why it gets panned

Rating: 7/10 (14 January 2003)

ive just watched alien3, and read a lot of the comments here. a lot are very scathing while some very complimentary - mine is one of the latter.
originally, when i had first seen this film i was disappointed. i expected a sequel to Aliens more than a sequel to Alien, which is what we got instead, but that was because i was only 13 years old and unable to appreciate a film for what it is. so for all those who wanted aliens2, here is my suggestion: get Fincher to re-shoot the opening scenes to include a big shoot-out so that you feel that you are watching aliens again, then when they crash-land, perhaps some imagery of empty guns being left behind so that we realise that it will be a thoughtful and inventive film rather than a bullet-fest.
my personal thoughts on the series is that i disagree with what a few of the comments have said - i believe that this is not really a set of two films, not a trilogy, but a complete set of four that display a progression. we have, in the first, a scared and inexperienced Ripley who sees her colleagues slaughtered and begins to fight back. then we have a more confident Ripley in Aliens, where she learns to fight the aliens with courage. Alien3 gives us more progression as Ripley is now in control of the alien as it cannot harm her, she knows how to beat it, and she is becoming mother to an alien. in Resurrection, she has been reborn and has alien qualities, while the alien has some of her qualities. as someone said, ripley IS alien and alien IS ripley, something that cannot be more true in Resurrection.
there can surely be no fifth, as Ripley would have to be either all alien (gives Sigourney a rest, at least!) or she would have to be in control of the aliens. perhaps to continue this progression, we have to have a similar plot to one of the books, where the aliens species that created the ship on LV426 is even more beligerent than the aliens we know and hate, and we need the Aliens as our only effective weapon against them.
who knows. but everyone knows how Hollywood doesn't sniff at the guaranteed income sequels bring