Neill Blomkamp: Alien3 & Resurrection "Went Off The Rails"

[Corporal Hicks]

It's a terrible script. I genuinely loath that vision of Alien and am so glad we never got it. It was completely unsuitable. It felt so ungrounded from the "reality" of the Alien world. I'm sure it would have made an interesting film, just not an interesting Alien film.

And I completely agree on your assessment of Twohy and Gibson's second draft being the better ones. I never liked Gibson's first one but the second draft was much more mellowed out and felt more suitable for the Alien series.

[NetworkATTH]

Very debatable.

Ward's was the last of the unmade Alien 3 scripts I read. Given the amount of hype it's been given over the years, I was utterly underwhelmed when I finally read it. The location was cool but completely illogical, and beyond that the story and characters were really weak. Even Ripley wasn't that interesting. Plus it had way too many wtf moments that just made no sense. I was expecting a hell of a lot more.

The film they actually made, even with it's flaws, is far superior. For the most part, it took the best elements from Ward's script and threw out all the rubbish.

Well, interesting you say that because you're wrong about that, well, pretty much everything. It's more than just what's on paper, it's how it adds up.  The third draft I read responds to much of your criticisms anyways. Her desire to survive and nothing else, with her Super-Ego of the beginning of Alien, protocol and taught experience and family life, leaving her Ego in mess. The entire point of that script was to balance out the Id of her, representative of the Alien, in her Ego, represented as the Wooden Orb, and her super-ego she left behind, represented by the monks. Id, is an idea that has been used in the past as interchangeable with sin, it is the instinct personality outside of the conscious trained of Super-Ego, and the middle-man of Ego. Sex, survival, eating, drinking, etc. "I cannot die". That is Id. That is the Alien, that is what Ripley must balance and confront and shrink in order to move on with the rest of her life or be at peace.

These were not ideas fully formed from what we got, Fincher knows this, he wanted to get some of these ideas into the subtext of the film we received, but for the most part they didn't, and he disowned the film because he was in production hell and knew enough to be mad at the final product, Assembly Cut or not. You enjoy Alien 3 for its presentation of the recycled elements of Ward's ideas, thus you appreciate the potential it had without realizing it.

It's a terrible script. I genuinely loath that vision of Alien and am so glad we never got it. It was completely unsuitable. It felt so ungrounded from the "reality" of the Alien world. I'm sure it would have made an interesting film, just not an interesting Alien film.

And I completely agree on your assessment of Twohy and Gibson's second draft being the better ones. I never liked Gibson's first one but the second draft was much more mellowed out and felt more suitable for the Alien series.

Gibson's script was mindless, everyone agreed on that in production, as a matter of fact it's why Renny Harlin left. Then Red came aboard and wrote the disaster we all know about (It did have some horrific visuals). Twohy's script was typically a Twohy script, and there's a reason why we don't hear about him nearly as much as ten years ago when people were asking in passing what Riddick even is.

I would take, an art film, over a mindless shift in the direction of camp, metal hallways, and sets that could easily be built with low lighting and nothing remarkable about them but metal and metal without any colour. They both involve ideas about the military that are just utterly corny and flat without anything you could do with it. Again, the reason Alien 3 works, is because they were smart enough to start collaborating, albeit not by actually collaborating but recycling into a pit of ideas.

[KiramidHead]

Gibson's script was mindless, everyone agreed on that in production, as a matter of fact it's why Renny Harlin left. Then Red came aboard and wrote the disaster we all know about (It did have some horrific visuals). Twohy's script was typically a Twohy script, and there's a reason why we don't hear about him nearly as much as ten years ago when people were asking in passing what Riddick even is.

And Pitch Black and Riddick are better Alien movies than Cubed and Resurrection, so maybe "typically a Twohy script" would have been just fine.

[NetworkATTH]

Gibson's script was mindless, everyone agreed on that in production, as a matter of fact it's why Renny Harlin left. Then Red came aboard and wrote the disaster we all know about (It did have some horrific visuals). Twohy's script was typically a Twohy script, and there's a reason why we don't hear about him nearly as much as ten years ago when people were asking in passing what Riddick even is.

And Pitch Black and Riddick are better Alien movies than Cubed and Resurrection, so maybe "typically a Twohy script" would have been just fine.

Ressurection I could agree with you. Alien 3, it's debatable. The point is that Alien 3 could have been better than it ended up had it not been in production hell.

[HuDaFuK]

Well, interesting you say that because you're wrong about that, well, pretty much everything. It's more than just what's on paper, it's how it adds up.

That's my problem, it didn't add up to anything. It didn't develop or further Ripley in any way. It just throws her into this needlessly abstract scenario that makes absolutely no sense, puts her through the horror of finding an Alien inside her and her imprisonment, only to have the embryo pop into someone else at the end so that Ripley can continue on her merry way. It doesn't further her character at all. It doesn't even really deal with the loss of Hicks and Newt, and certainly not as effectively as Alien 3 did. They're just dead at the start and that's that. The film we got at least managed to accomplish those things effectively.

The only things Ward's screenplay has going for it is a silly wooden moon powered by windmills and some nice religious overtones. Well, the latter is perfectly well represented in the Assembly Cut of Alien 3, while the former was, thankfully, thrown out.

Gibson's script was mindless, everyone agreed on that in production, as a matter of fact it's why Renny Harlin left.

Wrong, Harlin walked out because of Red's script, not Gibson's. And Gibson's second draft was anything but mindless.

I would take, an art film, over a mindless shift in the direction of camp, metal hallways, and sets that could easily be built with low lighting and nothing remarkable about them but metal and metal without any colour.

Since when was "art film" justification for "stupid stuff that makes no sense"? Ward's script was certainly an art film. But it was a crap Alien film.

[NetworkATTH]

Well, interesting you say that because you're wrong about that, well, pretty much everything. It's more than just what's on paper, it's how it adds up.

That's my problem, it didn't add up to anything. It didn't develop or further Ripley in any way. It just throws her into this needlessly abstract scenario that makes absolutely no sense, puts her through the horror of finding an Alien inside her and her imprisonment, only to have the embryo pop into someone else at the end so that Ripley can continue on her merry way. It doesn't further her character at all. It doesn't even really deal with the loss of Hicks and Newt, and certainly not as effectively as Alien 3 did. They're just dead at the start and that's that. The film we got at least managed to accomplish those things effectively.

The only things Ward's screenplay has going for it is a silly wooden moon powered by windmills and some nice religious overtones. Well, the latter is perfectly well represented in the Assembly Cut of Alien 3, while the former was, thankfully, thrown out.

Gibson's script was mindless, everyone agreed on that in production, as a matter of fact it's why Renny Harlin left.

Wrong, Harlin walked out because of Red's script, not Gibson's. And Gibson's second draft was anything but mindless.

I would take, an art film, over a mindless shift in the direction of camp, metal hallways, and sets that could easily be built with low lighting and nothing remarkable about them but metal and metal without any colour.

Since when was "art film" justification for "stupid stuff that makes no sense"? Ward's script was certainly an art film. But it was a crap Alien film.

They could have still adapted most of what made Ward's script good, the good character ideas for Ripley, and placed it in a similar world. Like a metal orb? Just a rusting black piece of shit? You can keep the Super-Ego nature of old and tradition by having this dark, murky, rusty, wet, steaming, almost Industrial Revolution looking interior. Change the monks to a cult, or anything. A cult would be really interesting!  Out there in the middle of space, off the radar, nobody would even know the orb would exist, it might have been towed, but the crew were part of a cult, and gave coordinates off the grid where they wouldn't make the trip home, but began populating a place to stay for good away from civilization. It keeps the basic ideas. They even went with a cult direction with the prisoners by what's seen in some of Giger's rough conceptual art, and it survived into the Golic character.



The point being, the Studio was on everyone's ass, people were under pressure, and so, other people had to hurry up. Anyone with creativity given the material would want to recycle ideas or try and attempt to shift things in an interesting direction with what was possible, this is not the case. They went overboard changing up what worked because elements of it didn't. That was the fault of Giler and Hill. They had potential to even make it work without the empty void of space, on a planet, and they did a pretty decent job of doing it, but it still was not enough to work. Fincher is not happy with this film for a reason.

And you're right, Renny did walk out because of Red, I misremembered. that.

And for the second draft of Gibson, it was smarter, but, the whole Cold War angle was done to death at that point, the Soviet Union was hardly ready to stay much longer by 1987. Had it been filmed, it would have been released, just several years before the Soviet Union disintegrated. Alien has always implied but never outright stated, the politics of the world around it. Forcing a Cold War element, just didn't feel right to me. And the virus subplot as it was in the second draft was shunted (Compared to the first draft [which was a bit too corny]) and it all felt like they were trying to make it work but shrank it. It all really, felt neat, but it wasn't particularly interesting.

[KiramidHead]

Hey, Fury 161 was a rusted orange piece of shit.

And I partly agree about the Cold War angle in Gibson's drafts, but the communist aspects could have easily been written out if they wanted to.

[Alien³]

How is its plot not as thick as Alien or Aliens?

I never implied it wasn't.

Apologies, I must have been thrown off when you said...

It's plot is as thick as it's predecessors.

It's not but that's besides the point,

I thought we were discussing how rich and tick the plots are, comparing Ward's idea to the final product.

[Corporal Hicks]

I must admit I'm somewhat confused about the point Network is trying to make. Can you clarify?

[Alien³]

I don't wanna put words in his mouth but I think he's saying Ward's script had a lot interesting of stuff going for it, something the filmmakers had at their disposal when making Alien 3. And that its a shame only fragments of his story made it through to the final product.

[NetworkATTH]

How is its plot not as thick as Alien or Aliens?

I never implied it wasn't.

Apologies, I must have been thrown off when you said...

It's plot is as thick as it's predecessors.

It's not but that's besides the point,

I thought we were discussing how rich and tick the plots are, comparing Ward's idea to the final product.

It was a mix up. I did actually say, that it didn't have a thick plot the second quote, but I'm just tired. I'm kind of on the fence about how thick its plot is, but I'm of the opinion that the Assembly Cut is capable enough, but the theatrical cut isn't. So the theatrical cut really isn't, as good as its predecessors, while the Assembly Cut is. Thus the mix up.

I must admit I'm somewhat confused about the point Network is trying to make. Can you clarify?

I'm not a native English speaker

But I'll try my best. All I'm saying, is that the Ward script, while pretty Out-There, had many elements, such as the development of Ripley's character, that should not have been changed as much. The logic of the change being, the Ward script had problems, so they recycled the ideas, but removed a lot that worked about the script.

The central idea of Ripley's character is as follows. You can read it from the basic Freud's structural understanding of the psyche. Although it is long out dated, it still is a great way, to analyze characters transformations, and balances within the self. Knowing how Freudian Alien is, it is perfect, that something along these lines, is put in the context of Alien.

The Id, is the basic part of the mind. It controls our urges for sex, water, hunger, sleep, and our impulses, it's our desire to survive. It's the trigger that shoots out when you think "Huh, my mouth is dry, I could use a glass of water." or in other circumstances "There is an Alien organism on board the Nostromo, I gotta get out of here alive at all costs." It is also, interpretable as sin. It's the easiest part of us that is subject for our desires, of all the seven deadly sins. Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Hubris, Wrath, Vanity, and Sloth. The easiest way to understand this, is that it is the part of you that helps you survive, but it's also the part of you that lacks serious impulse control, and so naturally comes into conflict with a Christian society. But most of all, one can see the Alien itself as a giant Id. It is a primitive being that is just, pure, total Id.

The Ego is the middle man, that manages between Super-Ego, and Id.It seeks to please the id's drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bring grief. The ego is the judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory, of what makes you, you! The ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organize our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us. The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.  Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives and reality while satisfying the id and super-ego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these actions are marginal. Consequences, that for Ripley in Alien and Aliens, did not exist, and she gave into pure Id, only the will to survive no matter the cost. A colony nuked from orbit? "You can bill me." Running down corridors with flashing light and fire and an Alien chasing you, with everyone you know killed, can throw things out of balance, into a state of trauma, of Id.

The Super-Ego reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence. It's tradition, religion, faith, you get the idea. The installation of the super-ego can be described as a successful instance of identification with the parental agency. The super-ego works in contradiction to the id. The super-ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner, whereas the id just wants instant self-gratification. The super-ego controls our sense of right and wrong and guilt. It helps us fit into society by getting us to act in socially acceptable ways. Ripley, had to turn off her Super-Ego temporarily and thrive in the fight or flight/rush or die, manner, of Alien and Aliens. These are also the monks who are representative of it.

Bare in mind none of this is actually how human psychology works, this has been mostly proven false. Psychology actually relies more on your own health. But that's another story.

What does this all mean?

It means, from Ward's script, Ripley is exhausted after Aliens. She is floating in space, recovering from the trauma she endured. But the self is out of balance, there is an unbalance of Id within her that has to be corrected, so an inner turmoil must take place, she has to confront her demons, in one last mission.

She crash lands and it just is her. She's pregnant with an Alien (overload of Id). The monks exist as the Super-Ego extreme to the Alien. The Alien represents out of control Id. They see Ripley for what she is, Id, something they totally reject, they humiliate and ban her, because she is foriegn to them just as the Alien. Anthony and John that help her, is the Super-Ego trying to help a solution. The Wooden World itself is the ego Ripley left behind she cannot recognize, it is the protocol she followed in the beginning of Alien, her unwillingness to let Kane in, her suspicion of Ash, it is, installed memory. It's wooden, and old, the monks who live in it, is the Super-Ego of herself she does not recognize, from her old Ego. She, is just a representation of Ripley, self image.

The journey through the planet plays with the nature of this, I think you get my idea, or I hope I'm clearing up some confusion.

I'm just saying, along these lines, these are great ideas. But it's understandable how they got lost in the chaos of Alien 3's production. To a board room executive who doesn't know Id from Ego, Freud sounds like a bunch of unprofitable horse shit. So, Giler and Hill try their best to adapt elements of it, and David Fincher probably tries to fight for ways to bring this forward, met with combat from Giler and Hill and Fox, and everyone else. On top of him being anti-social and really mad, that production isn't going the way he really wanted.

In the end, what's good, from Ward's script, what they were going for, in Ripley's character progression, exists in a way, but it's really not given the same sense of urgency of the development of Ripley's character in relation to her past memories and past life aside from the line "You've been in my life so long I don't remember anything else" which Fox fought Fincher not to include.

In other words, it's a visually stunning film I love in assembly format, but wouldn't it have been great if the visuals reflected what they implied.

[CainsSon]

See I think Ward's intention was to say the Alien growing in her was the manifestation of her guilt, her Superego - kind of creating a vrigin conception - like a distortion of the Nativity.

I also think that script had a LOT of potential to make a better Alien film than it did, but that script was also a bit too out there. They managed to keep some of the ideas in tact but they needed to keep some ideas they did not either.

A big problem I have with ALIEN 3 that I think WAS part of Ward's script and every film in the series ACCEPT Alien 3 - is the instability of the setting of the film.
Meaning that in Aliens and Alien we are confronted with a fragile setting. In Alien 3 they tried to make that so with NO WEAPONS and Dangerous criminals/prisoners but in ALIEN, we have the fear of killing the alien eating away at the ship, and then the self destruction device, and in aliens,the atmospheric processor is going to explode, so there is that race against time to survive. This suspense is largely missing from the Alien 3 film but was part of Ward's script, with the fire burning the placebut ultimately the setting itself, while largely interesting was too fanciful and needed to be set somewhere else.

[HuDaFuK]

This suspense is largely missing from the Alien 3 film but was part of Ward's script, with the fire burning the placebut ultimately the setting itself, while largely interesting was too fanciful and needed to be set somewhere else.

What about the impending arrival of the Weyland-Yutani team?

I agree the suspense of it wasn't particularly effectively put forward in the film, but neither was the destruction of the wooden planet in Ward's script to be honest. It was kinda just happening in the background, right until the end. I never really got a sense of urgency.

[Alien³]

Or the impending arrival of the Queen embryo in Ripley's chest.

[Gash]

I always thought Alien 3 steered it back on to the rails. Not wholly successfully for sure, it all gets a bit unfocused after Clemens and Andrews are dispatched, but it had far more interesting ideas than it's predecessor.  A L I E N  and Alien 3 aren't really popcorn movies, whereas the other two sort of are. Although Resurrection is just too dire and silly to get any pleasure from. Maybe Alien 3 is too bleak to actually enjoy as such, but it's not stupid.  A L I E N  remains the only one that is actually a scary horror movie, and I think it unlikely that Alien 5 will manage to be as terrifying, I just can't see it taking that route.