Heartbreak

Rating: 4/10 (16 August 1999)

Attention: Spoilers for Aliens and Alien 3 follow.

This movie broke my heart. I saw Alien when I was about 11 years old, and dozens of times since. It was one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. We discussed it later in college English, as an update to the classic gothic horror story. When Aliens came out I was 16 and able to drive. I was so enthralled I had to stay and watch it a second time. I long for a chance to take that roller coaster ride again for the first time, but it's not to be. Needless to say, I awaited Alien 3 with baited breath.
It sucked.
Don't get me wrong, the cinematography was beautiful, the movie had a gritty, desolate feel that I really loved. However, I cannot forgive them for blowing the trilogy in my opinion.
I first loved Aliens because of the action, but it's one of those movies that I love more each time I watch it. James Cameron broke the mold! The story had everything! An elite fighting force, that could have easily have fought off the aliens, but Pride goeth before the Fall. After disaster, the core group toughs it out with levelheaded determination to survive. Sigourney Weaver is sublime! She's no Arnold, but she steps up to save the little girl, her daughter figure.
In any case not to go on to long about Aliens, but Alien 3 just throws the triumph of the human spirit of Aliens out the window because it isn't convenient. The noble Hicks, who would have changed the dynamic of Ripley's relationship with the convicts by defending her is killed. Newt, the crux of Ripley's determination in the first movie would be a distraction in this one, is killed. Bishop, who shows us that an "Artificial Person" doesn't have to be a menace, is killed, and replaced with just another evil Company lie to restore our cynicism. It seems that everything that represented triumph in the first movie is cast away on a weak premise.
Here is where I speak to the other Alien series geeks. My number one problem with this movie, how did the egg get on the Sulaco? The only trip up to the ship was the second dropship that Bishop pilots up in the end. The mother alien didn't have an egg under her arm when she stepped out of the elevator, and she left her egg producing section in the reactor! How did the egg in the beginning of the Alien 3 movie get there? Perhaps another alien hid with an egg on the second drop ship, coming out only when the humans entered the cryosleep chambers? If so, how did it overcome it's dronish instincts to defend the queen when Ripley killed her? How did it get to the cryosleep chamber? There must be at least one door between there and the cargo hold. If it could open doors, why didn't the mother alien do so when Ripley ran behind a door to put on the power loader suit?
I just cannot get over my problems with movie 3. Knowing the script battle that went on before this was settled only makes it worse. There could have been 1000 other plots that would have done honor to the 2nd movie, but this wasn't one of them.
I just pretend that it doesn't exist, and dream of the Alien 3 that should have been...