kind of like what Sigourney Weaver broke out from, you know, the alien in 1979, you think about when that film was made and some of the other films that were made in the 60s and the 70s, right? It's kind of the similar pattern, right?

You think about your, you know, your De Niro's and the Godfather or Jack Nicholson in One Fluor of the Cook. There were a lot of, like, people who made their names who then go on to be movie stars, right? and then there were a lot of films released in the likes of the 1990s, which basically were sold on the basis of these people being attached. Yeah, there was kind of... I think Alien Three sits very firmly within that stable of films that existed at the time where they were driven by who the lead actor was, right?

That's what people... That's what was selling the tickets, basically. Totally. It's kind of this legacy of the new Hollywood era where those stars, those actors became stars, became stars. became stars in the 80s and 90s in a way that drove box office into this kind of blockbuster era but away from the kind of new Hollywood filmmaking ethos yeah and you know you can also look at kind of there are other examples of people who made their name that way and then returned to these franchises and it's been very disappointing right you know I think if we were going to stick it within you know and there's more recent examples

like you could point to the likes of you know this doesn't really work with the new Hollywood part of but you know Harrison Ford for instance who then has gone back to Indiana Jones and at the time of recording this I've not seen Dial of Destiny but I've seen Kingdom of the Christmas yeah and well yeah exactly right but you know Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I don't think it's as bad as made out but it's definitely not a good film right and it's been very disappointing but to stick within kind of the 90s time frame I would think of something like Al Pacino in the Godfather Part 3 right you know he made his name and that's how he became a star he's then you know

being the face of a lot of very successful films he goes back to that franchise that's basically what kind of what's selling it is his presence right because you think about it the first film is as much about Brando as it is about him

and the second one is as much De Niro's performance as you know as the Corleone Don as it is about him but the third one that's you know it's an Al Pacino film right in the same way that this is a Sigourney Weaver film Yeah that's only two years prior

to this, right? That's 1990. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Now, that's an interesting idea. Yeah, so to cap everything off, Ripley is not seduced by the new bishop. She instead chooses to throw herself to her death in the facility's huge molten furnace. As she's falling, the queen erupts from her chest, and she pulls the queen chestburster close to her, embraces it,

as they both fall into the fire and are killed forever in an irreparable way that no subsequent films could possibly bring back certainly not if they were set

200 years later that wouldn't make it especially impossible there's a kind of epilogue where the prison facility is closed down and the final shot is on board the Solaco where Ripley's distressed call from the Nostromo from the original alien

plays quietly and then we cut to credits which I find it interesting finishing on that distress call that to me was kind of like the biggest hark back to the fact that it's trying to it's trying to recreate alien

a lot more than it being continuation of aliens you couldn't make it any more explicit if it's not been obvious through this entire film this is finally Fincher or whoever smashing you over the head

with it frankly this is a sequel to alien not aliens Yeah, it's fairly unsuttle at that point. Yeah. And I think this is an unsubtle film, which, when I'm thinking of Fincher's career, I think Fincher becomes a lot more subtle. I think there's a callousness and a cruelty, which we've discussed in a lot of Fincher's films,

but I think he's better at hiding that. I think Fincher often has a lot of disdain for the source material of his films. Like, I don't think he likes Chukpollaniac's novel Fight Club. I don't think he likes the novel Gone Girl. But I think he hides that disdain well in his adaptation. I think that's kind of how I think of him as a filmmaker. And here, I think he's very open in his disdain in a way that he will become better at hiding. Yeah, it's interesting. You can't pick out I think it's because like, you know, I go into this

in 2023 knowing the filmmaker that Fincher becomes and like knowing some of his trademarks and there are like certain bits of this where I'm like oh okay I see this now like in particular I'm thinking of the autopsy seen actually there's a lot of kind of like lingering kind of close up shots on the autopsy tools

as they're kind of like methodically laid out and things like that and that reminded me very strongly of like the opening shots of um sorry go at the end of the Ross Cavany point Ross Cavaney mentioned seven in relation to this, in particular to the focus on the tools, you know, the kind of contraptions that

the killer character makes in that. Yeah, I mean, like, seven is odd, but then, you know, but that's kind of, it seems to, it feels to me anyway, like a recurring motif of Finchers, and the one thing that actually reminded me of in addition to seven is actually the opening credits of Mind Hunter, you know? It's that same kind of like, you know, focusing on kind of like the tools of the thing and this,

the lingering. So you see those bits, you do see those bits of it and I think that that's kind of fascinating in that regard. What I will say while we're talking about it is a David Fincher film. I think the biggest compliment I can give it is kind of messy as it ends up is I do

not think it is David Fincher's worst film. Go on. But I, listen, I'll be quite explicit. I fucking hate the curious case of Benjamin Button. I hate it with a passion. I was going to say Benjamin Button. You know, it's a daft film. I do not like it.

But, you know, um... But, yeah, it's... My partner is quite a big David Fincher fan. You know, they like watching David Fincher films, especially like Gone Girl and the game and, you know, his films in that vein. They were showing Benjamin Button at the GFT as part of their Fincher season a few weeks ago.

And my partner, who is a Fincher fan, saw that and said, why on earth are they showing Benjamin Button? button at Easter. Like, what's I got to do with? I'd say, no, it's because it's a Fincher film. Everyone forgets because no one likes it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that.

But no, but I, you know, and I would say I'm a big David Fincher fan. I'm, you know, a bit of an apologist from Mank. I got quite a lot out of Mank, where's a lot of people seem very disappointed by it. But it is interesting to what... Just like the nation... What's... Once I get over the fact that, you know, they decide to go with like a mononym for the title, right? because as a, you know, and you'll appreciate this, as a Scottish person, seeing, when I read, like, not at the time kind of like knowing what it was, what it was about, David Fincher's next film is being announced and it's titled Mank.

Yeah, like, wait, what? Like, you know, it's about like a really dirty person or something, like, you dirty Mank, like, you know. So I did, you know, I did really get me, even as an apologist for that. Being from Manchester, I thought it was something else again. yeah not true actually but yeah it's interesting to watch this film like knowing where David Fincher goes after this

because you do then start to see these little stylistic elements that then you know clearly get picked up to too much better or more emphatic effect in his later films and I think given the troubled production process this film it's remarkable how much of his stamp

remains on this right both in terms of visuals and tone it was quite surprised at what that watch it back. I was expecting to not really notice a lot of it. But I really did actually, and I found that quite interesting in its own way, given the amount of interference. Yeah, I think there is Fincher. There is a lot of Fincher in it, despite the reported studio interference. There's apparently, there's a Charles Zanz quote from the Alien Evolution documentary.

Charles Dan says, they made a film, it tested okay, they really liked how it looked. Shell's Dan says and then the committee got their fingers in and we ended up with something that was okay yeah I mean not to undermine

the previous nearly an hour and a half we've spoken about the film right but that kind of sums it up it's not I don't think it's a bad film but it should have been

it should have been and it could have been a much better film I'm going to say it is a bad film certainly I think we established this at the opening I don't think it's bad I think the thing

I think the thing that we can probably agree on is it's a deeply frustrating film it's a very frustrating film Yeah because I can see There's very clear themes Like we've discussed There's very clear themes around religion Around nihilism around toxic masculinity

And towards the end The Company treating people is disposable Very clear themes that I do not think are developed well and that do not cohere for me that do not fully come together and I think that's a problem with the script not working generally

I don't think the characters they developed well these themes are not seen through well it all as we get into my summary I kind of lost the thread at a certain point at the reflection point after Charles Dance is killed

I lost the thread of the film because it descends into this kind of action sequence that feels very put together by committee that loses the kind of beautiful cinematography of the first half and that feels like an action sequence for the sake of an action sequence that does not have anything to do with any of the preceding stuff yeah because i mean i think back to um you know there's the there's i think side of the first kill or no one of the very early kills of one of the inmates by the xenomorph and it's the guy who's working in the tunnel with the fan blades, right? So he gets attacked and then he gets sucked into the, or falls into the fan blades.

And there's a scene where he's looking kind of like down into the thing where the xenomorph turns out to be hiding with the light and the fan in the background. And I thought, this looks absolutely great. This is fantastic, right? And you're then watching that final sequence of this weird sort of like, you know, xenomorph with a GoPro on its head type sequence. And I'm looking at like, where did that film go? Where's it gone? You know, like, because, you know, because, At the start, it's this sort of, you know, it's almost like it's taking alien and it's changing the setting, it's, you know, giving it a different palette and a slightly more, you know, nihilistic set of themes and all the rest of it. And it should, at that point, I was looking at going, like, this should really work. Like, despite the inessential nature of this entire endeavour, this should actually end up working. And it really, that's, to me, it shows how, I think

the single weakest element of this film is the script, right? Which, which it shouldn't surprise anyone, right? Because it wasn't finished at the time film, it went through a million different versions and it's this weird Frankenstein of all of them, right? But it's just, given the way all the different bits, kind of work in harmony for me, they are all when I talk about kind of like, you know, they

work together, but all individual elements have their own level of incoherence. The script is the worst one, and I think it then, especially as you get into that final act, unfortunately, it just kind of faithly undermines the whole thing, you know? That is a fundamental problem for me, that I think the script

doesn't work. It doesn't develop the characters. It doesn't even develop Ripley particularly well, I don't think. Like, you mentioned at the very start, this idea of a scarred Ripley who has been traumatized, who is, you know, rendered nihilistic by the things that have happened to her, by the suffering that has been put on her, and how that contrasts with the religious kind of zeal for suffering and these ideas is interesting. I don't think it comes across at all. I do think it comes across but I think much like the other elements

it gradually just fades into the background, right? And it's why we're talking about that inflection point because that's the point where I expect the film to kind of like grab onto that and go right, this is the, you know, we're going to have an action sequence, we're going to have a fight scene and all the rest of it

but this is the idea capital T, capital I, right? It comes up to the point where where Charles Dance has confided and her, his tragic backstory and you expect Ripley to reciprocate to finally explain to someone the suffering that she's been through

and then that doesn't happen it gets cut off. Yeah, exactly and I think that's the point where you expect kind of like the character motivation to then kind of like gel together and that to inform everything that then happens subsequently right? Because that happens in you know, I mean it happens, you know, and we spoke

about aliens. I actually have quite mixed feelings about aliens after re-watching it, but whether you think it, you like it, or it's subtle, or you like where the franchise went after, that that last act is fairly coherent in terms of its ideas, you know, in terms of like the relationship with Newt

and, you know, the trust she's developed in Bishop, and the way that all comes together to actually inform that entire sequence, that does not happen here, because it's, because they've removed all elements of it. There is nothing to go on to from a character perspective at that point. It just becomes

shuffling people around on a you know it's you know it just becomes shuffling things around on a board game to like you know eliminate the threat and that's it I yeah I criticized aliens in the last episode

for doing something that I did not want it to do for not doing what I wanted what I got out of alien but it does it in a coherent way and it does it in a way that works as a script like I was constantly talking about how great the script was last time I think aliens is

a terrific screenplay that does it well. Not necessarily the stuff I would want, but it does it well. I don't think this script does it well. You know, it's hard to blame Fingcher for that. Like it is a he was given a bad script with not enough time to

put everything together. The wreckage and rage documentary says they had a release date before they had a script. They just wanted to get a film out. Yeah. So I don't... Which if you're needing to shoot something quickly, that's another reason to not end up picking David David 50 takes fincher.

Yes. So I do not think it works. That was the kind of critical consensus at the time, reviews at the time were not great. They're just looking at some of the reviews on Wikipedia, lack of genuine frills, lost interest, particularly in the final sequences, like we've said, the final chase sequences. Roder Ebert called it one of the best looking bad movies I've ever seen. So that's something. It's interesting, like reading through some of these reactions though, like again, again, to like go back to kind of like the whole identity crisis of the franchise thing, whether this film works or not, and I think we've established, I think it works better than you do, but like we're both generally in agreement that it doesn't work anywhere nearly as well as it needs to, certainly.

I don't like it. I think I remember quite liking the assembly cut, which like I said is, I think the only version of I've seen before, and I didn't like this. Yeah. So, like, I can, but the thing is, right, I'm thinking about the, the way this franchise goes, this, this film to me is really one where it does

properly suffer from a misalignment of expectations at the time, right? And, you know, and it's easy to forget about that, like, think about it, you know, because I think us coming at it as we are here, you know, when we're looking at it as a whole, and you know, the

franchise as a kind of like, you know, holistic enterprise and having seen most of these films altogether, right? I think we can identify the bits where it works and it doesn't work. But I think at the time, and certainly if you're coming to these films for the first time not knowing huge amounts about them, this along with, I would argue, Prometheus maybe, is the one which suffers the most from misalignment of expectations, right? If you came, if you went to see aliens or you watched aliens first, which frankly, a lot of people do end up doing, right, and then go back to alien, right? And you think this is the one that they made after aliens. It's completely removed from it. You know, I mean, not only is it completely

removed from it, as you've already pointed out, it's an active rejection of it, right? So I think that probably informs a little bit of, like, some first reactions to it as well. It feels so completely removed from that concept. But unlike the first two films, which effectively does the same thing, the second concept was pretty far removed from the first one, but it did it in an effective, well-executed way. This, by and large, we can quibble about kind of like precisely how well or poorly it does it, but it's definitely not a, it's definitely not a successful execution of even what it wanted to do. No. And I think that that commemoration of misalignment of expectations combined with poor execution or a poor script is something

that is going to pop up again here. Yeah. So Fincher hated it as well. He's, he's disowned the film. He did not come back to do the special edition cut. He said to the Guardian that no one hates it more than me. To this day, no one hates it more than me. Which I think is fair. I don't hate it. Yeah. Yeah, we can do a quick round of xenobiology. Which is where we discuss what we learn about the alien. And I was just going to say, I don't think there's a lot in this one. Oh, I think the main thing we learn is that different hosts the xenomorph fledgling result in different xenomorph physiology. So if the facehugger hugs onto a dog,

then the resulting xenomorph has like dog-like animalistic tendencies. And the only other thing I've got in my notes is that xenomorphs can survive being engulfed in molten lead. Well, the other thing, maybe I'm pretty, is there not, like just before the first kill, is it all kind of implied that it sheds its skin like a snake? I'm sure that's implied in Alien, though. Is it? Oh, no.

Oh, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, he picks up. Harry Dean Stanton finds this. Yeah, Harry Dean Stanton, yeah, right enough, right enough, yeah. Yeah, so it's actually more of it. It's yet another call back to Alien, in fact. Yes, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, and that's all I have.

Like, I don't think we learn much. I don't think it develops much of the alien in the same way that aliens did, which I think is fine. Again, I think that's why it wants. do, you know, it wants to build off what we've already seen in Alien. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you would like to say about Alien 3? It's not David Fincher's worst film and it is not the worst film of this franchise. And unfortunately for Alien 3, I think that is the biggest compliment she can actually give it.

As much as I did, as much as I did actually quite like it on this re-viewing of it, you know, I think there's a lot of elements I appreciated more on this go-round. But it's entirely that Charles Dan's quote you said, right? It's, you know, huge amount of trouble, various things that just caused this, you know, a huge amount of anguish to actually get this to screen, and it ended up, okay. Yeah. I think I, I have always thought of that Vincent Ward script, the wooden monastery in space, the name of the rose in space, as this great unfinished green play. And I was shocked how much of that structure remains in, in this film. So maybe that wouldn't have come out well, Like maybe that's something I can let go of now.

I would recommend people watch the wreckage and rage documentary, which Charles de Lausie Wiga put together for the Alien Quadrology box set. That is a three-hour documentary that exhaustively documents the making of Alien Free, and I think does a really good job of it. It's like Hearts of Darkness does for Apocalypse Now. This does for Alien Free. and I would very much recommend it. That is Alien Free.

Next time we'll be tackling Alien Resurrection, which came out in 1997, five years after this, and is the kind of last in, I guess we'll call it the Ripley Quadrilogy, before the franchise moves on to different ground. Thanks for listening. Please follow on Twitter at the Xenopod. You can find links to the previous. shows are take one cinema.net. Follow us on Twitter, like and subscribe, listen to the

podcast, wherever. I'll end by saying, we're all going to die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet on your fucking knees begging? I ain't much for begging. Please like and subscribe. No. No. No. No. No.

No. You know,