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Customer Reviews of Alien 3 (Collector's Edition)

Potential for greatness lost
This third installment in the popular Alien series gets close to greatness but doesnt quite make it. Alien 3 brings back the horror element of the series that was lacking a bit in Aliens, but in doing so we loose character development and a stable, tight, plot. The begining and ending of the film are brilliant and riviting, yet in the middle we have a seemingly endless blur of unknown people being conveniently wasted, to the point where it takes away the horrific edge. While a few moments of brilliance shine through (namely, Charles Dance's performance), its not till the very end that the plot kicks into high gear. And even then we are treated to one last barrage of bald unknowns being torn to pieces; (I dont see how it would have hurt the film to let a few more guys live). It is also most regrettable that the few characters that do become likable are killed off. The movie leaves me pondering how great it could have been, if only more time had been put into the writing.

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In a word... DARK.
Those who dislike this film can truly not appreciate how artistic, atmospheric and dark this movie is. I, for one, think it is a perfect movie. I realize that some wanted a carbon-copy of aliens, with another warm and fuzzy ending, a million guns, and NO atmosphere; but that is simply the opposite of what Fincher did. And I'm glad he did it, too. This is a dark film from the very first frame, comletely destroying all of Ripley's victories in one fell swoop. Ripley also finally has to cope with her worst nightmare: alien impregnation; that now her inner conflict with the beast has to end, in both fighting not only for a bunch of inmates on a godforsaken planet, but for the fate of the entire universe. It all comes down to a final conflict between Ripley, the beast, and the company drawing to a dramatic and equally depressing close.

GREAT performances from the whole cast, Sigourney Weaver and Charles Dutton being the highlights. The most effort I have EVER seen put into the music of the film (Elliot Goldenthal wrote the score). Some of the best music I have heard in my life. The Alien is interesting and original also (the facehugger impregnates a dog) and is faster and more quick-to-kill than the other ones. Pacing is consistent, all building up to a few great action scenes and the alien's demise (thank god it wasn't blown out of the airlock again). Another original aspect is religion, which accentuated the moodiness of the movie, and there is even a few moments of subdued comedy, which eased the depression the film caused. This movie really stands on its own as the most well-directed film of the 20th century. Don't bother with Resurrection. I have heard that the director's cut is much better, and that it runs 30 minutes longer. The ONLY flaw was the DVD (not a word on the sound and picture). The lack of commentary and other featues sickened me; the movie needed a better DVD release than this.

This is the best movie I have ever seen, I hope more people will learn to appreciate it for what it is: a masterpeice.

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Vastly underappreciated masterpiece.
After reading the enormous amount of negativity at this third entry in the Alien series, I feel highly compelled to step in here and defend this marvelous 1992 sequel to the 1986 predecessor "Aliens" entitled simply "Alien 3" and as I write this, I have to say that while this movie definitely has some troubling flaws, this is a very strong and amazing movie and one of my favorite science-fiction movies of all time.

Ellen Ripley, who is now in cryogenic suspension on board the spaceship that she got on to escape the colonized planet after saving Newt from the alien that hitched a ride on board. Unaware of it though, the alien that she defeated was in fact a queen and laid a small egg in a hidden compartment onboard the ship. The alien on board causes an acid spill which causes an electrical fire and the resulting fire causes the escape pod where the survivors of the previous movie to be separated from the mother ship. After crashing into the ocean on a desolate planet, Ripley finds herself once again the only survivor on a totally unknown world. After being revived in a high-security prison called Fury 161, Ripley finds herself being the only woman in a prison with a religious cult comprised of convicted criminals. Now being imprisoned on the planet, she learns her greatest nightmare of all and how much of a big sacrifice must be made in order to destroy the aliens once and for all. However, Ripley has no idea that the alien isn't her only enemy anymore.

While this is a great movie, this tends to suffer from some problems which likely has caused a lot of fans of the previous two to really shun this movie. While I can't blame them for killing off two important characters from the previous movie, my biggest problems are different. The greatest flaw with this movie is not it's storyline but it's excessive used of dropping F-Bombs right and left. Swearing doesn't bother me necessarily but the F-Bomb is WAY overused here and it really tends to detract from the films enjoyability. I also wasn't too thrilled at the whole prospect of the prisoners being nothing more than just 'live bait' for the alien to kill off one by one.

The "Collector's Edition" is fantastic in many ways. The deeply flawed theatrical release is much better in its remastered form but the "Special Edition" is light years ahead of it's old counterpart. With the film being extended to two hours and thirty-five minutes, with some old footage replaced with previously unreleased footage, along with extended and previously unreleased scenes, "The Special Edition" of "Alien 3" really helps to mend a lot of the problems that plagued the original version and the result is a movie that is almost as great as the first two movies. The only problem I had was the ending which where the ending of the climax scene looked a lot more fake than it did in the original version. Despite this minor quibble, the "Special Edition" of this movie is light years better than the original and the result is a flawed movie that really is lifted much higher in rankings to rank up there with the 1979 original. It'll never top "Aliens" for me but "Alien 3" really benefits from it's revamping. To all of the people who strongly detested this movie to begin with, I would strongly recommend that if you have the time, watch the "Special Edition" because it really helps to correct a lot of the mistakes of the original and it makes the characters a lot more three-dimensional. I have come to appreciate this movie a lot more since seeing it on it's newest form.

The second disc is a real treat. The extras on disc two are really good and along with the first disc, warrant purchasing "Alien 3". I at first found that this was a movie that was not easy to digest especially due to its troubling loss of two of the main characters from the previous movie "Aliens" from 1986. However I have since over time have come to really enjoy this movie and have felt more sorry for the crew after seeing a deep insight into how troubled the movies making really was. You can also see the mixed reactions towards the finished film from the crew members who were involved in it's production. Perhaps the most memorable thing I learned even if it's not from the DVD itself was how much agony David Fincher went through when directing this movie. He was pushed into this movie's directing late into it's production and the result was enormous tension between him and other producers which resulted in agonizing almost non-stop work in directing this movie. Perhaps it's why he hasn't embraced it since it's release but I have to credit him that his work on this is fantastic and the result was worth it to me.

To me while it isn't the best of the series by any means, "Alien 3" is a really excellent and satisfying conclusion to the storyline of Ellen Ripley and her war against the predatory alien creatures. Like someone else said about it, I strongly agree that "Alien Resurrection" felt more like some wacky spin-off that had almost nothing to do with the previous three movies and I agree. While I'm not saying that it was terrible, it wouldn't have been a bad idea of they had simply closed the series on the third one.