Meanwhile, cinematic travesty...
Someone defends Alien 3. My response...
I can't let the Alien 3 discussion go without comment, however.
O.k. For argument's sake I'll ignore - even though it does deflate and ruin the movie right off the bat - the atrocious killing of Hicks and Newt that follows immediately after one of my favorite earned happy endings in film history. I can't ignore, however:
1) There is an interchangeable and uninteresting supporting cast in the prison, particularly when juxtaposed against the memorable and varied marines from Aliens and the original crew from Alien. They are merely fodder for the alien with a mass dispatch of many of them in an explosion sequence that is obviously for the sake of narrative/character streamlining - why do we care?
2) Ripley's death sentence removes all suspense from the film. If there's one thing the Alien series had in spades up to that point, it's suspense.
It's a different film with a different thrust, you say? O.k. Then why waste our time posturing suspense with all the tunnel-chasing as if it matters whether the once again interchangeable prisoners are caught? It's a dark rumination on death, and the point is merely to keep the alien species away from the corporation? It wasn't dark enough; relentless masochism toward the main character with whom we traveled so far might seem horrifying, but it's actually numbing and consequently empty. And one heavy-handed, disgustingly melodramatic sacrifice will not keep the corporation away from the species forever.
Evil can win. I can dig that. Empty nihilism can be the message. What I don't dig is when evil wins while the moment is trumped with some illusory victory of good that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. What I don't dig is tempering the nihilism with some sort of "heroic" sacrifice. Going dark? O.k. Commit, dammit.
(And how did those eggs get on the ship? Did Bishop smuggle them? If so, that's a crappy betrayal of Aliens as well. If not...there is no "if not." Those eggs could not have been on that ship.)
I can't even speak on this with much authority, because I've never revisited Alien 3 in its entirety. It was just too awful, and - up until last year - it was the worst experience at a theater in my life.
You can dismiss it all as hypersleep nightmare (also in a sense a betrayal of Aliens and its final lines), but that certainly doesn't make it a compelling story. And if it's not canon, why were they wasting my time?
That's not to say Fincher isn't a gifted director. He is, and I absolutely love three of his other films. But he had a bad script to work with, and his movie - following arguably the greatest horror movie ever and the greatest action movie ever - is simply one of the greatest movie disappointments ever.
I can't let the Alien 3 discussion go without comment, however.
O.k. For argument's sake I'll ignore - even though it does deflate and ruin the movie right off the bat - the atrocious killing of Hicks and Newt that follows immediately after one of my favorite earned happy endings in film history. I can't ignore, however:
1) There is an interchangeable and uninteresting supporting cast in the prison, particularly when juxtaposed against the memorable and varied marines from Aliens and the original crew from Alien. They are merely fodder for the alien with a mass dispatch of many of them in an explosion sequence that is obviously for the sake of narrative/character streamlining - why do we care?
2) Ripley's death sentence removes all suspense from the film. If there's one thing the Alien series had in spades up to that point, it's suspense.
It's a different film with a different thrust, you say? O.k. Then why waste our time posturing suspense with all the tunnel-chasing as if it matters whether the once again interchangeable prisoners are caught? It's a dark rumination on death, and the point is merely to keep the alien species away from the corporation? It wasn't dark enough; relentless masochism toward the main character with whom we traveled so far might seem horrifying, but it's actually numbing and consequently empty. And one heavy-handed, disgustingly melodramatic sacrifice will not keep the corporation away from the species forever.
Evil can win. I can dig that. Empty nihilism can be the message. What I don't dig is when evil wins while the moment is trumped with some illusory victory of good that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. What I don't dig is tempering the nihilism with some sort of "heroic" sacrifice. Going dark? O.k. Commit, dammit.
(And how did those eggs get on the ship? Did Bishop smuggle them? If so, that's a crappy betrayal of Aliens as well. If not...there is no "if not." Those eggs could not have been on that ship.)
I can't even speak on this with much authority, because I've never revisited Alien 3 in its entirety. It was just too awful, and - up until last year - it was the worst experience at a theater in my life.
You can dismiss it all as hypersleep nightmare (also in a sense a betrayal of Aliens and its final lines), but that certainly doesn't make it a compelling story. And if it's not canon, why were they wasting my time?
That's not to say Fincher isn't a gifted director. He is, and I absolutely love three of his other films. But he had a bad script to work with, and his movie - following arguably the greatest horror movie ever and the greatest action movie ever - is simply one of the greatest movie disappointments ever.