2. Alien 3
Alien was excellent. That much is obvious. As soon as Sigourney Weaver stepped out of that tube in just a top and her smalls, the whole film gave off the impression that not only was it excellently made, but it had a distinct purpose. It knew its objective, and that was to scare the shit out of you. Thats why its unique amongst the science fiction films of its era. Most of Aliens contemporaries fell into one of two camps; either an existential sci-fi exploring over-arching themes, or a schlocky slasher-esque feature that used the future as a crutch. But Alien masterfully over-developed this second school and created something truly special; a haunted house movie, but in space. Yet what was truly surprising was that whilst
Aliens was also fantastic, it was fantastic for entirely different reasons. Where
Alien had given us slow-burning tension,
Aliens cranked everything up to eleven. But honestly, it didnt die a death by excess- it worked that old James Cameron magic, creating a perfect balance between the epic and the intimate. Yes, they may have been coming out of the goddamn walls, but there was also a clear dynamic between characters, be it from the marine squad, Hicks, Bishop, Newt or Ripley. This fleshed them out as well as driving the plot forward, turning what couldve been a series of dumb action set pieces into something a whole lot more. Though both films were entirely different, it was abundantly clear that they had a clear aim in mind. However, by the time of
Alien 3, it appeared that there was certainly a lack of focus. One could blame the extensive studio interference and rewrites, one could blame first-time director David Fincher for not having the nous to tame such an unwieldly beast. One could even blame the actors for being unable to adapt to the situation. But then again, youd be hard pressed to find any actor that could make a diamond out of this lump of coal; the script really was a mess. Therein lay the problem. A good film can overcome bad acting, maybe even bad directing. But a bad script is hard to compensate for, and this was literally one of the most muddled screenplays in the history of cinema. The finished product was a hybrid of several rewrites. There were four completed scripts, three of which were utterly, awesomely mad. The first led with a premise of instigating a Cold War between the humans and aliens, the second took a horror vibe by setting a small-town slasher actually inside an honest-to-god space biodome(!) and the fourth featured a frickin wooden planet much like a monastic version of that library planet from
Doctor Who. The third draft seemed mildly dull by comparison. So ask yourself, what with that absolute pile of win available, how did we end up with the turgid, cluttered mess that was
Alien 3? Its the quintessential too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth argument. The film was a product of the best effort to combine these original ideas, an impossible job even before Finchers own rewrites on the set. With the lack of a decent, coherent script, all
Alien 3 could do is flounder. After all, any film that seriously treats the killing off of three audience favourites in the opening reel as a good idea is never going to be on to a winner. The cherry on top of this crap sundae? The original director left the project to direct a little known film called
Die Hard 2. Damn you, Renny Harlin.