Alien 3

Alien 3
Released	June 12, 2019
Running Time	35:00
Previous Review	Movie 43
Next Review	Barney's Great Adventure
Link	http://channelawesome.com/alien-3-nostalgia-critic/

(The Channel Awesome logo, then cold-open on an office at 20th Century Fox)

Movie producer (played by Doug): So, you have an Alien sequel for me, you handsome devil?

Movie writer (also played by Doug): (holding a bunch of papers) I certainly do, you beautiful bastard.

Producer: Those last two sure made us a ton of money.

Writer: Well, with such ingeniously simplistic titles, it's hard for someone not to see them.

Producer: Agreed, with the first being so creepily blunt and vague.

Writer: Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Producer: And the sequel just adding one letter to the title, instantly making it more terrifying.

Writer: Exactly, because we saw what one could do; imagine what another, if not many others, could do.

Producer: So, what brilliant title do you have for this one?

Writer: Alien 3.

Producer: (laughs) No, really, what is it?

Writer: Alien 3.

Producer: That wasn't a joke then?

Writer: No, sir. (holds finger and thumb close together, indicating a tiny size) We'll make the "3" very small and in the corner of the title.

Producer: Oh, so we're upping the ante by multiplying the army of aliens in the last film by three?

Writer: Actually, there's just one.

Producer: Just one?

Writer: Just one.

Producer: Won't it be a phenomenal letdown coming off the last film?

Writer: Well, this will be a kind of alien they've never seen before.

Producer: Ah, like a queen alien, but bigger?

Writer: Like a dog.

Producer: Excuse me?

Writer: I feel like the people really want to see the alien as a dog.

Producer: Well, I guess we've never seen the alien come out of another species. How is he different?

Writer: He walks on all fours.

Producer: And?

Writer: I'm finished.

Producer: Wow-wow-wow.

Writer: So Ripley crash-lands on this planet that's kind of a religious cult prison.

Producer: Oh? What's their story?

Writer: Unclear.

Producer: Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow.

Writer: And the queen from the last movie laid two eggs on her ship.

Producer: Wasn't the tube thing that allowed her to lay eggs ripped off?

Writer: I don't know.

Producer: Fair enough.

Writer: So the Facehuggers try breaking into the pod of Ripley and her friends.

Producer: Oh, yeah, people really grew an emotional attachment to those characters; it'll be great to see them again.

Writer: I killed them all!

Producer: What?

Writer: I killed them all!

Producer: Bishop?

Writer: I killed them all!

Producer: Newt?

Writer: I killed them all!

Producer: Michael Biehn?

Writer: Well, he dies in everything anyways.

Producer: Well, that's true, but WOW, won't people be upset!

Writer: It's okay, I do it in a very tasteful way.

Producer: Do tell.

Writer: Well, we see Newt frozen in fear with a look of terror on her face!

Producer: Sweet Mary.

Writer: And the others will be mangled into gooey shards of flesh.

Producer: Well, at least we'll get that painful moment over with quickly.

Writer: Then they rip Newt open.

Producer: Oh, God!

Writer: Yup, and Ripley watches to make sure there's no alien inside her.

Producer: Isn't there a scanning device they use later that could just show you if there's an alien inside?

Writer: Knock, knock.

Producer: Who's there?

Writer: My back; it wants you to get off of it.

Producer: Fair enough.

Writer: So the alien kills off a bunch of forgettable characters who mostly look the same.

Producer: Forgettable characters are tight.

Writer: But they pour a bunch of hot lead on him to finally kill him off.

Producer: Why didn't they just shoot him? Seemed to work in the other movie?

Writer: Because they have no gun.

Producer: A prison has no gun?

Writer: Well, remember, it's a religious cult.

Producer: So that makes it safer?

Writer: That's what I'm going with, yes.

Producer: W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-wow.

Writer: But then they discover Ripley has an alien insider her, too.

Producer: Oh, no.

Writer: Oh, yes.

Producer: They're gonna have to think super creatively about how to get it out of her.

Writer: Actually, it'll be incredibly simple; hardly an obstacle to overcome.

Producer: Proceed.

Writer: She just kills herself.

Producer: That's it? She just kills herself?

Writer: Well, Terminator 2 did it recently, and that was a big hit, so I'm gonna do exactly that.

Producer: Doesn't this make the previous movies completely pointless, though?

Writer: Well, where the other two films were about survival, this one's about how everything sucks and screws you over in the end.

Producer: Ah, like what we're clearly doing to the audience?

Writer: Yeah-yeah-yeah.

Producer: Sounds like a winner. (writer nods) You know, this conversation sounds eerily similar to those pitch meetings they do on Screen Rant.

Writer: (looking at his paper) Agreed. Afraid we're ripping them off?

Producer: No, I think it's an homage if we just acknowledge we're ripping them off.

Writer: We'll just put a link here... (runs his hand along the edge of the screen up and down) ...-ish.

Producer: Those videos are pretty funny.

Writer: I'm insanely jealous of Ryan George's writing.

Producer: So, anyway, it sounds like we're at least bringing the Alien movies to a close.

Writer: Oh, yeah, killing off the main character mixed with the reactions we'll get from this? It'd be insane to keep these films going.

(Cut to a shot of an article from Screen Rant about the Alien franchise with the title: "Alien: Covenant Sequel Reportedly Being Written, Ridley Scott to Direct"; then the Nostalgia Critic title sequence plays)

NC: Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. Alien changed the way we look at sci-fi horror.

(A montage of posters for sci-fi horror movies are shown, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Forbidden Planet, and The Stepford Wives)

NC (vo): While they were certainly mature sci-fi horror films before, they often had kind of a corny vibe, and most of them, not unfoundedly so, focused more on ideas rather than the monster. The ones that focused on the monster...

(A collage of B-movie posters appears in the corner: When Worlds Collide, The Man From Planet X, Rocketship X-M, and Project Moonbase)

NC (vo): ...were usually over-the-top B-movies.

(Cut to a clip of Bee Movie)

Barry Benson (Jerry Seinfeld): You like jazz?

NC: (leaning forward) NO!

(Barry explodes, then cut to footage of Alien)

NC (vo): Alien both focused on the monster and...didn't focus on it, keeping it in the shadows and having the way it procreates be as terrifying as the monster itself. It was slow, patient, dripping with atmosphere, and above all, scary.

NC: Aliens was more than a worthy followup.

(Footage of this movie is shown)

NC (vo): Though having more of an action-themed focus, it was still intense, gory, scary as hell, and upping the nightmares with not just more than one alien, but an alien queen, not only giving us a ton more of these monsters, but also one of the most kick-ass sequels ever made.

NC: Then they made what everybody declared the worst of the Alien movies at the time, Alien 3. (nods) God, how blissfully ignorant we were.

(Posters for later sequels pop up as he says this: Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem; NC shakes his head; cut to the title of Alien 3 and then to footage of the film)

NC (vo): Alien 3 was by far the biggest risk the Alien movies had ever taken. Yeah, I know the others are worse in making even bigger screw-ups, but following the heels of not only one of the best sci-fi horror films ever made, but also one of the best sequels ever made, this movie did not want to play it safe. On the one hand, I kind of respect that, trying not to get old and stale on the same formula.

NC: What I don't respect is, somehow, IT STILL GOT OLD AND STALE ON THE SAME FORMULA! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE WHEN YOU MAKE SO MANY UNCONVENTIONAL MOVES?!?

(Footage of Aliens is shown, alongside Alien 3)

NC (vo): Honestly, this isn't surprising, as the movie was in development hell for a long time. The original sequel, believe it or not, focused more on Michael Biehn as Hicks, rather than [Sigourney] Weaver as Ripley, and was gonna be shot as two movies back-to-back. But the studio [20th Century Fox] wasn't liking the script that had the simple sum-up of the Weyland Corporation facing off with a militarily-aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society.

NC: Yeah, put that on a poster!

(A shot of the Alien 3 poster appears in the corner, along with the very message that NC mentioned about the aforementioned sum-up that the studio didn't like; cut to a shot of an unproduced screenplay of Alien 3 as a comic book, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics)

NC (vo): The next try at the script involved the aliens coming to Earth and everyday people rising up to stop them, escaping a domesticated biodome city. The story and characters seemed dry, though, and failed to grab most people who read it.

(Two more illustrations of different concepts of the story in book form are shown, with NC describing them)

NC (vo): The next involved being trapped on a monastery with monks. The one after that involved being trapped on a prison planet.

NC: Unable to choose and with time running out, they just decided, (slaps hands together) "Do 'em both!"

(More footage of the movie is shown)

NC (vo): As well as change one big element back to form: Ripley had to be the focus. As the Fox president at the time pointed out, not only was she the face associated with Alien, but she was one of the few female action stars everyone could get behind.