Alien3 (1992)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Theatrical Trailer-1.85:1 non 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono Trailer-Aliens Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-The Making Of Alien3 (22:28)
Rating
Year Of Production	1992
Running Time	110:12
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (56:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Fincher
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Sigourney Weaver Charles Dutton Charles Dance Paul McGann Brian Glover
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	Box	Music	Elliot Goldenthal

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Alien³ is held by many to be the weakest of the Alien movies. Many others bestow that dubious honour on Alien Resurrection. Having just viewed Alien³ for the first time, it seems the weakest of the series to me. Alien³ sees us pick up where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) left off - in cryosleep and heading for Earth. Unfortunately, an Alien is along for the ride as well, which sees the ship jettison the crew capsule, Alien and all, landing on a semi-defunct maximum security prison planet. There are very few inhabitants of this maximum security prison; a few hardened criminals, a medical officer with a past and an imperious warden who presides over the whole tin pot affair. Predictably, the setting is confined and dark, with lots of places for an Alien to hide.

    Herein lies the fundamental problem with this instalment of the Alien franchise - you simply don't care about any of the inhabitants of this prison, mainly due to some very sloppy screenwriting. None of them are fleshed out particularly, and you know that the majority of them are going to bite the dust at the hands of the Alien, so they simply become cannon fodder, and the movie a drab and dank trudge towards its reasonably telegraphed conclusion. Another problem is the sloppy writing where a lot of things simply happen for no good reason other than to move the plot from one set piece to another. A perfect example of this is the perfunctory way in which the number of characters is significantly reduced at one particular point in the movie. As well as this, one particular glaring factual error mars the script: Cholera is not a virus as is referred to in the script, it is a bacterium.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It is of reference quality.

    The image is razor sharp and crystal clear throughout. Director David Fincher clearly wanted you to see certain things by the style of the cinematography and by golly you see the things he wants you to see and don't see the things he doesn't want you to see. There is a tremendous amount of detail revealed in this transfer, when the Director intends for you to see it. The first scenes of the surface of the prison planet were a little concerning, and I was worried that I was seeing copious grain or film artefact, but it quickly became obvious that we were looking at a simulation of debris flying about in the wind on the planet's surface. Shadow detail was superlative, with just sufficient detail revealed in the shadows to be ominous without it being insufficiently detailed. Clearly, an enormous amount of effort went into the lighting of this production, and this is reflected in the very stylish cinematography. Having said that, this transfer would be best viewed under strictly controlled lighting conditions, as it is predominantly shot in a very dark and very drab style. There is no low level noise marring the transfer at any point.

    The colours are rendered perfectly. Even though the colour palette is not very large, what colours were shown were all accurately portrayed and never seemed unnatural. Greens, browns, greys and reds predominate this movie and it almost comes as a bit of a shock towards the end of the movie to see some brighter white colours.

    There were no MPEG artefacts detected in the transfer. Aliasing was not an issue, and neither were film artefacts. This is an extremely clean presentation of this movie, and a credit to whomever transferred this movie from celluloid.

    This is an RSDL disc with the layer change coming at 56:00. This is placed in an appropriate position and is not disruptive to the flow of the movie.

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this DVD, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand other than a few shouted words here and there. There were no audio sync problems.

    The score by Elliot Goldenthal was a percussive and strident score which left little impression on me.

    The surround channels are used to great effect by this soundtrack. Sounds are frequently placed in all corners of the soundfield, and the rear channels are frequently called upon to provide a suitably claustrophobic atmosphere to the movie. At all times, you feel as if you are part of the proceedings, rather than an observer on the outside.

    The subwoofer was nearly continuously used to tremendous effect, with lots and lots of very low frequency information being pumped to it almost continuously, lending a very ominous air to much of the movie.

Menu

Featurette - The Making of Alien³

Theatrical Trailer

    The video transfer is superlative and is of reference quality.

    The audio transfer is extremely good, and is also of reference quality.

    The extras are reasonable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall