David Fincher talks Alien 3 (briefly) in this month's issue of Empire Magazine

[SiL]

I prefer the theatrical, but it has nothing to do with how long it takes to get to the Aliens.

[Highland]

I'm kinda backwards. I actually like the first hour of the movie more than the back half. I dig that tension and I'm in an Alien movie so I already know there's an Alien in it. Removing those wouldn't have made it better for me, you just get to the bad parts faster 

I wish we saw more of the outside Planet with perhaps a secondary Prison/Facility ( would only need to be a few hundred meters away on the other side of the beach etc). It would give us a break in the scenery and also another plot thread (Maybe there's different prisoners in the other cell, maybe the Alien wipes all of them out first? etc etc) 

One other thing, being a Brit (Scot), I never got the "who are these guys" thing since we knew who all the actors were in the UK ( well the majority of them). I totally get that point though.

[Acid_Reign161]

I'm kinda backwards. I actually like the first hour of the movie more than the back half. I dig that tension and I'm in an Alien movie so I already know there's an Alien in it. Removing those wouldn't have made it better for me, you just get to the bad parts faster 

I wish we saw more of the outside Planet with perhaps a secondary Prison/Facility ( would only need to be a few hundred meters away on the other side of the beach etc). It would give us a break in the scenery and also another plot thread (Maybe there's different prisoners in the other cell, maybe the Alien wipes all of them out first? etc etc) 

One other thing, being a Brit (Scot), I never got the "who are these guys" thing since we knew who all the actors were in the UK ( well the majority of them). I totally get that point though.

I'm with you regarding not removing scenes; It's no mystery to the audience that there's an Alien (the movie's title was a dead giveaway 😂 lol) but joking aside- the audience knew exactly what had went down at Hadley's Hope in Aliens before the cast did, it didn't hurt that movie either. From Ripley's point of view in Alien 3, she had worries/suspicions, but wasn't sure until Bishop confirmed it... as we saw. To me, if we'd had the revelation of Ripley being impregnated but no benefit of the opening sequence, that'd be a whole brand new can of worms beyond "how did the egg get on the Sulaco".

The mystery of 'Alien' (1979) was a one-time-use kinda deal, you cant repeat it without radically changing the monster - and if you do try and do that, look no further than the threads here to see how it'd be received. Prometheus kept you guessing (even after the credits rolled) and everyone wanted a detailed explanation of *exactly* how the pathogen worked and was unsatisfied with it not being more black-and-white, despite the theme of the movie being a play on humans stealing fire from the gods (playing with something we aren't *meant* to understand) we got the same chaotic confusion the characters did. It didn't seem to help in altering opinions 😅

[Local Trouble]

For the life of me, I will never understand why they insisted on setting Alien 3 immediately after Aliens and shoehorning a stowaway on the Sulaco.  The comic did it better with the ten year time jump long after the Sulaco made it safely back to Earth.

[SM]

I'm not sure how you could re-edit to convincingly tease the audience as to whether there's an Alien running around or not when the movie has Alien in the title.

[BlueMarsalis79]

It's the idea of being on the same page as the protagonist, that's all.

We know an Alien's coming in all the films but the fun's in playing along with the charade.

It's also chiefly why I think the prequels don't work as well as they should do, we do not respect the characters, their own internal logic, we think we could do better, so it is just not as fun to play along with them.

[SiL]

I'm not sure how you could re-edit to convincingly tease the audience as to whether there's an Alien running around or not when the movie has Alien in the title.

It's not about teasing the possibility of there being/not being an Alien, it's following Ripley's perspective.

We all know there are going to be Aliens in Aliens, but the theatrical cut works perfectly fine  revealing the things to the audience and characters simultaneously.

Scrubbing the Alien before Ripley sees it puts us in her shoes and lets things like talking to Bishop hold actual weight rather than be "no shit, we knew that half an hour ago".

[Wweyland]

I'm not sure how you could re-edit to convincingly tease the audience as to whether there's an Alien running around or not when the movie has Alien in the title.

It's not about teasing the possibility of there being/not being an Alien, it's following Ripley's perspective.

We all know there are going to be Aliens in Aliens, but the theatrical cut works perfectly fine  revealing the things to the audience and characters simultaneously.

Scrubbing the Alien before Ripley sees it puts us in her shoes and lets things like talking to Bishop hold actual weight rather than be "no shit, we knew that half an hour ago".

It's a great music queue though when she realizes the truth...

[SiL]

Which would be even better if it was actually a revelation.

[Acid_Reign161]

Which would be even better if it was actually a revelation.

Meanwhile in an alternate universe;

AvPGalaxy Thread topic - 'How did the alien get inside Ripley?' page 4957; "it was Bishop!!" "No no, she was STUNG by the queen in the power loader fight"  🤣

[xShadowFoxX]

Meanwhile in an alternate universe;

Ripley meets the Space Jockeys, discovers the origins of Aliens, Space Jockeys aren't the creators after all, etc etc, Earth gets taken over, etc.

[Immortan Jonesy]

Meanwhile in an alternate universe;

There's a wooden planet, where bizarre rituals involving the Alien take place, inhabited by a theocratic society of virgin albino giants, who have lost the ability to reproduce by sexual means. There are abandoned biomechanical ships orbiting the planet. They don't know how to use them though, coz they didn't make them.

[Eal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykl10bWumQI

I'm glad I sat through the whole video. Interesting points that I haven't heard brought up.

[Highland]

Personally don't think the film gets any better not seeing the Alien or seeing the Alien or going with Ripley or not going with Ripley. We are supposed to be like "these guys are screwed" and I think Weaver does a good job of knowing what's about to happen, but still making it a revelation when Bishop tells her. She's incredible in A3.

I think the set up in A3 is perfect personally, it only starts to go down hill once Andrews pops it (which TBH is a crappy scene).

Weirdly , in all 3 of the Alien films (rez doesn't exist) , I think I like and have watched the first half's more than the second half's. Those are all the best bits of the films for me.

[SiL]

When you discover the story along with the characters, it's easier to become immersed into the story and connect with the characters emotionally. Their discoveries are our discoveries, their revelations our revelations.

When Ripley searches out Bishop, she's searching for answers we already have. It's a box-checking exercise on the path to Ripley playing catchup. But if we didn't know everything ahead of time, we'd be much more invested in her finding him and getting those answers -- because we need those answers just as much as she does. Her discovering those answers is us discovering those answers.

It might not make the overall film better, but it would give more momentum to the first half.