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After her escape from planet LV-426 in the movie Aliens, an escape pod carrying Ellen Ripley crashes onto a remote prison inhabited by killers and other scum. While trapped in the ore refinery, Ripley discovers the horrifying reason for her an alien stowaway. As the alien matures and begins to kill off the inhabitants, Ripley becomes unaware that her true enemy is more than just the killer alien...
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1992
77 people are currently reading
1978 people want to read
About the author
Alan Dean Foster
498 books2,034 followersBestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.
Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.
Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.
Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.
Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 190 reviews
September 26, 2021
This is my least favorite of Foster's Alien novelizations, which makes sense since it was my least favorite of the films. It's shorter than the first two, and Foster didn't seem to add much to the story, just transcribing the script into adapted prose. (Which he did most competently, I should add.) The screenplay was written more or less by a disparate committee, whereas the first two had more singular, focused visions. (One of these days I may get around to reading the William Gibson version for comparison.) It's interesting that the swearing is back in this book, and is much more noticeable than the omissions in Aliens, so maybe he was being very closely edited. Recommended for Alien or Foster completists, but this one doesn't really add much for the casual watcher.
August 10, 2018
This one didn't grab me like the Covenant novelization.
While the narrator himself did a great job, the story seemed lacking to me. I honestly didn't remember much from the movie, so going into this was basically a blank slate. I guess I see now why the film was so forgettable to me. Ignoring how I feel about the franchise as a whole (I love it), I didn't care much for this one.
While the narrator himself did a great job, the story seemed lacking to me. I honestly didn't remember much from the movie, so going into this was basically a blank slate. I guess I see now why the film was so forgettable to me. Ignoring how I feel about the franchise as a whole (I love it), I didn't care much for this one.
December 4, 2019
3.4/5
The notorious Alien 3 is often the recipient for a whole lotta hate in the Alien fandom. In some sense, I guess I can't blame the majority of fans for their reasoning behind it, but I don't quite agree with it. The deaths of fan-favourite characters right smack-dab at the start of this third movie (and book) feels fitting for a bleak franchise like this.
That's not to say I don't have my problems with Alien 3 as a whole. It's a mess. The only way for all of this to have worked the way it did is if the Xenomorph queen laid at least three eggs on Ripley's transport during her escape from Acheron, and it doesn't seem entirely likely that the facehuggers would've waited as long as they did during the auto-escape mechanisms and after the EEV crashed on Fury.
There are lots of problems like that in Alien 3, and not even Foster could fix them all in his novelization. I think by this point he was getting tired of writing for this franchise, because while the skill is still there, this one feels more rushed somehow. Also, the profanity is back in spades, which makes me wonder even more why the Aliens novelization's dialogue was a hundred times more kid-friendly than its cinematic counterpart.
Personally, though, I actually like Alien 3. I think it's underrated, especially considering the piece of shit that followed after it, Resurrection, which I won't be reading anytime soon. My reasons are simple: this is still Ripley, and her character still has strength even as she's continuously broken down by the relentlessly grim circumstances of her situation. Although the alien itself is not very compelling anymore, the methods of dealing with it are more hopelessly sparse than even the original, with no weapons or flamethrowers, not even projectile-firing tools of any kind--just old-fashioned torches and the environment itself. The prisoners and Fury itself are also interesting, a stark contrast to anything we've seen before. Despite its flaws, Alien 3 at least tried something different and, for the most part, succeeded--which is more than I can say for that dreaded fourth installment...
Overall... decent read. Time to read something that doesn't involve Aliens or Predators now, lol.
The notorious Alien 3 is often the recipient for a whole lotta hate in the Alien fandom. In some sense, I guess I can't blame the majority of fans for their reasoning behind it, but I don't quite agree with it. The deaths of fan-favourite characters right smack-dab at the start of this third movie (and book) feels fitting for a bleak franchise like this.
That's not to say I don't have my problems with Alien 3 as a whole. It's a mess. The only way for all of this to have worked the way it did is if the Xenomorph queen laid at least three eggs on Ripley's transport during her escape from Acheron, and it doesn't seem entirely likely that the facehuggers would've waited as long as they did during the auto-escape mechanisms and after the EEV crashed on Fury.
There are lots of problems like that in Alien 3, and not even Foster could fix them all in his novelization. I think by this point he was getting tired of writing for this franchise, because while the skill is still there, this one feels more rushed somehow. Also, the profanity is back in spades, which makes me wonder even more why the Aliens novelization's dialogue was a hundred times more kid-friendly than its cinematic counterpart.
Personally, though, I actually like Alien 3. I think it's underrated, especially considering the piece of shit that followed after it, Resurrection, which I won't be reading anytime soon. My reasons are simple: this is still Ripley, and her character still has strength even as she's continuously broken down by the relentlessly grim circumstances of her situation. Although the alien itself is not very compelling anymore, the methods of dealing with it are more hopelessly sparse than even the original, with no weapons or flamethrowers, not even projectile-firing tools of any kind--just old-fashioned torches and the environment itself. The prisoners and Fury itself are also interesting, a stark contrast to anything we've seen before. Despite its flaws, Alien 3 at least tried something different and, for the most part, succeeded--which is more than I can say for that dreaded fourth installment...
Overall... decent read. Time to read something that doesn't involve Aliens or Predators now, lol.
March 23, 2021
Another excellently written adaptation from Alan Dean Foster, this time of one of the more underrated entries into the Alien franchise.
I should start this review by saying that I personally like Alien 3 (especially the Assembly Cut, which this novelisation reflects far more).
Once again, we follow Ellen Ripley, last human survivor of the USCSS Nostromo, and now also the last survivor of the mission to Acheron, as she crashes down on prison planet Fury-161, and once again is forced to face the titular Alien (also known as Xenomorph XX-121).
This is a very faithful retelling of the Assembly Cut of Alien 3, giving fairly in-depth looks at the minds of the residents of Fiorina, and remaining tense all the way through. Scenes are well-described whilst also moving quickly; the pacing is great throughout, and even the more despicable prisoners were portrayed as somewhat sympathetic.
It also didn't try to set itself apart too much. Foster did seem to attempt to further explain elements of the Alien's biology, but he did this only to a limited extent, and in a manner that left the truth of the theories open to interpretation.
I have seen people say that Foster tried to fill in plot holes, but other than one example that I will mention in a moment, these filled in plot holes all seem to be present in the Assembly Cut. This means that the plot holes are less prevalent in what was actually filmed, and unfortunately the theatrical cut created holes where there weren't any beforehand.
The one plot hole that Foster did, definitely, attempt to fill himself, though, occurs at the beginning of the novel, and just doesn't work for me. He attempts to explain what happened regarding the Facehugger at the beginning, and what happened aboard the Sulaco, but in so doing - in my opinion - created more.
Overall, though, this was a fantastic novelisation of an already good film, and once again I would highly recommend it.
I want to close out this review with an explanation of my own as to what happened on the Sulaco, so feel free to end your reading of my review here.
Towards the end of Aliens, the Queen got aboard the Sulaco, and at some point she found time to lay an egg (or at least produce the "seed" of an egg), which she planted somewhere out of sight (we are not shown specifically where on the ship the egg was). This egg contained one Facehugger, but it was a special kind: a Royal Facehugger. This breed carries the materials for two Xenomorph embryos: one Queen, and one Drone-Warrior.
During transit, the egg detected viable life and hatched, having reached maturity (I doubt they are immediately ready to open as soon as they are laid). It crawled into the hypersleep chamber, and found Hicks was too damaged to be viable. It attempted to enter Newt's chamber, and cracked the glass to get in. This glass damaged it, but not enough to kill it as suggested in this novelisation. However, the glass also injured Newt, or perhaps the breach in the hypersleep chamber caused some kind of respiratory damage to her, which then made her non-viable.
The Facehugger, then, had only one host left. By this point, the acid was burning through the deck, leading to the EEV launch. Before they were jettisoned, the Facehugger attached to Ripley's pod, perhaps managing to break in and attach to Ripley before the breach could cause any damage - with Ripley being older and fully developed, she may have been less likely to be affected by the breach.
When the EEV crashed down to Fiorina, the Facehugger was still attached, which saved Ripley from drowning. She was washed up to shore, floating out of her ruptured hypersleep tube, and before she was found by Clemens the Facehugger detached and scuttled off in search of a new host (or, alternatively, it had detached as Ripley floated out of the EEV, and therefore was stuck in the crashed craft).
When new hosts appeared, it ended up attaching to one of the oxen (or the dog, if you prefer that storyline), and the rest is history. If the ox was infected before they were used to drag the EEV out of the water, that might explain why none of the prisoners saw it with the Facehugger on its face, though that does still leave a slight plot hole as to how the dead Facehugger ended up on the trolley in the abattoir...unless the ox had vomited it out...
It's also still a bit of a push re: the Queen placing the egg somewhere on the Sulaco, but I feel like this somewhat fills in the gaps, and it is my personal, if slightly incomplete, headcanon explanation for the events at the beginning of Alien 3.
I should start this review by saying that I personally like Alien 3 (especially the Assembly Cut, which this novelisation reflects far more).
Once again, we follow Ellen Ripley, last human survivor of the USCSS Nostromo, and now also the last survivor of the mission to Acheron, as she crashes down on prison planet Fury-161, and once again is forced to face the titular Alien (also known as Xenomorph XX-121).
This is a very faithful retelling of the Assembly Cut of Alien 3, giving fairly in-depth looks at the minds of the residents of Fiorina, and remaining tense all the way through. Scenes are well-described whilst also moving quickly; the pacing is great throughout, and even the more despicable prisoners were portrayed as somewhat sympathetic.
It also didn't try to set itself apart too much. Foster did seem to attempt to further explain elements of the Alien's biology, but he did this only to a limited extent, and in a manner that left the truth of the theories open to interpretation.
I have seen people say that Foster tried to fill in plot holes, but other than one example that I will mention in a moment, these filled in plot holes all seem to be present in the Assembly Cut. This means that the plot holes are less prevalent in what was actually filmed, and unfortunately the theatrical cut created holes where there weren't any beforehand.
The one plot hole that Foster did, definitely, attempt to fill himself, though, occurs at the beginning of the novel, and just doesn't work for me. He attempts to explain what happened regarding the Facehugger at the beginning, and what happened aboard the Sulaco, but in so doing - in my opinion - created more.
Overall, though, this was a fantastic novelisation of an already good film, and once again I would highly recommend it.
I want to close out this review with an explanation of my own as to what happened on the Sulaco, so feel free to end your reading of my review here.
Towards the end of Aliens, the Queen got aboard the Sulaco, and at some point she found time to lay an egg (or at least produce the "seed" of an egg), which she planted somewhere out of sight (we are not shown specifically where on the ship the egg was). This egg contained one Facehugger, but it was a special kind: a Royal Facehugger. This breed carries the materials for two Xenomorph embryos: one Queen, and one Drone-Warrior.
During transit, the egg detected viable life and hatched, having reached maturity (I doubt they are immediately ready to open as soon as they are laid). It crawled into the hypersleep chamber, and found Hicks was too damaged to be viable. It attempted to enter Newt's chamber, and cracked the glass to get in. This glass damaged it, but not enough to kill it as suggested in this novelisation. However, the glass also injured Newt, or perhaps the breach in the hypersleep chamber caused some kind of respiratory damage to her, which then made her non-viable.
The Facehugger, then, had only one host left. By this point, the acid was burning through the deck, leading to the EEV launch. Before they were jettisoned, the Facehugger attached to Ripley's pod, perhaps managing to break in and attach to Ripley before the breach could cause any damage - with Ripley being older and fully developed, she may have been less likely to be affected by the breach.
When the EEV crashed down to Fiorina, the Facehugger was still attached, which saved Ripley from drowning. She was washed up to shore, floating out of her ruptured hypersleep tube, and before she was found by Clemens the Facehugger detached and scuttled off in search of a new host (or, alternatively, it had detached as Ripley floated out of the EEV, and therefore was stuck in the crashed craft).
When new hosts appeared, it ended up attaching to one of the oxen (or the dog, if you prefer that storyline), and the rest is history. If the ox was infected before they were used to drag the EEV out of the water, that might explain why none of the prisoners saw it with the Facehugger on its face, though that does still leave a slight plot hole as to how the dead Facehugger ended up on the trolley in the abattoir...unless the ox had vomited it out...
It's also still a bit of a push re: the Queen placing the egg somewhere on the Sulaco, but I feel like this somewhat fills in the gaps, and it is my personal, if slightly incomplete, headcanon explanation for the events at the beginning of Alien 3.
July 31, 2021
Obcy 3 podobał mi się najbardziej ze wszystkich części. Oby ta historia się jeszcze nie skończyła, czekam na kolejne tomy
July 22, 2024
Always been a big fan of the original movie. In fact, while reading this book, I watched it again for the first time in years, and enjoyed it more than ever. And ohhh, that Jerry Goldsmith score ...
Aliens was a decent, typically James Camerony sequel - probably a bit overrated in my opinion. Hell, I even like the generally detested Alien: Resurrection or "Aien 4". I didn't hate Prometheus, and I saw one of the Alien vs. Predator films way back in high school, of which I recall basically nothing. I would have recalled hating it.
The third movie is a bit of an anomaly. My dad, who got me into the movies during my childhood, always told me the third one was terrible. And, not fully taking his word for it, I once tried to watch it and gave up. But that was a long time ago, and honestly, given it was one of David Fincher's earlier movies, and that conceptually it is based on a pretty cool idea, I wouldn't mind giving it another chance.
To cut a long story short, I went into this novelisation with next-to-no experience with the film, therefore it is hard for me to compare it with that. As a novel, by its own merits, I think this was pretty good. It certainly did most of what it needed to do. Some years back, I read Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of The Force Awakens and hated it, just like the movie itself. He brought nothing interesting to what was already an uninspired story.
Here, in this earlier book, he has done a much better job. Curiously, the first half of the book is really excellent, well-written, well-paced, and genuinely creepy. However, by the time shit predictably hits the fan and expendable, indistinguishable prisoners are picked off left, right and centre, atmosphere takes a bit of a nosedive, and the alien ceases to be all that scary. It just becomes a gruesome tool for the plot to stumble past the bloody finish line, urging you onward to the predictable ending.
If you are only interested in gory death scenes, this book does dispense with them quite liberally. If, however, you want to rekindle with the brilliant character of Lieutenant Ripley, I regret to say she is severely reduced here to a female meathead. She just cracks grim one-liners, sulks and breaks things. She even has sex with a random guy she's just met. All the other characters are no better. Andrews is a boring caricature of an asshole who refuses to take heed from Ripley's warnings. You just know he isn't going to make it to the end of the book with his vital organs safely contained inside his body. Everyone else is just one-dimensional, walking alien fodder.
Nevertheless, the pace moves along smoothly. The writing, especially during the earlier section, is very good and appropriate to the context and atmosphere. And there are indeed some surprisingly decent scares, which is something I rarely say about books in this genre.
Aliens was a decent, typically James Camerony sequel - probably a bit overrated in my opinion. Hell, I even like the generally detested Alien: Resurrection or "Aien 4". I didn't hate Prometheus, and I saw one of the Alien vs. Predator films way back in high school, of which I recall basically nothing. I would have recalled hating it.
The third movie is a bit of an anomaly. My dad, who got me into the movies during my childhood, always told me the third one was terrible. And, not fully taking his word for it, I once tried to watch it and gave up. But that was a long time ago, and honestly, given it was one of David Fincher's earlier movies, and that conceptually it is based on a pretty cool idea, I wouldn't mind giving it another chance.
To cut a long story short, I went into this novelisation with next-to-no experience with the film, therefore it is hard for me to compare it with that. As a novel, by its own merits, I think this was pretty good. It certainly did most of what it needed to do. Some years back, I read Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of The Force Awakens and hated it, just like the movie itself. He brought nothing interesting to what was already an uninspired story.
Here, in this earlier book, he has done a much better job. Curiously, the first half of the book is really excellent, well-written, well-paced, and genuinely creepy. However, by the time shit predictably hits the fan and expendable, indistinguishable prisoners are picked off left, right and centre, atmosphere takes a bit of a nosedive, and the alien ceases to be all that scary. It just becomes a gruesome tool for the plot to stumble past the bloody finish line, urging you onward to the predictable ending.
If you are only interested in gory death scenes, this book does dispense with them quite liberally. If, however, you want to rekindle with the brilliant character of Lieutenant Ripley, I regret to say she is severely reduced here to a female meathead. She just cracks grim one-liners, sulks and breaks things. She even has sex with a random guy she's just met. All the other characters are no better. Andrews is a boring caricature of an asshole who refuses to take heed from Ripley's warnings. You just know he isn't going to make it to the end of the book with his vital organs safely contained inside his body. Everyone else is just one-dimensional, walking alien fodder.
Nevertheless, the pace moves along smoothly. The writing, especially during the earlier section, is very good and appropriate to the context and atmosphere. And there are indeed some surprisingly decent scares, which is something I rarely say about books in this genre.
September 27, 2017
This is a solid novelisation of the Alien 3 screenplay.
It does expand on the surrounding circumstances that arose on the Sulaco which ultimately led to the crash landing. The birth of the alien was via the impregnation of an ox that was used to recover the wreckage. The longer gestation of the queen and more detail explanation of the aliens procreation.
The weakness of the novel (and to be fair, the movie as well) is that there is no real emotional attachment to the secondary characters. So their death scenes were not tragic. In fact, for dramatic effect, on a few occasions I was routing for the alien.
Nonetheless, a solid quick read that won't disappoint fans, unlike the later Alien movies.
It does expand on the surrounding circumstances that arose on the Sulaco which ultimately led to the crash landing. The birth of the alien was via the impregnation of an ox that was used to recover the wreckage. The longer gestation of the queen and more detail explanation of the aliens procreation.
The weakness of the novel (and to be fair, the movie as well) is that there is no real emotional attachment to the secondary characters. So their death scenes were not tragic. In fact, for dramatic effect, on a few occasions I was routing for the alien.
Nonetheless, a solid quick read that won't disappoint fans, unlike the later Alien movies.
January 31, 2023
Trochę rozczarował mnie opis zakończenia.
July 16, 2022
Da-yam! This was stress-fuelled!
Elements: prison planet, rapists and child molesters, and yet Ripley, my fav girl still comes out on top! Until she's ... she's, well, I won't just in case you didn't read it yet.
Be prepared to be sick to your stomach. (Maybe don't eat lunch as I do while listening to audible lololol)
I'll move onto Alien Resurrection book 4 now in the series here on GoodReads, but named book 6 on the audible listing. Still confused but somehow it's working.
Short review upcoming tomorrow most probably.
Elements: prison planet, rapists and child molesters, and yet Ripley, my fav girl still comes out on top! Until she's ... she's, well, I won't just in case you didn't read it yet.
Be prepared to be sick to your stomach. (Maybe don't eat lunch as I do while listening to audible lololol)
I'll move onto Alien Resurrection book 4 now in the series here on GoodReads, but named book 6 on the audible listing. Still confused but somehow it's working.
Short review upcoming tomorrow most probably.
December 6, 2022
Reading this was more spine curdling, horror raising than watching the movie -- I could see the alien creeping, and being a spidery dragon like snake with its acid spit.
I would have given this 5 stars if there was more a lot more background than the movie - regardless as I was gripped.
This is the third novel(isation) in this series, and though out of order there was enough here in the setup for it not to matter.
Ellen Ripley survives the last ordeal only to find herself in hell again – this time hell is an isolated planet now housing male prisoners who have committed horrendous crimes. These are hardened cynical men, living away from society and the sight of women – until Ripley’s pod comes crashing on their planet.
What I love about this series is the story layers (built subtly) with multiple conflicts that question morals and ethics, the biggest one is the ugly face of science as a business. Here it’s known as the Company – but it’s a company that wants the alien for itself to produce a killer weapon whilst underestimating the alien’s primal instincts to survive – at any cost.
What I love about this novel is without trying, it asks who is the real villain here? Is it the prisoners, the Company or the Alien? But like so many things, it is not a simple one to answer.
I would have given this 5 stars if there was more a lot more background than the movie - regardless as I was gripped.
This is the third novel(isation) in this series, and though out of order there was enough here in the setup for it not to matter.
Ellen Ripley survives the last ordeal only to find herself in hell again – this time hell is an isolated planet now housing male prisoners who have committed horrendous crimes. These are hardened cynical men, living away from society and the sight of women – until Ripley’s pod comes crashing on their planet.
What I love about this series is the story layers (built subtly) with multiple conflicts that question morals and ethics, the biggest one is the ugly face of science as a business. Here it’s known as the Company – but it’s a company that wants the alien for itself to produce a killer weapon whilst underestimating the alien’s primal instincts to survive – at any cost.
What I love about this novel is without trying, it asks who is the real villain here? Is it the prisoners, the Company or the Alien? But like so many things, it is not a simple one to answer.
February 27, 2011
Alien 3 (Film Novelization) / 0-446-36216-6
I had the highest hopes for this "Alien 3" novel because I always felt that certain parts of the movie were confusing, and I hoped that this novel would clear up those points. In this respect, the book shines brightly - carefully explaining how the facehugger in the Sulaco caused the acid burn on Newt's cryo chamber, and why the electrical fire started and forced the chambers into the escape pod, an opening sequence that always left me a bit bewildered. The birth of the alien warrior is also explained more carefully than I felt it was in the movie - one of the worker animals used to recover the pod wreckage (in this case an ox, not a dog) was impregnated and the apparently lifeless corpse was dragged back to the prison's abattoir, where the alien was born in relative privacy. It is also carefully explained why Ripley didn't initially believe she was infected, how she knows the alien she is carrying is a queen when she does discover it, and why the queen doesn't emerge as quickly as the warriors do - little details that always bugged me when I'd watch the movie.
As far as overall quality, however, I have to say that the source movie is better, particularly in the area of character development. In the book, Ripley displays an unusual combination of squeamishness and vanity, refusing to shave her head until the lice problem becomes painfully manifest. That seems incredibly out of character for Ripley at this point in her life, and I'm grateful that the movie didn't belabor that point. Clemens, too, displays a strange oscillation of character, bouncing from impossibly patient and good-natured to rather pouty and belligerent for no apparent reason, and I preferred the unruffled, even calmness of the actor in the movie, which seems better suited to the situation. It's also not clear whether Clemens is still serving his sentence as a prisoner (Andrews claims he is, and the book reinforces this idea several times), or whether he is a free man who has chosen to stay on as the medical staff (as Clemens himself claims). The movie doesn't present this ambiguity and it feels less like a deliberate moral question on the status of Clemens and more like an accidental mistake in the script.
For good or ill, the Ripley in the novel takes great pains to confirm that the company does in fact want the alien alive, a point that is deliberately left vague in the movie until the final point of no return. In some ways this is good because it underscores that Ripley is an intelligent survivor who isn't the type to throw her life away based on mere hunches, but in other ways this change is bad because it strips away the anxiety that Ripley might be wrong, might be wasting her life in her final gesture. That Ripley might be wrong does not necessarily paint her as reckless so much as a woman driven by her conviction - she is willing to sacrifice her life for the certainty that the aliens are destroyed, rather than save her life and merely hope that the company will do the right thing. Of course, the movie cops out with Bishops final plea, showing us that Ripley has been right all along, but the book strips out even the possibility that Ripley might have doubts, and I'm not certain that addition is a good one.
I definitely recommend reading this novel if you are a fan of the series, particularly if you've read Foster's novelizations of the first two movies. Just be aware that there are some flaws here, but the explanation of some of the more mysterious parts of the movie make the read well worth it.
~ Ana Mardoll
I had the highest hopes for this "Alien 3" novel because I always felt that certain parts of the movie were confusing, and I hoped that this novel would clear up those points. In this respect, the book shines brightly - carefully explaining how the facehugger in the Sulaco caused the acid burn on Newt's cryo chamber, and why the electrical fire started and forced the chambers into the escape pod, an opening sequence that always left me a bit bewildered. The birth of the alien warrior is also explained more carefully than I felt it was in the movie - one of the worker animals used to recover the pod wreckage (in this case an ox, not a dog) was impregnated and the apparently lifeless corpse was dragged back to the prison's abattoir, where the alien was born in relative privacy. It is also carefully explained why Ripley didn't initially believe she was infected, how she knows the alien she is carrying is a queen when she does discover it, and why the queen doesn't emerge as quickly as the warriors do - little details that always bugged me when I'd watch the movie.
As far as overall quality, however, I have to say that the source movie is better, particularly in the area of character development. In the book, Ripley displays an unusual combination of squeamishness and vanity, refusing to shave her head until the lice problem becomes painfully manifest. That seems incredibly out of character for Ripley at this point in her life, and I'm grateful that the movie didn't belabor that point. Clemens, too, displays a strange oscillation of character, bouncing from impossibly patient and good-natured to rather pouty and belligerent for no apparent reason, and I preferred the unruffled, even calmness of the actor in the movie, which seems better suited to the situation. It's also not clear whether Clemens is still serving his sentence as a prisoner (Andrews claims he is, and the book reinforces this idea several times), or whether he is a free man who has chosen to stay on as the medical staff (as Clemens himself claims). The movie doesn't present this ambiguity and it feels less like a deliberate moral question on the status of Clemens and more like an accidental mistake in the script.
For good or ill, the Ripley in the novel takes great pains to confirm that the company does in fact want the alien alive, a point that is deliberately left vague in the movie until the final point of no return. In some ways this is good because it underscores that Ripley is an intelligent survivor who isn't the type to throw her life away based on mere hunches, but in other ways this change is bad because it strips away the anxiety that Ripley might be wrong, might be wasting her life in her final gesture. That Ripley might be wrong does not necessarily paint her as reckless so much as a woman driven by her conviction - she is willing to sacrifice her life for the certainty that the aliens are destroyed, rather than save her life and merely hope that the company will do the right thing. Of course, the movie cops out with Bishops final plea, showing us that Ripley has been right all along, but the book strips out even the possibility that Ripley might have doubts, and I'm not certain that addition is a good one.
I definitely recommend reading this novel if you are a fan of the series, particularly if you've read Foster's novelizations of the first two movies. Just be aware that there are some flaws here, but the explanation of some of the more mysterious parts of the movie make the read well worth it.
~ Ana Mardoll
February 14, 2022
Whereas the other novelizations of these movies were essentially spot on, there was quite a bit of exposition, inner monologuing, and backstory information that was not present in the movie...which I now can't help but see as "Alien Cubed"...
Interestingly, I never noticed it when watching the movies, but in reading the books, "Alien," "Aliens," and "Alien 3" back to back like I did, "Alien 3" is almost like, what we would today call, a "soft reboot"...the story line is very much like "Alien." Instead of a refinery, it's an abandoned mine. It's a small group of individuals, improperly equipped to deal with a single rampaging beast. The Company is the looming bad guy...
I hate, hate, hate what happened to Newt and Hicks. Especially after everything that happened to Newt in "Aliens," she needed something better than this. This is my least favorite of the "Alien" movies, and probably my least favorite novel.
Interestingly, I never noticed it when watching the movies, but in reading the books, "Alien," "Aliens," and "Alien 3" back to back like I did, "Alien 3" is almost like, what we would today call, a "soft reboot"...the story line is very much like "Alien." Instead of a refinery, it's an abandoned mine. It's a small group of individuals, improperly equipped to deal with a single rampaging beast. The Company is the looming bad guy...
I hate, hate, hate what happened to Newt and Hicks. Especially after everything that happened to Newt in "Aliens," she needed something better than this. This is my least favorite of the "Alien" movies, and probably my least favorite novel.
May 4, 2016
Alien 3: the novelization is based on the script that was used for the special edition of the film found on both the quadrilogy and the anthology (BD) set that was released later on. But to put it simply this is a good novel version of the film and deals with the class-C prison known as Fury 161 but the book mostly refers to it as Fury 361 and the arrival of both Ripley and a xenomorpth that terrorizes the prison and later Ripley finding out that she has a queen in her chest waiting to come out and start the nightmare a new. Alien fans would like this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2016
Alan Dean Foster is one of my top 5 favorite writers. He does an excellent job of adapting the screen play into a great SiFi story. The tons of little details he adds really make you feel like you are getting the backstory on things. Very recommended
February 14, 2012
Alan Dean Foster continues to deliver the good on the Alien series with the 3rd instalment Alien 3 (not the most original title). This is a much better read and I recommend it to anyone who found the movie to be somewhat lacking. Again it has additional content that was not seen in the movie until the extended addition was released in 2006. It is much more gripping read than watching the movie and provides a much stronger sense of who the characters are. I don't recommend reading this without having read the previous novels as there is too much back-history to brush over and could leave the reader asking WTF?!?! There are some ironic twists and strong turns in the story and Foster executes them perfectly in a setting that is new to the series.
Not as scary as Alien, not as action-packed as Aliens but just as thought provoking and entertaining as both. Some readers can pass on this but if you are a fan, then I think you will enjoy the novel.
Plot ***Spoilers***
Following the events in Aliens, the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop who are all in cryonic stasis. During the launch, the ship's medical scans of the crew's cryotubes show an Alien facehugger attached to one of the crewmembers. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns and histories of physical and sexual violence. After some inmates recover the pod and its passengers, an Alien facehugger is seen approaching the prison dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens, the prison doctor, and is told she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian version of Christianity, and Ripley is warned by the prison warden, Harold Andrews, that her presence among them may have extremely disruptive effects.
Suspicious of what caused the escape pod to jettison and what killed her companions, Ripley requests that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt. She fears that Newt may be carrying an Alien embryo in her body, though she does not share this information. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant, Aaron, the autopsy is conducted. No embryo is found in Newt's body, and Clemens proclaims she simply died in the crash. Meanwhile, Ripley's unusual behavior begins to frustrate the warden and is agitating the prisoners.
A funeral is performed for Newt and Hicks, in which their bodies are cremated in the facility's enormous furnace. In another section of the facility, the prison dog enters convulsions, and an Alien bursts from its body. The Alien soon begins to attack members of the colony, killing several and returning an outcast prisoner Golic to his former deranged state. To get answers, Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged android Bishop, who confirms that there was an Alien on the Sulaco and it came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. She then informs Andrews of her previous encounters with the Aliens and suggests everyone work together to hunt it down and kill it. Andrews does not believe her story and explains that the facility has no weapons. Their only hope of protection is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
Back in the prison infirmary, while talking to Ripley about the situation, Clemens is killed by the Alien, but when it is about to attack Ripley, it suddenly pauses, then retreats, mysteriously sparing her life. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to see the Alien kill the warden. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. An explosion is caused by the creature's premature intervention, resulting in several deaths. Using the medical equipment aboard the Sulaco escape pod, Ripley scans herself and discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her. She also finds out that the Corporation truly wants the Queen embryo and the adult Alien, hoping to turn them into biological weapons. Deducing that the mature alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon, the religious leader of the inmates, to kill her, who agrees to do so only if she helps the inmates kill the adult creature first. They form a plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead by trapping it by closing a series of doors. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners, except Morse, who pours the lead. The Alien, covered in molten metal, escapes the mold and is killed by Ripley when she turns on fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock.
While Ripley battles the Alien, the Weyland-Yutani team arrives, including a man named Michael Bishop who looks identical to the Bishop android, claiming to be its creator. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the Queen embryo, which he claims will be destroyed. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The company men shoot Morse in the leg, and Aaron picks up a large wrench and strikes Bishop over the head with it. Aaron is shot dead, and Bishop and his men show their true intentions, begging Ripley to let them have the "magnificent specimen". Ripley defies them by throwing herself into the gigantic furnace, just as the alien Queen begins to erupt from her chest. As she dies from the wound, Ripley grabs the creature, holding on to it as she falls into the fire.
The novel concludes with a sequence describing the facility being closed down, the last surviving inmate, Morse, being led away, and of the Sulaco escape pod as the sound recording of Ripley's final lines from the original Alien film is heard.
Not as scary as Alien, not as action-packed as Aliens but just as thought provoking and entertaining as both. Some readers can pass on this but if you are a fan, then I think you will enjoy the novel.
Plot ***Spoilers***
Following the events in Aliens, the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop who are all in cryonic stasis. During the launch, the ship's medical scans of the crew's cryotubes show an Alien facehugger attached to one of the crewmembers. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns and histories of physical and sexual violence. After some inmates recover the pod and its passengers, an Alien facehugger is seen approaching the prison dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens, the prison doctor, and is told she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian version of Christianity, and Ripley is warned by the prison warden, Harold Andrews, that her presence among them may have extremely disruptive effects.
Suspicious of what caused the escape pod to jettison and what killed her companions, Ripley requests that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt. She fears that Newt may be carrying an Alien embryo in her body, though she does not share this information. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant, Aaron, the autopsy is conducted. No embryo is found in Newt's body, and Clemens proclaims she simply died in the crash. Meanwhile, Ripley's unusual behavior begins to frustrate the warden and is agitating the prisoners.
A funeral is performed for Newt and Hicks, in which their bodies are cremated in the facility's enormous furnace. In another section of the facility, the prison dog enters convulsions, and an Alien bursts from its body. The Alien soon begins to attack members of the colony, killing several and returning an outcast prisoner Golic to his former deranged state. To get answers, Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged android Bishop, who confirms that there was an Alien on the Sulaco and it came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. She then informs Andrews of her previous encounters with the Aliens and suggests everyone work together to hunt it down and kill it. Andrews does not believe her story and explains that the facility has no weapons. Their only hope of protection is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
Back in the prison infirmary, while talking to Ripley about the situation, Clemens is killed by the Alien, but when it is about to attack Ripley, it suddenly pauses, then retreats, mysteriously sparing her life. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to see the Alien kill the warden. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. An explosion is caused by the creature's premature intervention, resulting in several deaths. Using the medical equipment aboard the Sulaco escape pod, Ripley scans herself and discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her. She also finds out that the Corporation truly wants the Queen embryo and the adult Alien, hoping to turn them into biological weapons. Deducing that the mature alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon, the religious leader of the inmates, to kill her, who agrees to do so only if she helps the inmates kill the adult creature first. They form a plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead by trapping it by closing a series of doors. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners, except Morse, who pours the lead. The Alien, covered in molten metal, escapes the mold and is killed by Ripley when she turns on fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock.
While Ripley battles the Alien, the Weyland-Yutani team arrives, including a man named Michael Bishop who looks identical to the Bishop android, claiming to be its creator. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the Queen embryo, which he claims will be destroyed. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The company men shoot Morse in the leg, and Aaron picks up a large wrench and strikes Bishop over the head with it. Aaron is shot dead, and Bishop and his men show their true intentions, begging Ripley to let them have the "magnificent specimen". Ripley defies them by throwing herself into the gigantic furnace, just as the alien Queen begins to erupt from her chest. As she dies from the wound, Ripley grabs the creature, holding on to it as she falls into the fire.
The novel concludes with a sequence describing the facility being closed down, the last surviving inmate, Morse, being led away, and of the Sulaco escape pod as the sound recording of Ripley's final lines from the original Alien film is heard.
July 12, 2022
The 'Sulaco' left Acheron with four survivors, but when an alien attack on one of the cryotubes causes a fire aboard, the tubes are shunted into an Emergency Evacuation Vehicle which crash lands on Fiorina 161. Only Lt Ripley can be revived. Unfortunately, Fiorina 161 is a prison colony, Weyland-Yutani have sent a recovery ship for Ripley, and the EEV carried a stowaway.
A tense, terse, narrative, 'Alien 3' conveys the correct sense of doom as Foster provides the essence of the film within a clear and concise plot.
A tense, terse, narrative, 'Alien 3' conveys the correct sense of doom as Foster provides the essence of the film within a clear and concise plot.
March 28, 2025
To be fair it was quite literally the movie. I enjoy it. There are a couple of things in addition but I think it's basically word for word, picture by picture. Review to come 68/100
October 13, 2022
Better Than The Movie
I loved this one.
Really enjoyed it.
Some truly great sequences in this one.
I think this was the best in the Alan Dean Foster series so far.
4.4/5
I loved this one.
Really enjoyed it.
Some truly great sequences in this one.
I think this was the best in the Alan Dean Foster series so far.
4.4/5
March 14, 2025
This was good! I had enjoyed the third movie more than some Alien fans, although it doesn't hold a candle to the first two. It's the fourth that makes me shudder. I had listened to an audio version from Audible years ago that was utterbly forgettable and poorly rated, but reading this was entertaining. Stayed interesting through and through - from what I remember, it follows the movie pretty faithfully. I need to rewatch the film now as it's been some years and change. I have heard the fourth book is better than the movie, I know Alan Dean Foster didn't write that one, so we'll see.
March 7, 2021
While this novelization of the 3rd Alien movie is better than the actual movie, I still wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but hardcore fans of the series. If I was given a choice between watching the movie, or reading this book, I'd pick the book (at least that isn't all brown) - but the correct choice is avoiding both.
The author makes an attempt to explain the nonsensical intro scenes and the crash landing on Fiorina... and while it is servicable, the attention to detail given in the book just further accentuates the flaws of the script. This pattern continues for maybe half of the book, where the author tries to plug the holes of the script with good writing, then something nonsenical happens just to push the plot forward.
Why does a single facehugger scratching itself on some glass cause critical failure aboard the Sulaco? How are there even facehuggers on the ship? How convenient is it that there is a populated planet around, just when the failure forces the lifeboats to launch; isn't space huge, and well... empty?
What is this nonesense about "no weapons, because inmates"? Are we to believe that on a mining colony, there aren't any pieces of metal that can be fashioned into lances, spears, maces? Nevermind that they have a bloody foundry, fully functional. The appeal of Alien was that a simple mining crew tries to fight an alien attack, using weapons and tools improvised from the supplies on a tugboat...
After the first half, it seems even the author gave up on trying to polish this thing, and just simply rewrites the script into novel form... Dry, uninteresting and difficult to follow. This shows even in the editing. Sometimes Fiorina is mentioned as a platinum mine, sometimes gold, sometimes ores. Travel time for the Sulaco from LV-426 to Earth is mentioned in years, yet in Aliens it takes 3 weeks for their trip (and a rescue would be there in just 17 days, according to Hicks). Lazy, phoned-in work.
Regarding characters: there are barely any. Ripley's has the benefit of two previous adventures as background, the rest are barely even sketches of actual characters. The most intersting ones are killed off by mid-book, and what is left is just a random collection of interchangeable names.
There was an attempt made for an anti-Hudson (from Aliens) in Morse, with the witty and often panicky commentary, but the man has no other defining features.
It is a shame that the author phones in the second half of the book, because there was real potential in exploring the ending Ripley chooses (spoiler: suicide, instead of birthing an alien). That final gesture from an embattled, worn-down but well-loved character is the single redeeming feature of the script, and it is wasted in the movie - unfortunately, the book performs no better in this regard.
The author makes an attempt to explain the nonsensical intro scenes and the crash landing on Fiorina... and while it is servicable, the attention to detail given in the book just further accentuates the flaws of the script. This pattern continues for maybe half of the book, where the author tries to plug the holes of the script with good writing, then something nonsenical happens just to push the plot forward.
Why does a single facehugger scratching itself on some glass cause critical failure aboard the Sulaco? How are there even facehuggers on the ship? How convenient is it that there is a populated planet around, just when the failure forces the lifeboats to launch; isn't space huge, and well... empty?
What is this nonesense about "no weapons, because inmates"? Are we to believe that on a mining colony, there aren't any pieces of metal that can be fashioned into lances, spears, maces? Nevermind that they have a bloody foundry, fully functional. The appeal of Alien was that a simple mining crew tries to fight an alien attack, using weapons and tools improvised from the supplies on a tugboat...
After the first half, it seems even the author gave up on trying to polish this thing, and just simply rewrites the script into novel form... Dry, uninteresting and difficult to follow. This shows even in the editing. Sometimes Fiorina is mentioned as a platinum mine, sometimes gold, sometimes ores. Travel time for the Sulaco from LV-426 to Earth is mentioned in years, yet in Aliens it takes 3 weeks for their trip (and a rescue would be there in just 17 days, according to Hicks). Lazy, phoned-in work.
Regarding characters: there are barely any. Ripley's has the benefit of two previous adventures as background, the rest are barely even sketches of actual characters. The most intersting ones are killed off by mid-book, and what is left is just a random collection of interchangeable names.
There was an attempt made for an anti-Hudson (from Aliens) in Morse, with the witty and often panicky commentary, but the man has no other defining features.
It is a shame that the author phones in the second half of the book, because there was real potential in exploring the ending Ripley chooses (spoiler: suicide, instead of birthing an alien). That final gesture from an embattled, worn-down but well-loved character is the single redeeming feature of the script, and it is wasted in the movie - unfortunately, the book performs no better in this regard.
June 8, 2012
this book is good, but different from the movie, I will name some key differences. 1. The facehugger impregnates the ox instead of the dog. Riply wasn't attempted to be raped. 3. the Doctor isn't addicted to morphine. 4. theirs a lot more language then the book. 4. the xenomorph is (spoilered) differently then in the movie. 5. the chestburster doesn't come of of Riply while committing suicide. 6.the ending is different then the movie.
This book starts up pretty slow, when riply (the only survivor from the ship) crashed on fury, then she is dragged up and into the prison complex, there she is in a coma for a few days instill she is revived. After this the leader of the complex says the news to the sexist prisoners. Saying that the population will become impure. Shortly after the non survivors are burned and the xenomorph comes out of the dog and the book really begins"
Shortly after the xenomorph comes out it starts eating people, and when the costodial staff think that the company (wayland) will say them then riply says"the company don't give two shi*s about prisoners who found god at the *ss end of space" after that the prisoners actually fight back, after that the alien kills most of the people get the xenomorph into the lead mold and (I will no longer continue the plot because of spoilers)
I give this book four stars, it is a very violent book and contains pervasive language, if you can handle that, i will recommend this book to anyone who can handle this.
This book starts up pretty slow, when riply (the only survivor from the ship) crashed on fury, then she is dragged up and into the prison complex, there she is in a coma for a few days instill she is revived. After this the leader of the complex says the news to the sexist prisoners. Saying that the population will become impure. Shortly after the non survivors are burned and the xenomorph comes out of the dog and the book really begins"
Shortly after the xenomorph comes out it starts eating people, and when the costodial staff think that the company (wayland) will say them then riply says"the company don't give two shi*s about prisoners who found god at the *ss end of space" after that the prisoners actually fight back, after that the alien kills most of the people get the xenomorph into the lead mold and (I will no longer continue the plot because of spoilers)
I give this book four stars, it is a very violent book and contains pervasive language, if you can handle that, i will recommend this book to anyone who can handle this.
November 29, 2024
Probably the best full version of the original Alien 3. It is full of great detail about the Prison planet and how it all runs. Since it's one vision interpreting the script you get more consistency, IE Ox Alien looks like an OX instead of still being clearly a dog alien in the film (even in the assembly cut).
The dialog is extremely done here with a sarcastic nihilism that captures the tone perfectly.
If you're not a fan of the film, this is unlikely to change your mind, however there's a reason no one does novelizations quite as good as Alan Dean Foster.
The dialog is extremely done here with a sarcastic nihilism that captures the tone perfectly.
If you're not a fan of the film, this is unlikely to change your mind, however there's a reason no one does novelizations quite as good as Alan Dean Foster.
August 31, 2025
I know so many alien fans who disliked the 3rd Alien movie, however this novel was fantastic. Sweet and short and so engaging and exciting even throughout the non-action moments. I couldn't put it down.
February 13, 2017
I enjoyed this book far more than the movie. I still hate that Hicks and Newt just die right of the rip but past that it makes me enjoy the Alien universe more than just the previous stories.
September 4, 2017
Pretty good. Once again, different enough from the movie to be interesting, similar enough to be familiar.
March 15, 2021
More interesting than Alan Dean Fosters writing for the first two movies to books. This one did have a little more world building and story to it than just the movie.
August 28, 2022
3 Times the Boredom. 3 Times the Awfulness. 3 Times the Campiness.
In 1979 it came from within. In 1986 it was gone forever. In 1993 our worst fears are true: it has returned.
This was supposed to be directed by Vincent Ward, and the film would have taken place on a planet Arceon, the wooden planet with aliens on it. This is completely inferior to what made the first two Alien movies so great. In fact, it feels different with tons of boring, and unintentional comedy scenes and ego trips throughout the movie to the point where it didn't feel like a Alien movie. It has no huge amount of charm or heart from the first two films, whatever can exist. Nothing in the movie has the same power as the first two movies and the worst thing is the scare factor is far below than that of its predecessors. In fact, the movie feels like a goddamn comedy talk show with people who got picked up from a street than being a scary blockbuster sci-fi movie. Most of the character development of the prisoners on the Fiorina 161 is terrible. The whole thing is very predictable. You can already get that Xenomorph runner is on a prison planet right before the prisoners meet their deaths by said Xenomorph. Almost none of the scenes have enough suspense, scary moments or any fun moments throughout the entire film. Instead, it has campy and boring moments, which were mainly caused by an unfinished script. Newt and Hicks, two of the most beloved characters from the previous film, die in the crash landing on Fiorina 161! Ripley started to become quite an unlikable character throughout most of the time, which was caused by Sigourney Weaver's massive ego trip. Most of the other characters are either bland, boring or unlikable. The characters also make very bad decisions and mistakes throughout: there's a scene where Ripley finds Bishop in the junkroom and some of the inmates suddenly came in to attack her; while Ripley and the other prisoners are spreading the amitriptyline in the ventilation shafts in hopes to kill the Xenomorph runner, Frank uses his detonator stick on the ladder, which was a terrible idea, because the Xenomorph comes back to kill him. The pacing is a bit too slow, which is extremely inexcusable for a horror-action sci-fi film. The film keeps dragging, or padding on that makes the whole film feel even longer than it actually is to the point that it might make you fall asleep in the middle or near the final moments of the film. As if the franchise never really cared about the scare-factor stuff anymore. Even though the movie tries to have some emotional moments, most of those scenes just have more exposition rather than actually making you care. The ending is completely disappointing and abysmal, with nothing more than killing off the main protagonist at the end. Also, there are tons of plot holes. For example: How did the Alien egg appear on the Sulaco at the beginning of the film? Ripley quickly jumping to suicide to avoid chest-burster's birth seems kind of far-fetched to add to the drama. And speaking of which, how did Ripley even get a chest-burster inside, even though she wasn't caught by the face-hugger from the first two movies? And why the fuck did they have to kill Newt and Hicks?
While most of the special effects are decent, the special effects on the alien for the corridor chase look terrible. The superimposition into the live-action footage is bad enough to the point you can see hints of green composition on the alien (the Alien footage wasn't color corrected, hence the green hue) and the movements are jerky. Aside from the poor chroma-keying, the special effects are still mostly decent.
In the teaser, the narrator states that "on Earth, everyone can hear you scream", implying that it was going to take place on Earth, but as said above, it is actually set on a prison planet and the Alien would not come to Earth until Alien vs. Predator. This is due to the script not being finished by the time the trailer was made. What's worse is that this film had the most beleaguered production history out of the franchise, the details of which are the stuff of industry legend:
-After the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox was keen to get production of a third film moving immediately. William Gibson submitted a draft featuring Hicks and Bishop fighting biomechanical xenomorphs on a space station, but his draft was rejected and he declined further involvement. At this point, the studio didn't want Sigourney Weaver back, and scripts were written with this fact in mind. Eric Red was brought onboard and penned a new script that had a spaceship discover the remains of the Sulaco crew (who were killed by the xenomorphs), before moving the action to a small town in an Earth-like biodome. Producers Walter Hill and David Giler disliked the script, and Red was ousted, with tentative director Renny Harlin also leaving soon afterward. Next, David Twohy came onboard and wrote a new script centered around a prison planet. Hill and Giler liked the script, but this too was rejected. (Twohy would take his script idea and eventually make Pitch Black with it.)
-By this point, nearly four years had passed since pre-production began. Vincent Ward was hired, and soon after, with Fox hiring Weaver back with a $4 million payday and a co-producer credit, Ward wrote a script with John Fasano where Ripley crashlands on a "wooden planet" filled with monks. At this point in production, 1/5 of the planned budget had already been spent, and Fox told Ward to rein in his plans (even prompting then-CEO Joe Roth to state "What the fuck is going on?" after hearing about Ward's plan to have Ripley be placed in a cryotube by "seven dwarves" in the finale). After butting heads with executives, Ward left the project.
-A rotating series of writers came in to try and improve the script during this time. Greg Pruss was hired to rewrite Fasano's "wooden planet" script but left after butting heads with Ward. Fasano then returned to rewrite his script, but he too had a falling-out with Ward. Larry Ferguson was then brought in to rewrite the Fasano script, and Fox complained that the treatment was not favorable towards the Ripley character. Finally, producers Walter Hill and David Giler did an emergency rewrite that combined Twohy's prison script and Fasano's religious elements.
-Assembling the cast had its own problems. The film is infamous for killing Newt and Hicks in the opening credits when the pods crash. Newt was something of a given, as the actress had aged too much to play her again and cryogenic suspension wouldn't give her the chance to age enough for a new actress. Hicks, however, was repeatedly shuffled between "main character" and "supporting" with each new draft before they decided to kill him off - Michael Biehn was so disgusted when he found it out that he demanded to be paid as much for his image being onscreen for a few seconds as he had for filming all of Aliens.
-And the reason Hicks kept shuffling back and forth was because the writers were told to work the film around Ripley's absence, as Sigourney Weaver was proving to be problematic. Between the two films, she had become a spokeswoman for gun-control group Handgun Control and was offended by the amount of weaponry present in the script. Very shortly before filming, one of the producers managed to woo her back to the project. Amusingly, it was by telling her that Ripley would be bald.
David Fincher, who at that point only had a handful of music videos to his credit, was brought on board to helm the film. He was greeted with a long list of problems; a major set had already been constructed (a monastery set built before the setting was changed to a prison — but still kept, as a church inside the facility), the budget was running behind, the script was still incomplete and roles still hadn't been cast. After being informed by the executives that he had to include as many of the creative ideas the producers asked for, Fincher rushed into production to make up for lost time.
Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth fell ill from Parkinson's disease a few days into filming, necessitating a replacement in Alex Thomson. The kicker here is that a line producer for the film had lost his own father to the same illness and feared that working on the film might kill Cronenweth in his condition, meaning he arranged for the replacement based on personal experience.
-Somewhere along the line, Hill and Giler (the latter of whom referred to Fincher as a "shoe salesman" during a conference call with the studio) fought with Fincher for 2 months over the script, and he complained about their budgetary restrictions. They and screenwriter Rex Pickett (who was also hired to rewrite the second half of the duo's script) in turn abandoned Fincher and left him to finish the script himself. Fincher would end up rewriting lines and entire scenes on-the-fly during production, while trying to keep Fox (who were requesting daily updates from the set) at bay.
-Fincher was stymied at every turn by executives who attempted to stop him from shooting important scenes (including Ripley confronting the xenomorph in Fury 161's sub-basement level), forcing the director to grab a camera and skeleton crew and film it himself.
-Fox sent in a troubleshooter to investigate the spiraling production costs. A rough cut was screened for the crew, and reportedly made several audience members throw up due to a graphic autopsy scene. Hill and Giler were brought back onboard by the studio to give input, and it was deemed that the film had many issues that required significant reshoots (including a finale that was deemed too similar to Terminator 2: Judgment Day), and a pivotal sequence that had to be filmed (the death of the xenomorph!).
-Fincher (depending on which source you believe) either spent the next year attempting to edit the film, or was locked out of the editing suite altogether by the studio. The reshoots reportedly pushed the budget to $65 million, and were done in Los Angeles with almost an entirely new crew. This was reportedly the last straw for Fincher, who walked away for good at the end of the reshoots. Because of the breakneck pace of the reshoots, composer Elliot Goldenthal only had a single night to create a new piece of music for the reshot finale. The finished film was released in May 1992 to a mixed critical response.
-Even its post-production history was sordid. Fincher refused to come back and re-edit the film for the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set, as he was still bitter over the whole experience. Likewise, Fox executives severely cut down Charles Lauzirika's documentary on the film, "Wreckage and Rape", citing that it made the company look bad. It wasn't until later that the uncut documentary (with the Censored Title of "Wreckage and Rage") was released on the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set.
At least the idea of a prison in space full of inmates affected by a fictional syndrome is pretty nifty. The scene where Ripley is sitting in against the wall in fear and being close to a Xenomorph runner is pretty iconic. The cinematography isn't too bad. Even though it's not as good as the first two movies, there is the Assembly Cut on some home media releases, which tries to fix things and is considered better by the fanbase and critics alike; the cut removes the chest-burster when Ripley committed suicide at the end of the movie. The design of the Xenomorph as a dog-like creature is actually pretty cool, the campy moments can be fun depending on your view, and most of the effects are decent as mentioned above.
For some reason, a friend of mine actually likes the movie (although I'm still guessing his favorite movie in the franchise is Aliens) and that's just fine if he likes it, but this is the review it deserves. The first time I saw this movie, I didn't love it. The second time, I watched the Assembly cut, and I loved it. With this film almost being 30 years old, Alien 3 is still a film that causes the Alien franchise to jump the shark. To me this installment sucks the all the good reasons. It was added here for good reasons. To be honest this was nowhere near as good as the first two. And neither is the fourth one. It may not be a great sequel, but we can all agree that it's still way better than Resurrection did. If you really change your mind on this film, watch the Alien 3: Assembly Cut instead of watching the original cut, whether you're interested or not.
In 1979 it came from within. In 1986 it was gone forever. In 1993 our worst fears are true: it has returned.
This was supposed to be directed by Vincent Ward, and the film would have taken place on a planet Arceon, the wooden planet with aliens on it. This is completely inferior to what made the first two Alien movies so great. In fact, it feels different with tons of boring, and unintentional comedy scenes and ego trips throughout the movie to the point where it didn't feel like a Alien movie. It has no huge amount of charm or heart from the first two films, whatever can exist. Nothing in the movie has the same power as the first two movies and the worst thing is the scare factor is far below than that of its predecessors. In fact, the movie feels like a goddamn comedy talk show with people who got picked up from a street than being a scary blockbuster sci-fi movie. Most of the character development of the prisoners on the Fiorina 161 is terrible. The whole thing is very predictable. You can already get that Xenomorph runner is on a prison planet right before the prisoners meet their deaths by said Xenomorph. Almost none of the scenes have enough suspense, scary moments or any fun moments throughout the entire film. Instead, it has campy and boring moments, which were mainly caused by an unfinished script. Newt and Hicks, two of the most beloved characters from the previous film, die in the crash landing on Fiorina 161! Ripley started to become quite an unlikable character throughout most of the time, which was caused by Sigourney Weaver's massive ego trip. Most of the other characters are either bland, boring or unlikable. The characters also make very bad decisions and mistakes throughout: there's a scene where Ripley finds Bishop in the junkroom and some of the inmates suddenly came in to attack her; while Ripley and the other prisoners are spreading the amitriptyline in the ventilation shafts in hopes to kill the Xenomorph runner, Frank uses his detonator stick on the ladder, which was a terrible idea, because the Xenomorph comes back to kill him. The pacing is a bit too slow, which is extremely inexcusable for a horror-action sci-fi film. The film keeps dragging, or padding on that makes the whole film feel even longer than it actually is to the point that it might make you fall asleep in the middle or near the final moments of the film. As if the franchise never really cared about the scare-factor stuff anymore. Even though the movie tries to have some emotional moments, most of those scenes just have more exposition rather than actually making you care. The ending is completely disappointing and abysmal, with nothing more than killing off the main protagonist at the end. Also, there are tons of plot holes. For example: How did the Alien egg appear on the Sulaco at the beginning of the film? Ripley quickly jumping to suicide to avoid chest-burster's birth seems kind of far-fetched to add to the drama. And speaking of which, how did Ripley even get a chest-burster inside, even though she wasn't caught by the face-hugger from the first two movies? And why the fuck did they have to kill Newt and Hicks?
While most of the special effects are decent, the special effects on the alien for the corridor chase look terrible. The superimposition into the live-action footage is bad enough to the point you can see hints of green composition on the alien (the Alien footage wasn't color corrected, hence the green hue) and the movements are jerky. Aside from the poor chroma-keying, the special effects are still mostly decent.
In the teaser, the narrator states that "on Earth, everyone can hear you scream", implying that it was going to take place on Earth, but as said above, it is actually set on a prison planet and the Alien would not come to Earth until Alien vs. Predator. This is due to the script not being finished by the time the trailer was made. What's worse is that this film had the most beleaguered production history out of the franchise, the details of which are the stuff of industry legend:
-After the success of Aliens, 20th Century Fox was keen to get production of a third film moving immediately. William Gibson submitted a draft featuring Hicks and Bishop fighting biomechanical xenomorphs on a space station, but his draft was rejected and he declined further involvement. At this point, the studio didn't want Sigourney Weaver back, and scripts were written with this fact in mind. Eric Red was brought onboard and penned a new script that had a spaceship discover the remains of the Sulaco crew (who were killed by the xenomorphs), before moving the action to a small town in an Earth-like biodome. Producers Walter Hill and David Giler disliked the script, and Red was ousted, with tentative director Renny Harlin also leaving soon afterward. Next, David Twohy came onboard and wrote a new script centered around a prison planet. Hill and Giler liked the script, but this too was rejected. (Twohy would take his script idea and eventually make Pitch Black with it.)
-By this point, nearly four years had passed since pre-production began. Vincent Ward was hired, and soon after, with Fox hiring Weaver back with a $4 million payday and a co-producer credit, Ward wrote a script with John Fasano where Ripley crashlands on a "wooden planet" filled with monks. At this point in production, 1/5 of the planned budget had already been spent, and Fox told Ward to rein in his plans (even prompting then-CEO Joe Roth to state "What the fuck is going on?" after hearing about Ward's plan to have Ripley be placed in a cryotube by "seven dwarves" in the finale). After butting heads with executives, Ward left the project.
-A rotating series of writers came in to try and improve the script during this time. Greg Pruss was hired to rewrite Fasano's "wooden planet" script but left after butting heads with Ward. Fasano then returned to rewrite his script, but he too had a falling-out with Ward. Larry Ferguson was then brought in to rewrite the Fasano script, and Fox complained that the treatment was not favorable towards the Ripley character. Finally, producers Walter Hill and David Giler did an emergency rewrite that combined Twohy's prison script and Fasano's religious elements.
-Assembling the cast had its own problems. The film is infamous for killing Newt and Hicks in the opening credits when the pods crash. Newt was something of a given, as the actress had aged too much to play her again and cryogenic suspension wouldn't give her the chance to age enough for a new actress. Hicks, however, was repeatedly shuffled between "main character" and "supporting" with each new draft before they decided to kill him off - Michael Biehn was so disgusted when he found it out that he demanded to be paid as much for his image being onscreen for a few seconds as he had for filming all of Aliens.
-And the reason Hicks kept shuffling back and forth was because the writers were told to work the film around Ripley's absence, as Sigourney Weaver was proving to be problematic. Between the two films, she had become a spokeswoman for gun-control group Handgun Control and was offended by the amount of weaponry present in the script. Very shortly before filming, one of the producers managed to woo her back to the project. Amusingly, it was by telling her that Ripley would be bald.
David Fincher, who at that point only had a handful of music videos to his credit, was brought on board to helm the film. He was greeted with a long list of problems; a major set had already been constructed (a monastery set built before the setting was changed to a prison — but still kept, as a church inside the facility), the budget was running behind, the script was still incomplete and roles still hadn't been cast. After being informed by the executives that he had to include as many of the creative ideas the producers asked for, Fincher rushed into production to make up for lost time.
Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth fell ill from Parkinson's disease a few days into filming, necessitating a replacement in Alex Thomson. The kicker here is that a line producer for the film had lost his own father to the same illness and feared that working on the film might kill Cronenweth in his condition, meaning he arranged for the replacement based on personal experience.
-Somewhere along the line, Hill and Giler (the latter of whom referred to Fincher as a "shoe salesman" during a conference call with the studio) fought with Fincher for 2 months over the script, and he complained about their budgetary restrictions. They and screenwriter Rex Pickett (who was also hired to rewrite the second half of the duo's script) in turn abandoned Fincher and left him to finish the script himself. Fincher would end up rewriting lines and entire scenes on-the-fly during production, while trying to keep Fox (who were requesting daily updates from the set) at bay.
-Fincher was stymied at every turn by executives who attempted to stop him from shooting important scenes (including Ripley confronting the xenomorph in Fury 161's sub-basement level), forcing the director to grab a camera and skeleton crew and film it himself.
-Fox sent in a troubleshooter to investigate the spiraling production costs. A rough cut was screened for the crew, and reportedly made several audience members throw up due to a graphic autopsy scene. Hill and Giler were brought back onboard by the studio to give input, and it was deemed that the film had many issues that required significant reshoots (including a finale that was deemed too similar to Terminator 2: Judgment Day), and a pivotal sequence that had to be filmed (the death of the xenomorph!).
-Fincher (depending on which source you believe) either spent the next year attempting to edit the film, or was locked out of the editing suite altogether by the studio. The reshoots reportedly pushed the budget to $65 million, and were done in Los Angeles with almost an entirely new crew. This was reportedly the last straw for Fincher, who walked away for good at the end of the reshoots. Because of the breakneck pace of the reshoots, composer Elliot Goldenthal only had a single night to create a new piece of music for the reshot finale. The finished film was released in May 1992 to a mixed critical response.
-Even its post-production history was sordid. Fincher refused to come back and re-edit the film for the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set, as he was still bitter over the whole experience. Likewise, Fox executives severely cut down Charles Lauzirika's documentary on the film, "Wreckage and Rape", citing that it made the company look bad. It wasn't until later that the uncut documentary (with the Censored Title of "Wreckage and Rage") was released on the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set.
At least the idea of a prison in space full of inmates affected by a fictional syndrome is pretty nifty. The scene where Ripley is sitting in against the wall in fear and being close to a Xenomorph runner is pretty iconic. The cinematography isn't too bad. Even though it's not as good as the first two movies, there is the Assembly Cut on some home media releases, which tries to fix things and is considered better by the fanbase and critics alike; the cut removes the chest-burster when Ripley committed suicide at the end of the movie. The design of the Xenomorph as a dog-like creature is actually pretty cool, the campy moments can be fun depending on your view, and most of the effects are decent as mentioned above.
For some reason, a friend of mine actually likes the movie (although I'm still guessing his favorite movie in the franchise is Aliens) and that's just fine if he likes it, but this is the review it deserves. The first time I saw this movie, I didn't love it. The second time, I watched the Assembly cut, and I loved it. With this film almost being 30 years old, Alien 3 is still a film that causes the Alien franchise to jump the shark. To me this installment sucks the all the good reasons. It was added here for good reasons. To be honest this was nowhere near as good as the first two. And neither is the fourth one. It may not be a great sequel, but we can all agree that it's still way better than Resurrection did. If you really change your mind on this film, watch the Alien 3: Assembly Cut instead of watching the original cut, whether you're interested or not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 4, 2021
1977 rok jest rokiem, w którym kino zwariowało na punkcie ,,Gwiezdnych Wojen’’.
Zresztą nie tylko.
Motyw kosmicznych podróży święcił swój triumf w najlepsze - społeczeństwo zostało nim skutecznie ‘zainfekowane’, a wyobraźnię wielu rozpalały myśli o pozaziemskich wędrówkach, odległych planetach, ich fascynujących mieszkańcach oraz rzecz jasna, o niebezpieczeństwach czyhających na człowieka rzuconego w tę mroczną, niezbadaną toń.
To czas, gdy snuto wszelkiego rodzaju teorie spiskowe, nieprawdopodobne opowieści przepełnione szeregiem fantastycznych zdarzeń i zastanawiano się co by było, gdyby ludzkość mogła stanąć twarzą w twarz z obcymi przybyszami; jakie znaczenie miałoby to dla nauki, współczesnego świata, jego populacji i przyszłości.
Kiedy dwa lata później, na ekranach kin wyświetlano pierwszą część filmu z cyklu o Obcym w reżyserii Ridleya Scotta, chyba nikt poza nielicznym gronem, nie podejrzewał jak wielki sukces ona odniesie. A już zwłaszcza, jeśli brało się pod uwagę jej mroczny nastrój.
Bo o ile ,,Gwiezdne Wojny’’ można opisać mianem ‘trzymających w napięciu’, to z horrorem fantastyczno – naukowym im nie po drodze. Obie produkcje miały ze sobą nieco wspólnego, ale to wizja Scotta była, delikatnie mówiąc, bardziej pesymistyczna; budząca grozę, permanentny stan zaniepokojenia, przyprawiająca o szybsze bicie serca i uderzająca w klimaty postapo.
Nie dziwi więc, że również taki koncept – bezkresnego kosmosu, w którym kryje się nieopisana obrzydliwość - został przez publiczność kupiony.
Na fali popularności cyklu alienowskiego, powstało całe mnóstwo gadżetów - począwszy od koszulek z podobizną Obcego, poprzez figurki, komiksy, gry video, na… Książkach skończywszy.
Tak, pewien amerykański pisarz fantasy postanowił przenieść kinowe dzieło na karty powieści.
Jak mu to wyszło?
Różnie, co jest chyba najlepszym określeniem pasującym do jego literackich poczynań.
Zacznijmy od tego, że Alan Dean Foster podjął się zadania, które samo w sobie stanowiło spore wyzwanie.
Mało kto bowiem, umie operować słowem w tak sugestywny sposób, by w pełnić oddać całe spektrum emocji wyniesionych z filmowego sensu; ze spotkania, gdzie pierwsze skrzypce grają obrazy, światła, dźwięki, efekty specjalne; gdzie podziwia się zamysł fabularny, reżyserką myśl oraz aktorską kreację.
Cóż, pomimo poniesionych trudów, także Fosterowi ta sztuka się nie udała. Jego wizje musiały ustąpić pierwszeństwa dorobkowi Scotta, Camerona i Finchera.
Ale!
Cykl historii o Obcym to nadal całkiem niezła i całkiem przyjemna rozrywka. Napisana lekkim językiem, z dobrze utrzymanym tempem akcji, przyzwoicie nakreślonymi bohaterami oraz z nadzwyczaj dusznym, klaustrofobicznym klimatem.
I choć pierwszy tom tej serii nieco kulał (jeśli pamiętacie, narzekałam na kilka aspektów), to Foster musiał wziąć sobie do serca uwagi czytelników i zabrać się jeszcze ostrzej do pracy.
Dwie kolejne części, w moim mniemaniu, są utrzymane na naprawdę zadowalającym poziomie. Głównie za sprawą podszlifowanego stylu, bogatszych opisów, płynności biegu wydarzeń, emocjonującej fabuły (niezmiennej od filmowej, lecz w wydaniu Fostera równie ciekawie przedstawionej), bardziej dopracowanej kreacji bohaterskiej, odpowiednio budowanego napięcia, nastroju i wreszcie - dzięki horrorowym wątkom.
Tak, na te również znalazło się sporo miejsca, ponieważ w trzecim tomie, akcja nabiera prawdziwie makabrycznego wydźwięku – tu już trup ściele się gęsto, krew leje strumieniami, a kolejne postacie tracą życie w walce z ksenomorfami. Foster nie bawi się w półsłówka, maluje przed czytelnikiem przejmujące obrazy i prowadzi go w stronę tragicznego finału.
Ostatnie sceny, ostatnie akty, to jedne z najbardziej koszmarnych w tej powieści. Ellen Ripley staje przed ostatecznymi wyborami, których musi dokonać – w imię swojego dobra albo... Dobra wszechświata.
Zresztą nie tylko.
Motyw kosmicznych podróży święcił swój triumf w najlepsze - społeczeństwo zostało nim skutecznie ‘zainfekowane’, a wyobraźnię wielu rozpalały myśli o pozaziemskich wędrówkach, odległych planetach, ich fascynujących mieszkańcach oraz rzecz jasna, o niebezpieczeństwach czyhających na człowieka rzuconego w tę mroczną, niezbadaną toń.
To czas, gdy snuto wszelkiego rodzaju teorie spiskowe, nieprawdopodobne opowieści przepełnione szeregiem fantastycznych zdarzeń i zastanawiano się co by było, gdyby ludzkość mogła stanąć twarzą w twarz z obcymi przybyszami; jakie znaczenie miałoby to dla nauki, współczesnego świata, jego populacji i przyszłości.
Kiedy dwa lata później, na ekranach kin wyświetlano pierwszą część filmu z cyklu o Obcym w reżyserii Ridleya Scotta, chyba nikt poza nielicznym gronem, nie podejrzewał jak wielki sukces ona odniesie. A już zwłaszcza, jeśli brało się pod uwagę jej mroczny nastrój.
Bo o ile ,,Gwiezdne Wojny’’ można opisać mianem ‘trzymających w napięciu’, to z horrorem fantastyczno – naukowym im nie po drodze. Obie produkcje miały ze sobą nieco wspólnego, ale to wizja Scotta była, delikatnie mówiąc, bardziej pesymistyczna; budząca grozę, permanentny stan zaniepokojenia, przyprawiająca o szybsze bicie serca i uderzająca w klimaty postapo.
Nie dziwi więc, że również taki koncept – bezkresnego kosmosu, w którym kryje się nieopisana obrzydliwość - został przez publiczność kupiony.
Na fali popularności cyklu alienowskiego, powstało całe mnóstwo gadżetów - począwszy od koszulek z podobizną Obcego, poprzez figurki, komiksy, gry video, na… Książkach skończywszy.
Tak, pewien amerykański pisarz fantasy postanowił przenieść kinowe dzieło na karty powieści.
Jak mu to wyszło?
Różnie, co jest chyba najlepszym określeniem pasującym do jego literackich poczynań.
Zacznijmy od tego, że Alan Dean Foster podjął się zadania, które samo w sobie stanowiło spore wyzwanie.
Mało kto bowiem, umie operować słowem w tak sugestywny sposób, by w pełnić oddać całe spektrum emocji wyniesionych z filmowego sensu; ze spotkania, gdzie pierwsze skrzypce grają obrazy, światła, dźwięki, efekty specjalne; gdzie podziwia się zamysł fabularny, reżyserką myśl oraz aktorską kreację.
Cóż, pomimo poniesionych trudów, także Fosterowi ta sztuka się nie udała. Jego wizje musiały ustąpić pierwszeństwa dorobkowi Scotta, Camerona i Finchera.
Ale!
Cykl historii o Obcym to nadal całkiem niezła i całkiem przyjemna rozrywka. Napisana lekkim językiem, z dobrze utrzymanym tempem akcji, przyzwoicie nakreślonymi bohaterami oraz z nadzwyczaj dusznym, klaustrofobicznym klimatem.
I choć pierwszy tom tej serii nieco kulał (jeśli pamiętacie, narzekałam na kilka aspektów), to Foster musiał wziąć sobie do serca uwagi czytelników i zabrać się jeszcze ostrzej do pracy.
Dwie kolejne części, w moim mniemaniu, są utrzymane na naprawdę zadowalającym poziomie. Głównie za sprawą podszlifowanego stylu, bogatszych opisów, płynności biegu wydarzeń, emocjonującej fabuły (niezmiennej od filmowej, lecz w wydaniu Fostera równie ciekawie przedstawionej), bardziej dopracowanej kreacji bohaterskiej, odpowiednio budowanego napięcia, nastroju i wreszcie - dzięki horrorowym wątkom.
Tak, na te również znalazło się sporo miejsca, ponieważ w trzecim tomie, akcja nabiera prawdziwie makabrycznego wydźwięku – tu już trup ściele się gęsto, krew leje strumieniami, a kolejne postacie tracą życie w walce z ksenomorfami. Foster nie bawi się w półsłówka, maluje przed czytelnikiem przejmujące obrazy i prowadzi go w stronę tragicznego finału.
Ostatnie sceny, ostatnie akty, to jedne z najbardziej koszmarnych w tej powieści. Ellen Ripley staje przed ostatecznymi wyborami, których musi dokonać – w imię swojego dobra albo... Dobra wszechświata.
read-from-an-omnibus
September 8, 2021Caveat: I did not read this particular edition of the novel; instead, I read it in this omnibus.
I decided to add this separate novel to my shelves, for 'comparison' purposes; relatively few people have read the omnibus version. And I would like for people who also like this work, to be able to find out that I read it (and, if they want, connect with me).
I'll review the trilogy (rather: I'll chronicle my history with a large chuch of the franchise) all at once, below.
I read this -- i.e., the omnibus -- over the summer holidays, back in 1994. Spending my time between being a Wars and Trek fanperson didn't deter me (at all) from diving headlong into this Weyland Yutani-dominated universe as well. I remember being awed -- at an early teen-age -- by the level of details and explanations and descriptions. I loved every bit of these novels, and they might have further cemented my love for the franchise. I think reading the first two Terminator novelisations -- which were good, don't get me wrong! -- made a bit less of an impact; and those of Trek II and III only added to my experience in some detailed nooks and corners (especially where the Saavik character was concerned).
Stumbling across Kyle Durrant's account here, with his many reviews of this franchise's entries, I decided to take a stroll downsub-level 3 memory corridor. (Here's a gem of his.)
Also, I decided to add a lot of works (to a separate, "exclusive" shelf) that I read in omnibusses (such as this) and anthologies (for authors such as Jack Vance and Howard Lovecraft) for other readers to be able to better compare overlap in our shelves. I mean, nobody could see that I read The Forever War until yesterday. That just isn't right.
But -- let's return to LV-426!
First, I saw Aliens partially, when my parents were out; it was past my bed-time, and I was far too young, and it was scary as hell (both the horror in the film and the anticipation of my folks coming home and catching me red-eyes) and I didn't see the end -- which I hated. I was allowed, sometime later, to rent the VHS video cassette (let me explain later what that is for all you youngsters) from a rental store, after some of my teeth were pulled. (After the horror of that dental experience, the thrills of Aliens had lost enough of its impact.)
Aliens has remained one of my favourite films, ever. (Together with Jim Cameron's other pitch-perfect masterpiece -- The Abyss; and Chris Nolan's more recent Interstellar will probably remain in the top 5 as well.)
Suffice to say, I didn't feel I missed anything in not watching Alien first, is my experience -- the boards meeting explained it all for me. Alien did come on TV eventually... but on a German channel. Out of sheer enthusiasm I taped it, and watched it; but understood not a lot of it. Still, I did my best, and I got the idea.
I don't know when I first saw-- Oh wait, I do remember now. Must've been around the summer in '94 -- just before buying the omnibus -- that I saw Alien3 . I was quite disappointed with the film back then (like many people); but with subsequent viewings, I started appreciating it fully -- both for its story, and its production value and atmosphere -- I fully agree with Kyle's assessment, there.
So right after that, I got the omnibus -- and devoured it over the holidays. Next school year, I was able to put it on my literature list for English class! I had to convince my teacher, by promising an elaborate list of differences between films and novels. (To prove I didn't just save time watching them on-screen. Internet was still in its infancy, at least where I lived, back then; and furthermore, it wasn't finished yet. Not everything was yet available, as it is now. So I couldn't easily look up that information.) No problem, I loved doing that. I also listed all the Colonial Marines characters. I got a sufficient mark.
Having no computer myself, I used the ones at school to scrounge around Bulletin Board Systems; I found the scripts to the second and third film, and a transcript of the first one. I read all those -- and found the script for Alien3 to be a wholly different draft, centering on Hicks aboard a space station! That was interesting.
I had already been interested in film music; but the very diverse scores to the first trilogy gave that a huge boost. (Aliens and the 2nd and 3rd Trek films launched Horner into stardom for me, and deposed Williams of his throne.)
(Did I digress there? Again?)
Anyway. Perhaps I should dig up my reading reports as written in 1994, and type them in here... but I really remember appreciating Alan Foster's work, here. And also, I 'dug' the additional information in the novels -- e.g. the additional scenes with Captain Dallas aboard Nostromo, and the explanation of the Xenomorph's life cycle. Highly recommended as what teenage me thought were good examples of great novelisations.
I decided to add this separate novel to my shelves, for 'comparison' purposes; relatively few people have read the omnibus version. And I would like for people who also like this work, to be able to find out that I read it (and, if they want, connect with me).
I'll review the trilogy (rather: I'll chronicle my history with a large chuch of the franchise) all at once, below.
I read this -- i.e., the omnibus -- over the summer holidays, back in 1994. Spending my time between being a Wars and Trek fanperson didn't deter me (at all) from diving headlong into this Weyland Yutani-dominated universe as well. I remember being awed -- at an early teen-age -- by the level of details and explanations and descriptions. I loved every bit of these novels, and they might have further cemented my love for the franchise. I think reading the first two Terminator novelisations -- which were good, don't get me wrong! -- made a bit less of an impact; and those of Trek II and III only added to my experience in some detailed nooks and corners (especially where the Saavik character was concerned).
Stumbling across Kyle Durrant's account here, with his many reviews of this franchise's entries, I decided to take a stroll down
Also, I decided to add a lot of works (to a separate, "exclusive" shelf) that I read in omnibusses (such as this) and anthologies (for authors such as Jack Vance and Howard Lovecraft) for other readers to be able to better compare overlap in our shelves. I mean, nobody could see that I read The Forever War until yesterday. That just isn't right.
But -- let's return to LV-426!
First, I saw Aliens partially, when my parents were out; it was past my bed-time, and I was far too young, and it was scary as hell (both the horror in the film and the anticipation of my folks coming home and catching me red-eyes) and I didn't see the end -- which I hated. I was allowed, sometime later, to rent the VHS video cassette (let me explain later what that is for all you youngsters) from a rental store, after some of my teeth were pulled. (After the horror of that dental experience, the thrills of Aliens had lost enough of its impact.)
Aliens has remained one of my favourite films, ever. (Together with Jim Cameron's other pitch-perfect masterpiece -- The Abyss; and Chris Nolan's more recent Interstellar will probably remain in the top 5 as well.)
Suffice to say, I didn't feel I missed anything in not watching Alien first, is my experience -- the boards meeting explained it all for me. Alien did come on TV eventually... but on a German channel. Out of sheer enthusiasm I taped it, and watched it; but understood not a lot of it. Still, I did my best, and I got the idea.
I don't know when I first saw-- Oh wait, I do remember now. Must've been around the summer in '94 -- just before buying the omnibus -- that I saw Alien3 . I was quite disappointed with the film back then (like many people); but with subsequent viewings, I started appreciating it fully -- both for its story, and its production value and atmosphere -- I fully agree with Kyle's assessment, there.
So right after that, I got the omnibus -- and devoured it over the holidays. Next school year, I was able to put it on my literature list for English class! I had to convince my teacher, by promising an elaborate list of differences between films and novels. (To prove I didn't just save time watching them on-screen. Internet was still in its infancy, at least where I lived, back then; and furthermore, it wasn't finished yet. Not everything was yet available, as it is now. So I couldn't easily look up that information.) No problem, I loved doing that. I also listed all the Colonial Marines characters. I got a sufficient mark.
Having no computer myself, I used the ones at school to scrounge around Bulletin Board Systems; I found the scripts to the second and third film, and a transcript of the first one. I read all those -- and found the script for Alien3 to be a wholly different draft, centering on Hicks aboard a space station! That was interesting.
I had already been interested in film music; but the very diverse scores to the first trilogy gave that a huge boost. (Aliens and the 2nd and 3rd Trek films launched Horner into stardom for me, and deposed Williams of his throne.)
(Did I digress there? Again?)
Anyway. Perhaps I should dig up my reading reports as written in 1994, and type them in here... but I really remember appreciating Alan Foster's work, here. And also, I 'dug' the additional information in the novels -- e.g. the additional scenes with Captain Dallas aboard Nostromo, and the explanation of the Xenomorph's life cycle. Highly recommended as what teenage me thought were good examples of great novelisations.
(Internal review #61.)
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