[Graveyard]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Alien 3 (Assembly Cut) (1992)

A film with such a troubled production it's a story all by itself. Despite being disowned by then first time director David Fincher, Alien 3 , or at least this version, is nowhere near as bad as some suggest. Indeed, what has become known as the Assembly Cut which added 30+ minutes of restored footage to the original film by incorporating previously edited footage, lengthening scenes and changing one or two key elements from the original cut improve the film so much that it's become perhaps my favourite of the original Alien quardrilogy.

Now running at a whopping 2hrs and 25 minutes, Alien 3 turns out to be one hell of a film. If Alien was the Old Dark House in space and Aliens was a glorified action move then Alien 3 is a good old slasher movie with the Xenomorph dispatching the inhabitants of a run down penal colony prison one by one. The Assembly Cut brings the character to life, in fact in the case of Paul McGann's disturbed inmate, Golic, gives them a whole new dimension which in turn makes the film itself a more involving viewing experience. It's not just secondary characters either, even Sigourney Weaver's Ripley is improved upon by making her character more well rounded with added guilt from being the only survivor from the previous film and of course from bringing a whole new level of threat to the prison colony.

So with characters you care about, suddenly the whole slasher movie aspect takes on a dare i say it, more thrilling aspect. The surprises surprise and the shocks definitely shock, Brian Glover's demise, which i'd forgotten from previous viewings, really caught me unaware in a gloriously satisfying jump scare that worked beautifully.

If you've still only seen Alien 3 in it's theatrical cut, then yeah, it's a pretty abysmal entry in the series, but this Assembly Cut elevates it to a whole new level that i think rivals the best in the series.

Now I need to track down that Assembly cut!!