Aliens was basically lightning in a bottle by successfully building on the first film. The odds of them outdoing the first two films must have been astronomical. I kind of feel sorry for Fincher.
shareDo you really?
A third sequel would have been a challenge to a youngster like Fincher. He failed.
But he can't be blamed. Everyone involved in the film failed.
Burning all of your audience's goodwill in the first five minutes by killing off Newt and Hicks was an easily avoidable mistake. Leave them in cryosleep. Say the equipment is damaged, they're alive, but it's too risky to wake them until they get them to specialists that can repair the units. Then do your "Ripley in a prison with an alien" movie.
shareThis is another one of those cases where the film really has no artistic reason to exist, as Ripley's arc was concluded perfectly in Aliens.
Killing all her crewmates (new family, more like) again, and in such a brute force offscreen way was disgusting and perverse - clearly just a way to push another "Ripley vs. alien" story without the complications Hicks and Newt would provide. Oh, we had a perfect ending? Let's just get rid of all that in the opening credits... one of the laziest, most disrespectful writing decisions ever made.
Putting them in hypersleep would just be a tangential solution to the real issue here - that this movie didn't have a core reason to exist other than money. And it leaves some questions: would Hicks/Newt wake up at the end and now be stuck on this prison planet? Would Ripley still die, or survive and escape with Hicks/Newt again (redundant).
But anyway, the studio was unwilling to take a chance on a new main character in this universe, wanted to make their quick cash with Sigourney, and this is what we got. There was room for a movie like Aliens to be made after Alien, but after that the Ripley character should have been left alone imo.
Funnily enough though Resurrection had a much more intriguing spin that actually brings something different to the table, with Ripley being this weird hybrid. I've always enjoyed that film for what it was... ridiculous, but also interesting and entertaining. Not to mention it has some superb practical creature effects. Alien 3 is just unnecessary, overly-depressing hogwash.
I agree with much of what you're saying, particularly your first two paragraphs. I do think Alien three could have worked with my method of sidelining Newt and Hicks. There's a lot of cool stuff in that movie. The canine alien is a neat idea. The setting is cool. Just make it a nail-biting thriller like the first one. Too much of a retread? Sure. But it could have been a fun retread. Need to find a way to have Ripley survive at the end, too, though.
As for Alien: Resurrection, I'll have to revisit that one, because I remember being very unimpressed with it. Haven't seen it since a year or so after its release.
Exactly. There's quite a bit I enjoyed about Alien 3 (the look, the feel, the cinematography, Fincher's directing, even the story for the most part, minus the first few minutes where they unceremoniously killed off two of the most important characters in the franchise), but the storyline really should have continued with Newt, not Ripley. Ripley had her day in the sun. It was Newt's turn.
But I guess the powers that be wanted to try to squeeze all they could from a character who'd completed her arch. Kill off Ripley and it's a great, dramatic jumping off point for a Newt-centric storyline. Hell, age her up by having her wake up from cryo early during the landing, with the other two stuck until the opening of the movie. We can blame Vincent Ward for not recognizing Newt's value:
https://screenrant.com/alien-3-movie-hicks-newt-death-reason/#:~:text=Ward%20later%20revealed%20that%20killing,comrades%20out%20of%20the%20way.
It wasn't until a script draft written by Vincent Ward that the idea of killing off Hicks and Newt was first introduced, although they were originally killed by Xenomorphs aboard the Sulaco. Ward later revealed that killing Newt was one of his first priorities, as the character had annoyed him. He also wanted Ripley to be suffering from intense loss and on a quest for redemption, which he felt necessitated getting her Aliens comrades out of the way. It seems Ward wasn't the only writer who disliked Newt, as the majority of unmade Alien 3 scripts find a way to either kill her or otherwise remove her from the plot.
Continuing the story with Newt is a cool idea. Really don't like killing off Ripley, though. The xenomorphs getting her in the end is just unsatisfying to me. Interesting that so many writers wanted to kill off Newt. Making the end of Aliens a hollow victory is just so incredibly stupid.
shareI wasn't very clear on that. In my mind I meant keep the Alien 3 story where Ripley dies at the end (and perhaps Hicks could die at some point during the film, maybe while saving Newt), but with Newt still around. Their deaths would be powerful tools for stories about Newt, and a huge motivating factor for her decisions in future installments in the franchise.
But even if not killing them off, they absolutely should have kept Newt. That multiple writers found her annoying instead of endearing is mind-boggling to me. Her line of "they most come out at night... mostly" really stuck with me. But even if they did see her as an annoying brat, age her up 10 years instead of killing her off and change that dynamic.
They blew it bigtime, and derailed the franchise, nearly killing it entirely with the death of those two characters.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
Agreed. Well said.
share"I kind of feel sorry for Fincher. "
No reason. Without Alien 3 there probably wouldn't be Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, at least in the form we know them today. Finnish director Renny Harlin did the best thing he could and withdrew from the project and gave a way to a more talented people, namely David Fincher. The rest is history.
Renny has played an important part also in another famous franchise, namely James Bond. He was offered to direct Goldeneye (1995), but that deal also fell through and a guy called Martin Campbell was offered the directing job. That was nothing yet, but ten years later he returned and directed the franchise masterpiece, Casino Royale. So thanks Renny for doing the right thing and giving an opportunity to a more talented people.
The studio kept pushing for a different direction. They didn't want to do another Alien or another Aliens, they wanted to do something different so as to avoid being seen as rehashing it, and different they did.
By the time it was gearing up, Carrie Henn had simply grown up too much to play Newt again (kids grow up so fast, and she had even left the acting industry after Aliens!) and I can only guess Hicks was removed to increase the vulnerability of Ripley and the others.
Surprisingly, it still managed to pull in about as much box office as Aliens, but its budget was three times the size.