QuoteThis narrative choice may be a controversial one, but it was a decision I made early on in the project, and I still haven't been able to talk myself out of it.
It's something of an understatement to say there aren't many likeable characters to latch onto in Alien ³. We're not dealing with a crew of relatable space truckers towing cargo, or a rag-tag team of colonial marines. Ripley's peers this time are " thieves, rapists, murders, child molesters. All scum".
The characters we can attach ourselves to are limited to Ripley, Clemens, Dillon, and later Morse and Aaron. Among the supporting characters, the most engaging of them is probably Dillon. While second chances and hope for redemption are good things, and fantastic narrative devices, when Dillon tells Ripley "I'm a murderer and rapist of women", it just obliterates any ability I have to cheer for him in any real way.
He's not a good man, he's has a dark past and has done some terrible things, or he wouldn't be here. But in cutting out that one line, those seven little words, we never really know for sure. In doing so, it just opens me up more to accepting his redemption arc when he sacrifices himself at the end.
The scene really does flow quite perfectly without it, and it's edited seamlessly. Had I not mentioned it here you probably wouldn't even have noticed the cut. Dillon tells Ripley "You don't wanna know me, lady". She is taken aback and asks, "Really?... I guess I must make you nervous." Why wouldn't she? It's a prison colony full of men who haven't seen a woman in years. Many of them are here for raping or murdering women, some of them both. She wonders... what brought Dillon here?
Rousing speeches are great, protecting Ripley is great, but having raped and murdered not even one "woman", but multiple "women", just completely writes Dillon off for me. I can't get past it, and I always really, really want to like Dillon and root for him. The knowing he has something truly awful to make amends for, but never knowing the specifics, just makes him more interesting, engaging, and potentially even sympathetic as a character.
Quote from: Local Trouble on Today at 07:57:43 PMI can't wait to see the egg in 4k.