From: ccoprdj@prism.gatech.EDU (Jorge Diaz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: What's wrong with Alien^3? (long)
Date: 21 Aug 92 14:23:34 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

caruso@socrates.umd.edu (John Caruso) says:

*>>	First of all, Alien^3 was relentlessly mean-spirited.

Mean-spirited?  I think you're taking it a little too personal.
Dark, gloomy, pessimistic.  But mean-spirited?  Like the whole point of
the film was just to get to you?  Hardly.

*>>When
*>>we're told that Newt and Hicks have died in the crash, my first reaction
*>>was surprise and disappointment.  But I thought about it for a few moments
*>>and decided, ok, they want to take this film in a new direction, away
*>>from Aliens; let Newt and Hicks go and see what happens.  Unfortunately
*>>I was wrong...they wouldn't let them go.

I see.  So you would have preferred if they had just disposed of the bodies
and that was it.  Nice, clean, and quick.  Well, sorry to dissapoint you,
but some of us wanted to see what happened with the bodies.  Some of us
would have been a little ticked if they hadn't at least explored the
possibility of the Alien being inside either Hicks or Newt.  Don't blame
them for covering that angle.

*>>Instead we were treated to
*>>the scene of Newt lying dead on a slab, and Ripley probing for a growing
*>>alien (ignore the illogic of thinking the embryonic alien could survive
*>>in a dead host).

Oh, so now you're the expert on Aliens?  "It couldn't survive in a dead host."
Really?  Just what makes you so sure?  There is more than enough material,
even in a dead person, for the Alien to grow and develop.

"Then why don't the Aliens just kill their hosts?"  Maybe because the
facehuggers need a living host to implant an embryo.  But once an embryo has
been implanted and has developed, the host can die.  If the Alien was just
minutes away from emerging, and the host died, you think that would kill
the Alien?  I don't.

*>>Probing wasn't enough, though--now Ripley demands an
*>>autopsy, though it obviously would be sufficient just to cremate both
*>>Newt and Hicks.  Why do an autopsy, then?  So you can show the audience
*>>a little girl having her chest split open with a bone saw.

No, because Ripley has to *know*.  She has to see if the alien is inside
of Newt.

*>>Because gore
*>>sells and the audience will love it.  For the sake of accuracy, we don't
*>>actually see Newt being sliced open...we just hear the crunch of the bone
*>>and get to watch her blood trickle out into the pan.

Yeah, that was waay to gory.

>>Later there's
>>the dog.  No, it's not enough that it lies down and starts to whimper
>>and we know exactly what's going to happen; we get to watch the entire
>>sequence of the alien bursting through its ribcage.  It makes me wonder
>>how Fincher would have filmed the ending of Old Yeller.

Jesus, didn't we see an Alien burst from someone's ribcage in every movie????
We saw it in the first, OK, maybe it was necessary since no one knew what
would happen.  What about the second?  When they find that woman cocooned,
and she asks them to kill her?  Why did they have to show us?  *whine*

*>>	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!  This is the kind of nonsense spewed by people who
*>>can only address an argument by attacking the person.

Not at all.  I'm not attacking that person, I'm attacking his criticism
of the movie.  That person is blaming the movie for being realistic.  I
think that criticism is ludicrous.

*>>Courage, sacrifice, loyalty, passion--things that were at
*>>the heart of Aliens--are thrown aside in Alien^3, and not with any lofty
*>>artistic intent.  It's just an ugly, sordid little film.

Why?  Why are the "things that were the heart of Aliens" throw aside in
this film?  You think that there was no sacrifice in this movie?  No
courage?  Maybe you need to rewatch the film.

*>>	But to even talk about Alien^3 in these terms is to give it far
*>>more credit than it deserves; I've gone right past the complete incoherence
*>>and rampant idiocy of the plot itself.  Ripley goes to find the alien so it
*>>can end her life, but she's already fully aware--has had it graphically
*>>demonstrated to her--that it won't kill her because she's a host.

Maybe she thought that if she came after it, that if she attacked it,
then it might defend itself?  Nah....

*>>We're
*>>shown the doctor as an enigmatic character with some world-shattering
*>>secret, but once it's revealed it seems almost trivial...

You think killing 11 of his own patients because he was negligent is
trivial?  You don't know many doctors, do you?

>>	If Alien^3 had been only a laughably inept attempt at moviemaking
>>I would have just walked out of the theater, felt ripped off for a moment,
>>and then forgotten it.  But it wasn't.  Alien^3 wasn't content to be bad
>>on its own; it reached out and tainted the other films as well.

Why?  You're the second person to make this ridiculous claim, without
defending it.  Why does this movie "taint" the first two?  What does this
one do to undo what happened in the first two?  Does Ripley become a coward?
Does she suddenly start to hate Newt?

>>As people
>>have pointed out, the sacrifice and struggle in Aliens is made meaningless
>>by the events in Alien^3.  This is absolutely true.

Why?  You're the second person to make this ridiculous claim, without
defending it.  Why does this movie "taint" the first two?  What does this
one do to undo what happened in the first two?  Does Ripley become a coward?
Does she suddenly start to hate Newt?

Charles E Gibbs writes:

>Well, I think they had a workable premise.  If MIchael Biehn had signed
>on, it might have been a different story.  However, if there is another
>movie, there still might be salvation for this one.

You think that having Michael Biehn would have made the movie any different?
Sorry, but an actor can't do anything without a role.  What good would
substituting him for any of the other nameless prisoners have been?  I think
Cameron's fixation with Biehn is starting to rub off.

Or did you mean having *HICKS* in the movie?


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