Synopsis:
After kicking ass on LV-426, Ripley crash-lands on a penal colony, where she must battle yet another alien with the help of the local inmates.

Review:
Most people hated Alien3, but I didn’t. I chalk this hatred up to the “Phantom Menace factor”. Most people (myself included) had the anticipation that Alien3 would be another James Cameron shoot-em up, and when it wasn’t, most people transformed their disappointment into hatred of this movie. Adding to this effect were the deaths of Hicks, Newt, and the much-loved android Bishop from Aliens during the first reel.

You can overcome this hatred if you think about it logically. Here’s what you must bear in mind while watching Alien3:
1. Ripley must always survive so that she can fight the aliens.
2. The Sulaco (the Colonial Space Marines ship in Aliens) could never reach Earth. The only two alternatives left for a new film were that something has survived the atomic explosion from the end of Aliens to fuck everything up for the survivors, or someone has found aliens on another planet (or the alien home planet). The problem with the second option of course is how the hell would you get Ripley there to fight them again?
3. Hicks (although a bad-ass in Aliens) is all fucked up, and therefore of no use. Why not kill him?
4. Newt was useless. She was only used in the second film to put a face on all the Colonists that fell prey to the aliens, and to give Ripley a reason to go into the heart of the alien nest. I’m glad they killed her, I didn’t really want to have to listen to her scream her way through another movie. Besides, the autopsy scene was money.
5. Like Hicks, Bishop was also fucked up at the end of Aliens. So bringing him back (like-new) wasn’t possible in this film.

Once you’ve taken all these musts into consideration, Alien3 is the logical progression of this series. So quit your belly-aching about it already, Mofo’s!

What I like about A3 is that it’s presents Ripley with a new problem. Unlike the other three films, where her only objective is to kill the alien(s), this time around she has to deal with the fact that she has one inside her. This not only gives the audience something to think about whilst the alien killing sequences are playing out, but also provides us with a justifiable reason for Weaver to end the series*.

Also unique to this film is that we finally get to see people getting attacked in the first person perspective of the creature itself. An effect that Director David Fincher (Seven, The Game, Fight Club) incorporates well. Oh yeah, and it’s about fucking time they found a way to kill the alien without “blowing it out of the god-damn airlock” in the final scene.

On the down side, A3 does contain some shitty CGI moments. But, like Stargate, you have to remember that this film was made in the early days CGI SF/X. So blow me.

*It must be noted that Alien3 was supposed to be the final Alien movie. Siguorney Weaver said this would be the last time she would play the role of Ripley. But, due to mass outcry from those that disliked the ending of A3, (and probably a whack of cash) Weaver came back for Alien Resurrection. Personally (after seeing Resurrection) I think A3 should have been the end.

Special Features :
A “Making of” featurette and the theatrical trailer for all 4 films. Wow, they really went all-out for this DVD.

The "Making of" featurette was alright I guess. It primarily serves as a reminder of how hopeful they were that this film would be received well by the audience.

As for the theatrical trailers? Déjà vu. Why the hell were they put onto every disc in this set? If you’re going to make a set, make a set. Don’t just take four movies and put them into one box. And make for god-damn sure that you included special features that Mofo’s that just buy the movies separately won’t get.

Video and Audio:
The video transfer was of course top notch. In fact I’m getting sick of writing the same thing over and over about the video transfers. So from now on I’m only going to included comments about video transfers when I find it necessary. And the same goes for sound quality. I going to make the assumption that you know Dolby 5.1 is hard-core.

“Well what the hell does this fucking thing want?” - Convict

-Nicky Eyes