From: caruso@socrates.umd.edu (John Caruso)
Subject: Re: What's wrong with Alien^3?
Organization: University of Maryland University College
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 06:11:55 GMT

In article <2721@nlsun1.oracle.nl> gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley) writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.005658.25530@socrates.umd.edu> writes:
>|>
>|>	Ok, so Alien^3 was a gritty, brutal film that just showed life
>|>like it is, and I'm a whining pantywaist who can't deal with Real Life
>|>Movies.  What drivel!
>
>   Agreed 100%. That's drivel (well mostly, only you know if you are
>pantywaist). The truth of the matter is I enjoy gory blood-spattered
>movies and you don't...nothing more.

No, actually there are quite a few I've liked.  And I'm wearing BVD's. :-)

>Toxie is a good example of contrasting gore.  I call this cartoon gore.
>This is much more accessible to most people than "serious gore" (e.g
>Day of the Dead).

     Good point, and I agree with you completely.  I was referring to the
uncut version of Toxic Avenger by the way, complete with blender scene.
I haven't seen Day of the Dead, but I just recently caught Dawn of the
Dead and enjoyed it immensely.  Also Suspiria.  But these are inherenly
different from Alien^3.  Alien^3 is NOT a gore film; it's a film which
INCLUDES scenes which are gory (not very, though, and that's not my
point).  It's not the level or intensity of the gore that I'm referring
to, it's the spirit of it.

     To quote a post I saw when the film was first released:  "the bastards
killed Newt!"  Yes they did, and they not only killed her, they used her
dead body for the sake of a few cheap shocks.  Even in the 90's, most films
draw the line before autopsies on children, but not Alien^3.  And Newt was
not just a nameless fresh body; she was an important character in Aliens,
in the standard sense and symbolically as well.  Nixing her felt like an
expedient, as though she was just in the way of the final plot that emerged
from the "collaboration" that spawned this sad excuse for a movie.  I
wouldn't have minded a third Alien film in which Newt, Hicks, Ripley, or
anyone else died--IF it had been well thought out and had a purpose behind
its actions.

     Imagine if they made a Princess Bride II, and at the beginning of
the film a stranger walks up and cuts Wesley's throat.  No matter what
the film did at this point, you'd never be able to go back and watch the
first film the same way; the same thing holds true for Alien^3 and Aliens.
The entire last 30 minutes of Aliens, all of the struggle and sacrifice
to save one person's life, is rendered meaningless in the first five
minutes of Alien^3.  I cared about the characters in Aliens, and it
bothers me that this stillborn effort has become the conclusion to the
story and taken those characters down with it.

>|>Alien^3 pretends to be an "art" film, but the style of its violence
>|>reveals it for the exploitist crap that it is.
>
>   So basically you are saying an "art" film cannot have exploitative
>gore in it. YOU have defined what is art in film. Bzzzzzztttt.

You're right, it does read that way--and that's not what I intended.
I was specically referring to Alien^3, and didn't mean for the statement
to be all-encompassing.  See preceding diatribe for details.

- John
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