Fiendish Horror

The films events take place immediately after the end of Aliens. Ripley, the lone survivor of a crashing escape capsule awakens on a prison colony inhabited by sex criminals. Whilst recovering from the crash she attempts to find out why the spacecraft malfunctioned and if anything else survived the crash. As the truth about her circumstances becomes clearer she is compelled to act or all her previous victories will be rendered meaningless.

I believe that Alien3 works on more levels than it has been previously given credit for and is not dissimilar to David Fincher's more recent film Seven. Both Seven and Alien3 have a depressing and claustrophobic atmosphere. Like Seven, Alien3 also features such themes as evil, sin and redemption.

Certain elements established in the previous Alien films come into play here and are twisted into a fully functioning religious allegory. In the previous films the goal for the main characters was to escape from the Aliens with their lives while fending off corrupt characters who wanted to keep the creatures to suit there own purposes. In Alien3 the goal for the main characters is not survival but to kill the last of the creatures at any cost. The characters have no weapons at their disposal but reluctantly accept the situation as there last chance to find redemption. Alien3 is more about not letting evil succeed then the art of survival.

Of the three films this one focuses more on the drama (rather then suspense or action) and is more psychological. The characters are portrayed with considerable nuance; they lose confidence, become frustrated and are at times indecisive. Some of the scenes are moving, others are horrible but the film is never sentimental. Even the films most stirring scenes have a cynical edge to them. A film such as this needs good acting and Alien3 doesn't have a poor actor in it. Elliot Goldenthal's soundtrack is also great.

One thing the film does not have though is a sense of discovery. You see the Alien in the first half of the film and there is no Alien queen or huge set to look forward to. The film is visually stunning but you know you've seen all they have to show you in the first half. However these are not things the film really needs. This is one of my favourite films and I think its great.

The title of this disc is misleading. Fincher apparently refused to contribute to this work (supposedly because he considers his first work to be largely compromised due to difficult editing and outside intervention). What is presented here is the original assembly cut (the finished work before theatrical editing). This is a fascinating insight into how Fincher originally intended the film to be. Not only is there over half an hour added to the film, but some of the story has been drastically changed. The opening has been extended (featuring visually stunning scenes of the 'Fury' landscape which were not in the original), the explosives scene has been extended and altered, and original dialogue has been added.

All this makes for a vastly improved, extended film which serves to clarify some of the more obscure sections of the plot which added to the popular feeling of frustration when alien 3 was originally released. It is not often that a 'director's cut' or 'special edition' really improves the an original cut, but here Fincher's original vision creates a far more lucid, complete and beautiful work. Some of the additional speech is slightly fuzzy (presumably it was abandoned after the original editing), and the touched up cgi simply serves to display the primative nature of the special effects here (after all it was only 1992!). But all in all this is a worthy purchase for anyone who doesn't already own the box set.

Originally, before the release of the special edition set, I would agree with their views, which usually consisted of:

- no action like aliens
or
- went back to original Alien roots and failed

I, however, liked the idea that David Fincher went with - despite the critisisms of other folk. Once the Alien Quadrilogy boxset came out I got it straight away. When I saw the first cut of Alien 3 (Special Edition version) I instantly realised what a mistake Fox had made in not letting the first cut go through - I'm my eyes this still may not have done better than Aliens or Alien but it would have done much better than the original cut that Fox released.

This first cut follows closely with the book and has a clearer and a flowing storyline (I didn't like the version with the alien coming out of a dog fully formed, it didn't sit right and had a rushed feel to it). The other thing about the two cuts is when you see the first cut and the original version you start to see how terribly cut the original was.

All in all I feel that this film deserves a second chance (especially since this title is giving you both a special edition and original version). I strongly reccommend getting Alien 3 just for the special edition cut and before you watch it forget the problems of the first one - trust me you'll start to enjoy the first cut of David Fincher's masterpiece.