Cyberpunk guru William Gibson's rejected 'Alien 3' script scores a new novelization

[Sketchsanchez]

Just found out about this, figured this would interest people here

Cyberpunk guru William Gibson's rejected 'Alien 3' script scores a new novelization (exclusive excerpt)

Titan Books and award-winning sci-fi scribe Pat Cadigan bring Gibson’s discarded "Alien 3" draft to life

www.space.com

 

[ILikeFeet]

first a comic, now a novelization.

eventually it will get turned into a movie for Hulu or Netflix or someone

 

[Quinton]

I know it's easy to say this without real context -- which I presently lack -- but just from that brief description, this sounds way more up my alley than the actual film.

I've long decided the Alien franchise is pretty much just the first two movies for me. D:

 

[Darknight]

first a comic, now a novelization.

eventually it will get turned into a movie for Hulu or Netflix or someone

Click to shrink...

There's at least the audio drama with Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen already.

Alien III

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Audible is bringing William Gibson’s uncovered Alien III script to life in audio for the first time, to mark the 40th Anniversary of the birth of the Alien franchise. Alongside a full cast, Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprise thei...

www.audible.com

 

[NDA-Man]

There is an audible edition of the script with Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprising their roles (admittedly thirty-forty years later, so they're gravellier than you remember).

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[Jedi2016]

Which one was this again? The only one I've read was Vincent Ward's (which I'm still partial to).

 

[bangai-o]

Too bad they couldn't get Alan Dean Foster. His books were great.

 

[NDA-Man]

Which one was this again? The only one I've read was Vincent Ward's (which I'm still partial to).

Click to shrink...

Gibson's was a lot more "conventional" than Ward's (that was the monastery one, right?).

It's been a while since I looked at the script, although I read the comic when it came out. The Sulaco drifts into space controlled by the UPP--essentially space communists. After some diplomatic wrangling the UPP repatriates the crew (still frozen) to the Anchopoint--a nearly-mothballed research station that Weyland Yutani is essentially financially blackmailing into doing research. (The UPP also found Alien eggs aboard Sulaco, similarly underexplained form Alien 3.

Wey Yu starts conducting experiments aboard the Anchorpoint with xenomorph biological material, and the result is sort of similar to the black goo from Prometheus--body horror transformations in awful ways (the UPP is dealing with the typical Aliens scenario).

To a degree, it's the inverse of Alien 3 we got, as it deemphasized Ripley (who essentially only had a cameo) in favor of Hicks and Bishop.

 

[Sectorseven]

Why was Alien 3 such a troubled production with all these different scripts and even different cuts of the final film?

Did Aliens have similar problems?

 

[Plasma]

The audio drama version they did was pretty good.

 

[Jedi2016]

Gibson's was a lot more "conventional" than Ward's (that was the monastery one, right?).

Click to shrink...

Yeah. I think it could have been something special, with the imagery it conjured. Assuming it was even filmable at all given the technology of the time. Tiny pieces of it are still in the final designs.

Why was Alien 3 such a troubled production with all these different scripts and even different cuts of the final film?

Did Aliens have similar problems?

Click to shrink...

No, Cameron didn't take any shit from the studio, even back then.

As to why? I'm not sure. The BTS videos I've seen talk about there being trouble (such as starting to shoot without a script), but don't really go into the reasons why it was happening.

Alien 3 was the first of the series I saw in theaters, so it holds a special place for me. It also has some incredible cinematography.

And Charles Dance. It has Charles Dance.

 

[NDA-Man]

Why was Alien 3 such a troubled production with all these different scripts and even different cuts of the final film?

Did Aliens have similar problems?

Click to shrink...

Okay, from what I recall, Fox announced that there would be an Alien sequel with a 1993 release date, before getting a script, director, or cast. Gibson's script never got far, they were originally going with Ward's--about a monastery on a wooden planet or something--very high concept... and also kinda too high concept about what was always a slasher movie with a big space bug, IMO.

Right as filming started, Fox kinda realized that the script was... maybe a bit too out there, and decided to make changes--which led to Ward quitting. The space monastery sets were painted over to become a space jail, and everyone was scrambling to get a script and get the film done. It was a complete mess, that the original documentary on the production was called "Wreckage and Rape"--Fox would later include that documentary on the Anthology Blu Ray collection as "Wreckage and Rage" (and in previous release, would edit out things that were too unflattering to the studio).

 

[wenis]

The comic is pretty cool. Good read.

 

[bangai-o]

The audio drama version they did was pretty good.

Click to shrink...

It was mostly Lance Henriksen. I dont recall Michael Biehn part of it that much. But, Lance always does really good with these. He also did the read aloud for Alan Dean Foster's Alien 3.

 

[NDA-Man]

Yeah. I think it could have been something special, with the imagery it conjured. Assuming it was even filmable at all given the technology of the time. Tiny pieces of it are still in the final designs.


No, Cameron didn't take any shit from the studio, even back then.

As to why? I'm not sure. The BTS videos I've seen talk about there being trouble (such as starting to shoot without a script), but don't really go into the reasons why it was happening.

Alien 3 was the first of the series I saw in theaters, so it holds a special place for me. It also has some incredible cinematography.

And Charles Dance. It has Charles Dance.

Click to shrink...

Aliens did not have trouble between the studio and Cameron... but there was a ton of bad blood between the film crew and Cameron. Apparently, the crew was British, and were upset that Ridley Scott was replaced by a Canadian. They weren't fond of Gale Ann Hurd, either. Cameron's control freak tendencies clashed with the crew's attitudes towards filming, leading to them actually walking off the set after he fired a cameraman or lighting tech--at least a few of the castmembers disliked the crew. James Horner had such a bad experience given how rushed his schedule was he swore he'd never compose a Cameron film again (thankfully that proved to be a lie).

 

[DieH@rd]

Why was Alien 3 such a troubled production with all these different scripts and even different cuts of the final film?

Did Aliens have similar problems?

Click to shrink...

FOX hired artistic French director who totally rejected all the scripts and filmed what he wanted. It was a wild production.

And I actually like the extended cut.

 

[NDA-Man]

FOX hired artistic French director who totally rejected all the scripts and filmed what he wanted. It was a wild production.

And I actually like the extended cut.

Click to shrink...

Are you thinking Resurrection? Alien 3 was directed by David Fincher. Who replaced Vincent Ward after he quit, and I think he's from NZ?

Resurrection was directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet, and feels a lot more like an attempt at being artsy.

 

[DieH@rd]

Yeah, I mixed them up.

Fincher had constant battles with FOX, who hounded him to make changes because he was a 1st time director.