Alien 3 is a film I enjoy, I love it, it's beautiful but even in assembly cut, it isn't the best movie. It has very serious gaping flaws. The plot strings are coming from aspects of an idea that transformed, that don't make thematic sense, and seemingly come out of nowhere.
Ward/Fassano Sequence of Ripley's Character Development
Crash ---> Tragedy ---> Isolation --> Alienation ---> ---> Stowaway Alien Warrior carries Ripley's turmoil with her, killing more people ----> Banishment ---> Shaved Head in Humiliation ---> Comedy of Ripley to Monks, Mocking, Disgust ---> "Locked away" ---> Nightmares and "Morning Sickness" ---> Hallucination ----> Rediscovery ---> Trek ---> Headbursting Sequence in "Tech" Core ---> Ascending upwards in structure ---> Chaos ---> Reach EEV Either Exorcism of Demons both Personal and Literal by John who walks into fire, or suicide of Ripley who tells John to leave in EEV and she commits suicide by fire.
There's a very clear progression here. From the exploration of the satellite world, representing Ripley's journey into her own ego, from outside, penetrating in, getting locked within it, and confronting her own demons (dreams of the Alien raping her, unfolding a tongue of Newt's head, an infant with Alien characteristics floating in an all black environment (her "child" she's carrying) and other terrible hallucinations. As she rediscovers herself, she is rediscovered and chipped away as things get desperate up above. They go to the core of the satellite, getting chased by the Alien "Ripley's demon" as well as the core of Ripley herself, and the core, and lock themselves in, in the version we know of, its just windmills, its tranquil. But one of the characters (the reactionary cleric who became Andrews), skull bursts open carrying an Alien, and I'm sure going into the core of Ripley has relation to this, but whatever that is, what it means is even in Ripley's tranquil heart and the center of her ego, there is still an Alien waiting for her.
So her and John start ascending upwards, reach docks rowing in a boat, with the Alien unseen swimming below them. Blood drips from the wooden ceiling, and ash rains down, all is not well. They reach the surface, the Alien has begun making a nest, everything is on fire, it looks Bosch, and they confront the Alien and it's entombed in molten glass. Ripley reaches her EEV that was imprisoned in wood, and either John exercises her demons from the old grimores he read in the original idea and her demons jump into John who commits suicide by walking into the flames, or per Weaver's wishes, Ripley subverts John's studies and tells John to get in the EEV and go, allowing him to be free, and she walks into the fire, and is consumes in the raging inferno of her own world, her own ego, and finds closure.
It really all could be, that the entire thing was a hypersleep nightmare, in that case. It could be not literal, but a nightmare from her trauma foreshadowed in the beginning of Aliens, where Ripley battles inside of herself to find the closure she needs, which would explain the surreal nature of everything. It could just as well be real, but heavily figurative.
This was how this was to play out as originally written out. What happened with Alien 3 is they thought they could carry some of those ideas into a different setting not to "bizarre" and more "marketable", as well as being more accurate and faithful to the setting, but already with that you remove the whole element of Ripley's progress through the sphere being progress within herself. You could very well have made this prison colony a black metal orb, orbiting a hellish looking world, and removed the wood, but it was decided to lay it on a planet, removing that element entirely.
Then, you have the confused plot itself, desperately trying to recycle elements from Ward's script with either a hard time or little tono intention of stringing it together as he planned out, which in his version makes narrative sense, in all the drafts released, that I've read, it does not carry this.
It plays out more like a mystery. And then, the elements of Ripley's journey, in the Giler and Hill recycling, only comes in full swing in the third act, getting away with it from vague hints in the last two acts, and confused structure. This is just more evidence that they began filming before they even finished the script. There was potential there, but they lost it in rewrites.
David Giler/Walter Hill/Rex Pickett Sequence of Ripley's Character Development (Going by Assembly Cut)
Cryosleep Disaster ---> Crash ---> Discovery by Clemens ---> Rescue ---> Learning of Newt's Death, Hicks Death, Bishop Further Trashing ---> Numb Acceptance ---> Pod Burn Discovery ---> Newt Autopsy ---> Cremation/Ripley Acceptance/Dog/Bull Chestbursting ---> Prisoner Death ---> Ripley unwary ----> Sudden Clemens Romance ----> Another few prisoners die ----> Looking for Bishop ----> Almost Rape ---> In Infirmary, Conversation with Bishop, Dread of learning Alien onboard ---> Morse comes in, Ripley confirms "dragon" ---> Clemens Conversation/Clemens dies ---> Andrews dies ---> Planning lockdown of Alien ----> Fire disaster/ Alien locked down ---> Character development time, learning of company intentions ---> Morse kills, lets loose Alien ---> Argument, known doom, out of ideas ----> Ripley learns of chestburster ----> Ripley Aaron Company Convo 2 ---> Ripley confronts Alien, won't kill her ---> Dillon won't kill her ---> Planning furnace death ---> Maze sequence ---> Company Arrives ----> Dillon dies ---> Alien dies ---> Bishop 2 Conversation ----> Tragedy ---> Suicide
These are more plot events than character arcs. And this is the problem. There is hardly anything going on, other than Ripley being a static object outside of progressing plot events, naimly plans to kill the Alien, so she isn't just a static observer. But, there's hardly any development there. Dragon obviously means demon obviously means Ripley's demons, but this is hardly at all, even attempted at being fleshed out.
Fincher was trying to cover up the fact that it was clear the intended idea wasn't getting across well and everything was jumbled, in part, this was a brutal world. They explored more of the prisoners instead of Ripley, but the prisoners hardly had any characterization, and thankfully removed the bizarre idea of having a servant prisoner to the Alien, whether he being batshit or otherwise influenced by the beast. It was all development hell, and it shows. Fincher nailed down visually, what the Ward script was trying to convey. It is beautiful, tragic, fiery, gothic, hellish, and hopeless. The writing, unfortunately, does not convey its own themes and visuals well. They even had potential monks right there, and they still didn't take advantage of it and nail the Redemption arc they wanted well. It seems like they wanted it, but it hardly shows at all.
And this is probably why Fincher disowned it. He came in, wanting/expecting to do a sequel to Aliens, in the vain of Aliens. This is not what happened. He then came through, and offered advice on actors, his ideas were ignored. He then, did his best to follow the ideas central to what they wanted the film to be, the character arc they thought was beautiful etc. in the Ward drafts, but the writing couldn't carry that well enough. They decided to change to late, and nobody was looking over the writing except for Rex Pickett at one point (everyone hated his revised draft), and they ran out of time and had to keep shooting and writing shooting and writing. What you end up with, is a parody of the plot of the Ward/Fassano drafts, in a beautiful confused mess of a film.
I like Alien 3, but to be honest, it's such a visually arresting film that the visuals themselves can distract from the glaring carcass that was their original intentions.
