Alien 3

Well, well. As I could have predicted, I ended up enjoying Alien 3 much more than Aliens. The reason isn't that this was a better movie; the reason is differing expectations. As was the case with The Godfather last winter, the second movie was too overhyped and couldn't have been anything aside form a letdown, while the shat-upon third movie at least succeeded in pleasantly surprising me. This was the only movie in the trilogy where the ending actually surprised me whatsoever. It may not have been anything all that special, but at least it didn't end with a self-destruct sequence. I also really appreciated the beginning of the movie. Minor spoiler alert, but Aliens ended with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and three other people escaping impending doom in an escape pod. Alien 3 starts with the escape pod crash landing, killing everyone on board but Ripley. Apparently James Cameron was furious with this; the three characters he had specifically chosen to survive were done away with instantaneously, negating their epic survival in the previous movie altogether. But you know what? Forget James Cameron. He did what he wanted to with his movie, and the franchise owed him nothing more. I absolutely love the big "fuck you" that the screenwriters gave him by killing off his precious characters and advancing the story in their own way. Anyway, this completes my movie goal for July, but not the Aliens franchise. See, although the series so far has not blown me away, I'm a real sucker for franchise completion when it comes to my massive DVD collection. So I've already gone ahead and ordered Alien Resurrection from Amazon and only upon its arrival (and viewing) can I make my final judgments on the series as a whole. (Who cares about the Alien vs. Predator spin-offs?) But for now, I've got plenty of DVDs to watch thanks to an insane ten-movie purchase at Target the other day. Onward!