Say what you will about David Fincher’s “Alien 3,” and believe me, there’s been plenty said, Sigourney Weaver remains one of its most loyal defenders.
While history remembers the third installment as a studio-interfered disaster that nearly broke David Fincher before his career even began, Weaver is not wavering in her support for both the filmmaker and the movie’s bleak vision.
Appearing at New York Comic Con (via Joblo), Weaver spoke warmly about the much-maligned sequel:
I like it because it’s so utterly different from the first two. I felt that [20th Century] Fox was smart to keep choosing very gifted directors who wanted to do something completely different with the Alien story… I had total confidence in David.
That said, Weaver didn’t mince words about the original Vincent Ward script — the infamous “monks in space” version that has since become legend.
“It had all these monks in space, in a kind of medieval garden. My character, I guess, crash landed and then I was in a coma for about half the movie. So I wasn’t crazy about that script,” she recalled. “I feel like David would’ve loved a chance to work on the script before we had to start shooting… We did delay but not enough for him to feel he’d solved a lot of the problems.”
Weaver remains fiercely protective of “Alien 3,” calling it “meaningful” and refusing to compare it to “Alien” or “Aliens.”
And honestly, while I don’t quite share her enthusiasm, I’ll admit it — “Alien 3” isn’t the dumpster fire it’s often labeled as. Yes, it’s dour, uneven, and clearly the product of too many cooks, but Fincher’s can be noticed are all over it. The film’s grim fatalism and stripped-down atmosphere is something legacy sequels rarely do these days.
“Alien 3” has its defenders, including none other Christopher Nolan who confessed, only a few years ago, how utterly impressed he was by Fincher’s talents after seeing the film for the first time:
I’ve never dared mention (Alien 3) to him (Fincher). I think he’s very aware of the flaws and he’s very aware of the appalling experience he had making it, and how put-upon he was, and I truly can only imagine. But his talent shines through in that movie. I came out of that film and had a conversation with a guy I was with and I said, ‘I’ve just seen the new Ridley Scott. I know who the new Ridley Scott is, it’s David Fincher,’ and I wasn’t wrong. It’s there in the movie, whether he knows it or not.
So, what say you? Is “Alien 3” an underrated slice of nihilist sci-fi, or still a cinematic misfire that even Fincher disowns? This debate’s been festering for over 30 years. While the 2003 released “Assembly Cut” — running 30 minutes longer — is the closest we’ll ever get to Fincher’s intended vision, the true “director’s cut” has never seen the light of day. Fincher himself has admitted being too scarred by the experience to ever want to revisit the film.