ZymeAddict on 26/2/2009 at 05:23

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Okay, please tell me. How is it not a bad film?

I watched the director's cut with an open mind and I was still not impressed. Yes, it added a bit more (badly recorded) exposition with the doctor character (ooh, a doctor who was a drunkard, killed a patient, and is now trying to forget his past/absolve his sins, that's a really original character concept), but it doesn't matter anyway because he's killed off immediately after we learn his backstory.

The same thing goes for the crazy religious nut (another shockingly original character). His only real purpose is to provide a reason for the alien to escape again, as we never learn anything about him other than he is crazy and, well, religious.

Everything else that was altered was fairly superficial (the Ox vs dog chestburster, establishing scenes, etc). They didn't change the fact that the film had a horrible script with multiple gigantic plot holes, boring, interchangeable characters, and boring-ass "action scenes" which went on too long.

Yes, the film looked really good (except for the craptastic composited Alien and final lava bluescreen job, of course), but you can give a Yugo the best paint job and set of rims in the world and that doesn't change the fact that it's a Yugo.

Personally, it seems to me that David Fincher fans are so afraid of their idol's reputation being besmirched that they're looking at this abortion of a film through the rosiest rose-colored glasses ever.

Vivian on 26/2/2009 at 09:39

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I really enjoyed the script, acting, visual style and atmospheric setting. It totally failed at being scary, but the character interaction and development was interesting enough to keep me gripped despite that. If you disagree then fair enough, but Alien 3 is very far from a terrible film. I find it much more watchable than Aliens these days - talk about giant fucking plot holes, why did they leave the massive goddamn air shaft they escaped from unwelded? Where was Bishop when they tried to GTFO?

Muzman on 26/2/2009 at 14:58

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Alien 3's a great flick. Loved it when I saw it first time, liked the work print version even more (although the ox thing could have stayed gone. Dog works better overall). It's got a few lumps but still highly enjoyable. It makes a great closer to the series as well, giving it this classical thematic arc of terror, war and tragedy. The autopsy scene, reactivating bishop, Ripley talking about the beast being her curse. It's beautiful is what it is.

(Army of Darkness is a weird one. Evil Dead fans don't really like it as it dispenses with any pretense of being serious horror, which the others had. Me, I thought the Evil Dead 1&2 only had pretense to being horror anyway and were just ridiculous so the series wandering off into sheer Ash lunacy is perfect to me. Such people also seem to like the time travel ending as well. But the S-mart end is the winner by a country mile as far as I'm concerned. "Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I *am* king.).

ZymeAddict on 27/2/2009 at 03:01

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Fair enough. I was referring more to fans in general then you in particular anyway.



That's because Aliens was primarily an action movie. Yes, the archetypes in that film were overall pretty hackneyed (though there were some original ones amongst them), but it didn't matter as much because a) the actors pulled them off so well. and b) they weren't as important to the film as a whole anyway.

Alien 3, on the other hand, was trying to be a psychological drama/thriller/horror film, thus character development is of the utmost importance to the story and to keep the film interesting. While the actors are all admittedly very good, their characters are so bland and uninteresting there is not really much they can do with them.



Okay, how about the huge one right at the beginning - you know, how an Alien egg just magically appears right next to their cryosleep chambers even though there was absolutely no time for the queen to have laid one there since she was hiding in undercarriage of the drop ship for the extremely limited time she was on board (not to mention the fact that Ripley and Co. would have to be brain dead to not notice it there).

There are a number of other errors I noticed throughout but can't remember off the top of my head, but it hardly matters anyway as that first one pretty much renders the entire film a freaking plot hole.



Yes, it has few good scenes (David Fincher is a great director after all), but that doesn't change the fact the film overall is an incoherent mess.

Fafhrd on 27/2/2009 at 04:45

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I thought the accepted fanwank was that the queen, understanding that shit was about to go boom and wreck her whole hive, brought an egg or two with her when she hitched a ride on the dropship.