You make some solid arguments. And I do agree that removing the availability of firearms really does a great job at increasing tension. IMO, killing Newt, Hicks, and Bishop as still a mistake in the bigger series’ picture. Preserving the overall arc of the Fincher script could have been done by, for example, having Ripley’s pod jettisoned (possibly Bishop as well) and leaving Newt and Hicks for another writer or underline Ripley’s futility against the xenomorphs with the Sulaco arriving after Ripley’s fall (or dramatically, during).
Such a path would give more space for world-building (Hicks coming out of cryo, trying to figure out what’s happened and get the ship turned around) as well as leave a solid cast characters for future installments (probably timeskip to Hicks having deserted with Newt and training her to survive as they try to get the word out and build a resistance against W-Y’s xeno-biological horrors, or Newt stuck in cryo due to having been facehuggered, or any number of alternatives that would leave the characters in play and allow for better future continuity).
The Fincher script pretty much ended the series, giving him the final word and leaving little for anyone else. Maybe it was that he was specifically not thinking about anything outside of a single, episodic horror story and happened to have this one.
See, I think the difference in our approach here is that you think it’s a bad thing that Alien 3 ended the series so conclusively. Personally, I disagree. It’s not a bad thing for stories to end. A big problem with a lot of modern film-making is an obsession with the need to turn everything into a franchise or a shared universe or whatever. I’d rather something be the best story it can be, no matter what the implications are for any potential future installments.
As a horror story, Alien 3 is far more powerful for its decision to rip away everything Ripley fought for in Aliens. Darker, and bleaker, certainly, but it’s not exactly supposed to be a happy story. Keeping them alive, even if they’re not present in the movie, would have radically changed the overall tone in a way that would have softened its hardest punches.
You make some solid arguments. And I do agree that removing the availability of firearms really does a great job at increasing tension. IMO, killing Newt, Hicks, and Bishop as still a mistake in the bigger series’ picture. Preserving the overall arc of the Fincher script could have been done by, for example, having Ripley’s pod jettisoned (possibly Bishop as well) and leaving Newt and Hicks for another writer or underline Ripley’s futility against the xenomorphs with the Sulaco arriving after Ripley’s fall (or dramatically, during).
Such a path would give more space for world-building (Hicks coming out of cryo, trying to figure out what’s happened and get the ship turned around) as well as leave a solid cast characters for future installments (probably timeskip to Hicks having deserted with Newt and training her to survive as they try to get the word out and build a resistance against W-Y’s xeno-biological horrors, or Newt stuck in cryo due to having been facehuggered, or any number of alternatives that would leave the characters in play and allow for better future continuity).
The Fincher script pretty much ended the series, giving him the final word and leaving little for anyone else. Maybe it was that he was specifically not thinking about anything outside of a single, episodic horror story and happened to have this one.
See, I think the difference in our approach here is that you think it’s a bad thing that Alien 3 ended the series so conclusively. Personally, I disagree. It’s not a bad thing for stories to end. A big problem with a lot of modern film-making is an obsession with the need to turn everything into a franchise or a shared universe or whatever. I’d rather something be the best story it can be, no matter what the implications are for any potential future installments.
As a horror story, Alien 3 is far more powerful for its decision to rip away everything Ripley fought for in Aliens. Darker, and bleaker, certainly, but it’s not exactly supposed to be a happy story. Keeping them alive, even if they’re not present in the movie, would have radically changed the overall tone in a way that would have softened its hardest punches.