Usenet FAQ Archive - http://www.netmeg.net/faq/recreation/sf-and-fantasy/alien/03.html goto -> Usenet FAQ Archive : Recreation : SF and Fantasy MOVIES: ALIEN FAQ part 3/4 The archive was called: movies/alien-faq/part3 Frequency: rare Posted to: alt.cult-movies, rec.arts.sf.movies, rec.arts.movies.past-films, news.answers, rec.answers, alt.answers Version: 3.0 --,_ < <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > _,-- \ / ALIEN, ALIENS, ALIEN^3 and ALIEN RESURRECTION / ,_ | | _, `-,__| Information and Frequently Asked Questions |__,-' _______' `_______ VVVV ______,_ Version 3.0 _,______ VVVV \|XXXX|/|/|/|/(_ _)\|\|\|\|XXXX|\ _M_M_M_ PART 3 of 4 _M_M_M_ _) (_ \______\ < < < < < < <<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > > > > > /______/ 13. FREQUENTLY DISCUSSED TOPICS This section is intended for frequently asked questions that have many diverse theories and explanations. I've included some of the more plausible theories given for some of the topics. Wherever possible, I tried to group the "for" and "against" cases. * After the Nostromo blew up, and Ripley discovers that the alien is * on board the escape capsule, why does the alien take SO long to attack * her? - The alien was coming to the end of its life cycle, when Ripley happened to disturb it. It was slow to attack because it was dying. This theory is supported by an older version of the _ALIEN_ script where Ash reveals that the alien had made a nest and ensured the continutation of its species (cocooned Dallas and transformed Brett into an egg) at which time the alien itself would approach the end of its lifecycle; curl up and die. See more about this topic under the identical question in Part 2 of this FAQ. - The DH comics speculate, that the Aliens are more prone to attack, when (somehow) threatened. Since Ripley pretty much is defenseless, can't escape and isn't attacking, why should the Alien hurry? * In _ALIEN_, how does the company know about the aliens anyway, and how * much do they know, and why don't they send a well trained scientific * "collection" team ? - They knew about the derelict ship from the beacon signal that was picked up by another space craft, maybe off course and with some technical problems so that they could not investigate it themselves, or maybe it was picked up by some automatic exploration vessel. Back on earth they had enough computer power to unscramble the beacon. (remember that "Mother" couldn't unscramble it completely). Some department of Weyland Yutani decided to bring the next ship that came around that area close to LV-426. It would then have to check out what was going on on the surface (this was in the contract they signed). After the Nostromo was destroyed and didn't return, the people who made the Nostromo alter its route got scared -in the end they were responsible for the destruction of the Nostromo- and deleted all files concerning the Nostromo's new route and LV-426. Ash was planted on board for that reason: to find out what was on LV-426 and bring it to them. They knew about a hostile creature from the beacon, but they didn't expect something like _this_. [this theory is supported by the novelisation] - The same reasoning as above, except for the fact that Weyland Yutani knew all about the aliens from the beacon. Some people claim that Ash knows everything about the alien lifeform. This seems unlikely because of the way Ash tries to get rid of the facehugger on Kane. - They did not know everything about the aliens and just wanted to see what happens ("crew expendable"), and Ash was supposed to store all information in the computer (Ash gives us a few details about the aliens, but he does not necessarily know everything from the start, he might have gathered some things from what he has already seen on the Nostromo). Later, when the Nostromo had returned to earth with it's autopilot, they could first remote-access the computer and then, with all the information, decide how to get out the alien eggs (or whatever was found to be there). In that case they would have only lost 6 employees and perhaps an expensive android. - The ship diverting to investigate the beacon (and assuming that the "crew is expendable") is part of a standard procedure. All data collected would be returned to the company when the ship returns to Earth. Since the Nostromo did not return to Earth, the company did not know about the aliens. (this theory assumes that no communication occurred between the Nostromo and The Company AND that Ash was not necessarily "planted" on the Nostromo for sinister reasons) [contradicting the novelisation and the movie: there was a specific order to bring back the lifeform] * Near the beginning of _ALIENS_ when Ripley is at the inquiry, one of the * company executives at the table estimates the value of the Nostromo at * "42 million in adjusted dollars". Surely a ship as large as the Nostromo * is worth more than 42 million ? - In "adjusted dollars" suggests many things. One, that *A* dollar has been adjusted from a previous dollar. And assuming that this is not very far into the future, this previous dollar was most probably the U.S. dollar. It suggests that the value of the dollar was readjusted in much the same way as the currencies in some developing countries like Mexico have been adjusted to take into account rampant inflation. - "adjusted dollars" could refer to the original value of the ship translated to what it would be worth at the present day. Perhaps the Nostromo is a common ship that has seen mass-production and it's just not worth all that much. This is not unrealistic as we know that ore is mined in tremendous quantities (20,000,000,000 tonnes were being hauled by the Nostromo in _ALIEN_) so the resources are readily available and we can assume that, with increased space travel, a higher volume of space ships are being made. (which, in turn, would lower the cost of assembly). - Hey, it's the future. Who knows what money is like? * In the 57 years between _ALIEN_ and _ALIENS_, why don't they try again * to get some alien eggs? - The bio-weapons division possibly started the whole thing without permission, and then, after the catastrophic failure (loss of an expensive space ship), they destroyed all information about it, and therefore the general managment never knew about it (This appears to be exactly the way Burke acts in _ALIENS_). - "The company" seems to be quite large, with several divisions. Maybe the whole alien plan was just an idea of the bio-weapons division, and after the loss of the Nostromo the managment decided to give up because the risk was much higher than the possible profit. Then, during the following decades, they just forgot about it. Obviously Burke doesn't know about the aliens before he got Ripley's report. - It is possible that the company did not know about how the incident with the aliens went or anything that occurred on the Nostromo UNTIL Ripley showed up (there is no evidence that the Nostromo was communicating with the company in _ALIEN_) * Are we really to believe that, having lost contact with an entire colony, * the Colonial Marines send a warship out with only ONE SQUADRON of soldiers? - Possibly, Burke had a fair idea of what has happened on LV-426 so by sending a small number of soldiers, he was gambling that some would survive and bring (accidentally or not) an Alien back to Earth. - The company assumed that the colony's transmitter broke down and the marines were simply a "just in case" measure. So the possibility of actually needing more troops was considered to be small. - Several times in the movie it was implied that this group of marines had been on these sort of "bug hunts" before (ie: the sign on the side of the first dropship: "Bug Stomper" and Hudson asking, "Is this gonna be another one of those bug hunts?" [Aliens]) They had been able to handle "bug hunts" with one squad before, so why send more this time? They didn't know that this would be the mother of all bugs. - Was more than one squad EVER needed before? After all, "these marines are very tough hombres. There's nothing they can't handle." And we know they've been "trained to deal with situations like this." Let's face it, the colonial marines are just damn GOOD, and nothing could have prepared anyone for the idea that they'd meet their match in a bunch of bugs. * Theories regarding the derelict space craft and its fossilized pilot (from * the movie _ALIEN_). - Perhaps the species that was transporting the eggs mirror the human errors of judgement (made mostly by the Company) that were to follow. Perhaps this species, like the Company, thought they could lower their guard, treating the aliens like a commodity. Maybe their now dead/mute state indicates where the human race might be heading as a result of the company's "financial" venture. - The species piloting the derelict craft were aware of the dangers of the aliens, this is why they submersed the entire colony of eggs under the blue "film". When the film is broken, it would trigger an alarm (sort of like a laser-operated security system) and they'd know that there was motion in the "cargo". - Suggested by an old draft of the _ALIEN_ script: the derelict craft landed on LV-426 to make repairs, a silo of eggs (on the planet) was discovered by the space jockey species and they got infested. The hull full of eggs is in fact the crew of the derelict after being transformed into the eggs (as shown in the Brett-egg scene edited out of the _ALIEN_ theatrical release) - The derelict ship transported something else than the eggs. For instance, it carried food, like meat, or animals. Somehow the pilot got impregnated with an alien chestburster and just before it hatched, the pilot set down on LV-426 (he didn't crash land because of the valuable cargo) and recorded the distress signal. It put it on the air, and died when the chestburster broke free. This chestburster got down, and grew into an alien. This alien made an egg from the storage down below, a queen-egg. It hatched, and a queen alien arose. This queen alien started to produce eggs from the stored food/animals. The blue mist was conserving the food/animals, but was now used to conserve the eggs. The full-grown aliens died, but the eggs survived over the centuries. - The aliens already *are* biological weapons that were developed by the pilot's race and that he transported, probably to use them in some long- forgotten interplanetary war. (They would kill everything on a hostile planet, die when there's nobody left and leave a full complement of new eggs ... kinda like the neutron bomb, only biological and self-replacing.) * Was the derelict ship destroyed at the end of Aliens? - Yes. The blast at the end of Aliens was big enough to destroy everything in the neighbourhood. The ship was close enough to get blown to pieces. We ARE talking about a blast "the size of Nebraska"!!! If it wasn't destroyed, someone would've gotten more aliens within those 200 years between ALIEN^3 and ALIEN RESURRECTION, but no one did... did they?? - Probably not. The blast was -according to Bishop- 'the size of Nebraska', but he was only referring to the size of 'the cloud of vapour' at that time. An explosion that size hasn't been accounted for yet. It's not very likely that something could create an explosion that would vapourise Nebraska. (The largest nuclear weapon yet detonated was a 57 megaton device tested by the USSR in 1961. It produced a crater about 1 mile wide, and the fireball was estimated to be 4.5 miles in diameter.) There probably was only a real crater of about five miles that was completely vapourised. The destructive effect of the blast stopped at something about five miles or so. Beyond that, there was 'only' the gust of wind, which could've produced the 'vapour'. So the derelict ship is still intact. [Lydeckers also tells us in the director's cut that the grid reference of the ship was "in the middle of nowhere"] This is corroborated with text from the 'Aliens Technical Manual': '"So if one of these things exploded, how big a crater would you get? "Big" "Uh- forty megatons? according to the android that's a thirty kilometer blast radius." "Fallout?" "Ground burst explosion - lots, I'd say. How far it would carry depends on local weather patterns." "But here, behind the Ilyium range, everything would be sheltered, right?" "Probably." "So if the derelict is still there, there's probably eggs still there. Bingo - and we get a bona-fide alien artifact as well." "Yoishida! Get me Wells, and try to arrange a direct uplink to the Shinoy Maru, immediately" "Yes Mister Cuellar."' * Alien intelligence. Although they have a large cranium, can they really * "think"? YES: - In _ALIENS_, when Ripley is in the "hive", several aliens filter in to attack her; Ripley threatens to flame the eggs and the queen waves them off. This would indicate that the aliens can communicate and ARE intelligent. - The alien in _ALIEN^3_ acted to protect Ripley (since she was carrying the queen embryo) when the doctor was going to give her an injection and when Dillon grabbed her (near the end). This would indicate that the alien can reason through situations. - The aliens in _ALIENS_ cut the power to the complex. (unless this was just an "accident") - A quote from James Cameron [STARLOG #125, DEC 1987] " One admittedly confusing aspect of this creature's behavior (which was unclear as well in ALIEN) is the fact that sometimes the warrior will capture prey for a host, and other times, simply kill it. For example, Ferro the dropship pilot is killed outright while Newt, and previously most of the colony members, were only captured and cocooned within the walls to aid in the Aliens' reproduction cycle. If we assume the Aliens have intelligence, at least in the central guiding authority of the Queen, then it is possible that these decisions may have a tactical basis. For example, Ferro was a greater threat, piloting the heavily armed dropship than she was a desirable host for reproduction. Newt, and most of the colonists, were unarmed and relatively helpless, therefore easily captured for hosting. " - Though it could just be a result of the human/alien DNA mixing, the aliens in ALIEN RESURRECTION seem quite intelligent -- learning from Gediman's experiment with the button, using the button against the soldier later, creating the trap in the water by webbing up the surface and puncturing the cooling tanks, etc. NO: - On several occasions, the aliens kill potential hosts when they could just as easily capture them. (from _ALIEN_: Brett, Parker, Lambert. from _ALIENS_: Ferro, possibly others. from _ALIEN^3_: the doctor, several prisoners) this would indicate that the alien is not intelligent. (unless the alien kills those people for food, which seems to be sustained by Alien3.) (An explanation for this behaviour, on the other hand, is the fact that the alien needs something for the facehugger to grow in first: some kind of egg. The host for the chestburster is not necessary yet.) - The scene in the _ALIENS_ director's cut where the aliens "throw" themselves at the sentry guns would indicate that they are not intelligent (ie: sacrificing countless numbers just to get their hands on 7 potential hosts.) * What does the alien use for energy, does it eat? if so what? - The alien could work like a battery, using electricity for it's energy (suggested by the acid blood). This idea is suggested by the RPG. - The alien increases its mass greatly between its chestburster and full-grown stages of development. In order to do this it MUST eat something solid (perhaps: flesh, minerals, metals) - H.R. Giger introduces the concept of a bio-mechanical species (notice how the Space Jockey of _ALIEN_ was attached to/part of the machinery it was sitting at?) If the aliens are part of Giger's bio-mechanical world then it's entirely possible that they could eat metal alloys to increase their mass. - In an old draft of the _ALIEN_ script, when Ripley finds Dallas cocooned and the Brett-egg, she says to Dallas, "I'm going to get you out of here" and Dallas replies, "No, it's too late for me, the alien has eaten to much of me already... see what it did to Brett?" - The alien appears to be eating a prisoner in the final chase of ALIEN^3. - An Alien, like a fly, could "eat" by dissolving it's food with an acid like substance, then eating the "soup" left behind. In this way, the alien could eat pretty much any material (even metal). * What are those long, dark "spines" sticking out of the back of the alien? - These spines could be functionally similar to the plates on the back of a Stegasaurus; they make it difficult to land a damaging blow on the alien from a sneak-attack from behind. - The spines could also be some form of reservoir for acid (similar to the humps on a camel). - Perhaps they are heat sinks. - They could be gills for breathing, like a fish, the alien probably doesn't breath the same air we do, so these "gills" would filter out the components that it needs from the environment around it. - The aliens can most likely lie dormant when there's no prey around, just hanging in the ceiling like in ALIENS, perfectly still, but, when there's prey to be had, they can eat some of that, as the alien apparently did in ALIEN^3. - The original draft of ALIEN RESURRECTION suggests that the "spines" are used to spew out the "resin" that cocoons their victims. * Is there a notion of "soldier" and "worker" aliens? YES: - The alien in _ALIEN^3_ seemed to act/look different than the aliens in the previous movies. This alien could be a "worker" with the task of protecting the queen until she has a chance to mature. - The alien species has alot of similarities with insects, so, like a hive of ants or termites, the aliens would have soldiers and workers. NO: - The aliens that were in the "hive" at the end of _ALIENS_ would likely be classified as "workers" however they stood upright and looked no different than the rest of the aliens (which would be considered "soldiers"). * Where do the aliens come from, were they genetically engineered? - They could have been genetically engineered due to their (seemingly unnatural) ability to adapt to new environments. - They could be bio-weapons on the basis of the fact that their parasitic nature is too violent and unsupportive of the host. An organism which destroys its habitat (in this case it's host, whatever kind of organism it is) would very quickly makes itself extinct. - The aliens could be a parasite of the galaxy. They serve as much purpose as a mosquito does on earth. - If we maintain H.R. Giger's original idea of the alien eggs coming from an infection (a possibility that is explored in the Brett-egg scene cut from _ALIEN_), then the thousands of eggs on the derelict space craft in _ALIEN_ could have come from some form of plague. - It has been suggested (by Dark Horse comics) that the Predators created the aliens for hunting purposes. - It also has been suggested that the Predators plant the aliens on planets, so that if they come back after some time, the aliens have built some hives and they can hunt them all down. The Predators might have found the aliens on one of their hunts on some far off planet. - For some detailed suggestions/information concerning the alien lifeform, read the last part of the FAQ. * Why are the aliens in _ALIENS_ different from the alien in _ALIEN_? - Maybe alien's behavior is goverened by pheromones, in the same way that a termite colony is governed, by passing chemicals from the queen through the colony. This would explain why a large group of aliens with a queen behave differently (cocooning people instead of killing them) to a single isolated alien. - The alien in _ALIEN_ was a different "type" of alien. (ie: a soldier instead of a worker) - The aliens in _ALIENS_ were more "evolved" (after all, they did have some physical differences - see Section 2 - What is an Alien?) and hence, the way they acted was different. - The facehugger in Alien came from an egg that was not created from humanoid material. Therefore the genetic code that was in the facehugger, and in the embyo and therefore was in the Alien was different from the genetic code in the eggs from Aliens. These eggs were made from people (humans). Therefore geneticly the alien was different, and therefore it had a different appearance. It is also suggested that while the embryo grows in the hosts, the embryo 'consults' the hosts internals for the environment that it came from, so it can adapt to that environment before it hatches. - But seriously, face it, it's artistic license on James Cameron's part. * In Alien3, how did the eggs get on the Sulaco? - When Bishop was preparing to crawl down the service tunnel to pilot the dropship down, he told Ripley that it would take (in total) approx 3 hours. Earlier in the movie, it was established that the place was going to blow up in approx 4 hours. This left Bishop an extra hour during which he could have: fetched 2 eggs and hidden them. While Ripley was rescuing Newt, Bishop could've then returned to pick up the eggs and put them in the drop ship. He'd then fly back to pick up Ripley and give some bogus story to cover up why he was late. - The queen laid eggs in the landing gear prior to getting out and tearing Bishop in half. - Yet another theory is that the queen laid eggs on the Sulaco while Ripley was going to get the cargo lifter. However, it doesn't seem that the queen's physiology would accomodate this AND it would be unlikely that she'd be able to lay the eggs in a well concealed place (such that Ripley wouldn't find them) during the split seconds that the camera is not on the queen. This egg can't get in the EEV, anyway, unless it has some way of getting up and walking from one end to the ship to another. The EEV was in a complete other part of the Sulaco. - In Gibson's _ALIEN^3_ script, it is suggested that the queen "stings" Bishop with her tail, thus poisoning him. While Bishop lies in his hypersleep capsule, the poison genetically combines with his body and forms two eggs. (notice when Ripley tries to repair Bishop, there is only his one arm and head remaining). It is possible that Bishop observed the development of two eggs (from his body) then, when complete, opened the hypersleep chamber and (with his remaining arm) moved the egg out (so it could infect Ripley). * In ALIEN^3: Was the human Bishop (that appeared at the end of the movie) * really human or was he also an android? YES: - Some people have witnessed skin hanging down (most say it's his ear). This would indicate that he's an android. To further the issue, Bishop II takes a nasty hit in the side of the head, yet remains concious, it is unlikely that a human being would be able to shake off such an injury. The red blood was just a way to ensure Ripley he was a human. His blood was just colored. It was the only way to ensure for Ripley he was a human. - The credits indicate that the character is named "Bishop II" as if to say it is just another copy of the same line of androids. NO: - "85" hit him in the side of the head and he started bleeding red blood (around his left ear). Since the androids depicted in the series have white blood, this Bishop would have to be human. (it is too ludicrous to theorize that the company has made a red-blooded android since _ALIENS_, yet the androids 200 years later that supposedly the most high-tech ever built, "Autons," have white blood again!) - Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of the movie states that he definitely is human and he bleeds badly when hit). - So does the comic book adaption of the movie. - So does the final script for the film. * ALIEN^3 was a bad movie. YES: - The "course" of the movie was "unrealistically" altered to fit with the script. ie: in the first 5 minutes of the movie, we kill off two major characters, place alien eggs on the Sulaco and against-all-odds Ripley is the sole survivor of the crash. - Although an important part of the series, Newt and Hicks died for no discernable reason. This renders all the heroism in Aliens to nothing. - Too many similarities between _ALIEN^3_ and _ALIEN_: * one alien stalks a group of weaponless people. * trapping the alien did not work, so let's try something else. * repair of a busted-up android. - Depressing. Ripley's life crumbles to an inevitable fate. No happy ending. Ripley is also out of character: she suddenly sleeps with the doctor, something a mother who had lost two children (her own, and Newt) shortly after each other, would not do. She is also too hardened, and does not seem to care about anyone anymore. Even the death of the doctor is something she does not think about anymore. She's gone too blunt in too short a time. - Characters are flat, undeveloped and boring. Nobody really CARES when the alien kills one. A small test: try to name four prisoners. It shows how much you could get 'into' the movie. (This test can also be done for Alien, Aliens, and Alien Resurrection, which usually comes up with a very different result than Alien3.) - No attempt is made to explain MOST questionable event: How did the eggs get on the Sulaco? - _ALIEN^3_ focused on Ripley's misfortune-plagued life instead of the alien creature. Also, the maternal issue which was very much part of Alien and Aliens, is lacking completely. There is no 'safe haven' anywhere to get some emotional rest. - Most North American movie critics did not like _ALIEN^3_. - The emotions in Alien3 were not taken out to what they could have. Nobody seemed to care about someone else. Therefore it was hard to care for the characters in the movie. An example you can test for yourself is: try to remember the characters from Alien. Then from Aliens. Then Alien Resurrection. And last -and least?- those from Alien^3. Most people hardly can name two or three of Alien^3. - Alien^3 lacked humor. In Alien we had Parker with his remarks, in Aliens we had Hudson cracking jokes, in Alien Resurrection we had Johner smarting off. This had a very good effect on those films: there was this character which had a fresh view on things. NO: - Just because a movie doesn't have a happy ending doesn't mean it's a bad movie. - _ALIEN^3_ takes a different direction from the prior alien movies. It is good that they didn't make an "_ALIENS_ with bigger guns" as most had expected. - The acting, as in the entire series, remained excellent. - Artistic images were well defined. The Newt autopsy scene showed almost NO graphic images, yet the audience was revolted by the vividness. The graphic horror was not blatantly displayed on the screen, but projected into the imagination of the audience. - Next to the superb way the story is depicted visually, the sound is also excellent. - Since we don't know everything about the alien species, it's not difficult to accept that "by undisclosed means" the alien eggs got on the Sulaco. - The interweaving of the credits and the movie scenes was visually provocative. - Most scenes were shot from very provocing distant angles, making them very beautiful in the eye of the artist. - Many European critics loved _ALIEN^3_. - The amount of people who have warmed to ALIEN^3 and found it to be a grand vision in the tradition of the first two films, only since its original release, is notable and quite remarkable. * Bishop (from Aliens) was a traitor, like Bishop II (Alien3). YES: - The reason why the eggs are on the Sulaco, is that Bishop placed them there. While the troups were trying to fight the aliens, Bishop could've gotten down to the 'cellar' and pick up a few eggs, and hid them. When Ripley went for Newt, Bishop picked up the eggs he had stashed. - Bishop does not complain to Burke about the danger involved in keeping the facehuggers alive, which shows his program allows danger to people to be kept around. This is a deliberate omission of action, which can easily result in harm to people. NO: - Bishop did everything he could to protect every human being nearby. He is not a soldier, so he is not engaged in any fighting. There is also no evidence whatsoever to sustain the notion that Bishop did anything to endanger anyone. * Why does the United Systems Military scientist crew use human hosts? Surely the Fiorina 161 clean-up crew found that dog with its chest blown open! The scientists could have used dogs, or any other animal for that matter! - One of the prisoners might have found the dog after the alien began its rampage, and thrown the body into the furnace along with the other dead prisoners. Morse wouldn't have told anyone about it -- you could see how indignant he was (and, if you go by the _ALIEN RESURRECTION_ novelization, he intended to let the world know what happened by writing his story up, not giving the story to the Weyland-Yutani stooges). - If you consider the incredible size of the "Fury" compound, the Company clean-up crew might not have found the dog until it had decomposed too much to tell the cause of death, or had been eaten away too much by the clearly sizable insect population. - Of course, the dog-alien in _ALIEN^3_ killed all potential hosts for future aliens rather than cocooning them. Though we may know that this is just because there was no queen and therefore no reason to cocoon the victims, the scientists might [possibly] have viewed such a form of alien as unreliable in the context of a full hive. The only known working hive was made of human-born aliens, after all. - The only known working hive was made of human-born aliens. Perhaps that was reason enough to go with human hosts. With the only experienced functioning hive having been born entirely from humans, they may have wanted to go with what they knew would work. After all, they wanted a full hive to compliment their queen and to make it easier to control the group as a whole for militaristic purposes. * Why does Purvis' chestburster gestate longer than those of the rest of the hijacked mining crew? They're all done hatching when he still has hours to go! - We never see Purvis' egg actually hatch. His egg waited longer to open. - His metabolism was slowed more than those of the others by his time in hypersleep, he being such a skinny and sickly fellow, and the alien took longer to develop off of his body as a result. - His chestburster or egg suffered some negative effect of the genetic crossing. - His chestburster may have been somehow special, like a mutated queen. * ALIEN RESURRECTION was a bad movie. YES: - Not enough aliens or alien encounters. After ALIENS, we're still waiting for a movie in the series that gives us that much action and alien mayhem. - The movie had too much humor, which kept the film from being frightening. - The Newborn was a dumb and ugly creation. - Even after her death, the series continued to focus on the character of Ripley, instead of the alien itself. - The ending was overly happy and bright for such a darkly-toned series. - North American reviews of Alien Resurrection were very mixed, so, many critics hated it. NO: - Just because a movie has a somewhat happy ending doesn't mean it's a bad movie. - The new Ripley is an intriguing character. - All of the films characters were sympathetic and interesting, a very well-characterized group. - The acting, as in the entire series, remained excellent. - The movie is visually provocative. Scenes like Ripley's "birth" are intriguing and very artistic. - Next to the superb way the story is depicted visually, the sound is also excellent. - North American reviews of Alien Resurrection were mixed, so, many critics loved it. - Most European critics loved Alien Resurrection. - The movie presented yet another unique vision on the series, and didn't repeat what had come before in the other three films. - The Newborn was an interesting and altogether new take on the species. - All of the alien encounters were exciting and tense. - The greater sense of humor was a breath of fresh air. * The Newborn was a dumb and ugly creation. YES: - The Newborn moves away from much of what made the aliens beautiful and eerie -- dark colors, inner jaw, no eyes. - The Newborn often acts too "cute" and not menacing enough. NO: - The Newborn is psychologically frightening. It's unpredictable and it provides a disturbing counterpart to the cloned Ripley. - The Newborn is a wonderful plot point in that its extremely disturbing for Ripley, since they share so much in common, and the creatures thinks of her as a mother (or perhaps a mate), a very sickening and frightening proposition which helps push her back towards her human side. - The Newborn is a unique creation that is unlike any alien we've seen before, and provides a fresh experience in the alien race -- and movies. * What options are there for Alien 5? - Ripley and company can land on Earth, only to discover that some aliens were on board the Betty (perhaps Wren hid eggs on board). Then the aliens get loose and there's an action-packed new adventure on Earth. - Ripley and company can decide to go back to the source of the aliens and wipe them out, thus venturing the alien homeworld. Ridley Scott has expressed his interest in doing another Alien movie along these lines. - In Alien 5 we can go back to the derelict space ship, and retrieve the aliens from there. (The derelict space ship has not been destroyed by the blast at the end of Aliens.) - Alien 5 might perhaps if hell freezes over be an 'Alien vs Predator' movie. This is _very_ doubtful, though. But rumours about this exist. - We can have an alien movie _without_ Ripley. Let's have a full new set of fresh characters, who are to fight the alien species. - Any combination of the above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14. GIBSON'S ALIEN^3 SCRIPT What follows is a synopsis of Gibson's _ALIEN^3_ script, due to the immense effort required to port the text from paper to computer, a special thanks goes out to Steve Copold, the user who tackled the tedious and heinous task. * Note: A supposed friend of William Gibson reported that he had seen all four scripts Gibson had written for Alien3, and none of them looked remotely like this one. This might be a fake, but, then again, so might the supposed "friend." Since it fits every known aspect of the script including certain quotes and also fits Gibson's writing style, it's most likely real. * Note: refer to Frequently Asked Questions for information on getting the entire script. Or get it by downloading it from the Alien Resource homepages. It's under the link 'Scripts' and in the ALIEN^3 section. There is a short version, and a long version. The short version is here included due to a large demand for it. The Alien Resource Page is at http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~naflande/. Steve writes: I've had my hands on a copy of William Gibson's original script for "Alien III" for quite awhile now and it seems like a good time to contribute a synopsis which may explain a few things (such as how the eggs were supposed to have gotten onto the Sulaco), and may just add more confusion to others. I've been very careful in preparing the synopsis to include as much detail as is possible, including direct quotes, and still remain within the bounds of the fair-use doctrine and copyright laws. (Everything encased in parentheses, except for dialog notes, is my writing...Everything else is Gibson's.) Enjoy! -Steve Copold FADE IN: DEEP SPACE - THE FUTURE The silent field of stars -- eclipsed by the dark bulk of of an approaching ship. CLOSER. ANGLE ON THE HULL A towering cliff of metal, Sulaco. (The script then cuts to an inside tracking shot of the hyper-sleep vault and the line of open and empty capsules. We finally track across 4 closed capsules - Newt, Ripley, Hicks, and finally Bishop. Bishop's capsule, however, is covered with a "hothouse" mist and condensation.) CLOSER A tear of fluid streaks the condensation. An alarm sounds. A monitor begins to scroll data. (We then hear the computer announcing that Sulaco has experienced a navagational error and entered the territory of the U.P.P. [Union of Progressive Peoples - A clear analogy for the late U.S.S.R. - A subplot which probably contributed to the demise of this script.] We cut to an exterior shot of the Sulaco and witness the approach of a UPP interceptor ship carrying commandos. They dock with the Sulaco and board her. They enter the ship though an airlock near the cargo bay. As they enter, they find Bishop's twisted and tangled lower torso. They see the blast damage on the drop ship and exchange knowing looks...It is apparent these are combat veterans. As the commandos enter the hyper-sleep vault, the computer announces a security breach. They move down the line of capsules and stop at Bishop's.) INTERIOR HYPER-SLEEP VAULT - LEADER"S POV (point of view) The chilly aisle of capsules. Commandos move down the line, guns poised. They peer in at Newt, Ripley, and Hicks, but the lid of Bishop's capsule is pearl white. (text deleted) The lid rises. A dense pale mist flows out, spilling over the edges of the capsule, revealing the ovoid of a gray alien egg. Rooted in the center of Bishop's synthetic entrails, the egg instantly ejaculates a face-hugger, which strikes the leader's faceplate in a spray of acid. (lots of text deleted) (At this point, one of the other commandos, a young Vietnamese woman, attempts to shoot the facehugger without killing the leader. Things go wrong and his head is literally destroyed. They throw him out the airlock and leave with Bishop's remains.) DISSOLVE TO: IN DEEP SPACE - VARIOUS ANGLES A station the size of a small moon, and growing; unfinished sections of hull are open to vacuum. A vast, irregular structure, the result of of the shifting goals of succesive administrations. (This is our introduction to Anchorpoint which serves as the setting for about 75% of Alien III. I see it as a cross between the Deathstar and Deep Space 9. It is huge and well-used like the Deathstar, but it is by run civil administrators and company reps, with only a military attache and a few troops. Like DSN, it has shopping malls, schools, and the type of stuff associated with a colony rather than a military base. At this time we are introduced to Tully, a civilian lab technician, and the station's ops officer, Jackson. Tully is written as sort of a malcontented doctoral student. He's very smart, very good at his job, and has some degree of contempt for authority. Jackson is a really neat character. She is a "tough broad," much like Ripley, but carries none of the baggage that Ripley is saddled with. They have a lengthy conversation at this point which sort of brings the audience up to speed. I've included just a small portion.) JACKSON The Sulaco. Departed gateway four years ago with a compliment of fifteen. A dozen marines, an android, a company representative, and the former warrant officer of a merchant vessel... TULLY So? JACKSON So, the bio-readout gives us the warant officer, one -- count him -- marine, and a nine-year-old girl. Makes you wonder what happened out there, doesn't it? TULLY So ask'em. Wake'em up and ask'em. Them not me. JACKSON But That's the GOOD news, Tully. Three hours before Sulaco turned up, we docked a priority shuttle out of Gateway. Two passengers. Milisci, Tully. Weapons Division. TULLY That the bad news? JACKSON They want the ship pulled in with full biohazard precautions, by oh-eight-hundred hours. BioLab techs are priority for the deck squad. That's you Tully. The phone screen goes blank. TULLY (heartfelt) Shit! (We are then introduced to Spence, who is I think Tully's girlfriend. That part's not real clear as events overtake the issue very quickly from here on out. The next five pages of script are dedicated to a WONDERFUL sequence of scenes where Tully and other lab techs, accompanied by marines from Anchorpoint are seen in an enormous docking bay where they board Sulaco. I'll put in the last page of it here.) SECOND MARINE Yessir. Lights on in there. The officer presses a button. The door slides open. Bright white. The aisle. Empty. The row of capsules. Tully's marine is first through the door, gun ready, slow, careful. Tully steps in after him, raises his instrument, takes a sample. INT. HYPER-SLEEP VAULT The other two marines move past Tully. Soft scuff of their boots on the deck. Tully doesn't know quite what to do. Lowers his sampler, hesitates, The first marine reaches Newt's capsule. He lowers his rifle. (something startled, almost gentle in his voice) They're here... Eight inches of razor-sharp serrated tail plunges out through the back of his suit as he's lifted off his feet by something we can't see. Ugly RIPPING noise as the alien withdraws its stinger (Gibson clearly refers to the tail as a stinger at several points in the script) -- blood tidily contained by the translucent membrane of the biohazard envelope. The stinger of a second alien whips around the neck of one of the other two marines; the alien is clinging to the ceiling. He screams. Tully's marine sags against the foot of Ripley's capsule, his arm across the controls -- the green indicator lights go out -- as the first alien lunges up into view. CLOSE On the jaws. ANGLE ON RIPLEY Her eyes snap open RIPLEY'S POV As the beast mounts her coffin, terminal nightmare. ANGLE RIPLEY No-ooooooooooooooooooooo! Her hands claw frantically at the smooth curve of the plastic canopy. The remaining marine, crazy with adrenialine and terror, unleashes his flame thrower. The first alien and Ripley's capsule vanish in a napalm fireball. the marine spins, screaming incoherently, and liquid fire hoses the second alien, which drops its victim and falls burning into the deck. The vault is an inferno. Ripley's capsule is sagging, melting. DISSOLVE TO: (We see Ripley's damaged capsule being rolled into a very elaborate medlab and doctors go to work on her. Then we cut to Hicks sitting on the edge of a hospital bed in a dressing gown lighting a cigarette. Spence comes in and has a brief conversation with him. He asks about Newt and Ripley and Bishop. She tells him that Newt and Ripley are fine, and that she doesn't know who Bishop is. Newt comes running in chased by an orderly. He grabs for Newt and Hicks almost assaults him, but is stopped when Spence calls off the orderly. They demand to see Ripley. Spence takes them to her room. She is in a deep coma) NEWT Is Ripley DREAMING? SPENCE I don't know honey. NEWT It's better not to. CUT TO: EXT. RODINA, THE U.P.P. STATION - VARIOUS ANGLES Smaller than Anchorpoint INT. RODINA - CYBERNETICS LAB CLOSE on Bishop. He stares straight ahead, the corner of his mouth twitching mechanically. (The UPP scientists are downloading all of Bishop's data and are learning all about the aliens. The young Vietnamese commando is present and confirms the image of the facehugger -- They all stare in horror at the image of the adult alien. The young woman shakes her head and says she has not seen this. The two adults on the Sulaco are never explained and neither is the fact that the capsules were left alone. There is a possibility that there may have been live animals, or animals such as dogs on the Sulaco in hypersleep. This may account for the adults as well as the dog thread in the screen version. Lab animals are turned into aliens later in the Gibson script. The egg in Bishop's entrails is explained in great detail.) INT SULACO - CARGO LOCK TECH WITH PROBE You getting this on tape Miller? SECOND TECH You bet your ass. Orders. TECH WITH PROBE That's good because I'd swear I just saw a piece of this shit move... On the monitor, the tip of the probe trembles, brushes one of the globules. The second tech takes it, inserts it in a plastic tube, seals the tube in a small metal cannister, and writes #17 on the side in red grease pencil. SECOND TECH Since when do androids get diseases? TECH WITH PROBE I dunno. Sure looks like something got to this poor bastard... (This is a key scene in the script as it introduces the alien "spores" and "DNA" samples which are capable of spreading the species like a disease. Even androids can act as a host at least to the extent of producing a viable egg with a facehugger inside. The effects on a living host are entirely different as we'll see shortly. At this point in the story, we are introduced to Col. Rosetti, local commandant of the colonial marine detachment at Anchorpoint. We also meet Kevin Fox and Susan Welles. They are the Weyland-Yutani scum-yuppies from the weapons division sent by the company. They are real knock-offs of Burke, only not so endearing...Yeeech! We also meet Shuman, the diplomat. He is involved now as the UPP is making a stink about the Sulaco entering their space. The four of them debrief Hicks in a "security bubble" and learn what he knows. They do not tell him about the aliens found on the Sulaco. In the bubble we also meet Trent, the head bio-geneticist at Anchorpoint. He quizzes Hicks about the alien's life-cycle. They realize that Hicks doesn't know anything about the genetic material they have discovered in the hyper-sleep vault. They also fail to tell him they are experimenting with it and trying to clone it. They do tell Hicks about the UPP grabbing Bishop. At this point there is a complex and important scene in the Tissue Culture Lab with Tully and Spence. It involves lots of high tech goodies and what would have been some terrific CGI sequences as they examine the alien samples. It all culminates with them looking #17 under extreme magnification we see the sample brought into focus...) EXTREME CLOSEUP - MONITOR As the screen fills with an image that might be a bizzare landscape, its lines and textures recalling the interior of the derelict ship in "ALIEN." (This sequence is followed by a long set of scenes with Newt and Hicks as Newt prepares to return to earth aboard the Sulaco which has been sterilized. Ripley is still in a coma and Newt makes her a map of her Grandparent's home in Oregon so she can find her when she wakes up...Lot's of cuteness and string-pulling as Newt departs Anchorpoint. We jump back to Rodina Station and meet a bunch of new characters. Braun, Rodina's Chief of R&D, Colonel-Doctor Suslov, the Head of the station, and several military and diplomatic officers. The scene is basically a discussion of where are we? - where are they? re: the development of the aliens as a weapon, and what to do about Bishop? They decide the best course of action is not to overplay their hand, but to sterilize Bishop and send him back with no traces of the alien spores or any memory of his time at Rodina. They rebuild him (with inferior UPP technology - this later becomes a plot element and a running joke in the script) and return him to Anchorpoint. CUT TO: INT. ANCHORPOINT - TISSUE CULTURE LAB Trent, head of biolab, Rosetti, and Fox wait, seated, as Tully wheels a holographic Display Module into position. The lights dim. A faint, ghostly cube shimmers in front of the three men. TRENT Initially this was merely routine, you understand. We attempted to determine its compatibility with terrestial DNA. FOX What kind of DNA Doctor? TRENT Human, of course. Something shivers and shakes and takes form in the cube of light: a double helix threaded with green and red beads of light. TRENT (continuing) Watch closey, please. The alien genetic material looks like a cubist's vision of an art deco staircase, its asymmetrical segments glowing day-glow green and purple. ROSETTI That's a biological structure? More like part of a machine... The alien form makes contact with the human DNA. The transformation is shockingly swift, but its stages can still be followed: the thing seems to pull itself into and THROUGH the coils, and for an instant the two are meshed, locked, and then the final stage. A new shape glows, a HYBRID; the green and red beads have been altered beyond recognition. FOX Like a high-speed viral takeover...! What's the real-time duration on this, Trent? TULLY (from the shadows beyond the glowing cube) That was it. What you see is what you get. That's how fast it is... (Several scenes follow that I'll just encapsulate for you. They are all important, but only in that they introduce characters or minor plot elements. #1 Hicks meets Walker the foreman of the Anchorpoint machine-shop...He is a tough customer. #2 Jackson, Shuman, UPP Diplomatic Officer discuss Bishop's return. #3 Bishops arrives at Anchorpoint. #4 Hicks meets Tully in a bar on the Mall and Tully reveals that Fox and Welles have ordered the lab to experiment with the alien DNA. #5 Rosetti, Fox, Trent, and Welles in the security bubble discussing the progress of the experiments. Rosetti raises minor objections, but wimps out when Fox threatens his career. #6 Bishop being checked out by a medlab tech and jokes about his shitty UPP polycarbonate knee joints. This is followed by a long scene with Hicks and Spence where she fully spills the beans about the "research.") INT. CONSTRUCTION ZONE CHAMBER (lots of text deleted) SPENCE Maybe I don't either. It's just...We've got to tell somebody...Now there's a rumor somebody came in on a UPP ship today, somebody off Sulaco... HICKS Bishop... SPENCE I don't know. HICKS Maybe Progressive Peoples'll get their own alien too. Maybe they'll grow some... SPENCE (horrified) Shit! You'd better hope not... HICKS Why's that? SPENCE Their lab gear's five years behind ours. they'd never be able to control it HICKS Think you can, huh? SPENCE I don't know... (More scenes follow: #1 Tully complains to Jackson that there are problems with one of the stasis systems in the lab. #2 Rodina - BioLab: Braun and Suslov are discussing the alien as a weapon in front of a large stasis tube. Scene ends with a closeup on the tube showing a "chestburster suspended like a fetal dolphin." #3 Long scene where Bishop tells Hicks about Ripley and the queen on the Sulaco. He also warns Hicks to watch him carefully as the UPP may have reprogrammed him and he would not know it. #4 Long scene in the culture lab with Tully and Welles. Ends with the stasis system failing and the contents spraying all over Welles and Tully. They are immediately taken to a "de-con" unit. Welles is seriously pissed off! #5 Bishop and Hicks sneak into the tissue culture lab and destroy all of the alien cultures. Ends with both of them in white plastic restraints as they are placed in separate cells. The next scene is the beginning of the proverbial shit hitting the fan.) INT. THE BUBBLE Meeting of the full Anchorpoint Directorate, including Welles and Fox and a number of new faces. Welles is white lipped with fury. (lots of dialog omitted) FOX You have no more material to work with, Trent. In any case, it's become obvious that you aren't the man for the job. We took the precaution of obtaining our own samples. they're on their way to Gateway. (Wow! Does this open a lot of possibilities...Like "Earth Hive" for instance.) WELLES (with cold satisfaction)...and everything, every move each of you have made, since our arrival, is going to be gone over with a fine toothed c-c-c-c-c-- As Welles begins to stammer, her eyes betray a terrible consternation. She rises from her chair, lurches forward, catching herself on her hands. The c-c-c-c- phases into a chattering palsy as a thick strand of blood-streaked drool descends toward the table. Fox, seated to her left, has instinctively shoved his own chair back, ready to run. Everyone else is frozen with shock. As the chittering tooth-burr becomes a shrill SHRIEK of inhuman rage, the transformation takes place. Segmented biomechanoid tendons squirm beneath the skin of her arms. Her hands claw at one another, tearing redundant flesh from alien talons. then the shriek dies. She straightens up. And, rips her face apart in a single movement, the glistening claws coming away with skin, eyes, muscle, teeth, and splinters of bone...The sound of ripping cloth. the new beast sheds its human skin in a single sinuous, bloody ripple, molting on fast forward...An instant of utter silence as the featureless mask moves. From side to side. Scanning. Trent vomits explosively. the marine guard snatches his pistol from its holster and fires wildly across the table. Blind screaming chaos. OVERHEAD SHOT As the Directorate plunges, like a single panicked organism, to the far side of the bubble. The thing is on Fox before he can get up from his chair. CLOSE On his scream as the sucking, fanged tounge plunges through the orbit of his eye. ANGLE A marine with a flamethrower bursts through the door, torching Fox and the new beast, setting fire to the bubble's acoustic foam baffles. (Clearly, this script was destined to get an "R" rating...From this point on the script becomes an Aliens-like war movie. Many brief cutting scenes follow: #1 Spence finds Tully's contaminated lab badge. #2 Rosetti gets Hicks and Bishop out of their cells and enlists their help. #3 Hicks (in full combat armor) and Walker driving into the construction zone in a jeep searching for Tully. #4 Jackson, Spence, and Bishop tracking them on monitors from operations. #5 Hicks and Walker find and kill the alien that was Tully. #6 Closeup of Spence as Tully's locator dot blinks out. #7 INT. RODINA Mass confusion as we see the commandos fighting their way through what has obviously become a war-zone. Then we see the result of Suslov's genetic tinkering: It's a new type of alien - "bigger, meaner, faster, able to reproduce more rapidly." The commandos swarm through a hatch and seal the thick steel door. We hear slamming and pounding as the steel begins to buckle. All of this is followed by a really long scene with Hicks, Jackson, Bishop, Shuman, and Rosetti in operations. We find out the closest ship is the transport Kansas City which is 20 hours away. the following exchange takes place in the midle of it:) ROSETTI We abandon the station. HICKS Destroy the station, man! We got nukes? ROSETTI Outlawed under the strategic arms reduction treaty. JACKSON We can fiddle the overrides on the fusion package. Baby nova. BISHOP We're dealing with a new form Colonel. We know nothing of this new mode of reproduction. Others may have already become hosts. ROSETTI What are you suggesting? BISHOP Inorder to be ENTIRELY certain, Colonel, it would be necessary to override the fusion package now. Jackson looks up at Bishop; he's suggesting mass suicide. HICKS I thought you were programmed to protect human life? BISHOP (with android blandness) I'm taking the long view. (I believe this would have become one of the classic lines of the film. The scene ends with an incoming message, actually a warning, from Rodina. A technician explains what they have done and that all experiments must be terminated as they cannot be contained...No shit! There is a lot of funny reparte about "the Soviet space brothers" in this scene. Jackson almost takes on the air of a Hudson, except she's pretty gutsy. At the very end Jackson gathers everyone near the monitors as they notice that something huge is blocking the cameras in the air-scrubber chamber. Many scenes follow: #1 Spence sitting in the eco-module...Birds begin to sing...The calm before the storm. #2 EXT. RODINA - No movement. INT. - We see the Vietnamese commando sitting on the floor cradling her gun, the acid burned corpse of her partner is beside her. #3 A series of very rapidly cut scenes where Hicks puts Ripley in a lifeboat and launches her into space. Bishop questions him about this as she might be infected. Hicks replies, "I owe her one." #4 Great combat sequence as Hicks leads a group of "green" marines to the scrubber room where they find a huge mutant queen alien. The place look like the queens chamber on LV-426, only more grotesque. Lots of the new aliens come crawling out the walls. The marines destroy the new queen and kill lots of the drones, but as the Queen pulls loose from the framework that is supporting her, an enormous cloud of spores is released and then sucked into the air circulation system. Hicks has Bishop close the vents. #5 INT. RODINA HUB - The commando works her way through the core of the station. She discover the almost the entire crew of the station, maybe a hundred people all cocooned in a multi-story column...A bas-relief of human bodies and glittering resin. A closeup of Braun and Suslov is shown. #6 INT. OPS - Jackson, Rosetti, and Bishop are watching the approach of the UPP cruiser Nikolai Stoiko at Rodina (How they are doing this is not explained other than as some form of survelience system. It's clear that it's not direct video, but some form of remore imaging.). #7 INT. RODINA - The commando gets into an interceptor and escapes from the station. We see her blast away. #8 EXT. RODINA - We see the Stoiko launch a missle and a nuclear blast destroy the station. #9 INT. OPS - Jackson says, "I don't believe it! They send for help, and their own people nuked'em! Hicks replies, "Maybe they asked for it." The following scenes are a real combat-fest. #1 Walker on the Mall blasting aliens and taking pulls from a jug of liquor. In the end he becomes an alien. #2 INT. ECO-MODULE - Spence enters and gasps at what she sees. The primates have been cocooned in the trees. #3 Hicks on the Mall...scenes of carnage everywhere. #4 INT. OPS - Jackson, Hicks, Rosetti, Spence, and Bishop. Hicks wants to blow the fusion package immediately. Jackson says it doesn't matter as Hicks has destroyed the scrubber and with all the fires, they'll only have air for a few more hours anyway. One of the marines falls down in agony, only he doesn't become an alien. His chest bursts open and about half a dozen new model chestbursters pop out and run in all different directions. Hicks evacuates everyone. #5 INT. CORRIDOR - Bishop heads off to rig the fusion package. Hicks gathers all the survivors to take them to the lifeboats. A few new characters are introduced at this point...All minor. #6 Bishop in the Mall encounters yet another queen and her drones in the process of cocooning victims. Bishop runs for the elevator with the queen after him. #7 Lots of cross-cutting between the group heading for the lifeboats fighting their way through the aliens and Bishops staving off the queen in the elevator. Bishop escapes by ripping up the floor of the elevator showing his android strength. The lifeboat party emerges from a wall of smoke to find the passage blocked by a wall of resin, human bones, marine helmets, rifles, etc. What follows is just too complex to distill and too long to copy and still be fair to Mr. Gibson. Let me just say that it's an incredible sequence of the lifeboat party taking alternate routes to the bay as the aliens keep blocking their path. Lots of explosions, shootouts, mucho violence...Really keen stuff! #8 Bishop arrives at the fusion package and proceeds to rig it to blow. #9 We rejoin the lifeboat party at the crew quarters where we see even more carnage including what's left of a children's preschool. Memebers of the party freak out at this point. Spence and Hicks calm everyone down and they move on. #10 Bishop exiting the fusion complex...One of his polycarbon knees gives out. He is now dragging one leg behind him. #11 Spence is separated in a service shaft and trapped by an alien. She has a huge flare pistol and kills it. She rejoins Hicks and the others. #12 Bishop climbing the elevator shaft and checking his watch: 21:40. They agreed he would set the fusion unit to blow at 22:00. #13 Hicks and Jackson have it out with Rosetti who is not handling things very well. Basically, they kick his ass. One of the party, Tatsumi is bitten, but survives. They dress his wound and move on. #14 Quick scene of Bishop back on the Mall putting a patch on leg and then moving to rejoin the others. The queen is no longer there. #15 Hicks and company arrive at the lifeboat bay. Closeup of Tatsumi's leg wound leaving a trail of yellow drops. Rosetti opens the door and the bay is filled with fresh new aliens. Hicks provides cover fire and they get the door closed again. They all pile into an office. It's Trent's, and they find him where he's already killed himself. Spence finds that the back wall of the office is actually an airlock. Sounds of the aliens throwing themselves against the door to the office. Hicks checks his watch it's 21:46. #16 As they prepare to enter the lock, A chestburster crawls out of Tatsumi's wound and more erupt from his chest. The survivors enter the airlock. They all suit up and the color of their suits is important. Rosetti gets in a yellow suit. Shortly after they exit the lock Rosetti goes through the change inside his suit. He kills a lab tech and then Hicks kill him. Only Jackson, Hicks, and Spence are left alive. Hicks looks at his watch 21:59...22:00...Nothing! They move across the outside surface of Anchorpoint toward the external portion of the lifeboats. #17 Outside shot of the lock shows the aliens following them...They are unaffected by the cold and the vacuum. #18 Outside the lifeboat, Spence and jackson work on opening the hatch with a bypass. Hicks continue to kill aliens. #19 Hicks sees a yellow spacesuit moving across the hull...Rosetti? No, it's Bishop. he has emerged from another lock. Bishop "greases" all the aliens that are left on the outside. He tells Hicks that he gave them an extra half hour of time. #20 As they are getting in the lifeboat, the second queen emerges and leads a charge of new aliens toward them. They run out of ammo as the aliens close in on them. #21 Cut to the UPP interceptor: shot of a port opening revealing a "viscious looking gattling style pulse cannon" (I could almost hear the audience cheering in my head as I read this scene). The interceptor wipes out the aliens. #22 The commando lands the interceptor near them and takes them on board. Jackson is killed by the aliens in this scene. The aliens are coming up behind the ship. She fires the engines and fries them! #23 The interceptor streaks away as the reactor overloads and blows. The last scene is in the interceptor and it's too long for fair-use, although, I'd love to put up the whole thing. Instead I'll just give you the gist of it and one very important extract. INT. INTERCEPTOR (dialog omitted, but Bishop determines that none of them are infected or they would have already begun to change. The commando has had a lethal dose of radiation and will only live a few more hours.) BISHOP You're a species again, Hicks. United against a common enemy... HICKS Yeah? BISHOP The source, Hicks. You'll have to trace them back, find the point of origin. The first source and destroy it. HICKS I don't know, Bishop. Maybe we oughtta just stay out of their way... BISHOP You can't, Hicks. This goes far beyond mere interspecies competition. These creatures are to biological life what antimatter is to matter. HICKS How do you mean? BISHOP There isn't room for the both of you, Hicks, not in this universe. HICKS That's crazy, Bishop... BISHOP No. You're already at war, Hicks. War to extermination. The alien knows no other mode. HICKS Hell, man, we been at war all my life. Near enough, anyway. With her (he looks down at the Vietnamese commando). With all her brothers and sisters. That's what got us into this shit in the first place! BISHOP But now you've seen the enemy, Hicks. So has she. She's not it. Neither are you. This is a Darwinian universe, Hicks. Will the alien be the ultimate survivor? Hicks doesn't answer. He just looks at Bishop. Bishop goes back to repairing his circuitry. CLOSE ON: Spence's sleeping face and the face of the dying commando. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. SPACE Approach of a large ship. The PING of homing radar. ANGLE ON THE HULL As it slides past, enormous letters: KANSAS CITY EXT. SPACE - ANGLE UP >From below Kansas City as a wide bay opens up. The interceptor comes into frame and is drawn up into the brightly lit hold. The bay closes. EXT. SPACE Kansas City. Receding. Gone. The stars. FADE OUT THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15. FASANO'S ALIEN^3 SCRIPT What follows is a synopsis of Fasano's _ALIEN^3_ script. As with much of the rest of this FAQ, this is entirely written and created by me, Doug Skiles, your FAQ-master. * Note: refer to Frequently Asked Questions for information on getting the entire script. Or get it by downloading it from the Alien Resource homepages. It's under the link 'Scripts' and in the ALIEN^3 section. There is a short version, and a long version. The short version is here included due to a large demand for it. The Alien Resource Page is at http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~naflande/. What follows is the short, synopsized version of Fasano's script. It's easy to see how many of these ideas got integrated into the final film, even some shades Clemens, Dillon, and Superintendent Andrews that are within these monks, and it's also interesting some of the new twists that are given to the series -- one in particular that I believe would have been discussed endlessly. If nothing else, this movie would definitely have looked very unique, because, yes kids, this is the one with the *wooden space station*. And, actually, I do think it would've made a fairly good film, but fans still would've hated it, just as they did with the version we got, and it still would've taken time for people to appreciate it. I don't think I could've come to appreciate it as much as the film we ended up with though. Anyway, here it is kids, this is what happens when you mix Vincent Ward, an airplane, Fox executives, and John Fasano -- Fasano and Ward's script for "Alien III." THE SCREEN IS BLACK A pinpoint of light appears. Red. An ember. Unseen BELLOWS blow. GLASS FURNACE The embers glow. Flame. The fire GROWS. A RIVER OF MOLTEN GLASS Heated by the furnace to over 1,300 degrees fahrenheit. White Hot. GLASS FACTORY Flickering flame casts dancing shadows on wooden walls. Coarsely grained wood. Moisture blasted out by years of intense heat. Timbers split. Patched with new wood, it too now old and dry. SMOKE Billows up the walls. Hangs as an angry, black cloud amongst the rafters and beams of the vaulted ceiling. Almost obscures -- A MAN On a narrow LEDGE, twenty feet about the Glassworks' floor. His clothing is Medieval. A rough textured cassock. He is a MONK. LOUVERS are set into the wall. He angles them open. The smoke begins to escape. The Monk turns, raises arms and LEAPS from his lofty perch -- Gently gliding down to the floor with the aid of a FLOWING FOX -- a primitive hand-held pulley that runs down a rope. He lands next to the glass furnace, surrounded by -- MORE MONKS By their dress. With Blowing Iron and Pontil. They blow and shape the molten glass. Crack off the finished pieces. The old way. ONE PARTICULAR MONK Black skinned, early fifties. Stirs his five foot long blowing iron in the molten glass, but he is watching something else. It moves him to song. Lilting tenor lifts high into the air. This is BROTHER KYLE. (Kyle is sort of a percursor to Dillon, and he is sitting, watching, and singing about Brother John, the monastery doctor, a sort of early Clemens attend to a burned monk. When finished, they both leave, and John starts to head up a stairwell, separating from Kyle, and he goes to his dog, Mattias. Taking Mattias, he heads to the monastery library's Medieval section. We see that the books are locked to the shelves, connected by chains. John begins to read one book aloud, but is interrupted by THE ABBOT, who congratulates him on his work on the burn victim and honors him by giving him the key to the book he's currently reading. John is very grateful, and takes the book and Mattias out of the library and upstairs, to the surface of what we find is a wooden planetoid!!! There, he reads to Mattias from his book, until he notices a distant star in the sky, moving... perhaps coming closer? Through time-lapse, we watch as it comes closer and closer, more and more monks watching it from the surface, over days and days... and during this, a subtitle identifies... ) RELIGIOUS COLONY ARCEON ----------------------- POPULATION: 350 Exiles CRIME: Political Heresy (The star comes closer and closer until, finally, it reaches the planetoid, burns through the surface, and hits the sea on the outer layer with a hiss, fish bobbing to the surface, boiled. John immediately hits the water, which presumably cooled very quickly. The other monks are shoutnig words of warning, but that doesn't concern John, he knows that there could be people in trouble, and he's a doctor. He takes a small boat, rows his way out to discover "Sulaco Escape Vehicle #4." John crawls inside to discover... ) INT. SULACO ESCAPE POD #4 - DAY Dark. Dim red lights. John stands still as his eyes adjust to the darkness. He sees: NEWT'S HYPER SLEEP TUBE A glass and metal COFFIN -- pneumatic piping twines around its base. The glass lid is BROKEN. A Small RED LIGHT pulses at the head of the tube -- a soft VOICE and TONE, like your seat belt warning -- is audible... COMPUTER VOICE (sotto) Seal broken...seal broken... John finds himself moving towards the tube... Looks through the broken lid: IN THE TUBE There is a splattered BLOOD STAIN on the sterile white interior. OLD, turned rust-brown. Whatever happened here happened a while ago. Rust colored drips trail down to -- THE FLOOR Drag marks. His eyes follow the stains to a pile of Bloody clothing against a control panel. A jumpsuit. Torn. Child size. The head of child's DOLL, but no body to be found. (As you can imagine, this would've angered fans even more than the killing of Newt in the ALIEN^3 we got -- at least our version had her die in her sleep! Now we know that Newt is gone, and it wasn't exactly a quiet and easy death either. John continues to wander through the S.E.V. [never given an EEV title] and finds a video monitor... ) A VIDEO MONITOR Through scanning bars of snow, an image: A WOMAN with a YOUNG GIRL standing in front of her. The Woman's arms are wrapped around the girl. Protective. Maternal. The Woman speaks. Her message repeats itself. A tape loop, although John has no idea what that is. WOMAN ...taking pod four. The Crew of the SS Sulaco and all Marine commandoes are dead. Ship's sensors have interrupted the hyper sleep cycle. An overlooked alien egg has hatched. Bishop and Hicks have been killed. Xenomorphs have infested the cruiser. Newt and I are taking pod four. The Crew of... (How did Hicks die? How is it possible that Bishop was "killed"? How did that egg get onboard? If only one egg hatched, and Hicks was the only potential host killed, how could the entire ship be "infested" with multiple "Xenomorphs"? What happened to the ship after their escape? Are all the aliens onboard still on their way home to Earth? This one scene raises a million questions that are never answered. Regardless, John finds Ripley, takes her out of her tube, and, along with Kyle and another monk, take her back to the abbey. Ripley awakens to find John next to her, asleep. There's another figure standing beside him, and as she squints, she sees that it is... ) THE ALIEN Big, black shiny-smooth head moves into the taper light. It moves towards her, cable-like arms held out at its side -- moving out of sync with its feet -- Ripley tries to move - to cry out -- She can't. She can only move her eyes. She looks over at John, sleeping peacefully. He doesn't notice the Alien -- The Alien moves closer. She can feel his breath -- it evaporates the sweat on her forehead -- a CHILL runs through her but she still can't move -- The Alien stands alongside her bed. Extends a six-fingered hand... Gently rests it on her stomach. Cocks its head -- like it's listening to something. The implication is clear. Ripley finds her voice -- RIPLEY AAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Her eyes open wide -- She sits bolt upright. (Ooh, was it all a dream? Ripley is only awake briefly this time, and drifts off quickly, still suffering the effects of hypersleep. She finally awakens to meet the Abbot standing over her, and when she asks about Newt and permission to use a radio, she gets the bad news that there is no radio -- she's on a monastic colony that has renounced technology and lives "The old way. The pure way." And, worse, she's told that she was the only living thing onboard her vessel. Ripley cries, then realizes that it had to be the alien, it came with her. She tries to tell the Abbot about the alien, but, at his confusion, she calms down and starts over... ) RIPLEY Calm down, Ripley. Okay, I was with a platoon of Colonial Marines on a mission to planetoid LV426. We left Earth six months ago - maybe a year -- ABBOT (interrupts) Wait a moment -- The Abbot becomes aware of John's presence in the doorway. Turns over his shoulder at him. ABBOT Leave us. John waits there a beat, then backs out and closes the door. ABBOT Continue. RIPLEY We launched in the Cruiser Sulaco from Gateway sub-orbital space station -- ABBOT Not possible. RIPLEY What do you mean? ABBOT When we left Earth seventy years ago, it was on the brink of a New Dark Age. Technology was on the verge of destroying the planet's environment. A computer virus was threatening to wipe away all recorded knowledge. There didn't seem to be any way it could be averted. In the almost forty years since we were towed out here in hypersleep, the news that came with occasional supply ships only got worse. Finally, the ships stopped coming. We had to resign ourselves to the fact that worst had come to pass, and the Earth no longer existed. Now she gives him that look. RIPLEY (slowly) Uh...All right... Forget the Earth - How many people do you have here? Let's worry about them. Warn them -- (The Abbot, of course, quickly decides that she's insane, and tells John that no one is to get in or out of her room. John, of course, doesn't understand, but doesn't have much time to worry about it, as another monk quickly comes running to him, hysterical about the state of his sheep, a young ewe. The monk claims that he just gave the young sheep dinner and suddenly it keeled over. John rushes to the rescue like any good only-doctor-on-an-outer-space-colony would. John finds the slimy alien saliva at the seen, and soon, the sheep starts to convulse. A chestburster emerges, covered in gore-matted wool! The hysterical monk, enraged at the loss of his beloved sheep, stabs at the creature with his pitchfork, setting the wooden floor and nearby hay on fire. He uses the pitchfork to then shove the monster into the fire, and it dies as he and John run out, escaping the flames. Ripley can see the flames out of the "window" of her room [which looks out into a field of wheat and barns growing INSIDE the complex, with a roof painted to look like the blue sky of Earth], but only briefly, before four burly monks rush in and grab her roughly, and bring her to the tribunal room, where she's tried and by the monks for her "crime," and the Abbot preaches about her belief that the Earth still exists, and how she is a woman who has brought technology and evil to the colony, etc. The monks, at the conclusion that she's obviously quite insane, decide to lower her into some kind of medieval elevator shaft. They put her into a small wooden cage, and, with ropes, lower her into a black abyss within the planetoid, nailing the opening closed with wooden planks. Meanwhile, John voices his concerns to the Abbot that he believes there may be something to her story, he saw it within her conviction. The Abbot becomes angry and snaps at him to leave it alone. Meanwhile, other monks are covering the S.E.V. with wooden planks, making it into just one more part of the planetoid. As Ripley's only remaining hole to the outside world is finished being nailed up, one of the monks coldly gives her something from her ship to keep her company -- Newt's doll head, Casey. Ripley stares at the doll briefly before FREAKING OUT, screaming, kicking and beating the wall. It's after this outburst that she notices she has a neighbor, staring at her through the wooden wall beside through a tiny hole. His name is ANTHONY, and he is an android that the company sent the colony when it first started out, to spy on the monks. After the supply ships stopped coming, Anthony decided there was no point to keeping up the charade, and told the monks his secret. Naturally, they saw him as just one more reminder of technology, and he was lowered into the planetoid, just as Ripley was. Meanwhile, John is searching through the library like a man possessed, filing through various pictures of the devil, until finally he finds a book and stops, staring horrified. Though we don't see the picture, we know what he's found. He pulls on the chain until it gives way and runs out from the library. As he passes by the Abbot's office, though, he finds that the Abott has had the burly monks who manhandled Ripley earlier bring the abbot Brother Graham, the hysterical monk who lost his sheep. Graham is seen bound and gagged, and is led away just as the Abbot then gives the order for them to find John! John flies away, racing to tell Brother Kyle, but Kyle and the others look at him like he's just caught what Ripley had. John runs again, now to the top of the elevator that lowered Ripley into the planetoid. He pulls on the rope, and it comes to him easily -- too easily, for he finds the rope stops halfway down. It was bitten through. He races down stairs and ladders, heading for the deepest floor of the structure. At this point, the first attack hits. A group of monks is using the bathroom, sitting in the stalls, when suddenly, one of the monks is ripped down INTO THE TOILET! The faucets start to spew blood, and the toilets of the other stalls reject a torrent of gore. In the meantime, John is looking for Ripley's cell down on the lowest level. Ripley, as he searches for her, is talking to Anthony, discussing her past experience with androids, and, importantly, rejecting the chance to eat some bread that Anthony offers to her. John finally finds her -- and Anthony, who still remembers him just as John remembers the droid -- and John pulls the planks off of Anthony's prison, then starts on Ripley's... ) INT. THE CORRIDOR As John begins to PULL the outermosk planks off. RIPLEY I was right, wasn't I? You've seen it, you've seen the Alien? John pauses at that. His eyes tighten at the memory. RIPLEY I can tell you have. I was right. It came with me. (to the wall, sharp) Go away. John stops. Looks at the wall. Ripley's voice comes clearly through the wood... RIPLEY Listen, priest, or whatever you are, I know what you want. I can't help you. I couldn't help any of the others. Just stop what you're doing. Go away. Do you understand? John has opened a crack that exposes Ripley's eyes. He stares at her a beat, tries to think of what to reply -- He goes back to work as she continues her confession... RIPLEY You going to stay, Father? But you're not going to talk. Okay. Then you can listen. You should listen. Your Abbot was right. I am guilty. But not of heresy. Of murder. John stops again. Just stares at her eyes. RIPLEY The murder of the crew of the Nostromo. That was when I first met the Alien. That reminds him of why he's here. He doubles his efforts at the boards... RIPLEY No, not the same one that's here now. Or maybe it is. Maybe they're all the same one. I couldn't save my crew then. I should have been able to. But I couldn't. When I went the second time -- Her eyes soften. RIPLEY Then I met Newt. Newt. I fought -- stayed alive to keep Newt alive. Hoped maybe that would make up for... She trails off. Slides down the wall. RIPLEY Now he got her too. What's the point? (hard again) Just go away. Leave me in here. If you let me out you'll want me to help you and it will start all over again. Let it end. John breaks through, flickering torch light streams in the mote filled air around him. Ripley looks up at him. RIPLEY I can't help you. John, heaving and panting from the excertion. Swallows... JOHN Puh. (pant) Please. RIPLEY It never ends. (John, Anthony, and Ripley start running down a wooden coorider, filled with twisted planks and torches on the walls every 20 feet. As they run, they discuss the fact that the first alien hatched from a sheep, and Anthony theories that aliens that hatch out of bipeds are bipedal, out of quadropeds, quadropedal, etc -- just as we saw in the final version of ALIEN^3. John apologizes for not speaking out at Ripley's trial. They slow down when they come to a slope in the hallway, and they trot, leaning to keep their balance. It's during this stretch that John elaborates more on the colony's history.) JOHN The order was more of a counter culture, a reaction to the Technology that was beginning to take over everyone's lives. It was a simple enough idea - Read, don't watch disk. Walk, don't pump more carbons into the air. The earliest members renounced technology. Started to collect the remaining books. Nobody would have noticed if it hadn't been for the Virus. RIPLEY Your Abbot talked about that. The New Plague. ANTHONY A computer virus. A bad program. By this time the Corporate structure was transglobal, all the world's data storage systems were linked. It spread through two countries before it was stopped. JOHN After a scare like that, thousands flocked to our retreat. People started clamoring for written information. For our books. They abandoned the modern ways -- RIPLEY I think I can see how this comes out. They gave up their possessions. ANTHONY This was a threat -- RIPLEY To the Company. JOHN They sold the technology. A movement to live simply was quickly twisted by Federal agents into a political movement against the Company-controlled World Government. Too much was at stake. RIPLEY Too much profit. JOHN We were sentenced as political dissidents. This orbiter is our gulag. All the men were packed up with all our books, and towed into space. Ten thousand men. The eldest died very quickly. RIPLEY The Company had such a sense of irony. Sending you out on this wooden tub. (Ripley reassures John that she was just on Earth and everything's fine. He's somewhat doubtful, but concedes that she may be right. Ripley asks where her ship is, and Anthony says that it's "in Heaven," explaining that the orbiter was patterned around a medieval concept of the universe, making where they currently are "Hell." John then announces that it's five miles up to where her ship is -- and Anthony realizes that the alien is in between there and here, working its way down to them. At this news, Ripley becomes rather concern, and asks if there's any technology of any kind on the colony, anything that could be used as or made to be weapons... ) John SHAKES his head vehemently -- JOHN We renounced technology. It was those things that caused the Plague. RIPLEY This is a man-made planet. Something has to be recirculating your air, your water. JOHN God? RIPLEY Please. JOHN I don't know. I just took it for granted. RIPLEY Most people do. Without some sort of technology we haven't got a chance. From behind them: ANTHONY There is technology. John and Ripley turn to look at him. ANTHONY A room. A Technology room. Fresh air and water come out. RIPLEY An atmosphere processing plant -- ANTHONY The heart and lungs of Arceon. RIPLEY Where is it? ANTHONY One level beneath the underground sea. JOHN That's five levels up -- ANTHONY (points into the gloom) On the other side of the orbiter. John looks at Ripley -- JOHN A chance. (They get going again, but Ripley feels a twinge in her midsection. She shakes it off, dismissing it as aftereffects of hypersleep. From here we cut to a scene of the Abbot, his cloak covered in Brother Graham's fresh blood, leading a group of the monks armed with only scythes, pitchforks, hoes, other pitiful weapons. The Abbot stands above the group, telling them them stay together as they venture through the planetoid's underground field of wheat. The alien appears, and what follows seems directly out of THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK's "raptors in the grass" sequence, as a torpedo trail in the wheat appears and starts mowing through the monks. The torches the monks hold fall with them, and soon the field is ignited. The alien soon rises before the Abbot, causing him to take off in a dead run, and the script pauses to tell us that the alien, as it stands before the abbot, is GOLDEN... the shade of the WHEAT! It seems our favorite xenomorph has new, chameleon-like capabilites. We cut to Ripley, John, and Anthony, as they reach a ladder.) AT THE LADDER John is just climbing off, Anthony right behind him. Anthony is winded. He reaches up for a helping hand. John looks back and sees that Ripley has moved ahead without them, then reaches down to help Anthony. Their hands clasp -- ANTHONY HAS A "VISION" He is seemingly standing in an open field, sheep grazing peacefully at his side. SUDDENLY he is ATTACKED by a horde of Medieval demons. Fish faced demons. Man-headed bird demons. They fly about him, grab hold of his limbs. The Sheep nearest him opens it's mouth to reveal a horde of razor sharp fangs, SINKS THEM INTO HIS ANKLE -- Anthony SCREAMS -! RIPLEY Down the corridor HEARS the scream, turns back -- sees Anthony fighting with himself, struggling against John's grasp - ANTHONY Balanced precariously on the top of the ladder in the real world as he fights against the demons in his android mind -- He JERKS -- Pulls his left ankle out of the grasp of the DEMON SHEEP -- OFF the ladder - forty foot drop waiting below him... JOHN Struggles to keep his death grip on Anthony's hand. It's all that keeps Anthony from falling back down the shaft -- JOHN Jesus Christ. Ripleeeee -! He PULLS with all his might... ANTHONY SEES a horrible BIRD-DEMON grasping his hand in its beak -- BITING through his wrist. He waves his staff in the air -- He aims for its head: CRACK -! WHACKS John's hand with his staff -- John HOWLS in pain - LETS GO -- Anthony TEETERS BACK ON ONE FOOT, arms waving in the air -- Ripley's hands SHOOT OUT -- GRAB Anthony's cassock -- STOP his fall. Anthony's eyes open wide at the sight of this new horror -- A terrible, wet, black cable-armed CREATURE that's latched itself onto his cassock -- Long, shiny head. Ripley has become the Alien. WHACK! Anthony HITS the Creature with his staff -- HITS Ripley on the head. WHACK! Again. In the face. John tries to take hold of Anthony's staff arm -- WHACK! The cane WHIPS against the side of his head, knocking him back. Ripley sets her feet and pulls on Anthony's cassock -- Opens her mouth - GRUNTS -- ANTHONY sees the terrible Alien open it's maw to devour him. WHACK! His staff connects with the bridge of Ripley's nose. She sees flashes of light -- loses her balance -- Pitches forward, starts to go over with Anthony -- JOHN GRABS THEM! Wraps his arms around the struggling pair and like a sumo wrestler LIFTS and FALLS backwards - carrying the three of them into the corridor -- WHUMPH! They land on the floor in a heap. Anthony continues to FLAIL ABOUT -- Ripley and John pin him to the floor between them. Finally, the vision leaves him. He loses consciousness. (Anthony awakens shortly, and explains that this is another part of why he was down in his own shaft. He was programmed to have dreams, but, unfortunately, wasn't programmed to sleep. So his visions come to him during the day, and the other monks believed him to be insane. Of course, when he explained that he was just an android, they liked that even less. The group stops to rest, and Ripley and John bond a little before moving on. Continuing, they find blood dripping from the ceiling, mixed with sea water, and they also find... THE ABBOT, cassock torn, looking terrified. After arguing with Ripley -- she's angry that he locked her up when he should've known better, he's angry that she brought the beast -- the new group of four moves on again. They reach the hallway leading to the "technology room," and find the floor littered with bear traps. The traps are everywhere, and John comes up with the idea of taking Anthony's walking stick and any wooden planks they can get off of the walls and tripping the traps with them. As Ripley pulls a plank from the wall, she finds that the wood is only a covering for the planetoid's metal skeleton. She smiles, finally certain that this is no dream, and then gets back to work. They get to the door to find that it has no knob or handle -- it could almost be another chunk of wooden wall. John, Ripley, and the Abbot struggle to find purchase, as Anthony lags a little behind. They start to knock on the wood, looking for a hollow point. John finds one, and finds he is able to slide a wooden plank aside, to reveal a primitive, 20th century keyboard. Anthony, still up the hall, hears a noise and looks behind him. The wall seems to move! It's the alien, adapted to look like the wood! It does away with its new look, reverting to the classic, bio-mechanical appearance. Anthony, terrified, takes a step back, right into a bear trap, snapping his leg. Now he's back in his dream, with his ankle pinned and the alien's limbs circling arond him. He SCREAMS... And John hears, racing back to him. Ripley turns, but the Abbot pushes her back to the keyboard. She forces herself to focus. The alien is walking towards Anthony, traps snapping around its legs and tail. Anthony swings his staff at the creature's head futilely. The alien lifts Anthony to face him, and Anthony drops his staff, using his enhanced android strength to hold the creature's arms from gripping him any tighter. The alien opens its mouth... and spits acidic saliva into Anthony's face, putting out his eyes, causing his android skin to bubble and blister! Back at the wall, Ripley is getting no response from the keyboard. She pulls it from the wall, and finds that the wires are so old, they've broken. She bites off the ends, spits out the insulation and twists the bare wires together, and forges on. John now picks up Anthony's staff, hitting the alien, trying to force it to free poor Anthony, but with no luck so far. The alien becomes bored with him and extends its tail, wrapping it around him, picking up, hanging him upside down. He pulls John in front of his mouth, teeth spreading, as John reaches desperately for the floor. Just in time, he pulls up a bear trap and it slams onto the alien's tongue, causing the alien to release both him and Anthony! The alien wails in pain and tries to shake off the trap, as John pries open the trap that holds Anthony's leg and drags him and his staff down the hall as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Ripley has gotten the door open with the newly rewired keyboard. She and the Abbot leap in, wait for John and Anthony. They come hobbling down the hall just as the alien's blood dissolves the trap, and it whips towards the two lagging monks. John and Anthony hobble in and Ripley works at the INNER keyboard now, gets in the code, and the door slides down just as the alien is about to reach them. And Ripley turns, to see the "technology" before them.) WINDMILLS Real Man of LaMancha wood and cloth windmills. Two story high arms slowly rotating. Moving enormous volumes of air through the wind tunnel-like room. As far as the eye can see. Turning, creaking. WHOOSH...WHOOSH... But no electronics. No radio. No weapons. This is the Technology Room. (Ripley collapses out of exhaustion, and we enter a brief dream sequence where she sees the alien on the S.E.V. Once Ripley is back on her feet, she realizes that the alien could get through the wooden door anytime it wanted -- it's just toying with them, but why? She looks around, considers the supposed "technology," and realizes that they're screwed. The script takes the time to explain a little more about how this planetoid works.) She moves into the room. Walks around one of the Windmills. RIPLEY An Eco system. Nothing to recycle your atmosphere except the green plants. Winds generated down here -- (looks at the floor) Windmills use the natural surface winds to turn wheels underground, create tides on the seas to recirculate your water... ANTHONY More than that. There are pumps beneath the floor - I can feel their vibration. RIPLEY Probably pumping this air through charcoal filters. (Ripley points out that the planet is primed to self-destruct -- it gets colder all the time on the planet, because the wood burning fires throw soot into the atmosphere, building a cloud layer, cutting off the sun, making it colder, making them burn more wood. On top of that, if the plants that keep the atmosphere going die, the fires will eat up all of the oxygen, and everything else, meaning the monks, dies too. The Abbot confesses that this is an intentional design -- the punishment for the movement's crimes was death. And he continues... ) The Abbot has a faraway look in his eyes... ABBOT Poetic justice for the anti-technologists. The Company's best work. You know, I used to be a corporate executive. Middle range V.P. Then my wife got hit by a speed craft. I chucked it all and joined the order. Be a monk -- see the world. Being here, being chairman of the board... RIPLEY No, now I understand why I landed here. To join you happy lunatics in your deaths. Ripley moves away... John starts after her. JOHN Ripley, wait -- The Abbot stands, blocks his way. ABBOT Where can she go? She's trapped. (beat) Trapped inside her own prison. A prison in her mind. Inside her mind. Dancing. Sparklets of light - dance with the june bugs in the recesses of ourmindstheyare coming to danceintheshadowof... John and Ripley turn to look at the Abbot. He begins to speak faster. Faster. He shakes. Vibrates is more accurate -- A trickle of BLOOD runs from his left ear... ABBOT RidingthewildwindsofchangeNoescapeNo escapeforthewickedEvilEvilthynameis woman.Woman.Womanheiscoming.Heiscoming foryouuuuuuuuu --* SPLORTCH-KT--!! The Abbot's HEAD EXPLODES --!!! Like a ripe melon dropped ten stories onto pavement. Blood, bone, hair and brain matter SPRAY John. John SCREAMS. A HORRIBLE ALIEN HEAD BURSTER Is all that sits atop the blood spurting neck of the Abbot. It keeps it's hold on the Abbot's spinal cord -- The Abbot's body continues to stagger around, arms jerking mechanically as lack of fresh nerve impulses from the brain works its way through the system. Ripley SCREAMS. The Infant Alien-headed corpse stumbles towards her -- She plucks Anthony's staff from the floor and SWINGS -- -- Like a child hitting a baseball from a TEE -- WHACK-K -!! BLASTS the Chest/head burster across the room -- It hits the floor SCRAMBLING. Scuttles down into where the Windmills meet the floor. Disappears. (What the hell just happened? After the group calms down, Anthony takes some time to theorize about it.) ANTHONY There are several inconsistancies between this and the other Aliens you described. RIPLEY Give it up. ANTHONY I think this is important. This may help us fight it. The creature that I fought in the hall - when I first saw it, it had camoflaged itself to look like wood. Ripley looks up. RIPLEY Wood? When I saw it in my room it looked the way it did before -- black, mechanical -- unless that was a dream. ANTHONY I don't think it was. I think that this creature, if it is the efficient predator that you say it is, has the ability to adapt to its environment. RIPLEY Then the reason they've always looked the same to me is that I only ever saw them in the same environment. ANTHONY Or this may be an as yet unseen stage of development -- you saw a queen -- This could be like a King ant -- more highly advanced than the drone, bred for survival -? JOHN How does this explain the thing that came out of the ewe's chest? The Abbot's head? RIPLEY Maybe it can deposit different types of eggs. The chest burster is probably dormant until the host eats - The first one I ever saw came out of Kane after he started to eat -- And in one horrible moment she realizes: She hasn't eaten. The pain in her chest... RIPLEY No. Anthony "looks" towards her - does he realize as well? (About time she figured it out. But she admits nothing to John and Anthony, and soon she and John decide that they had best be moving. Anthony realizes that, blind and crippled, he would be of no help, and chooses to stay behind. Before the others leave, though, he shakes Ripley's hand, wishes her good luck, and then, pulls her closer, saying "Ripley, I know." Ripley tells him to sit tight, and she and John leave, unsure of whether they're hoping to lead the alien away from Anthony or hoping to leave it behind. Ripley and John climb up a ladder, and reach the docks of the underground sea. Climbing into an ancient-style coracle, they begin to cross. Meanwhile, the alien manages to somehow silently enter the technology room. Anthony sits bravely, facing the doom that he can no longer see. As they cross the sea, John tells the story of his life -- he never knew his mother, as she left when his father joined the monastery movement. He came to the planetoid at age 5, and has been here for 40 years since. Then, it's Ripley's turn... ) RIPLEY Did you know that I was a mother? JOHN The girl in the ship with -? RIPLEY No. On Earth. I never mentioned my daughter. My daughter. I have - had I guess, by now - a daughter on Earth. Kathy. She was nine when I signed on to the Nostromo. Mommy will be home before you know it I said. My shares would have set us up good. Then I lost sixty years floating around in a rescue pod. Thanks to the Alien. I came home to face a bitter, 70 year old woman. My daughter. A little girl who's mother never came home. JOHN Jesus Christ. RIPLEY They said I should have been happy to be alive. Funny, huh? That's why I went back the second time. Not so I could fight it -- You can't fight it -- So I could let it kill me. She rubs her chest -- JOHN You didn't choose to get lost in space. RIPLEY Thanks for the try Father -- JOHN Brother. RIPLEY Brother, but I'm not looking for absolution. I couldn't be a good mother to my daughter. I couldn't be a good mother to Newt. But I can be a good mother to you. I can make sure you survive. (Obviously, this COMPLETELY contradicts the ALIENS SPECIAL EDITION that came out just around the time that this script was handed in. But, regardless of that, the script forges on. They soon find blood dripping from the ceiling, and John states that the alien must have killed ALL of the other monks. So, let's see, given what else we know about what happens before and after this scene, and assuming we include Anthony in the group of 350 exiles mentioned at the start, does that mean that the alien has killed 345 monks?! Or does the number 350 refer only to those that were alive when they first landed here 40 years ago? Well, whatever. Ripley and John reach the other side of the sea and continue going up. They find fires burning everywhere, dead bodies littering the ground, and even some monks coccooned in resin. They pass through the glass works, where John finds Kyle, muttering incoherently. Knowing what happens next, he hangs his brother before another head-burster can be born. Ripley takes a blowing iron, hands John a pontil. Not great weapons, but better than anything else around here. They head for the library to rescue books, and find Mattias, John's dog, alive and well. Then, through the doorway, appears the alien, badly damaged from the bear traps. Lost a foot, tongue hanging useless, partially normal, partially wood-toned, partially wheat-toned. It's also dripping blood, leaving a trail of fire on the wooden floor behind it. It tosses the dead android body of Anthony at Ripley's feet. Mattias leaps at the alien, jumping and barking around it, drawing its attention. Ripley uses this time to charge at the alien and smack it with the iron, making it bleed worse. A hole eats through the floor, and the group (minus Mattias, who jumps away) plummet down to the next floor -- the glassworks. The alien lands in the molten glass, Ripley catches the side of the broken floor, but at least she's above solid floor, unlike John, who grabs ahold of the flying fox rope, right above the vat. Ripley drops and rolls on impact. John starts to go hand-over-hand across the rope. Then, the alien bursts from the vat, screaming! It's colored to look translucent, like the molten glass! The alien starts to climb out of the vat, and Ripley manages to stumble to a flaming wooden lever, which John yells for her to pull as he finally swings to safe ground. She does, and a dump tank of water is unloaded onto the beast, causing it to explode into bits. Satisfied, they grab Mattias and head for the S.E.V. Knocking down the planks around it, Ripley heads inside and checks her "time elapsed" clock to see how long she was in hypersleep -- but it's broken, and there's no readout. Could the Abbot have been right about Earth? She doesn't much care, and continues about her work -- and locks John into a side compartment! She tells him that she has one inside of her and she intends to send him off, to save him, at least, in an attempt to make up for all the others that she's lost. And she'll remain behind, to die on the burning structure. John pleads back for his own chance. He wants to make up for the fact that he couldn't save his mentor when he was dying. He says that he didn't know enough at the time. Ripley considers this and his claims that he knows what to do, and agrees to let him have a shot. He opens his medieval book to a page showing a monk vomiting up a devil, and begins his procedure, or perhaps ceremony. He gives Ripley an odd mixture and straddles her on the ground. She starts to gag, and he pounds his fist into her stomach, pummeling her diaphragm repeatedly! She gags, coughs up a mucousy substance, and then John starts to perform some odd CPR, breathing in and out of her mouth. The alien chestburster is seen slithering out of Ripley's mouth, and straight into John's! Ripley gets up, coughing, as John swallows back the last of the slime. She wonders why he did this, since it will kill him, and he says that he wants to join his brothers, whether they were right or wrong, whether in heaven or hell, he wants to be with them, where they all belong. He heads back, leaving Mattias behind, walking into the burning flames, dropping a parchment on the floor of the ship as he goes. She watches him walk into his death through the open S.E.V. door.) The heat of the flames grows. She must pull back -- Reaches up for the door handle. It closes with a THUD. She rolls onto her back. She weeps. For the first time in years. She's been absolved. CREeeek -!! The escape pod SHIFTS. Ripley's eyes SNAP open -- The Roof beneath the Pod is beginning to GIVE WAY. Ripley rolls onto her stomach and drags herself to the pilot's chair. Pulls herself into the seat. Straps herself in -- SULACCO ESCAPE POD #4 Blasts THROUGH the wooden outershell of the Orbiter Arceon. ROARS towards us - past us. INT. SULACCO ESCAPE POD #4 = DAY Ripley places Mattias into the Hyper sleep tube. Rubs under his chin. Is about to climb in with him when she spots something on the floor -- JOHN'S PARCHMENT Ripley picks it up and unrolls it. She hears John's voice: JOHN V.O. I, Brother John Goldman of the orbiter Arceon, Minorite abbey and gaol, know the Abbot was wrong. There is a great evil here. I have seen it. I put pen to paper now lest this plague - this creature stills my hand. I have gone down below - both to try to warn the others and get the woman - Ripley - get from her some clue as to how to battle this evil, or at least to make my peace for not defending her. She believes there is still an Earth and I hope she is right. I hope she will be able to find out. I hope she can find some rest for the devils that torment her. Ripley looks at the elapsed time counter on the command console. Pulls a pen from it's holder. She adds: RIPLEY V.O. Whether the Earth exists or not, whether we end up in Heaven, or Hell, or the cold vacuum of space, she has. She sets her course. Gets back into her tube. Closes the lid. DEEP SPACE The escape pod moves through the jet-black void... ARCEON Dwindles into the darkness behind her, a smouldering, slowly dying ember... THE SCREEN GOES BLACK END CREDITS ROLL... Teenager in the back of the movie theater shouts, "It's in the dog!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Usenet FAQ Archive is a service of Netmeg Internet (http://www.netmeg.net/)