Continuing my favorite movies A-Z:
Alien 3.
Unfortunately, this one’s going to…well, not exactly spoil Alien 2, I suppose. You’ll see.
Here’s the Trailer:
So, I finally got a chance to see this movie again, after—what? 20 years? Sigourney Weave and Lt. Ellen Ripley returns! *Squee* The story goes that after the fiasco on LV486, Ripley, Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) escape…except that, during hypersleep, an alien sneaks out of its hiding place and—well, bad things happen.
Ripley’s awakened later when her craft crash lands on Fiorina 161. A planet hosting an ore refinery and a maximum security prison. They inmates don’t like the idea of taking a woman into their population, but the warden and the prison doctor, Clemmens, (played by Charles Dance) decide to do the honorable thing and help. They call a rescue ship to come get her. In the meantime, she’s stuck there. The three of them form an uneasy relationship, trying to keep her away from the other men. Well, I say uneasy, but Clemmens develops a thing for Ripley, and the feeling is mutual.
Newt and Dwayne are dead and Ripley needs to find out why—was it a stowaway Alien, perhaps?
She convinces the doctor to perform an autopsy on Newt. They find nothing, just water on her lungs. She drowned, he says. Yet, Ripley can’t breathe easy. A dog has gone missing, and while Ripley and the doctor’s attraction blossoms, a prisoner, and two others are “murdered”.
Of course, we know what did it—Ripley knows what did. Enter the alien. Down goes the population count of the prison.
How the heck did the thing get on her ship, she wonders, and—with no weapons of any kind to hand—what can she do to save these poor men? Even worse, is what she finds out from the doctor’s exam leads her to suspect she must do the unthinkable.
It was not directed by James Cameron, for one, but David Fincher, so maybe that explains the sometimes silly incongruities and silly references (Zager and Evans’ “IN THE YEAR 2525”, which pulled me out of the story. Tsk). I also could’ve lived without the “thing” between Clemmens and Ripley, (sorry romance fans, it didn’t seem to fit, to me. I’d rather see her with Hicks—alas, no). Really, though I liked Fincher’s Fight Club (we’ll get there, folks, I promise) I seem to remember not caring too much for this movie when it first came out. I suppose the idea that Alien 3 was supposed to be the final Alien movie was a bit…shocking. On later inspection, it holds up to the series—and hey, it’s Ellen Ripley and HR Giger’s Alien. 
What’s not to love?
Honestly, Alien 3 is good, so if you want to get a copy, by all means, do see it. But for myself, without the perspective of the next movie in the series, I may never have given it a second thought. All in all, it’s a pretty good movie. If haven’t seen it yet, I think you’ll still be able to enjoy it, with or without the others, but I recommend seeing it in sequence.
Next up…Alien Resurrection! 
