Story of movie Alien 3 :
Alien 3 (stylized as ALIEN³) is a 1992 American science fiction horror film directed by David Fincher and written by David Giler, Walter Hill and Larry Ferguson from a story by Vincent Ward. It stars Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ellen Ripley and is the third film installment in the Alien franchise, preceded by Aliens (1986) and succeeded by Alien Resurrection (1997).
| Alien 3 | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | David Fincher |
| Produced by |
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| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Vincent Ward |
| Based on | Characters by
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| Starring |
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| Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Cinematography | Alex Thomson |
| Edited by | Terry Rawlings |
Production company | Brandywine Productions |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 114 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50–55 million |
| Box office | $159.8 million |
Set right after the events of Aliens, Ripley and an Alien organism (Tom Woodruff Jr.) are the only survivors of the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco's escape pod's crash on a planet housing a penal colony populated by violent male inmates. Additional roles are played by Charles Dance, Brian Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Ralph Brown, Paul McGann, Danny Webb, Lance Henriksen, Holt McCallany, and Danielle Edmond.
The film faced problems during production, including shooting without a script, with various screenwriters and directors attached. Fincher, in his feature directorial debut, was brought in to direct after a proposed version with Vincent Ward as director was cancelled well into preproduction.
Alien 3 was released on May 22, 1992. While it underperformed at the American box office, it earned over $100 million outside North America. The film received polarized reviews and was regarded as inferior to previous installments. Fincher has since disowned the film, blaming studio interference and deadlines. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, seven Saturn Awards (Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actress for Weaver, Best Supporting Actor for Dutton, Best Direction for Fincher, and Best Writing for Giler, Hill, and Ferguson), a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and an MTV Movie Award for Best Action Sequence. In 2003, a revised version of the film known as the Assembly Cut was released without Fincher's involvement, and received a warmer reception. A sequel, Alien Resurrection, was released in 1997.
Screenplay
In 2179 a fire starts aboard the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco. The computer launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, the young girl Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop; all four are in cryonic stasis. Scans of the crew's cryotubes show a queen facehugger attached to one member. The pod crash-lands on Fiorina "Fury" 161, a foundry facility and penal colony. The inmates recover the crashed pod and its passengers. The same facehugger is seen approaching inmate Thomas Murphy's dog, Spike.
Ripley is awakened by Clemens, the prison doctor, who informs her that she is the sole survivor. She is warned by the prison warden, Harold Andrews, that her presence may have disruptive effects. Ripley insists that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt, secretly fearing that Newt may be carrying an alien embryo. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant Aaron, the autopsy is conducted and no embryo is found. The bodies of Newt and Hicks are cremated.
Elsewhere in the prison, a quadrupedal alien bursts from Spike. Growing to full size, the alien kills Thomas Murphy, Boggs, and Rains and returns outcast prisoner Golic to his previously psychopathic state — Golic dubs the alien "Dragon". Ripley finds the damaged Bishop in the prison's garbage dump. Just as she is leaving the area, she is cornered by four inmates and almost raped; inmate leader Dillon intervenes and beats the others with a crowbar while Ripley punches the last man in the face. Ripley returns to the infirmary and re-activates Bishop, who confirms that a facehugger came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. Ripley informs Andrews of her previous encounter with the xenomorphs and suggests everyone work together to hunt down and kill it. The highly skeptical Andrews does not believe her story, and explains that even if she were telling the truth, the facility is without weapons; their only hope is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
The alien ambushes Ripley and Clemens in the prison infirmary, killing him, and almost slays Ripley, but then mysteriously spares her and retreats. Ripley then rushes to the cafeteria to warn the others. Andrews orders Aaron to take her back to the infirmary, but the warden himself is dragged into the vents and killed by the monster. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour flammable toxic waste into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the extraterrestrial. However, its intervention causes a premature explosion and several inmates are killed. With Aaron's help, Ripley scans herself using the escape pod's medical equipment and discovers the embryo of a xenomorph queen growing inside her. She also discovers that Weyland-Yutani hopes to turn the aliens into biological weapons.
Deducing that the alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon to kill her; he agrees only if she helps the inmates kill the alien first. They form a plan to lure the alien into the foundry's molding facility, trap it via a series of closing doors, and drown it in molten lead. The bait-and-chase plan results in the deaths of all the remaining prisoners except Dillon and Morse. Dillon remains in the mold as he allows himself to be killed by the alien as Morse pours the molten lead onto them. Although the alien is covered in molten metal, it escapes the mold but Ripley activates the fire sprinklers, causing its molten metal exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter, blowing it apart.
The Weyland–Yutani commando team arrives, including a man who looks identical to Bishop, who explains that he is Bishop's creator. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the queen embryo, which he falsely claims will be destroyed, but which in reality would be used as a biological weapon. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The Weyland–Yutani team shoot Morse in the leg in an attempt to stop him; Aaron, believing the Bishop-look alike is an android, strikes the man with a wrench and flees just before the scientists shoot Aaron, killing him. Ignoring Bishop's pleas to give them the embryo, Ripley throws herself into the furnace as the infant queen erupts from her chest. Ripley grabs it to prevent it from escaping as they both fall into the furnace. The facilities are closed down and almost all was forgotten. Morse, the sole survivor, is led away as Ripley's recording from the first film plays for the final time in the EEV.
- Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, reprising her role from the previous two Alien films. Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina 161 and is once again burdened with the task of destroying another of the alien creatures.
- Charles S. Dutton as Leonard Dillon, one of Fiorina's inmates who functions as the spiritual and de facto leader amongst the prisoners and attempts to keep the peace in the facility.
- Charles Dance as Jonathan Clemens, a former inmate who now serves as the facility's doctor. He treats Ripley after her escape pod crashes at the start of the film and forms a special bond with her. Before he is killed, Clemens laments to Ripley why he was originally sent to Fiorina, describing it as "more than a little melodramatic." Fincher initially offered the role to Richard E. Grant, hoping to reunite him with Withnail and I co-stars Ralph Brown and Paul McGann.
- Brian Glover as Harold Andrews, the prison warden. He believes Ripley's presence will cause disruption amongst the inmates and attempts to control the rumors surrounding her and the creature. He rejects her claims about the existence of such a creature, only to be killed by it.
- Ralph Brown as Francis Aaron, the assistant of Superintendent Andrews. The prisoners refer to him by the nickname "85", after his IQ score, which annoys him. He opposes Ripley's insistence that the prisoners must try to fight the alien, and repudiates her claim that Weyland-Yutani will collect the alien instead of them.
- Paul McGann as Walter Golic. A mass-murderer and outcast amongst the prison population, Golic becomes very disturbed after being assaulted by the alien in the prison's underground network of tunnels, gradually becoming more and more obsessed with the alien. In the Assembly Cut of the film, his obsession with and defense of the creature lead to murder, and his actions jeopardize the entire plan.
- Danny Webb as Robert Morse, an acerbic, self-centered, and cynical prisoner. Although he is wounded by the Weyland–Yutani team, Morse is the only survivor of the entire incident.
- Lance Henriksen as the voice of the damaged Bishop android, as well as playing a character credited as Bishop II, who appears in the film's final scenes, claiming to be the human designer of the android, who wants the Alien Queen that was growing inside Ripley for use in Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division. The character is identified as "Michael Bishop" in tie-in materials to Alien.
- Tom Woodruff, Jr. as the alien known as "Dragon". This Alien is different from the ones in previous installments due to its host being quadrupedal (a dog in the theatrical cut, an ox in the assembly cut). Initially a visual effects supervisor, Woodruff decided to take the role of the creature after his company, Amalgamated Dynamics, was hired by Fox. Woodruff said that, following Sigourney Weaver's advice, he approaches the role as an actor instead of a stuntman, trying to make his performance more than "just a guy in a suit." He considered the acting process "as much physical as it is mental."
- Pete Postlethwaite as David Postlethwaite, an inmate smarter than most who is killed by the creature in the bait-and-chase sequence.
- Holt McCallany as Junior, the leader of the group of inmates who attempt to rape Ripley. He has a tattoo of a tear drop underneath his right eye. In the Assembly Cut, he sacrifices himself to trap the alien as redemption.
- Peter Guinness as Peter Gregor, one of the inmates who attempts to rape Ripley, he is bitten in the neck and killed by the Alien during the bait-and-chase sequence.
- Danielle Edmond as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, the child Ripley forms a maternal bond with in the previous film who briefly returns as a corpse being autopsied. Carrie Henn was unable to reprise her role as Newt as she was too old for the part so Danielle Edmond took over the role in this installment for the brief autopsy scene with Newt's corpse.
- Christopher Fairbank as Thomas Murphy
- Phil Davis as Kevin Dodd
- Vincenzo Nicoli as Alan Jude
- Leon Herbert as Edward Boggs
- Christopher John Fields as Daniel Rains
- Niall Buggy as Eric Buggy
- Hi Ching as Company Man
- Carl Chase as Frank Ellis
- Clive Mantle as Clive William
- DeObia Oparei as Arthur Walkingstick
- Paul Brennen as Yoshi Troy
- Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks (archive picture only)
With the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox approached Brandywine Productions on further sequels. But Brandywine was less than enthused with an Alien 3 project, with producer David Giler later explaining he and partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll wanted to take new directions as "we wouldn't do a reheat of one and two". The trio opted to explore the duplicity of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and why they were so intent in using the Aliens as biological weapons. Various concepts were discussed, eventually settling on a two-part story, with the treatment for the third film featuring "the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing off with a militarily aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society." Michael Biehn's Corporal Hicks would be promoted to protagonist in the third film, with Sigourney Weaver's character of Ellen Ripley reduced to a cameo appearance before returning in the fourth installment, "an epic battle with alien warriors mass-produced by the expatriated Earthlings." Weaver liked the Cold War metaphor, and agreed to a smaller role, particularly due to a dissatisfaction with Fox, who removed scenes from Aliens crucial to Ripley's backstory.