★★★-“The Bitch is Back.” Another kick ass tagline. Saw this in the theater with my dad and brother while my sister and mom watched
Sister Act. At the time, I thought this movie was pretty great. Rewatched in junior high school and changed my opinion to meh. This viewing I'm watching the Special Edition also known as the Assembly Cut (which David Fincher refused to be involved in [more on that later]). It's 30 minutes longer than the theatrical version. I'll call it a mixed bag. Kind of dumb, but has some potential. Feel like it was a good flick for director David Fincher to get his start and figure out what he wanted from the rest of his career. This, obviously, wasn't it.
One change of note in this version, I had always been reluctant to rewatch this because it's a dog in the theatrical cut that get implanted by the facehugger. A brutal animal in pain scene I wasn't about. In this version, the alien burst out of a yak like animal that they farm for meat outside of the prison. The dog was part of the studios considerable recutting, which was a weird one. Thankfully, didn't have to watch that shit.
Back to the basics on this one. One solitary Xenomorph picking off unarmed prisoners that don't stand a chance. In this installment, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the only survivor from Aliens after the ship crash lands on Fiorina 161, a wasteland inhabited by former inmates housed on this maximum security prison planet. After, again facing skepticism, Ripley leads the men into battle against the alien.
Cast includes Holt McCallany who plays Bill Tench in Fincher's incredible Netflix show
Mindhunter, Charles Dance who was Tywin Lannister in
Game of Thrones, Charles S. Dutton (title character from the show
Roc among other things [bought a lot of stock in that guy]), Paul McGann from
Withnail and I, Lance Henriksen (again), and Pete Postlethwaite (Keyser Söze's lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in
The Usual Suspects). Ripley and the eldest Lannister go to pound town, which is a weird way to introduce sexual encounters into the universe.
Ripley, among all these rapist and murderers (who have all taken a religious vow of celibacy), is repeatedly told not to go around the prisoners. The warden guy basically says that she will be raped and murdered if she goes around these guys. First chance she gets, she waltzes into the mess hall, trying to show them she's not afraid, I guess, maybe that she is just one of the guys, I don't know. Not a good situation for her or the prison, ya know. When she walks in, the first guy she engages with says, “You don't want to know me, lady. I'm a murderer and rapist of women.” She's like, “alright, well, I'm just going to sit here with you and the other sexual deviants and enjoy my meal like one of the guys.” It's never a woman's fault, but maybe in this very dangerous situation, try to be chill is all I'm saying.
Which brings me to this fucked up attempted rape scene. This is by far the darkest of all of the films in the series and like all Fincher's work with a few exceptions features psychopaths capable of anything. Though fucked up, I sort liked this aspect of the film. I was all in early... but the movie starts to fall apart in the last third.
It all starts when Ripley is all, we have to kill it, they can't take the alien and use it as a weapon. You know this speech because she makes it in every movie. Charles Dutton is like, why not? Fuck them, but really, why should we should we volunteer to die here when there is a lot worse shit out there already. He has a point, but then the point is mute because some idiot lets it out because he thinks it's cool or whatever which is my biggest beef with the movie. Really, it's not terrible. At times it's nearly great. But this is so unforgivably dumb. They have it trapped, neutralized. And then no. I don't recall if it is the same in the theatrical version. But I would have really hated this in junior high and it would have ruined the movie.
Also, dumb and irritating is after Ripley finds out that she has an alien in her chest, she is like everyone has to die now. Call off the medivac team and nuke the bitch. You know, Ripley, this is her one plan for every situation. Now that she is going to die, might as well take everyone else with me. The guy in charge is like, uh, fuck that. Sorry you're going to die, but no. Pretty fucked up on Ripley's part, to be honest.
Then after this weird scene where Ripley goes to kill it and mistakes a pipe for the alien head, she asks Dutton to kill her. But Dutton is like, fuck you, how about you help. She goes, makes her speech again and rallies the troops with an anti-corporate rant with Dutton throwing out some god stuff and they're all on board.
It kind of comes back around and is exciting at least with a lot of chasing and murdering which culminates in an alien covered in molten lead. When they turn the sprinklers on it, it dies in a satisfying explosion. Spoiler.
But then it ends on some dumb shit with the return of Lance Henriksen, the designer of the droid that looks like him, who spouts some corporate nonsense and tries to convince Ripley to let them take the queen out of her. It then descends into self-sacrificing nonsense and Henriksen saying shit like “it's a beautiful specimen! You're throwing away the chance of a lifetime.” And Ripley Christ's herself into the fire. The end. I remember the chestburster popping out as she fell, but that doesn't happen in this version.
So let's get into the production...
Can't really talk about this movie without acknowledging the legendarily troubled production. Fox, the studio behind the flick, kept pushing the film back and making changes. Supposedly there were something like ten different writers for the film and Fincher was not the first director. Then at some point in1991 they released a teaser that simply stated “In 1979, we discovered, in space, no one can hear you scream. In 1992, we will discover, on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” Incredible teaser.
I remember being more than a little intrigued, hence seeing it in the theater at age 10 (my parents didn't discourage the horror/film stuff my brother and I were into and now I'm a sort of successful, sort of well adjusted adult, love you mom and dad). If you haven't seen it, uh, don't get too excited. This trailer came out before the script was finished and as anyone who's seen the movie knows, this shit ain't on Earth.
Almost immediately Fincher started distancing himself, leaving the project before the final edit was in the can.
That summer he said “If I go on to make 10 great ones, this'll probably be looked upon as my first bungled masterpiece.” In 2009 he told
The Guardian that “no one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.” When he made the film he was 29-year-old music video director getting his first picture. Fox more or less had no faith in him and breathed down his neck the whole time, demanding recuts and reshoots throughout. You can read more about it on
Film Stories.
The 10 great ones/bungled masterpiece thing is pretty much exactly what happened as he has 10 more under his belt here in 2023 and most of them are indeed considered great.
What's nuts is Fincher nearly left the industry after this experience, going back to music videos and refusing to read scripts until Se7en wound up in his lap. Thank fuck he stuck with that shit as he is one of the all-time greats. In my opinion he has three movies in the top 10 of this century in The Social Network (behind only There Will Be Blood for best movies of my lifetime), Zodiac, and Gone Girl. Mank and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ain't bad either. I haven't even mentioned his best two either in Se7en and Fight Club. I wrote papers in college about both of those. Hell, Fight Clubbasically turned me woke when I saw it 1999. It completely changed the ways I look at consumerism and contemporary masculinity.
Despite all the issues between Fincher and the studio, a lot of the actors working on the film were impressed enough to keep working with him.
Dance, the love interest in the film, said that while it wasn't the nightmare it's been characterized as, it still wasn't an easy shoot. He explained that the executives back in Hollywood, the film was shot in England, phoned Fincher at all hours of the night, ignoring the time change, just basically fucking with him. For what it's worth, Dance said doesn't regret that he was a part of it and that he'd like to work with Fincher again, whom he considers a genius. “The minute David Fincher first walked onto the set I thought, 'My god, this guy is going to go far.' He was fantastic,” he said. Talk all that for what you will. He later did work on another Fincher film with
Mank, playing William Randolph Hurst.
One of the prisoners (a lot of them sort of blend together) Christopher John Fields is in four Fincher films, Holt McCallany was a henchman in Fight Club and has since gone on to star in Fincher's Netflix show Mindhunter, and Charles S. Dutton also appeared in Se7en. Then again, there are several actors who won't work with him again for what sounds like pretty good reasons. Notably Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, and maybe Mark Ruffalo. Dude is tough to work for, for sure.
Final thoughts...
My parting words here. This is easily the cutest little alien of the series. Nicknamed it “Bambi”. Running around on all fours. They used a dog in a suit at one point. Not sure it it made it into this cut, but it's pretty adorbs. Just a little guy. Aw. People went wild when Sigourney Weaver buzzed her head. Good look on her. I've historically been kind of into that. And, finally, while not perfect and near the bottom of his films, it does have it's moments, and shows more than a few glimpses of the promise of Fincher's later work. Overall, highly underrated.
