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Alien 3 (1992) R

After the events of Aliens Ripley and the other survivors crash on a remote planet occupied only by the few employees and the inmates of a small prison. Only Ripley survives the crash (in the final draft of the script anyways)... and obviously the alien.


Last time I saw Alien 3 it was the theatrical cut but now I went with the Assembly Cut. Usually I prefer these longer director's (sort of) cuts but this one seems to be an exception. Some of the changes just don't make sense (like having the alien come from the ox when it's appearance and movement still fits theatrical cut's dog better) and it's clearly longer than it needs to be (still, I'd wish Fincher's original 3 hour rough cut would be available).

The prison is quite interesting setting for the film and it provides interesting set of characters. Unfortunately there's rather little character development even in this version that lasts almost two-and-half hours so lots of potential is left unused. Visually the prison continues with the style set by the earlier films (Gothic scifi if you like) but it's somehow more dull (most likely because of worse lightning). Alien itself is fine most of the time but during the corridor chase it looks really bad when it's on the ceiling.

Clearly worse than two first movies. Sadly the studio interfered so much with Fincher's (and writers') work but out of the existing versions I think the theatrical cut is the best. Rating is based on the Assembly Cut, maybe theatrical would be .5 higher.