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A review by lkedzie
Alien - Alien 3: The Lost Screenplay by William Gibson by Pat Cadigan, William Gibson
2.0
Alien X Alien X Alien was poorly received at the time, but has fared better in subsequent years. In the same way that Alien and Aliens are different kinds of horror movies, Alien^3 is as well. While the Bridging/Bussing at the beginning turned everyone off, has a SHTF scene that outshines The Birds and, I mean, Fincher.
This is not that. This is a novelization of one of the earlier drafts of the screenplay. It is much more interested with the science fiction of what is going on, maybe more so than the first two movies, and it is more interested in the world, specifically the Communists across the space Berlin Wall. One thing that I particularly like is that the "rules" of the horror get played with, which is a risky move but works here. And as the final action scene kicks off, it is a thrill.
But the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. The author writes well, particularly when she is given some more lead to run with, but my repeated thought was 'this scene would work as a movie.' There is also this weird hitch for the characters to think about the events of Aliens, which makes sense in context - in their minds, everything just happened yesterday, so yes, you would be thinking constantly about who you lost - but it comes off as 'hey, do you remember that scene? How about this scene?'
This is not that. This is a novelization of one of the earlier drafts of the screenplay. It is much more interested with the science fiction of what is going on, maybe more so than the first two movies, and it is more interested in the world, specifically the Communists across the space Berlin Wall. One thing that I particularly like is that the "rules" of the horror get played with, which is a risky move but works here. And as the final action scene kicks off, it is a thrill.
But the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. The author writes well, particularly when she is given some more lead to run with, but my repeated thought was 'this scene would work as a movie.' There is also this weird hitch for the characters to think about the events of Aliens, which makes sense in context - in their minds, everything just happened yesterday, so yes, you would be thinking constantly about who you lost - but it comes off as 'hey, do you remember that scene? How about this scene?'