We may be a Terminator fan site but Alien 3 is very important to look at in understanding why our favorite movie franchises have gone down the pan. It’s important, as fans, that we educate ourselves in how Hollywood deals with sequels and conceives these projects; this article was constructed with this in mind, to allow you the viewer to understand the way studios think and operate when creating a new movie to a successful franchise. Once a movie leaves it’s original creators we are left with emotionally detached people in control of the property, usually these people are not fans at all but instead trend-spotters and other such people who want to take the chance to cash in on fandom and love, without care for how they execute the movie itself. Once you have been to the cinema and watched the movie you have already parted with your money and there is no way to get it back. They win every-time and we are just the dumb fools who fall for it every-time; waiting in hope for a great movie that will probably never happen.
Unless you are living under a rock you will have seen trending news that District 9 Director Neill Blomkamp was working on a pitch to bring back Ripley and Hicks for a new installment of the Alien franchise (Alien 5) and we sense the pitch was/is a continuation in the canon Alien franchise.
I watched Alien 3 as a child and ultimately I did not enjoy the movie as much as I should have, in retrospect now as an adult Alien 3 now seems a cut above a majority of Hollywood movies (that isn’t hard with the trash movies we are subjected to these days) but is still left a mess because of the studio.
I don’t actually think the movie is as bad as I originally thought it just felt incomplete and lacking. I wanted to take the time to explore what went wrong with this movie and to also relate back to this movie to see if a Ripley/Hick’s revival movie would be a good move for studios and fans across the world and also in relation to the Terminator franchise. The simple answer is that the problem lies with the studios themselves, money and ‘people in suits’ or in this age people who turn up to the office in a T-Shirt, shorts and trainers.
Problem Number 1 – No solid concept or pre-production:
20th Century Fox needed money, so with a shortsighted view to fast-track some cash- they decided to give a release date for Alien 3 without having a story/script.
The following Teaser Trailer was released,- totally confusing the viewing audience…
Anyone watching this trailer would presume the movie would be set on Earth. “On Earth everyone can hear you scream” a take on the original “In space no-one can hear you scream”.
The trailer did seem to be the initial starting block for the project.
Problem 2 – 20th Century Fox and their money obsessed Studio Executives and Producers wasting time and money developing an idea they ultimately dropped, so why bother in the first place?
The first director involved wanted to do something different and to take viewers to the home planet of the Aliens themselves but studios deemed the setting as being too costly. The studios wanted more Aliens, more guns and a scary movie. The director classed what the execs wanted to do as more of the same and he jumped ship.
Cost-wise Earth would have been a cheaper cost in terms of a location rather than the planet of the Aliens themselves. Back then we didn’t have everyone acting on green screen CGI backdrops… they would have created sets like Alien 3 that are built to scale and are costly but you have to admit it looks real and far better than the CGI trash we watch these days.
After setting a release date studios were on the search for a director with ideas based on their concept of ‘Alcatraz in space’, this idea was enhanced with a director from New Zealand; Vincent Ward, who turned the prison idea into a wooden environment/Monk Monastery floating in space but the studios wanted those monks to be turned back into prisoners and the environment to be changed into an old mining/factory facility.
Vincent Ward’s Alien 3 idea was signed off on and he was locked in as Director. His concept was bizarre and would merge our future with a past setting in a defunct space station (The Arceon) with a metal outer covering but a wooden interior with hundreds of floors, monasteries and cathedrals. The space station itself had the inner workings of farms, wheat fields, sheep and other animals which would have become Alien Hybrids. All lighting in the station would have been provided by monks positioning mirrors to bring light into the rooms and floors of the vessel- quite similar to how the ancient Egyptians would light the interiors of pyramids. The monks didn’t want to be part of modern society so they were outcast to this old defunct station which they modified into a world from the past and outcast into space. On top of the vessel which is reminiscent of the death star from the Star Wars movies but made of wood with the metal outer-covering and all its inner workings like waterwheels etc, providing a layer of atmosphere around the vessel, a lake sits at the top which Ripley’s escape pod lands in..
No mention of Hicks, and Newt is also missing but all that remains is Newt’s bloody clothing, the monks save Ripley but blame her for killing Newt against her warnings of the Alien, the Monks see her as a form of temptation that they must get rid of (like the movie Black Narcissus where one man appears in a monastery full of nuns on top of the Himalayas) the monks then cut off Ripley’s hair and dump her in the bowels of the ship. Many elements from this concept did end up in the final movie. The concept, even though liked by those involved including Ms Weaver, started to make the studio worry that it was too outlandish for the series, causing them to backtrack, wasting precious time and money. In backing out of the idea and forcing the director to change his ideas it all fell apart and forced the next director (David Fincher) to work with an idea that was not fully developed and sets that had already been half built. Thus causing strict parameters he had to work within; restricting his own vision for the project.
So basically they didn’t allow the directors to do what they wanted- instead they constantly kept forcing whichever director got involved to reshape the movie back into an early pitch created after the Earth pitch was dropped. Treating the directors like shit and sucking their creativity and soul into not wanting to be involved with the project.
So David Fincher (probably not realizing the mess he was walking into) was called on board, he had worked for Industrial Light and Magic so he was familiar with the effects industry and had some experience directing music videos… the studios wanted someone who wasn’t on the map Director-wise but regardless of the talent Fincher has (which he has proven over the years) was this just another way for the studio to pay a lesser wage? They did have early words with Ridley Scott and James Cameron about a sequel but it never went ahead with them. Rumor has it Cameron was shown an early version of one of those awful scripts and he wasn’t interested instead his focus was Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The execs behavior obviously caused Sigourney Weaver to describe the set of Alien 3 as ‘The Rats Nest’ and their unrelenting hassling and exhausting shoots had no mercy for anyone involved, the majority of the shoot took place at Pinewood Studios in London UK on the famous Bond stage. The studios had everything pegged and any director involved was under constant surveillance through hired personal assistants and moles. The majority of this was done via phone calls to these planted individuals from Los Angeles…
Quite honestly aside from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jnr and their team of practical VFX people,- the majority of the US crew bitched and moaned about gore, cost, time and much more while the UK crew had clear visions of what they were doing and didn’t complain about issues involving money but instead about what prevented this movie being good.
Alien 3 had the making of a good movie but those Executives just wouldn’t let that be the case.
Problem 3 – Discussing dropping Ripley and focusing on a male hero instead:
This pitch would most likely have resulted in killing Ripley off and focusing on Michael Biehn or another male actor as the lead for the movie. Apparently the second movie didn’t draw enough women into theaters so the idea was to drop Ripley. It was obviously decided that this wouldn’t go down well with fans and rightly so. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is the only real continuity that has made the Alien series canon, regardless of later under-achieving installments.
Again these discussions wasted more time with more ’round table meetings with Execs’.
This was the second time they had talked about ditching the Ripley character; the first time was during Aliens but Jim Cameron wouldn’t hear of it… again the issue of saving money was the reasoning…
Problem 4 – Killing off Newt and Hicks (with fans):
While this outraged fans in retrospect I believe this was actually a smart move. Studios did discuss Ripley, Newt and Hicks returning to Earth as a family unit with another certain estranged family member drooling acid and hiding in a vent. Weaver stated that even though Ripley as a character wanted nothing more than a family and a child (after losing her real daughter to time and space) it was wrong to do so for the character and it would corrupt the whole hardened loner concept of the character.
Did we really need to see Ripley dragging around a child for another movie? This is more of a Jim Cameron style of idea as he always likes to play on parental issues and Romeo and Juliet in his movies. Terminator Genisys will make Arnold Schwarzenegger a surrogate father once again with Skydance cloning that element from Terminator 2: Judgment Day and in our opinion is taking that idea too far and is simply a cynical ploy to play to the younger audience. Alien 3 the family unit version could have been so cheesy.
Chest burst Hicks is unidentifiable… leading to the possible question of is this corpse actually him? ; )
Thanks to Michael Biehn’s legal pursuits with his agent he may have saved this character to live for another day! We will discuss this in more detail later on this article.
Problem 5 – Only one Alien and no weaponry (again a fan problem):
One element the studio did give in on was not to have loads of Aliens and hi-tech weaponry in the movie; again in retrospect, now I appreciate this idea whether this was to save money or to aid a good story is another question entirely but this did take the series back to its roots of a claustrophobic environment and one Alien, taking weaponry away and leaving Ripley in a hopeless situation. Alien 3 is closer to the original in terms of suspense and a sci-fi thriller.
Problem 6 – Filming without a finished script:
A couple of scripts had started to be developed with the early Directors on board but they were so bad they caused a strike of people involved with the movie, instead of delaying the movie and giving David Fincher time to realize his own vision and movie- they decided to hire writers to write on set on the day of filming scenes etc. This had been done on other movies but we doubt so messily. Remember that Alien 3 was all based on a release date and not really in creating a solid movie (very much like the disastrous RoboCop 2 in which Orion was so desperate to get a Robo movie out to make money to save the studios ass that they made a below par, incoherent movie).
Problem 7 – The severe pressure David Fincher was placed Under as a Director:
I feel for David Fincher I really do, he has taken flack over the years (that he really has not deserved) and he has had to fight to prove his place in Hollywood unlike many talentless hacks out there. I can not imagine the sleepless nights and stress he underwent making this movie. His task was beyond impossible and we are lucky the film turned out as good as it did, visually the movie is true to Alien and striking, the ideas he brought to the table probably stopped this movie sucking as much ass as Alien Resurrection did. Another crew member shipped over from the USA by 20th decided it would be a good idea to cut the second camera unit to keep more costs down. Leaving David without important back-up shots should they be required doubling the pressure even more.
David Fincher actually has some balls and he did try to fight the studio in regards to their demands and bitching but how can one man take on a Global Corporate movie studio?
David to this date is still so unhappy with how production of Alien 3 went that he refuses to take part in interviews for home releases (DVD/Blu-Ray Releases) as a fan of the Alien franchise it is still an obviously touchy subject for him to talk about and if he honestly talked about it 20th Century Fox most likely wouldn’t be very happy about what he has to say. His silence speaks a million words and in doing so he doesn’t jeopardize his career or future possibilities with 20th Century Fox. Also nobody on set has anything bad to say about him; he is liked as a person and professional top actors like Weaver and Shakespearean Actor Charles Dance said Fincher’s approach to film-making and the way he did things was very impressive.
Problem 8 – Lack of Character Development:
Fincher did attempt to give us full characters but most of this hit the cutting room floor, character arcs and scenes were chopped all in aid of “selling popcorn” according the movie’s composer Elliot Goldenthal when he was called back to recompose the ending after numerous ending changes. Leaving fans with characters they didn’t really give a fuck about.
Back to the subject of that rumor that James Cameron had read an early draft of the script, it turned out his ending in T2 was awfully similar to Alien 3’s forcing 20th Century Fox into more despair and desperation to change the ending of their movie. James Cameron has always been subject to plagiarism cases/accusations and well, we won’t say much more. The similarities of the final act of T2 and Alien 3 are there to see for yourself. Had the original intended ending for Alien 3 had been used Alien 3 would have been accused of copying the king of Pandora.
Problem 9 – Studio shutting down production on an unfinished movie and editing:
The film was incomplete but 20th Century Fox was steaming ahead for a release.
When the movie was in an unfinished state it had racked up over 3 hours of footage, this all had to be chopped down all in aid of making sure the movie could be shown as many times as possible per night giving 20th Century Fox as much money as possible.
Key scenes were edited that- as mentioned destroyed character development, key scenes, important story telling devices. At one time it wasn’t popular to have a movie that ran for over 3 hours… I remember when a movie like Dances with Wolves, Stephen King’s IT would be televised in parts on separate nights of the week. Long movies were not the done thing… come James Cameron’s Titanic it was almost a popular thing to do a 3hr+ runtime on a movie.
After chopping the movie down into a viewable state it was decided what additional scenes needed to be filmed in order to call it a finished product and ready for release. Meaning months later re-shoots took place… something we have discussed in relation to making Terminator Genisys Rated R, people say once a movies been filmed in PG-13 you can’t do anything about it and studios would love you to believe that but it isn’t true.
So if Alien 3 was an incomplete movie at the 3 hour mark then its eventual runtime of 2 hours and 25 minutes just simply isn’t a finished product and even the additional cut released on DVD etc is still far from complete.
Alien 3 is a smarter film than we can ever give it credit for but unless they allow Fincher to go back and release a true Director’s cut we will never know the movie’s real potential.
Problem 10 – Franchise= Downfall:
At one time film studios put effort into making compelling movies with awesome stories to get a good sequel is a rarity but to get a good trilogy is even harder especially when the studios main focus is not the movie itself but the money it needs from that property to save its own ass from making other bad movies. Franchises become open to being used as tools to line pockets and not to give fans a unique viewer experience.
Problem 11 – Bad CGI Alien:
What more do we need to say about the CGI Alien in Alien 3? Practical effects always win! CGI was a huge let down and usually always is in moves like Alien and Terminator. Give the fans models, miniatures, suit performers and more practical gags and make these beasts look scary. In the Aliens and Predator movies we see so much of the creatures that they become, almost childish, like a bunch of friendly cos-players hanging out in the woods. Bring the threat of the Xenomorphs back and install fear in the viewer with ‘on the edge of your seat tension!’.
Problem 12 – How do we revive Corp. Hicks (Michael Biehn):
Not so much a problem with Alien 3 but instead connecting Alien 3 to Alien 5. Simple… Weyland Yutani executed a cover-up organized and collaborated between Weycorp and the Prison Warden from Alien 3. We see a vague body of Hicks but he is not recognizable… this is because Michael Biehn and his agent said they would sue 20th Century Fox if they displayed his likeness on a corpse that had been chest busted. This could simply be a corpse of an inmate (they did have a morgue) put in his place and Hicks would have been put in solitary confinement for interrogation on the arrival of Weycorp…
So far the Alien franchise is canon (thank god for that) bringing Michael Biehn back in a non-canon movie would be a huge mistake but if this is a continuation I would be accepting in reuniting Ripley and Hicks again. Plot holes could be filled in and explained; enriching the story of the Aliens franchise even more.
I’m aware that Hicks was revived in a SEGA computer game called Colonial Marines, I am not sure of the plot device used in the game but I am interested to find out. If you know about it, tell us in the comments below…
Right now the Alien franchise is far more exciting to me than Terminator; yes, both franchises have had bad installments but Terminator stopped being canon at T3 and sadly this leaves me with little love left for Terminator and more love for Alien. However should 20th Century Fox not do a continuation I will also lose any passion for that too.
Neill Blomkamp has come up with a good concept but apparently says he may want to do something else. Maybe we can right a wrong here by allowing David Fincher to come back (with no stupid deadline and for 20th Century Fox) to give him the chance to do a movie without sticking their beaks into ‘his work’.
A David Fincher/Neil Bloomkamp creative collaboration could make a special movie and give old school hardcore fans a movie they would actually enjoy.
A Ripley/Hicks feature movie could indeed add to Alien 3’s mythos by filling in a secret plot-line that could ultimately make fan appreciation for Alien 3 greater than could be imagined!
A Hick’s revival would make Alien Fans very happy and make even more money for the studio; but please,- make the movie scary and bloody like the first 3, that is one of the things Alien 3 did get right.
There are more problems with Alien 3 and even more problems with Alien Resurrection but we’d be here all year if I was to rant on about them.
Another thing; bring back 2 important Android models; Lance Henriksen (Bishop) and Sir Ian Holm (Ash)! 2 credible Actors who would bring even more substance to the movie, I would be interested to see them either portray Androids or human character versions that are perhaps the basis for the likeness, perhaps scientific villains who work for Weyland Yutani or ironically they could play ruthless suited executives who work for the sinister corporation ; ) .
So, would you like to see Michael Biehn return as Hicks alongside Weaver in an Alien continuation that compliments Alien 3 while still keeping the series canon?