Brief thoughts on Alien 3 from David Fincher

[Derek237]

I stumbled across this and thought what Fincher said about his vision for Alien 3 was pretty interesting....it's just a short blurb but gives some insight into what he was trying to do with the film; I've never really heard any of his thoughts on it (since he didn't want to do a DVD commentary or anything and a lot of interviews with him about the movie seem to be about how much trouble he had making it):

From:
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/artic...04/story.jhtml

MTV: What was the "Alien 3" you wanted to make?

Fincher: I've never seen the Quadrilogy and what they reconstituted. My notion was that the third movie would be Ripley's acceptance of the notion of sacrifice. She'd had the Me Decade of the first movie. She'd come from the periphery of the story. Anybody could be the commander as long as they stuck to their guns and had a moral compass. And then the second movie she found a maternal instinct. And then I wanted the third one to be that she realizes that it's not about her generation. It's really about the future. The notion was to put the monster among the wretched. She was going to galvanize the wretched to self-sacrifice. Giving up their lives to save people who had banished them and should have been outside their scope of interest and that they would find some value in dying for the right reasons. I got fired from it.

I dunno, even they they hindered "his vision," this always seemed to come across pretty well. I never understood why he's always been so bitter; I love the movie.

[def]

He was bitter because he was completly hindered as a film make due to the fact that he was a first time feature director at the helm of a sequel to one of fox's major assets at the time. I don't think Alien 3 was that bad but as far as a Fincher film goes it's THE most terrible one. I suppose that's why he has a creative control clause in all his post "Se7en" films... I guess every director needs a great learning experience and sadly Alien 3 was Finchers.

Now I'm going to get out of here before all of the babbling morons start chiming in to say "blah blah blah alien 3 is worse than the time i was anally raped by a group of randy mooses... and i hold it completly responsible for the fact that i've never had sex with something other than my sisters life size barbie. curse you david fincherrrrrrr!!!!"

[Fomorian]

Originally Posted by def

I don't think Alien 3 was that bad but as far as a Fincher film goes it's THE most terrible one.

Panic Room

[def]

Originally Posted by Fomorian

Panic Room

I always thought Panic Room was rather well done as far as it's director was concerned I thought it's major drawback was that it was scripted poorly which was not Fincher's work. That and the shit work of the little hermaphrodite girl who has since blossomed into a full blown teen sex god's piss poor acting. That said, back to the subject of Alien 3, those who only want to bash it I implore you to watch the second disc for A3 in the quadrilogy set... if you bothered to buy the whole set instead of just purchasing the individual release of Aliens so that it will go nicely with your collection of hentai and cinemax porn.

[Fomorian]

Harsh. Well I like the original cut of A3 better than the Special edition. I know I'm a minority here, but the fact is I much prefer the sleeker, better paced wieldlier (as in, less unwieldly) original cut. Fincher may not like it, but that doesn't change it's merits.

[Derek237]

^agreeation

[Herne the hunter]

^agreeation x 2.

That's an interesting quote from fincher up there. I'd never really thought of it like that, but in retrospect I don't think he failed at all. IMO A3 is by far the best film of the alien franchise and if Fincher's goal was to depict Ripley as the savior of a group who would come to redeem themselves then I think he succeeded brilliantly.

[def]

I too agree with, Formermanian.
The theatrical version of Alien 3 is much better than the SE. Honestly the theatrical versions of all the films are better than their special editions IMHO.

Sure they're pretty neat to watch for some added tidbits but overall they don't really help the films any.

[Neon]

I much prefer the SE of A3 to the original, until the fudged up Dillons speech and removed the Queen at the end, which were two of my all time favorite movie scenes, and thus i would rather watch the original. Shame.

[Salvage Guy]

There are elements of A3C that I liked better than the original in that it opened up the relationships between the prisoners and explained some of their backgrounds, if only briefly. The original had better pacing like Fom said and had a slightly better ending as Neon stated.

I have to absolutely disagree with Aliens original being better than the SE. Just.. no! And fuck the Alien DC.

[abake]

Cool quote on Fincher.
I think the message of Ripley's sacrifice got through pretty well, but I never quite got the idea of the inmates thinking about sacrificing themselves, but rather about making a stand and fighting.

At any rate, I think Fincher whines like a bitch.
Scott and Cameron also had little expereince and a big studio on their backs and they stood their ground.
Fincher is a wuss.
Which doesn't prevent me from counting Se7en and Fight Club among my favourite movies.

As for S.E. vs. theatrical, I haven't been able to make my mind up... there's things I like in both. Some things in the S.E. don't make much sense to me.

[Herne the hunter]

Originally Posted by abake

I think the message of Ripley's sacrifice got through pretty well, but I never quite got the idea of the inmates thinking about sacrificing themselves, but rather about making a stand and fighting.

What about the whole tunnel sequence? They could've just as easily said "no, let's just hole up in a room somewhere and wait for the containment team to arrive" but instead they opted to play chicken with the alien to try and trap it; a very risky tactic which inevitably resulted in death.

Then there was Dillon's choice to hold the alien in unarmed hand-to-hand while Ripley climbed up to the leadworks controls to dump tons of molten lead on them both. Or even 85 smacking a metal bar over Bishop's head; even with his phenomenally low IQ he must've known that wouldn't go unpunished.

[Injektilo]

The spec-ed of 3 would've been perfect if they dropped the oxen birth, Dillan's daft "the apocalypse is upon ussssss" and other irrelevent dialogue but left the Golic subplot I think.