Anghus Houvouras comes to the defense of Alien 3…

Alien 3 > Aliens

I made this statement while writing a follow up to The Five Most Disappointing Films of All Time article. There were a few readers who suggested Alien 3 should have been included on the original list. I debated that assertion and quickly found a growing army of Alien 3 haters who believe the film is an abomination. Some went so far to claim that there are only two Alien films and that everything after Aliens is nothing more than a sad reflection of a franchise that has been oft maligned and left for dead.

Film fans certainly love the hyperbole, don’t they?

Sure, Alien: Resurrection is not a great film. The Alien vs. Predator series proved that some concepts can be executed with blunt brutality. Watching those movies is like witnessing the unrelenting murder of an interesting idea. Ever since the tease in Predator 2, the idea of putting an Alien and the warlike Predators into one cinematic universe seemed like a great idea. Paul W.S. Anderson managed to make you regret thinking that.

I’m not sure if we need to drag Prometheus into this discussion. Yes, it’s terrible. Yes, it’s connected to the Alien franchise. And yes, it’s just as bad as Paul W.S. Anderson’s AVP movie. Equally stupid. Poorly plotted. Terrible, worthless characters. Did you ever think you’d see a Ridley Scott movie that was as bad as a Paul W.S. Anderson movie? And yet, it happened. I’m sure people will find that statement offensive. People are quick to defend the terrible work of talented directors based on the quality of their past work. However, if we’re being fair: Prometheus was terrible. As terrible as Alien: Resurrection or AVP: Alien vs. Predator. Just because it had superior talent in front of the camera and state of the art special FX doesn’t make it a better film. In fact, I would think it would be even more damning since they had all the right resources and still delivered a beautiful looking pile of trash. Ridley Scott helped birth the Alien world into existence. I suppose it’s only fair that he got to put the final, terrible nail in the coffin. But I digress…

To me, if we’re ranking Alien movies, it goes like this…

1. Alien

2. Alien 3

3. Aliens

Between three and four is an epic descent in both quality and watchability.

4. Alien: Resurrection

5 (tie). AVP: Alien vs. Predator

5 (tie). Prometheus

6. AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem

Alien 3 is a masterpiece of mismanagement and an odd kind of classic. It’s a movie that was forged in the fires of production hell going through a dozen different writers and being pulled in every direction by the creative forces behind it, torn to shreds, and then reassembled into a bleak and confounding movie that I have learned to love.I liked it the first time I saw it. In those pre-internet days, you weren’t able to tap into the cultural zeitgeist at a moment’s notice. So for many years, I was under the assumption that Alien 3 was a fine movie, and not the hated bastard stepchild of the Alien franchise. It’s only in the last ten years or so that I’ve realized just how many people hate this movie – including the director, David Fincher who blames “studio meddling” and the creative economics of Hollywood as the cause for the film turning into an unsalvageable nightmare. And even knowing all this, I still say it’s superior to James Cameron’s action filled, steroid fueled take on Alien. It also serves as a fitting finale to the series. Alien 3 is like The Empire Strikes Back of the series, but it happens last.

Now I’m not saying Aliens is a bad movie. Far from it. It’s a big, crazy, fun action movie. It’s exactly the kind of over produced confection that James Cameron is known for. In the wake of Alien, Cameron decided to go another way. Where I would call Alien a horror film, Aliens is very much a big Hollywood action movie, filled with your typical James Cameron characters and various personality types posing as people. Every choice he made seemed predicated on taking everything that worked for Alien and cranking it up a hundred decibels. Big guns, big explosions, big Queen aliens, big mech suits, FLAMETHROWERS. To his credit, it was kind of awesome. Though at times it felt like a cartoon. Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser, I’m looking at you.