David Fincher’s 'Alien 3' Is Messy, But It Brought the Franchise Back to Horror (2024)

Alien: Romulus is the first new movie in the Alien franchise since 2017 with Alien: Covenant and fans are excited to see Fede Álvarez bring it back to the basics of the original Alien movies: a terrifying creature threatens a crew with nowhere to run (and no one to hear you scream). The later sequels in the franchise all went in different directions, with varying degrees of success. Some love the world-building, religious mythos of Ridley Scott's recent entries, others argue that James Cameron made the best film in the franchise with the action-heavy Aliens, and others note that Scott's original horror-sci-fi masterwork has yet to be topped. One movie stands out as the most divisive in the series: David Fincher's Alien 3. The sequel hit theaters in 1992 and swiftly announced itself as a darker entry than Cameron's previous film. The movie makes some bold, controversial choices that did land well with fans upon release. Alien 3 is risky, bleak, and messy, but the film returned Alien to its horror roots.

Alien 3

R

Action

Horror

Sci-Fi

Release Date

May 22, 1992

Director

David Fincher

Cast

Sigourney Weaver , Charles S. Dutton , Charles Dance , Paul McGann , Brian Glover , Ralph Brown

Runtime

114 minutes

Writers

Dan O'Bannon , Ronald Shusett , Vincent Ward , David Giler , Walter Hill , Larry Ferguson

Studio

20th Century Fox

Tagline

The bitch is back.

Fans, Critics, and Even David Fincher Hated ‘Alien 3’ at First

Alien 3 left a bad taste in the mouths of many audience members and critics in 1992. The film's abrupt tying up of all the loose ends from Cameron's Aliens was a gut punch for fans of the previous movie. Roger Ebert noted the stylish visuals, but did not find the story or thrills effective, calling Alien 3 "the best-looking bad movie I've seen in a while." With a bleak story that seemed to stick a fork in the future of the franchise, Alien 3 was a bitter pill for Alien diehards that took some major risks which didn't seem to pay off at the time. Fincher had a difficult time on the film, and in a 2009 Guardian interview, said that "no one hated it more than me," citing studio meddling and a lack of trust put in him to make the movie that he envisioned. In a 2023 interview at the Tribeca Film Festival, Fincher explained how the script for the film was constantly changing throughout production, keeping him from establishing a cohesive vision for the movie. This adds up as Alien 3, for better or worse, feels like a mashup of so many ideas that the film never ends up focusing on long enough to do justice.

Thanks to a re-release in 2003, the "Assembly Cut," and an ever-growing appreciation for the cold, calculated storytelling of Fincher, Alien 3 has been critically re-evaluated by many viewers, who embrace its radical change of pace. This sequel returns to the horror roots of the franchise, as compared to Aliens which is much more centered around action, and offers a memorably grimy, beautiful visual aesthetic that deserves all the praise it gets. Although Fincher maintains his hatred for Alien 3, the newer cut proves that he had the style and the craft to make it something special, and that studio interference doesn't entirely kill the merits of his approach.

'Alien 3' Returns to Horror After James Cameron's Action-Oriented Approach

As with Cameron's work in his own franchise, The Terminator, the first two Alien movies have been the subject of a long-running debate: is the sequel even better than the original? What this ultimately comes down to is a matter of taste, as the two films are undeniably handled with care, crafted on a remarkable scale, and thoroughly entertaining. Alien is a horror movie, modeled on a slasher in space with a lone creature picking off a cast one by one. Aliens is a shoot-em-up action movie, with more guns explosions, and spectacle. So, if you like horror more, you probably prefer Scott's film, and if you're an action junkie, Cameron's may be your choice.

Fincher's sequel is not usually included in these conversations, as most fans will often argue that Alien and Aliens are the two best in the series, regardless of which order they'd put them in. But Alien 3 offers a refreshing return to the darker tone of the first movie.Aliens is great, but the film's inclusion of more humor (especially from Bill Paxton in a cartoonishly goofy, wonderful performance), bigger sets, and action set pieces comes at the cost of the eerie atmosphere that Scott's film pulls off so well. Fincher doesn't copy this aesthetic exactly, but he does make Alien 3 more like a horror movie than Cameron's installment. The framework is similar, the characters are locked in a hostile location and taken out, often one at a time, by a lurking Xenomorph. The kills are more graphic and played more horrifically. Look no further than the infirmary sequence, which may be the most effective horror sequence in the whole series, for proof of this, as the Xenomorph brutally kills a character with a nasty head, and gives us one of the most iconic images in the entire franchise when the alien leans in close to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, extending its second mouth to her head as she pulls away.

Aliens delivers a big, entertaining follow-up, and it is understandable why Fincher's sequel was a disappointment to people who looked forward to seeing Cameron's story continued. The abrupt and brutal fates of all the surviving Aliens characters (other than Ripley) immediately communicate that Alien 3 wants you to check your expectations at the door, and settle in for a harrowing movie.

David Fincher's Direction Makes the World of Alien Creepier Than Ever

The greatest thing about Alien 3 is how it looks. The movie achieves a breathtaking blend of industrial and gothic influences for its foundry-prison setting. The gothic overtones add a lot to the narrative, as Ripley crash lands on this prison planet where many of the prisoners are devoted to a spiritual belief system that guides their every move. Faith is a big theme throughout Alien 3, and the visual style emphasizes it very well.

The industrial aspects of the setting call back to the first Alien, where tight corridors and stark, brutalist metal structures must be navigated by both the Xenomorph and the prisoners being hunted. There's no shortage of vents and crawl spaces for the alien to hide or move around undetected, adding layers of suspense as you can never be quite sure where the creature may pop out and rear its mouth in your direction. Fincher adds a smokey, grimy environment to the setting, with hazy lighting and heavy machinery whirring and emanating heat everywhere. It is a dark, uncomfortable, and hostile place that matches the bleak, cold quality of the story.

Setting the film in this industrial prison setting puts Ripley in a vulnerable state, surrounded by violent criminals who could pose as much a threat as the alien itself, and with no weapons to fight the Xenomorph. She discovers fairly quickly that there are no guns on the planet, which raises the tension and sets the stage for a more difficult fight for survival than either of her previous encounters with aliens. The change of setting makes Alien3 visually striking and leaves Ripley in a terrifying position that proves to be her greatest challenge.

Fede Alvarez Is Set to Give Fans More Horror With 'Alien: Romulus'

Fede Alvarez' horror background and the grim tone of the marketing for Alien: Romulus hints that it could be one of the scariest films in the franchise. While Scott's later installments (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) took wild swings and built out the cryptic lore of the world, they acted as another radical departure from the original movies. The Alien franchise has grown into one of the most ambitious and expansive mythologies in modern pop culture, but Álvarez's film appears to be going back to basics. It's placement between Alien and Aliens tees the new film up to blend together the genre elements that make both movies work so well.

Scott's lore-heavy sequels have been a worthy endeavor, but if the series is going to be handed over to other directors, it is probably best that they leave all the world-building to Scott and instead focus their efforts on making tight, thrilling genre movies. Whether it's a shoot-em-up action movie, or a sci-fi slasher in space, or a blend of both, these films work as well when they're smaller in scope as they do when Scott brings his massive-scaled storytelling into the mix. Fincher's movie is a great example of this; one setting, a limited cast of characters, and a single alien picking them off one by one. Alien 3 was divisive, but if judged on its own merits instead of what came before, it's a lean, mean sci-fi thriller that deserves more credit.

Alien 3 is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

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