12. Alien: Alien^3 was a dream.
Description
This article is from the Alien Movies FAQ, by Darryll Hobsonand Eelko de Vos E.W.C.deVos@TWI.TUDelft.NL with numerous contributions by others.
12. Alien: Alien^3 was a dream.
YES:
- The suddenly white painting of the name, "Sulaco:" Ripley has probably
never seen the Sulaco from the outside, so in her dream she might
"make it up" that way.
- The different-looking egg: Ripley hasn't actually seen an alien egg
before the end of "ALIENS" (except maybe a short glance via one of the
Marines' cameras in the Sub-Level 3 sequence) so she might very well
not know what exactly they look like.
- The different-looking alien can not be explained so easily, as it
should be one of the most prominent images in Ripley's memory.
However, one could "blame" the strangeness of dreams in general here.
(The same would be applicable for the first two points.)
- The freezers were different than from Aliens. They were more alike the
freezers of Alien, which Ripley probably remembers better than the 'new'
freezers on the Sulaco.
- As in a "good" nightmare, the most basic fears of the dreaming person
(ie. Ripley) are exploited:
+ Having to fight an alien again. (As Sigourney Weaver put it in
"The Making of "ALIEN^3"," we [and she] expected that after all
she's been through, "she'd be rewarded with a 'normal life.'")
+ Losing Newt, whom she regards a substitute for her daughter. (So,
more precisely, she was losing her daughter AGAIN.)
+ Losing Hicks, with whom she wasn't exactly "romantically involved"
but as close as she's ever got to anyone in the movies. You might
call him her only friend.
+ Bishop (II) returning as the incarnate of evil, directly executing
the "company behaviour" she experienced (ie. wanting to get his
hands on an alien).
+ "Bearing" an alien.
+ Dying.
- The visual appearance of the film (the almost total absence of colors
other than black, red, and yellow) was very dreamlike.
- Apart from the filmmaking techniques, Alien3 was bad. Like it says in the
"I hate Alien3" part, all good things are about the filmmaking techniques,
as the story just plain sucks. It "should" be a dream.
NO:
- It would be a bad move to write off Alien3 as a dream. There are
explanations for almost every aspect of the movie, we only didn't see
them yet. Aliens are alien, so they do things we don't expect.
- Sometimes the camera shows things which Ripley couldn't have 'seen', like
the "Candles in the Wind" scene.
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