Topic: William Gibson's Alien 3

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[SM]

It's probably the same deal as Aliens.  They said 'Aliens vs. Hicks vs. space commies.  Go.' and the rest was Gibson.

Not taking any chances with the WGA after Alien.

[Local Trouble]

But not all of the Alien 3 scripts give them story credit.  Nor did Aliens.

[KiramidHead]

I believe Gibson was working off a treatment by Giler and Hill. I'll need to check my copy of Tales from Development Hell when I get home.

[Kailem]

For example, I don't want to see an adult alien soldier attacking the UPP commandos in the beginning.  They should only find the egg growing out of Bishop's entrails.

I'd have to go peak, but didn't that thing have like four arms or something? There was something off about that adult alien.

They were attacked by a face hugger, and the guy that was hugged was blown out the airlock... yet somehow two adult aliens were on board the Sulaco when it docked at Anchorpoint.

But that makes no sense.

Nope. They're just there.

If there's already this much back and forth fan theorising and debating about whether there was one facehugger or two in the beginning of Alien 3 can you imagine how much there would have been about where those two adults came from if that first draft had actually gotten made?

[KiramidHead]

I think the two drafts both have their strengths and weaknesses. The first draft is a tad too insane, while the second is scaled back a bit too much. Hicks and co. are still acting like there's a big alien zombie apocalypse going on, even though there's only one alien that they know about, and they even spend a good chunk of the third act thinking it's dead.

[HuDaFuK]

But that makes no sense.

Nope

It's weird, Gibson was basically the only writer who attempted to explain how there can believably be Aliens on the Sulaco after the second film - by having some goo the Queen stuck in Bishop when she impaled him develop into an egg... and then he went and stuck in a couple of magic adults for the lulz.

He fixed it in his second draft by just having the egg, but still. Amazing how he, Red and Ward - and then the shooting script - all had Aliens running amuck on the Sulaco without any explanation.

I just now noticed that Giler and Hill are given the story credit in those scripts, even though the screenplays were written by Gibson.

As Kiramid says, I believe Gibson worked from a loose framework given to him by the producers.

[Whiskeybrewer]

Yeah from what Ive read Giler (#F**kGiler) and Hill gave Gibson a small treatment and were hoping he'd give them a sprawling script from which they could just take stuff out and make their version. But he gave them a proper script and story so they were stuck

and then the hell began because Giler's a prick lol

[OpenMaw]

It's weird, Gibson was basically the only writer who attempted to explain how there can believably be Aliens on the Sulaco after the second film - by having some goo the Queen stuck in Bishop when she impaled him develop into an egg... and then he went and stuck in a couple of magic adults for the lulz.

It's particularly jarring when you look at the way Cameron basically went out of his way to line his movie up with Ridley's.

[Kailem]

I think the two drafts both have their strengths and weaknesses. The first draft is a tad too insane, while the second is scaled back a bit too much. Hicks and co. are still acting like there's a big alien zombie apocalypse going on, even though there's only one alien that they know about, and they even spend a good chunk of the third act thinking it's dead.

Having now read the second draft I'd agree with that. In the first it makes sense why they go to Defcon 1 so quickly once shit hits the fan whereas in the second draft it feels a bit too much like they're still reacting to those original events rather than the revised version. Had it gotten to a third draft things might have evened out a bit more.

I do like the scale of the first draft compared to the second, certainly in terms of the Anchorpoint station itself. In the first one it houses hundreds of people and has big malls and social spaces and stuff, whereas in the second it seems like the only people on board are the ones we meet in the story. Hopefully it's the first draft that's being adapted here if only for the scale and the insanity, since as you say, the second one is definitely a lot more toned-down. I still don't really like the idea behind the "New Beast", but as a crazy "what if?" comic I say go nuts.

[426Buddy]

After Aliens I think there was a good opportunity to do a story about humanity stumbling upon another remnant of the space jockey's civilization. Ripley could have been brought in or left out. Have Hicks working with the uscm to quarantine the situation before companies like WY try get there hands on specimens or Jockey tech.

That probably sounds crappy but i would have prefered a direction like that after Aliens. Explore  more of the jockeys civilation as designed by Giger. Leave them mysterious and wiped out.

As much as I enjoy the prequels, its not the direction i would have gone with the back story to the original space jockey from Alien.

[OpenMaw]

Interestingly enough I think Metroid, in it's original trilogy, handled the Chozo the way I would have handled the Jockey. The only remnants left of the Chozo were the Metroids and their Biomechanoid guardians the Torizo.

[Local Trouble]

Yeah, I don't think I really ever wanted to see a live Space Jockey, especially after we got one in the comics.  A depiction of the bizarre ruins of their ancient and unfathomably advanced civilization would have been far more preferable to me.

[happypred]

The comics had these angry Hulk smash Engineers

[OpenMaw]

Just imagine something along the lines of a Jockey-Guardian. Some kind of a semi-sentient biomechanoid robot that get's turned like a security system. So the humans are dealing with an alien, but also this thing that's on the look out for alien and human alike.

[Local Trouble]

This thread has me thinking that SM made some phone calls.

Dark Horse could make a nice little series out of adapting all the unused scripts for Alien 3.

I'd say get tweeting them but I never see them respond to anything. 

Don't you have some influence?  Maybe SM could make some calls.