Alien 3 - Love it or Hate It

[slipknotpredator]

last year i could finally get quadrilogy and i saw the special edition for first time, wow i love it!!!!! all the golic cutted scenes were great!! i don`t know why all of them were deleated from the theatrical version...Alien3 is a master piece

[Kimarhi]

It is a "flawed" masterpiece.

My appreciation for it grows upon every viewing, but its still not without its obvious faults.  IMO, these faults don't ruin the movie but I can understand why they might turn some people off.

*I'm talking about things like the different interiors in the ship, the one facehugger two implantation thing, where the egg came from etc, not the death of Hicks and Newt.*

[Redfield]

Well, I certainly love Alien 3 Special ed. I bought the quadrilogy but haven't gotten around to watching the theatrical cut, but from waht I hear, I shouldn't. Just suspend disbelief for a bit with how the eggs got an board the ship and your set.

[Kimarhi]

I actually prefer elements of the theatrical over elemets of the SE.

[Nukiemorph]

Love the shit out of it.
The theatrical cut was my favorite of the Alien films... then I saw the assembly cut and it's way better... aside from one scene.
I personally thought the creature bursting from a poor, yelping dog was more dramatic and hits people a little harder than it emerging from a dead cow...

[Its Game Time]

Yeah, the theatrical Version was much better. I didnt really like the Special Edition.

[Grid Alien]

I dont know why but i loved Alien3 from the first time i saw it (besides the terrible cgi or whatever it is )

[Uncanny Antman]

It's composited puppetry.


There's only one CG shot in the film, the cracks tracing across the Alien's carapace.

[Nukiemorph]

The special edition used CGI to recreate the unfinished alien effects.  ...and it looks like they might have touched up the puppetry effects with a little CG too... I'm not sure... It just looks better to me than the first times I saw it... Maybe I'm just getting used to it and accepting it.

[Uncanny Antman]

^Sorry, you're right...the SE version has two new shots of a CG infant Alien.  To my knowledge, the existing shots are as they were.

(Even the re-instated shot of the Alien running away after killing Golic.  That's all part of original photography.)

[Nukiemorph]

Okay.  As said, I think I've just grown to accept it more.  I hated it at first, but now I think it really doesn't look that bad.  It's great for it's time and I think their method for doing it was really cool.  We should try that more nowadays.  With our improved chroma keying technology, it would probably look a lot better than most CGI creatures.

[Corporal Hicks]

Just finished watching the SE version again. And I think...it might be my favorite Alien film at the moment. There's so many good things about it - I love the actors in it, I really do. But while it may have some dodgy things in it - the sound at some points and the mo-motion - but it's still a damn fine movie.

The score is heads and tails above all the others IMHO.

[Alienseseses]

I thought that although it was brilliantly made, except for the mo-motion runner, it lacked being entertaining.

[Hyperdyne]

Loved it, always did.

Face it, every single alien movie is completely different from one another. And I mean completely. In feel, in message, in pace. everything. And thats how it should be done.

Cameron was a genius not trying to do the same thing over again and instead do a completely different standalone movie. And Fincher did the same - A3 is unlike the other two, not one bit which is great.

Inspired by maledro's posts, i got A3 quadrilogy version yesterday. The reason I never got the full quadrilogy (I always had the first two movies from quadrilogy tho) is because I have NO intentions to ever see the abomination that Ressurrection is ever again. A3 I always wnated to get just couldnt find it anywhere (hate oredring online - hate waiting)

Anyway, going around I see the #1 reason people are pissed about it was because of killing all the other characters. As heartwrenching as it is, like someone else pointed out in this thread before, it was necessary because those characters belonged to Aliens, and Alien3 is a different animal. Besides, that horrific event helped to set the tone of the movie right away.

[Vulhala]

I loved the theatrical cut, and the SE is IMO even better than that. The film is so dark and gritty, and I feel that after the action-thriller ride of Aliens, A3 brought an element of fear back to the franchise.

Plus the characterisation in A3 was great. Dillon, 85, Clemens, the list goes on!! All characters you can and do care about.

Plus, the best thing about the film for me, was Ripley dying at the end. It was a symbolic end to her character, and maybe the series itself.