Alien 5: An Open Message About Newt, Hicks, and Bishop

[Timby]

But I didn't know about that Assembly cut and want to see it.

If you can, watch the Blu-ray version. They did the original Assembly Cut back in 2003 for the Quadrilogy DVD release, but had to use production audio for a lot of the new footage (a half-hour's worth). When the set was re-issued in 2010 on Blu-ray, Fox paid to have the actors come in and do ADR recordings of their lines, so the sound quality is perfect.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^I'm not crazy about the assembly cut of Alien 3. I don't think the ox or capturing the Alien actually add anything to the story. Some of the expanded scenes are OK but ultimately unnecessary. And I really don't get a lot of the stuff with Paul McGann's character.

Regarding the original topic, I am NOT part of the "we" mentioned in your open message. While Alien 3 is a flawed film, the deeply dark, depressing, nihilistic tone of the film is the best part of it.

Most of the time, when big tentpole movies kill off major characters like this, it's because they couldn't get the actors to come back. With Alien 3, it's just the opposite. Michael Biehn wanted to come back and was pretty unhappy when he found out that he wasn't going to be. Killing Hicks & Newt was a deliberate artistic decision made by the filmmakers and the film is better for it.

 

[JWPlatt]

Are people really still having heated arguments over this 23 year-old movie?

Yes.

I just found a Fincher interview from 2009. In the sense that studios seem to never learn, I see a number of similarities with the Fantastic Four release, and its bad reviews, with Alien 3. The big commonality is studio interference. Granted, Trank's "original version" of Fantastic Four may have been trash too. Here's the article:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/feb/03/david-fincher-interview-transcript

The quotes I found most interesting are:

MS: But there's this fantastic quote that I found, where you said of Alien 3 that "a lot of people hated Alien 3, but no one hated it more than I did."

DF: I had to work on it for two years, got fired off it three times and I had to fight for every single thing. No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.

...I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid. [audience laughs] So I learned on this movie that nobody really knows, so therefore no one has to care, so it's always going to be your fault. I'd always thought, "Well, surely you don't want to have the Twentieth Century Fox logo over a shitty movie." And they were like, "Well, as long as it opens."

MS: Have you grown to like it since then, Alien 3?

DF: God, no! [audience laughs] But I don't look at anything after it's done.

MS: Talking of fist-fights, we're going to skip The Game, which I think is a fantastic film, and talk about Fight Club. Clearly you were reticent to go back to Fox after your Alien 3 experience, but they supported your thing.

DF: But they were all fired, that's the beauty of it. [audience laughs] Every time somebody comes and says, "You've gotta scratch our backs," I say, "Why? You're not going to have this job in 11 months. I wanna talk to your assistant." [audience laughs]

 

[Mage]

Good for him. I still like Alien3, both cuts. I don't watch it a lot, can't even recall the last time I've seen it. But I still like it for what it is.

I respect his opinion, and if he is not happy with what it is, that's absolutely cool. But I happen to like the end product. Does that make me wrong? Nope.

 

[Tulin]

^ "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." ^

 

[Hound of UIster]

But I happen to like the end product. Does that make me wrong?

Yes. Yes it does!

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I just hope there's an android whose name begins with 'E' in it...

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Re: Alien 5 news

Corporal Hicks & Newt return?

In an interview with Icons of Fright, Biehn went into some details:
“They’re planning on bringing me and Newt back and at this point Newt will be around twenty-seven years old.

I know they’re putting the brakes on Neill’s movie just for a little while, but I really think that it would be embarrassing to Ridley and Fox and Sigourney if they just didn’t make the movie.”

source
Well it will be sci-fi action and probably similar in style to Aliens (1986) and Halo: Nightfall (2015).

 

[JWPlatt]

Michael Biehn is actually being more agressive in his language about Alien 3 and 4 than Blomkamp. While Biehn is saying "The basic idea is acting like ALIEN3 and 4 never existed," Blomkamp says "Alien 5 will not undo Alien 3 & Alien: Resurrection." So while I want Biehn's version of reality to be true, I put more stock in Blomkamp's.

Love the thought of Hicks and Newt's return.

 

[Anwar]

I'll never get the love for those two. They were hardly characters as they were plot devices.

If it's a choice between them and Clemens or Dillon, I'd take Clemens or Dillon.

 

[Relayer1]

Michael Biehn is actually being more agressive in his language about Alien 3 and 4 than Blomkamp. While Biehn is saying "The basic idea is acting like ALIEN3 and 4 never existed," Blomkamp says "Alien 5 will not undo Alien 3 & Alien: Resurrection." So while I want Biehn's version of reality to be true, I put more stock in Blomkamp's.

Love the thought of Hicks and Newt's return.

Although there's a lot I can't forgive about Alien 3, not least the stupidity of the set-up and premise, I'd not want to see it contradicted. Alien 4 is set so far in the future that it's not greatly affected anyway.

I'll never get the love for those two. They were hardly characters as they were plot devices.

Bringing Hicks and Newt back is fantastic news. Yes, Newt's a bit plot devicey, but Hicks ? Have a word with yourself...

 

[RoJoHen]

I'll never get the love for those two. They were hardly characters as they were plot devices.

I don't get it either. I never developed an attachment to either of them, and I've never been bothered by them dying in Alien3.

Frankly, I'd rather see Winona Ryder come back as Call.

 

[Timby]

The death of Newt is far more meaningful because a recurring theme of the Alien movies is mothers and their children (as seen rather explicitly in Alien, and then even more explicitly in Aliens between Ripley / Newt, the Queen / Aliens and arguably the Queen and Ripley). But that's why Newt gets so much more attention in Alien3, because it continues that theme. The film rather directly approaches the idea of "I can't let this happen to anyone else" in a number of ways, and that's a central theme of motherhood when presented with the idea of a child having some sort of defect or disorder or a mother having a giant penis rape monster growing inside her.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

not least the stupidity of the set-up and premise,

I.e. that the god of the Alien-verse being a sadistic bastard that gets off on suffering being the only way some of it makes sense.

Like super facehugers, eggs that suddenly open up when someone isn't around Wayland-Yutani not using their own ship and people in Aliens instead of saving them for this movie, Wayland-Yutani having their own ship and people for this sort of thing in the first place.

 

[Anwar]

Like super facehugers,

If there is an Alien Queen, then there can also be an Special Facehugger for said Queen.

eggs that suddenly open up when someone isn't around

The eggs open due to movement. The hum of the machinery on the Sulaco would've been enough to do so in lieu of a person being right there.

Wayland-Yutani not using their own ship and people in Aliens instead of saving them for this movie, Wayland-Yutani having their own ship and people for this sort of thing in the first place.

The people Burke was working with didn't have enough confirmation of what was happening at the colony so they sent in the Marines as fodder if it was true. By A3 they knew it was true so they could send in their own specialized troops.

It's hardly sillier than some of the stuff in Aliens.

 

[JWPlatt]

I'll never get the love for those two. They were hardly characters as they were plot devices.

If it's a choice between them and Clemens or Dillon, I'd take Clemens or Dillon.

Are you a parent, ever lost a child, ever feared losing a child, been responsible for the protection of a child, or want to be a parent? Treat the question as rhetorical if necessary.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Isn't this proposed movie looking less and less likely now that Ridley Scott is supposedly planning a number of sequels to Prometheus, which are also to be viewed as prequels to Alien?

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/615885-prometheus-sequels#!

 

[Anwar]

I'll never get the love for those two. They were hardly characters as they were plot devices.

If it's a choice between them and Clemens or Dillon, I'd take Clemens or Dillon.

Are you a parent, ever lost a child, ever feared losing a child, been responsible for the protection of a child, or want to be a parent? Treat the question as rhetorical if necessary.

Newt wasn't Ripley's child. She barely knew Newt. All she was doing was merely projecting her feelings of loss over her REAL daughter onto some random kid she knew for one or two days.

After she died in A3, Ripley realized this.

 

[RoJoHen]

It was sad that Newt died. It was tragic. Ripley reacts accordingly.

I can understand Ripley's attachment to Hicks and Newt, but I don't understand why the audience would be so attached that they're still upset about it decades later. They died, and I liked the way that Alien3 handled their deaths.

 

[Makarov]

Hicks can come back, but Newt should remain dead. One of the video games actually did that by saying Hicks escaped the pod and shoved some other guard in it before it launched. Newt was the worst with that high pitched scream constantly - nail on a chalkboard. Though Alien 3 handled their deaths horribly any way you slice it.

Or bring back Hicks and Dillon instead of Hicks and Newt. That guy was awesome.