Aliens is a classic example of a film that doesn’t follow the stereotype of a sequel being worse than the original. Alien 3 is probably one of the reasons people think most trilogies are unnecessary. It’s awful.
I watched it in 1.5 speed with subtitles, so I guess I ruined the pacing and couldn’t enjoy the cinematography, which is (according to a number of reviews) the high point of the movie. It’s directed by David Fincher, who did Fight Club and Zodiac. There’s an awful CGI alien in some scenes. Xenomorphs look great in Resurrection, but they should have stayed completely with the puppets in this one. [Update: I would like to thank the commenter named “Ass” for informing me that the special effects crew actually was able to make a puppet that just looks like bad CGI. I don’t want to be stubborn, considering the circumstances involved in the making of the movie, but they were more convincing in Aliens.] Thinking back, the movie does look pretty good, but the horrible writing is distracting.
It starts immediately after the second movie, with disjointed flashes of the escape vessel and a fire that causes it to crash. Right off the bat, they kill Newt, Bishop, and the guy from the first Terminator. They just show quick shots of their bodies and a computer profile of the three of them with “Dead” printed underneath. Really? We spent two hours rooting and caring for these characters and they’re gone before the title shot. Ripley was pretty pissed when the doctor tells her, and she wasn’t the only one. Wikipedia (so it’s true) says James Cameron thought this was a slap in the face to him, the Aliens cast, and the fans. Michael Biehn demanded and received money equalling his pay from Aliens for using (and killing off) his likeness in Alien 3.
That’s really the main problem with the movie. The characters you care about the most while watching this movie aren’t in this movie. These deaths overshadow everything else. Ripley ends up on some former prison planet where 25 prisoners decided to stay to follow their new found religion. I don’t care about these guys. They’re rapists and murderers. Get a load of this: they all look the same except for the black guy.
Seriously though, they all have shaved heads and are crazy. It’s hard to care. The only one of these types of interest is the doctor. He tells Ripley why he stayed, and this really separates himself from the others. We might actually worry about what happens to him, but guess what, he dies three seconds later. I imagine it’s supposed to be shocking, like when Sam L. gets it in Deep Blue Sea. And I guess it does the trick, but the rest of the movie is sort of pointless afterwords.
They come up with a few ridiculous plans to kill the alien, always banking on the prisoners thinking clearly while being chased by an alien whose number one hobby is crushing human heads. Finally, they manage to drench it in molten lead. And it explodes. It doesn’t make sense but neither does most of the movie.
Ripley has a queen inside her. This is sort of dumb since there was only one facehugger. Anyway, the movie ends with Ripley sacrificing herself to save the future in a pit of fire. I would have been six if I watched this in theaters. But, oh wait a second, I saw that happen when I was five. I know now why you cry.
I watched the trailer in the extra features. The tagline for the movie was “On Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” Apparently there was an earlier script involving the old characters arriving on Earth. Ok, it’s the early stages of Alien 3, you’re deciding on which concept to use and you’ve got it down to two: 1) Newt returns home to live with her grandparents while Hicks and Bishop join up with the space marines to battle a rival faction from another planet that uses the Xenomorphs as biological weapons (WOW) or 2) Aliens are released in a monastery. “I feel confident in option 2.” – Some Genius from 20th Century Fox.