How do you follow up one of the greatest sequels in film history? One that advanced the story and added marvelous new lore to a franchise? Expand it further? Add more new, exciting elements? Or…just remake the first movie again with less interesting supporting characters? It seems, after a long pre-development and various incarnations (some of which sound much better than the end result) the final producers of Alien 3 chose the latter.

David Fincher’s Alien 3 once again picks up where the previous film left off. Last time Ripley was found after slipping through a number of safety sweeps by a chance salvage crew. This time the Sulaco, the ship in which they escaped at the end of the prior installment, crash lands on a prison refinery, and Ripley is the only survivor… Ok, it may not be fair to compare Alien 3 to Aliens but it must be done so I’ll get it out of the way. Aliens spent a lot of time effortlessly making you absolutely love each character. Their deaths, even those of minor characters, are felt as the audience is included like a member of the team. The characters who survivd are a perfect mix. Those we care about saving the most and those we are the most invested in. So naturally in Alien 3 they kill everyone off camera with no narrative or adequate reason. Hicks, who so masterfully took control of the marines after the initial disastrous engagement and supported Ripley: dead. Newt, who we were completely devoted to saving and loved for her ability to survive on her own: dead. Bishop, who allowed us to trust a different kind of being and helped save the day at least twice: dead. Why? So they could hit a massive Deus Ex Machina reset button on the franchise and get Ripley helpless in a lonely environment against a single alien again.

We also see, in the opening sequence, there are alien eggs on board the craft that infect some of the stasis crew with alien eggs. Ok… Now barring any nonsense excuses…how did the eggs get on the Sulaco? Since the ship had never been on LV426, the landing craft only touched down long enough to get everyone on board, and since the xenomorphs don’t have tyranid-style harpies to send to the vessel, where did the eggs come from? Certainly not from the alien queen who was briefly on the Sulaco, but Aliens makes a point of showing her detach from her egg sac in order to chase Ripley. One explanation is that Bishop put them there. Which not only goes against his characterization but adds the further question…where did he get them? During one of his off-screen lurks around the queen’s egg chamber in Aliens that didn’t get him ripped to pieces and no one knew about, showed, or ever mentioned? So the Deus Ex Machina pulled two eggs from the asshole dimension in order to get aliens on board the ship. Even though it’s a plot hole big enough to fly the Nostromo through we’ll just have to accept it as read to continue the review.

Clearly Alien 3 has derailed the terrific ride left by its predecessor. For the sake of fairness and sanity I’ll stop direct mentions of the previous sequel and judge the film on its own merits.

So Ripley is alone in her knowledge of the alien again, this time in a monastic prison environment for double-Y chromosome ultra-aggressive violent criminals. It’s not a bad set up and in a way puts her in a similar situation as the first film, except all of the other characters are threatening and dangerous not just passive aggressive or broken robots.

Naturally an alien gets loose on the ship and, in one of two decent expansions of lore; the facehugger infects a dog, resulting in a slightly different kind of alien. One that moves differently from the ones we’ve seen from humans. AND we see alien POV which gives a fisheye camera angle as the alien skitters around through tubes and on the walls and ceilings.

We also discover Ripley has an alien inside her, as she was…somehow…infected while in stasis (I guess the facehugger had a cat burglar glass cutter and crept inside her pod for a snuggle at some point) with an alien queen no less. Seeing that alien queens can be gestated just like standard aliens was an interesting piece of info we’d never before seen.

Being a prison monastery there are of course no weapons, so the prisoners and Ripley choose to fight the alien via craftiness. By luring it through a dedicated path and trapping it inside a mold, which can be filled with molten metal. The idea is great for suspense as we POV the alien chasing scared prisoners and show the panicked prisoners fleeing from locked door to locked door, channeling the alien the desired direction. It doesn’t quite pass the logic test as it’d be like a crippled cockroach trying to corral a bitey mouse through a massive wheel of cheese. Not only that but how, even with a serious head start, this plan would last beyond the first prisoner is a major flaw, since aliens move like giant pissed tiger beetles and can leap from wall to wall like Jackie Chan on speed. But it still creates a taught and exciting sequence.

Sigourney Weaver is also still excellent as Ripley, even though some of her character growth we experienced through the first and second installments is a little muted. Charles S Dutton is great as Dillon, the tough but devout prisoner who we trust the most but we can feel his roiling rage underneath. The rest of the prisoners, even Clemens (Charles Dance) who Ripley connects with and the warden Harold Andrews played by Grian Glover are good characters but we never feel a part of their world or really invested in their stories. Still, they do help create a nice, dark atmosphere with a constant threat of violence from both the alien and Ripley’s supposed allies.

The last element is the introduction of Weyland-Yutani Corporate soldiers (boy will we be tired of them by the end of this review series…) as Ripley sacrifices herself to prevent the queen alien from hatching and creating a new brood. A satisfying ending for this movie, even if it isn’t the narrative many of us wanted to follow after the fantastic environment setup in Alien and the masterful execution of Aliens. It felt as though this installment was intended to be the end of Ripley’s story. And it does at least succeed in finishing her story in a satisfying enough way for the narrative they crafted for Alien 3. Though many fans may have liked to see the series spin off to focus on other characters, Hicks, or even Newt as a new showrunner, if we had to stay with Ripley, we did let her go out with honor and with her final revenge on the company that used her and the aliens that tormented her.

But as we’ll see in the next review…some franchises can’t leave well enough alone…

For Alien 3 though, the film is decent enough on its own and is an entertaining if flawed piece of sci-fi horror, which had the grave misfortune of being the first step on the road to disappointment for the series. Still a good watch and can provide some thrills in the dark helplessness of the situation and our investment in the aliens story. Not amazing but it earns an adequate and allegorical 2.5 busted Bishops out of 5.

I admittedly came late to the appreciation for this film. I saw the more action-packed sequel (previously covered in a “best sequel” post and covered in more detail next week) first as a kid and saw the original Ridley Scott film a couple years later. As a kid I expected to find the same high-energy sci-fi action of the second film in the franchise and instead found a slow-paced, tension-building, character-based horror movie.  I should warn these reviews WILL have spoilers, so if you’ve been drifting right between all the security grids for the past 57 years you should turn back now…

Seeing this movie as an adult I came to find new appreciation for it.

Alien is the earliest film in this review series and it establishes a number of broad traits the more successful movies of both franchises would also possess: characters you care about are established effortlessly through natural dialogue, the plot starts with misdirection, even though it’s science fiction the atmosphere and world are deep and believable, and it spans multiple genres.

The first trait is perhaps the most important for Alien. When the crew of the Nostromo awaken, out of position and given directives from the company to perform the unwelcome task of exploring a distress beacon, their interactions let you know everything about them.   Parker and Brett played perfectly by Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are the tag-team tradesmen of the bunch, low-men on the ladder more concerned with getting better rates than anything. Lambert played by Veronica Cartwright is a bit nervous and put-upon. Kane portrayed by the terrific John Hurt seems tired but eager. The dry and serious Ash, the Science Officer played ominously by Ian Holm. And Captain Dallas as portrayed by Tom Skerritt is calm and smooth but definitely in charge. So diverse and effective is the cast that a first-time viewer may not be aware that Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, a warrant officer and third in chain of command, is the star of the film. Oh and there’s also Jonesy the cat.

The final character introduced is the vessel itself, the Nostromo. Even though it is a starship for deep space travel it’s treated as mundane as an oil rig, and indeed it is simply a towing vessel for cargo or refineries. With a crew of less than 10 parts of the cavernous ship are bright white, well maintained, and unique.  Other parts are rugged, rusty, worn out, and solitary. Many of the spaces appear to be abandoned but loaded with materials giving much of the ship a junk-room feel. Those parts are the bridge of the USS Storage Room.

The turning point of Alien shouldn’t be a surprise, after all the movie is 36 years old, but DEFINITELY back out now if you’ve never seen it. The film opens in a very mundane manner, characters talking work, complaining, you see cliques and relationships before being sent to examine the unknown signal the computer has picked up. While exploring the beacon the away team finds rows of eggs and Kane ends up with a fingery-spider creature (later called a “facehugger”) attached to his head. They are unable to remove it and the creature eventually falls off and dies. Kane appears to be recovering, but later over dinner he begins to seize and a little toothy beast (later known as a “chestburster”) crashes through his ribs and skitters across the table.

This scene, in 1979, was shocking, especially to those used to the fun space opera romps or heavy dramatic sci-fi that copied the 2001 formula, as Alien pretends to for the first 30 minutes.

From that point on Alien becomes half slasher film half And Then There Were None as the crew searches the ship for the little beast, which they soon find has grown into a big beast, and are picked off one or two at a time. The difference between Alien and most slasher movies is you actually care about the characters and hope they aren’t the next one to have their brains gouged from their skull by HR Geiger’s double-mouthed Xenomorph.

It even commits a number of slasher movie clichés, such as a literal, but effective, unexpected, and sensible “cat-jumping” scene where Jonesy leaps out and runs. The scene serves as excellent misdirection, a quick jump scare, and breaks the team up for a moment (people never “split up” and go off on their own out of contact from the others, they stay in teams or always in communication), setting up the real scare that followed.  It also contains, what I think, is the best final girl trope in history.  You can read my thoughts on that here.

The cramped pipe-filled confines and dark, drippy atmosphere make it a natural place for the alien to hide and randomly appear to grab an unfortunate crew-member and scare the audience.

Scott made the best of the technology of the time. The alien creature was a performer in a suit so he kept the xenomorph hidden in shadows, obscured by scenery, and eventually they keep track of it using motion sensors, effectively creating tension with blips on a screen much like the barrels attached to the shark in Jaws. The practical effects give the alien an eerie feel, with tension provided by music and the intensity of the cast performances.

One excellent scene has Captain Dallas creeping through the ducts looking for the alien with a flamethrower. As the intensity ramps up the Dallas declares “Get me the hell out of here” while music, blips on the screen, and supporting performances build up to an awesome climax.

The second big misdirection is Ash, whose secret agenda comes as a shock when it’s revealed. Even after the initial shock of an eyeless snake with legs tearing its way through John Hurt the Ash subplot proves the film still has enough left to surprise you again.

Even amongst an excellent ensemble cast, Sigourney Weaver comes into her own as the break out star of the movie. At first she’s simply the only character with any sense; refusing to let Kane back into the ship while he has a creepy face-monster gripping his skull. She also shows she won’t take shit from some of the dissatisfied crew and even takes full command when the situation demands it. We admire and relate to her emotions, when she screams at the ship’s computer we feel her anger, and when she discovers Ash’s secrets we share her tears of rage. Then she saves the cat. Full scores all around.

Ridley Scott’s Alien in a number of ways marks the end of the space dramas of the 60s and 70s. For me it had the same effect on space films as Appetite for Destruction had on the glitzy hair metal of the 80s, once it arrived changed the landscape and there was no going back. The plodding pace, inactivity, and shallow/obscure plots of other space films would no longer suffice. Audiences now expected shocks, plot twists, and visceral climaxes in their movies.

It truly helped found the modern sci-fi space genre, spawned numerous clones, and continues to inspire other franchises today.

Every film in this review series across both franchises owes their existence to Alien and we, as sci-fi fans owe many of our other fandoms to it.

A solid and grown-up four and a half hugged faces out of 5.