25 REASONS TO 1080 IT: DAY TWENTY FIVE

posted on
12.27.2010

Director: David Fincher
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Lance Henriksen, and a fuckload o’ bald British dudes

If
this set was released as individual films as opposed to the giant set,
Alien 3 by itself might’ve landed about halfway up the list. There’s
plenty of examples of films with troubled productions getting a nice
little spit shine and a side of brutal honesty in the features to give
it some bang for the filmlover’s buck. Alien 3 exemplifies everything
Blu Ray can and should be used to accomplish. It has made a broken film
achieve its true potential.

Alien
3‘s not so much the red-headed step-child of the series as it is the
hard-drinking, Hemingway-reading, Tom Waits-listening,
switchblade-carrying son of a bitch of the series. It said fuck you to
every expectation people would have after Cameron dragged this series
into the mainstream, delivering a nihilistic, sobering shot of bleak
to the universe in which it resides. It wasn’t my favorite of the
series in theaters, but it’s the one I would always find the most
fascinating. The Alien 3 Workprint’s appearance on the Quadrilogy set
on DVD showed us all there was a masterpiece lying in ruins on screen
in the form of the theatrical cut, but had been jerry-rigged back
together to give us an approximation of what David Fincher had
originally intended. The film’s themes of hope, or lack thereof,
suicide, abortion, mental illness, the weight of religion,
incarceration, and class issues had gone from being watered down hints
to being the text. Yes, all that’s there. In an Alien film, and all
in service of the one truly interesting place this film could’ve ever
have taken Ripley: you take away a woman’s life, her hope, her dreams,
and ensure that she’ll never get them back, what responsibility does
she owe herself or those around her? Fincher made Alien into an
arthouse franchise again, while still keeping the tension and horror
this series started out with, from both the human and alien sides of
things.

The result is only truly visible on the Blu Ray. It completes the good work started on the Quadrilogy, no expense spared. New ADR’s been recorded, the footage has been re-processed and brought up to standards, the sound design for the missing scenes redone. The Workprint is a brand new movie, for all intents. On top of that, Fox decided to man the hell up and release the footage cut from the Alien 3 documentaries the first time of David Fincher on set and for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what Fox was afraid of to begin with. The Simpsons has bitten the hand that feeds them a lot harder than Fincher does here (especially this year). The worst is actually a lighthearted moment of Fincher calling Fox a bunch of assholes who don’t know what they’re doing through a megaphone. But for the most part, the footage shows an increasingly tired Fincher who’s actually still passionate and excited to be working on this film to the bitter end. Seeing that enthusiasm and knowing how it would be cut down in one fell swoop towards the end of production is harder to witness now, but it makes for a far more effective piece of behind-the-scenes storytelling, which suffered on the Quadrilogy set with Fincher’s absence.

The kicker about Alien 3 is that ask any random set of strangers on the street, you’re liable to find more fans of Alien Resurrection than Alien 3, but this is the film that got the most love. This film’s restoration is a gift, and a leap of faith that this film’s true worth has never been measurable until now, and we deserve to give it a shot when it’s looking its best.

–Justin Clark

SCREENSHOTS