ALIEN 3 (1992)

 

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PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

ALIEN 3 is a strange follow-up to the successful ALIENS, given that the second sequel made a lot of money. 3 eschews the combative action of ALIENS and returns rather to the model of the 1979 ALIEN, in which most of the narrative consists of Ellen Ripley and her allies running through enclosed spaces trying to either escape or execute a killer E.T. It may be a testimony to the strength of the O'Bannon/Shusett concept that 3 is fairly watchable despite having many hands working on the script(s), and director David Fincher becoming so disgusted with studio interference that he renounced the film (though he didn't go so far as to remove his name from the project). 

At the end of ALIENS, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) escapes the conflagration on the space marines' ship in an escape pod with a few other survivors. Unfortunately, an alien sneaks on board the ship and in some manner transfers an alien egg into one refugee, though for some time the viewer does not decisively know that the victim is Ripley. The pod crash-lands on Fiorina, a planet dominated by an ore foundry, and every living being aboard dies except for Ripley, while the benign android Bishop is damaged beyond repair. 

Of the twenty-six men on Fiorina, all were either prisoners or guards from a men's prison, though most of the personnel was evacuated years ago. A small handful of the males remain to monitor the activities of the prisoners, who became organized into a quasi-religious order that maintains the foundry's activities. Before Ripley knows about the Alien's infiltration, she stands in danger of being raped by all the former prisoners, since all are double-Y chromosome males with extreme hostilities, just barely controlled by their religious leader Dillon (Charles S. Dutton). Since the foundry and its installation barely remains functioning, the government has no interest in what happens on Fiorina, and the "guards" have no weapons since the religious prisoners freely chose their confinement on the lonely world.

Ripley soon learns about both the grown Alien's presence and the incubating "alien queen" in her own body. On top of those problems, Ripley finds out from the still sentient Bishop that the same corporation that fomented the original alien-finding mission plans to come and take possession of the creature-- which Ripley foresees as a disaster for the people of Earth. 

While all of these conflicts keep the pot boiling well enough, Ripley is the only interesting character, while everyone else is just there to be killed or to make a noble sacrifice to the goal to slay the dragon. There's never a payoff regarding the notion of a society made up of "double-Y chromosome" men; the inhabitants of Fiorina just seem to like standard prisoners and guards. minus any heavy weaponry. Ripley concludes the film with a grand sacrificial gesture, as well as a giving the middle finger to the corporation that ruined her life. But despite increasing the role of the evil manipulators-- who played a rather retiring role in ALIENS-- the narrative as a whole is largely uninvolving. The setting of ALIEN was grim and forbidding as well, but the relatively interesting characters kept the setting from becoming as dispiriting as it is here.