Alien 3: 2003 Special Edition

[Dowly]

Stay the **** away from it! :doh:

Saw it last night and holy ****, how can something like that even exist?! :nope:

While it has 30 minutes or so extra footage, the sound on those are bad or the scenes change the feel of the movie entirely. (tho, there are some nice filler things)

Here's few comparisation thingies, so you know ****e it is. Spoilers naturally included for both special edition and normal alien 3 so dont read if you dont want to know the plot.




Right, first of all the alien doesnt born from a dog, but from an ox. That kinda sucks, because after Alien 3 a whole new category of dog aliens were introduced to the "lore" of the movies. Now, this leads to another problem, the stronger the host is, the stronger the alien will be. But as the rest of the alien footage was shot for it being an dog alien, it's movement etc. doesnt really fit on the whole ox thing. Also, the scene where the guy is cleaning the ventilation shaft was cut pretty badly so you wouldnt hear him calling out the dog he though was in the shaft.

Next the sound on some of the new scenes. You cant possibly understand how bad the quality is! You can hear the mic go on and off and the static behind it everytime someone speaks! It's AWFUL!

Ok, in this version, they actually caught the alien into the toxic waste shelter after the fire. Remember the guy who first saw the alien and was put into a jacket? Yeh, well, he thinks the alien is beautiful and convinces another prisoner to get him out of the jacket. Next the guy goes to the shelter, cuts the throat of the guard that is posted there and sets the alien free. HOW ****ING STUPID IS THAT!? :damn:

It seemed they saved the best for last; the ending scene. I though the scene was great with the queen bursting out of Ripley's chest while she was falling, but nooooo, now she just falls, no queen. :-?


Those were few of the bigger things they changed in the movie and I shall repeat what I said in the beginning; STAY AWAY FROM IT!! It's not worth it even for the most hardcore fan.

Gah! :nope:

EDIT: Goddammit, I could've just copy & pasted what Wiki says, seems to be the same as I just said. :haha:

An alternate version of Alien³ (officially titled the "Assembly Cut") with over 30 minutes of additional footage was released on the 9-disc Alien Quadrilogy box-set in 2003. Director David Fincher was the only director from the franchise who declined to participate in the box-set release
The Assembly Cut has several key plot elements that differ from the theatrical release. The alien gestates in an ox rather than a dog, and one of the inmates discovers a dead facehugger which is visually different from those seen in the previous films. Some scenes are extended to focus more on the religious views of the inmates. Most notably, in the Assembly Cut the inmates succeed in their attempt to trap the alien, but it is later released by the disturbed inmate Golic. In this version, the alien Queen does not burst from Ripley's chest as she falls into the furnace.
Some of the audio in the Assembly Cut is of noticeably poorer quality, often during footage that was not included in the theatrical release. The lesser quality is attributed to the fact that ADR by the original actors was not recorded for this footage, since it had been cut from the film by the time the film was being dubbed.

[goldorak]

I've warmed up to Alien 3 over the years. Even though it is a flawed film there are some good parts to it. The best ? Ripley finally dying in the furnance.
Alas Alien Resurection, a real piece of crap with absolutely no redeeming quality managed to **** the whole franchise.

I've got to say that I've never seen the "extended edition" of Alien 3, and after reading what you wrote it will stay that way.
I like somewhat the theatrical edition even with all its pitfalls.

[kiwi_2005]

ahh another favorite redone for the masses. Thanks for the warning.

[Dowly]

I'm one of the few who rates Alien 3 over Alien, mostly for the darker atmosphere it has. And yeh, alien 4 was very crappy. :shifty:

The biggest thing I hated about the special edition was that it seemed to change the movie from slow build up to more action oriented flick. Like the fire scene, whereas in the original it was briefly shown that the their plan went to hell and then you got the aftermath scene of bodies being carrier away. In the SE they've extended that scene to be like 10 minutes of ppl dodging the flames and trying to get the sprinklers on, didnt suit the scene at all. :nope:

[kiwi_2005]

I might hire it out just so i can diss it when i take it back to the video shop and let them know well that was a waste of $8 :DL

Hate it when they change a movie when their was no changes needed. Alien 3 is one of the best - no guns but still manage to bring a tear to my eye :)

[AngusJS]

The Aliens special edition was marred by the inclusion of an unneeded scene as well. In the original, there is no contact with the aliens after the 1st battle (besides the facehuggers in the medlab) until the interrogation of Burke, when they suddenly cut the power. The surprise and resulting tension work magnificently.

The special edition includes a scene where the survivors remotely monitor some automatic security guns that they've set up outside their barricade. The aliens attack the guns but are beaten back, and everyone goes back to their business as if nothing happened. There is no more action until the medlab scene. This really reduced the impact of the aliens' final assault on the the command center - instead of it feeling like "oh crap, they're here", after the absence of any adult aliens for the entire second act, it's now more like "oh, so they're attacking again," as we knew they had already made their way from the power plant to the command center. The editors were right to leave this on the cutting room floor.

[Dowly]

I liked the sentry gun scene, always wondered where did they came up with them to the AvP games. :yep:

[goldorak]

The editors were right to leave this on the cutting room floor.


Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".

[Skybird]

Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".
Not true. Often the theatrical releases are crippled versions against the will of the director, because producers fear the audience is too dumb to understand them, bringing revenues down. And this dumb version then is what fails to impress the crowds. "Kingdom of Heaven" on my mind as a very prominent example. Theatre version: bad; extended version: benchmark movie. Dirctor's Cut of Blade Runner sees the film being even shorter than the theatre release, and cutting the end scenes that against the director's will had been introduced to the theatre version to make the movie more digestable for the stupid crowd (it is footage Scott got from Kubrick, from Shining).

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

[Torplexed]

I remember Alien 3 being something of a downer as they killed off all the fun character from Aliens like Lieutenant Hicks and pretty much threw the android Bishop on the scrap pile. ( I guess Aliens director James Cameron was a bit annoyed about that too as the original script kept Hicks alive) Charles Dance's doctor character introduced in Alien3 was cool too, and they wasted no time killing him off early as well. Plus, I wondered why this prison in the ass end of space was so heavily populated by people with British accents. :O:

I guess I'll have to check out this extended version. I always thought the accidental fire scene seemed a bit odd and abbreviated.

[goldorak]

Not true. Often the theatrical releases are crippled versions against the will of the director, because producers fear the audience is too dumb to understand them, bringing revenues down. And this dumb version then is what fails to impress the crowds. "Kingdom of Heaven" on my mind as a very prominent example. Theatre version: bad; extended version: benchmark movie. Dirctor's Cut of Blade Runner sees the film being even shorter than the theatre release, and cutting the end scenes that against the director's will had been introduced to the theatre version to make the movie more digestable for the stupid crowd (it is footage Scott got from Kubrick, from Shining).

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

Hey Skybird thats why I said "ALMOST ALWAYS".
There are exceptions to this rule, and as you note I agree with you on the fact that Kingdom of Heaven in its 3+ hour original length is the correct version. To be honest, some cinemas in europe actually projected the whole film instead of the canonical 2 hours.

Also lets not forget 2 points : one is the director eliminating footage because its bad and would ruin the film independantly of the length of the movie. And in this case the director is always correct, so when we see reinstated footage that should have been on the cutting floor we are seeing nothing more than a marketing edition and most of the time the extended version will be bad.
The other issue is of course the fact that some directors comply with this stupid 2 hour rule so they have or are obliged to leave on the cutting florr footage that actually is part of the movie (and isn't bad footage in any case). So when you see the extended edition you're actually seeing the whole damn film. Now mind you, in europe cinemas and people are not so obsessed with this 2 hours rule as americans are. So we get to see movies for the most part unaltered in length, although most cinemas yes tend to impose a stupid 2 hours screen time to maximize the number of viewings per day.

[papa_smurf]

I've got the Alien Quadrology boxset, so I got all the films plus the extra versions.

[Dowly]

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

Oh come on! Alien and Alien 3 are basically the same movie, except Alien 3 is better. :O:

@Torplexed

No, you dont want to see the extended thing. The "action" in the fire scene is just people running around screaming. The original cut in that scene is much better, trust me. :yep:

And yes, I must agree, I didnt like A3 when I first saw it, because Hicks died, he was much more interesting than Ripley. :yep:

I'm glad that the director of the A3 washed his hands off the SE version and refused to have anything to do with it. Atleast he knew it would suck. :O:

[Blacklight]

Originally Posted by goldorak http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/smartdark/viewpost.gif (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1224662#post1224662)
Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".


I would say that the director's cut of Daredevil was actually a saving grace for that film and it actually made it a LOT better and made the plotline flow so much nicer. It was actually a decent movie.
In the theaters, they cut out almost EVERYTHING relating to the pretty much essential (in my opinion) side plot, making the theatrical release a crappy mish mash that half the time, didn't make sense. If they had released the director's cut with the extra footage in it, to the theaters instead of the version they DID release, Daredevil wouldn't have been crucified HALF as much as it was. I have no idea why they chopped out everything that had to do with the side plot that made EVERYTHING make sense. :nope: