Due to the success of games such as Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire, many have come to expect the Rockstar Games label to exclusively deliver free-roaming, immersive world experiences. It was for this reason that I was hesitant to pick up Max Payne 3 - a sequel to the groundbreaking Remedy games series that plainly announced its intentions to deliver nothing more than a linear, cinematic campaign.
In this modern video gaming era, players are given so much freedom of choice. They can roam a vast world hunting dragons and pursuing numerous optional quests in Skyrim. They can choose any item from a vast arsenal to engage their enemy in Battlefield 3 and leave a crumbling, battle scarred terrain in their wake. They can ride around, blasting away fellow players and gangs of NPC bandits in Rockstar's own Red Dead Redemption multiplayer and explore a vast story terrain in the single player. With games like these occupying our attention, is there really still room for the linear storyline?
It's been nearly a week since I saw Ridley Scott's Prometheus at the cinema, and since then the film has occupied that vague part of my mind, somewhere between 'enjoyment' and 'disappointment.' It's taken me a while to find myself in a position to write a fair review, and that's primarily because the film did not meet my expectations, for positive and negative reasons. Infact, I imagine many viewers will find themselves surprised by the product of Scott's much publicised return to science-fiction, and without a doubt, the film will divide audiences quite decisively. It's the type of movie that ignites interesting debates across the board, but sadly for Prometheus, I can't imagine all of those debates will positively reflect the film.
Many weapons have been used by our favourite characters throughout the history of cinema, but only rarely do those weapons become so ingrained in the mythology of the film that they become extensions of the characters, and even become symbolic of a franchise. In the following list, I've selected (in no particular order) what I think to be the most interesting, inventive and iconic weaponry to grace the screen over the past few decades.
M41-A Pulse Rifle (Aliens) The primary firearm of the Colonial Marines from James Cameron's Aliens, the M41-A is an assault rifle capable of firing 10mm caseless armour piercing rounds, and is also fitted with a pump-action underslung grenade launcher and a digital ammunition counter for monitoring the capacity of its 95 round magazines. The prop itself was constructed from a live firing WW2 era Thompson sub-machine gun, the action of a Remington 870 shotgun and the casing from a SPAS-12 assault shotgun all fused together under a manufactured carry shroud. The principal weapon design was sketched out by Cameron himself, and its distinctive firing sound is instantly recognisable.
With Prometheus only a few short days away, I find myself trying to understand the film I'm about to see. Is it a fully fledged Alien prequel, or an entirely original film with minor Alien influences? Will it be a horror film, or is it a sci-fi epic with horror elements? Will the film conclude where 1979's Alien began - despite the Director insisting that it doesn't contain the planetoid or the crashed alien vessel from that earlier movie - or will it expand the series in new directions? We know the Space Jockey will feature at some point, but will the original alien organism also make an appearance? Or are we getting an entirely new variant of the Xenomorph's life cycle?
It's hard to think that running around on a virtual battlefield, trying to shoot the opposing player in the face to score bonus points towards your next weapon unlock was once a novel idea. While it was fresh and groundbreaking in the likes of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the formula is now as tired and predictable as the cliched action heroes who were once the stars of the the previous generation of corridor action shooter. Now, we get a new Call of Duty game every year, each one being nothing but a minor readjustment of the previous outing on the same tired and dated graphics engine. Once upon a time, material like this would only have been fit for an expansion pack. And in some cases, that expansion pack would have been free.
But in this modern gaming age, hordes of fans swarm to the shops to pick up the latest edition of their favourite title (currently COD 4.3) even though they essentially own the same game already. They pay £40 for it (£60+ for collectors editions), and then they start forking out for add-on packs to enhance the experience. If they're simple minded enough, they'll even pay an extra £40 a year to subscribe to Call of Duty Elite, essentially paying for a game twice and binding themselves into an agreement to play the game relentlessly until all DLC has been released and they've got their money's worth. It's almost forcing the buyer into a contract with the game - if they decide to trade it in or walk away before it finishes its DLC run, the publisher doesn't have to worry, because they've already got the customer's money. They're essentially helping themselves to the wallets of millions of narrow minded gamers who play these mainstream shooters because they are 'fun' or 'everyone else is playing them' or they get a vague sense of achievement in their lives from prestiging ten times and getting a shiny gold gun. If you were to argue this point with any of these fanboys, they would defend their COD hobby to the bitter end, insisting on its importance despite the fact that all their efforts to level up and 'achieve' will be pointless once the next game comes along, and they have to start the process all over again. Rinse and repeat.
But it's not just Call of Duty. EA's Battlefield 3 is heading down the same path, set to announce a paid subscription service later this year and also pulling support for its official servers, instead leaving it to the players to rent servers through the game interface at extra cost. While Battlefield's more sandbox approach to the genre is admirable, and it pushes the envelope in terms of graphics quality and scale, it's clearly a game living in the shadow of mega blockbuster Call of Duty, and the pains the developers are going through to try and emulate COD's success are starting to become obvious. Battlefield - a once genuinely innovative PC shooter and a leader in its field - is dumbing it down in order to appeal to the mass market of twitch shooter junkies.
But again, it's not just Battlefield. Any developer who wants to release a shooter these days must add an obligatory Call of Duty inspired multiplayer mode - complete with awards and killstreaks - in order to stand any chance of success. The upcoming FarCry 3 - which you might expect to be a single player experience about a man fighting for survival on a sandbox tropical island - contains a multiplayer mode with points for kills, weapon unlocks, levelling and killstreaks. It's sad that all of these games will be merely living in the shadow of COD. By sacrificing their own multiplayer identity in favour of trying to pick up a few stray COD fanboys, they will never be recognised as anything but poor imitations of an overrated formula. Originality is dwindling due to the ridiculous demand for more and more of the same, much in the way the demand for sequels and remakes has damaged the film industry.
Achievements?
I'm not saying this as someone who hates video games or military shooters. I love them. I bought every Call of Duty game up until the first Black Ops, and I've played almost every Battlefield game DICE has released up to and including the current Battlefield 3. But then I realised the lengths the developers of current titles were going to in order to gain access to my wallet long after I'd paid for the game in the shop. I realised there were an extraordinary number of gamers who would walk into a video game store and be utterly oblivious to the fact that there's anything else worth playing except Call of Duty. I realised the rinse and repeat setup of the games was driving me nuts and making me rage at my Xbox like a murderous psychopath, but I couldn't stop playing due to my unconscious desire to obtain another weapon unlock or modification.
While all video games have to deliver a certain sense of accomplishment in order to make the experience rewarding for the player, the current wave of military shooters have refined this formula to perfection. The format is painfully addictive, using stat tracking and achievements to take advantage of the human need to compete, complete and collect. And once they have a broad market of players wrapped up in their multiplayer world, the publishers of these games can charge whatever premium they want for downloadable content. Sure it's good fun to play, but once you've delivered the same template in six nearly identical Call of Duty games in as many years (and that's not including its imitators), it starts to become quite stale. But the average gamer laps it up year after year, and that's why Call of Duty will always stay fundamentally the same. The developers have been pressured into a corner where they're encouraged not to change anything substantial for fear of it not selling. And thus the creative barrier is reached.
Call of Duty 4 - The last time the series was truly innovative
With my current Battlefield 3 playtime at an astonishing 7 days 10 hours and 47 minutes (which I'm sure is nothing when compared to some), and Call of Duty long out of the picture for anything but alcohol fuelled splitscreen gaming parties, I've decided to take a step back from the military shooter in an attempt to find something more daring and original. Aliens Colonial Marines looks promising from a horror/shooter standpoint, as long as it utilises the strengths of the movie franchise to create a unique multiplayer experience and doesn't try to emulate Call of Duty.
I might even try a niche, low-budget WW2 flight simulator while I'm at it (Birds of Steel) which is currently being reviewed as the best combat flight simulator on the console, if not on any platform. I wonder how many people might thoroughly enjoy that game, but will miss it entirely due to the dominance of Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 in their console experience? My local supermarket isn't even stocking this new release simulator, possibly because their shelf space is taken up by dozens of pre-order cases for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which isn't even due out until November.
Infact, I may even go back and finish Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was a gripping single-player adventure with a genuine sense of player choice and atmosphere, and had me gripped until Battlefield reared its head and all other games were all but forgotten.
I know I'll eventually go back to Battlefield in order to rejoin the online ranks of multiplayer, and I'll no doubt grudgingly part with my cash in order to get the most from the game I'm playing. It's a predicament all current-gen gamers face - they know they're being taken for fools, but the temptation is all too much.
There's a whole world of video games out there, and it feels refreshing to acknowledge their existence, even for a little while. Indie and low budget game studios are struggling to stay afloat despite their valid concepts and lesser financial motivations, and if we want innovative games for the future, we need to start supporting them now, and not lining the pockets of studios who have limited their creativity to 'whatever sells.' Dare to play something different.
Straight to DVD releases are an odd sort of film. You can rarely recommend them due to their low production values and unoriginality - they're quite often just inferior ripoffs of whatever popular cinema trend happens to be making big money at the box office at any particular time. They're always the films on the bottom shelf at your local supermarket with the overly photoshopped cover artwork and ridiculously cliched titles. One would think they might have become obsolete by now due to the competition of blockbuster Blurays and the incredibly cheap prices of mainstream film on DVD, but the direct to shelf releases just keep on coming, whether we want them to or not.
The first Outpost movie had lots of this...
But once in a while, a director with a good idea doesn't get the funding he deserves to make his intended debut masterpiece or alternative horror flick, so his film ends up on these shelves too.
2008's Outpost was one such film. With a budget so small it could barely afford to expand beyond one primary filming location (the producer mortgaged his home to raise £200,000 to fund the movie), and featuring a cast of straight to DVD regulars including Ray Stevenson and consistently typecast psychopath Richard Brake, it wasn't looking as though it would deliver much. But instead, Outpost was a low budget gem steeped in eerie atmosphere, depicting a team of mercenaries hired by a scientist\businessman named Hunt with a top secret agenda to investigate the ruin of a German WW2 bunker in Eastern Europe. There, they discover a machine constructed by the Nazi occult, designed to develop and sustain an army of supersoldiers capable of crushing the Third Reich's opposition. But the Nazi soldiers who were used as experimental candidates for the machine back in the 1940s are still being kept alive by the machine's electro-magnetic field, and like apparitions - not quite alive but not quite dead - they materialise out of the shadows and brutally exterminate each of the protagonists one by one.
...and this...
It may be derivative of the typical 'haunted house' formula so popular in Hollywood, and it certainly gives a nod or two to the famous Wolfenstein video game series, but there's nothing quite so creepy as seeing the shadowy figure of a Nazi soldier in jack boots and trench coat lunging out of the dark with bloodied rifle bayonet in hand. The film is also tightly shot - almost claustrophobic in it's use of enclosed spaces, exaggerated light and shadow - and maintains a suspenseful, serious tone throughout despite its potential to slip into the ridiculous. The antagonists are genuinely quite threatening, and what's more, there's a subplot of corporate/financial betrayal beneath it all (a la Alien) to give the film some unexpected depth. Drawing strength from the fact that the Third Reich did indeed conduct bizarre scientific experiments during World War 2, the film uses this popular conspiracy theory to help root itself in some sort of reality.
For a film with a budget so minuscule, it's remarkably impressive.
...and this
Outpost was bought up and distributed by Sony, and was quite a broad success in terms of straight to DVD film making. It even managed to gain a limited European cinema run after Sony recognised the film's potential, and Director Steve Barker was encouraged to make a sequel once the market for supernatural Nazi horror films was realised. Before long, Barker had written a sequel and a prequel alongside original co-writer Rae Brunton, and production of the sequel - Outpost: Black Sun - began.
With Black Sun being written and directed by the same individuals as the original Outpost movie, you might expect it to be a film of equal quality. I wouldn't be too quick to get your hopes up. I will admit that Black Sun certainly looks like a sequel to Outpost - the same eerie use of exaggerated light and dark dominates the movie. It's certainly shot very well and can't be faulted as far as its visual aesthetic is concerned, but that's where the similarities end.
OutpostBlack Sun has some of this...
The tag line of Black Sun is 'War in Hell,' and with a budget quite dramatically increased from the first outing (but still significantly low enough to call this a budget feature), Black Sun literally tries to stage a war against the Nazi supersoldiers within the expanding range of the electro magnetic field. Allied British and American soldiers (the presumable peacekeeping force) battle it out against the undead stormtroopers in woodlands and suburban areas, while our protagonists - a female 'Nazi hunter' and male investigator - try to make it through the 'warzone' alive in order to reach the source of the electro magnetic field - the Nazi machine from the first movie - and shut it down. Ofcourse, everyone else is trying to reach the machine too for their own personal or financial gain, including Klausener, the elderly Nazi scientist who built the machine in the 1940s and wants it back. Apparently, or so we are told, Klausener hired Hunt in the first movie, who was ofcourse attempting to retrieve the machine from the bunker for his employer. And despite us believing that Hunt died at the end of Outpost, Black Sun tells us that he is infact still alive and being used by the undead Nazi force to keep the machine working.
...and some of this...
This is the first and possibly most major problem with Black Sun. There is simply too much going on. The first movie was a simple, tense and elemental horror movie. Black Sun tries to strike up a tale of dramatic action on an epic scale, with obligatory cutaways to military commanders giving orders from field HQs and shady background conspirators. There are too many non-essential characters throughout, and too few developed characters with any real weight. For a film on this budget especially, its own ambition weighs it down.
Another issue is that by bringing the undead Nazi force out of it's bunker, the filmmakers have simply 'bypassed' one of the most crucial devices from the first movie. The stormtroopers no longer materialise from the shadows and disappear at a whim (the previous film describes this as the effect of 'unified field theory.') They now run and sometimes shamble about in broad daylight, waiting to be shot at by nameless, faceless soldier patrols. This departure from the first film's concept is never explained, and therefore the Nazi undead in this movie do not come across as mysterious, supernatural apparitions with the potential to lunge at you from any dark corner. Now they are generic 'Nazi zombies,' and the suspense and horror from the first movie is almost entirely absent. With the atmospheric formula so well balanced in the first entry, I'm genuinely surprised they didn't make a more concerted effort to stick closer to that idea.
..and this
Also disappointing are the two primary cast members. In Outpost, Ray Stevenson hardly delivered an award winning turn, but atleast he had some balls and bravado. In Black Sun, we get Catherine Steadman as Lena the female Nazi hunter, and while she certainly looks the part, her questionable acting/overacting really grated with me. I'm sure she's a capable actress in the right role, but here she feels drastically mis-cast.
Then there's Richard Coyle as Wallace, who is much more convincing in his role but lacks any of the heroism or personality that we expect from a leading male. He is a weak lead, and considering the first film was all about tough men with big guns taking on invincible Nazis, I certainly expected a more dominant male character.
And the group of swearing, grimacing soldiers they encounter midway through the film are lacking much in the way of character development - most of them are there just to act as fodder for the killer Nazis later on, and serve little other purpose. Atleast the mercenaries in Outpost were fleshed out a little bit more and instantly identifiable.
Taking the questionable conclusion to the movie into consideration aswell, which features a climactic scene that I can only describe as Castle Wolfenstein Lite and a plot twist that felt included for the sake of having a plot twist, and I have to say I can't heartily recommend this movie. It just felt like the filmmakers tried to cram too much into one film, and strayed too far from the original formula. It's a sequel to Outpost, but it's almost in a different sub-genre entirely.
This time they're in your Nan's living room
I must admit, I did enjoy seeing the new characters enter the familiar bunker complex from the first film, but that's purely because it was a reminder of how great the original Outpost was. In the latter half of Black Sun, the bunker complex suddenly opens up into a conveniently undiscovered underground stronghold via a hidden elevator. The creators might say this was an expansion of their original vision, now unrestricted by a much larger budget, but the underground stronghold is cliched and full of oddities that begin to stretch the limits of credibility. And the return of Johnny Meres' sinister SS Brigadier General was also welcomed, but the undead Nazi leader is used in barely two scenes, which is a shame since he was one of the more potent elements of the first film.
The film just isn't exciting enough either. When you think about its limited locations and scope, not much happened in the original Outpost film, but the consistent suspense and atmosphere kept it gripping and it maintained a steady pace. Not much happens in Black Sun either, but there's just no tension to fill in the void left by an overstretched narrative. Outpost felt like a substantial blockbuster movie mistakenly released straight to DVD, but Black Sun feels like the direct to DVD shelf is exactly where it belongs. I don't dislike the film, but it just isn't exciting enough to recommend either.
Outpost: Black Sun is an admirable effort from a low budget, independent production team, but ultimately it will be forgotten much more quickly than its predecessor. Unless you absolutely must watch every Nazi themed horror film in existence, you can probably afford to giveit a miss. There is a planned prequel on the way titled 'Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz,' which will apparently show the origins of the Nazi supersoldier programme and pit the undead troops against Russian special forces. But considering the nature of Outpost and its surprise success, I don't anticipate the prequel will be of the same standard either.
But I encourage you to watch 2008's Outpost at the first available opportunity. It's a creepily atmospheric Nazi themed horror topped off with a quality finish that belies its painfully low budget status, and it's also an incredible lesson in how to make a good movie without Hollywood production values.
I've never been an avid follower of Marvel's comics, having missed the opportunity to become a regular reader at some point during my youth. While I'm more than aware and respectful of their contribution to popular culture, my knowledge of comic book lore isn't exactly all that impressive.
My experience of the famous names of DC and Marvel is largely limited to their depiction in TV and film, and unfortunately for me, those adaptations have scarcely been any good.
In my opinion, comic book movies don't usually offer much of merit. They are quite often poor films, designed to keep film studios afloat with eye candy that is proven to sell to pre-established audiences. There are obviously a number of exceptions - most notably The Dark Knight - but these are the exceptions to the rule.
Perhaps expecting every comic book adaptation to display the intelligence of Nolan's Batman series would be foolish though, as many of these characters deserve a more lighthearted and colourful approach. But regardless, it is true that many adaptations struggle to strike up an even balance between character development and action. Adapting from comic to film presents the challenge of trying to translate decades worth of comic lore onto the screen - which is no doubt a daunting task - and the difficulty of trying to determine the right tone for the film and grounding its protagonist in any sort of reality. Few directors are successful in overcoming these challenges.
Whedon demonstrates a scene
It's true that my interest in The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you're in the UK) piqued once I learnt that screenwriter/director Joss Whedon was co-writing and directing. Whedon is a skilled creative individual who has made quite a name for himself with pulp entertainment fans, and you've likely seen some of his work whether you know it or not. To learn that he was taking up the reigns of a major studio production was good news indeed. My first and only concern was, will his creative streak shine through despite the financial pressure of such a big budget production, or will he fall foul at the hands of the studio system?
For those unfamiliar, Whedon has had many ups and downs throughout his career. Being a younger director, he first saw success in the 1990s with cult TV shows Buffy and Angel, and was then screenwriter for 1995's wildly successful Toy Story. He then had his screenplay for Alien Resurrection (which is actually quite good in literary form) turned into a visual catastrophe, before moving into the world of animation where he wrote Titan A.E and Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. He then had his sci-fi TV series Firefly cancelled before he could complete a single season, but later managed to conclude the story by bringing the show to the big screen in the movie Serenity. This is the first (and only) time a cancelled TV show has subsequently been adapted for cinema. He was also responsible for writing current horror/thriller Cabin In The Woods.
Whedon - being a skilled writer/director and a huge comic book fan - was the logical choice to make The Avengers the success Marvel studios wanted it to be, especially since many of his previous works dealt with ensemble casts and the simultaneous development of various characters.
With the Marvel movies Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor all directly leading into Avengers via their post-credits teasers, it's obvious that Marvel has been gearing itself up for this event movie for some time. Avengers is a convergence of plot lines from all three of those films, and in that sense it has an awful lot to live up to, delivering a satisfactory continuation to each individual series but also being an exciting introduction to the famous collaboration of fictional heroes. For viewers who haven't seen any of those three comic book adaptations (or read the comic books), the opening portion of Avengers may seem a little confusing due to many of the characters' origin stories being featured in each of the preceding films, but once it picks up speed, you can rest assured that it's all self contained from there.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
Having said that though, the premise of the film is fairly simple. Villainous Loki - the antagonist in Marvel's Thor - has come to Earth and stolen the Tesseract - the blue cube of immense power featured in both the Captain America and Thor movies. Loki's threat is to use the Tesseract to open another portal to Earth and bring through it an extra-terrestrial army called the Chitauri. To counter this threat, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) of fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D is tasked with assembling a response team consisting of recently defrosted Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen).
It's important to consider that on paper, this film sounds like the recipe for certain cinematic disaster. You've got atleast 8 major characters all needing precious screentime and fleshed out story arcs, a concept which is incredibly hard to sell with any degree of realism and credibility, loose narrative threads to tie up from the previous films, a crisis to introduce and circumvent, an army of critical fans waiting to jump on the bandwagon at the first sign of disloyalty to the comics, and within the Marvel studio itself, a massive budget on the line and the potential for one incredibly expensive box office failure. But somehow, the film is not only successful in avoiding these potential failings, it's also one of the most enjoyable cinema experiences I've had.
Mark Ruffalo (Banner/Hulk) and Robert Downey Jr. (Stark/Iron Man)
For those who are familiar with Whedon's work, his trademark is (fortunately) all over the film. From the witty banter between the lead characters, to the humour that gives the characters a streak of vulnerability and humanity. The overall package is well balanced, with an equal measure of superhero action and equally important character dialogue and development. None of the characters are short changed in favour of another. Each member of the Avengers team is treated equally in terms of their role in the film.
This isn't Shakespeare, it's a Marvel movie and Whedon is aware of that as the film parodies its own seriousness at points for a pleasantly more lighthearted approach. But for what it is, it's incredibly well written. At one point, Captain America is warned not to engage in a fight with Thor and Loki as they are 'basically Gods' and their power is far beyond what the Captain may be able to handle. Leaping into the fray regardless, he replies 'There's only one God miss, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that.' That single line of dialogue sums up the Captain's attitude in a dangerous situation, his old-fashioned view of the world and religion and it delivers a few laughs along the way. It's not Shakespeare, but considering the genre, it sure is clever.
The pacing of the film, while not perfect, was consistent enough to maintain my unwavering attention throughout. Again, considering the multitude of elements the film had to address in its opening stages, it's incredible that pacing was consistent at all. To those reviewers who claim that Avengers is a 'slow movie' with 'too many dialogue scenes' and 'poor pacing,' you are idiots. Take away those 'slow dialogue scenes' and this would be just another comic book movie without any narrative purpose and with poorly established, unidentifiable characters. It's these character developing scenes that enhance the action later on, and it's these scenes that make Avengers stand out as the most accomplished Marvel film yet.
Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury)
While it does borrow a story beat or two from The Dark Knight (you'll know it when you see it), Avengers makes the smart decision of preventing its heroes from actually 'assembling' until the final act. The film is constantly building up towards the final confrontation, and this escalating tension is crucial in making the conclusion as exciting as it is. This doesn't prevent plenty of conflict from emerging during the earlier parts of the film though, with plenty of friction between the protagonists as they work out their personal differences and reveal their issues and concerns.
Some of the characters are actually portrayed better here than they were in their own origin movies. Captain America and Thor seem to be particularly more exciting and effective in a fight (the Captain actually throws his shield and Thor demonstrates plenty of hammer slinging and lightning bolt action) and the combat is visceral and dominated by large scale stunts rather than poorly composited high speed footage a la The First Avenger. With a twinkle of humour, Whedon's script repeatedly references the Captain's disappearance and subsequent lack of knowledge of the last 50 years. He emphasises the character's flaws, and reminds us of the humanity behind the hero, which is crucially important if you want an audience to invest emotionally in your film.
Hulk, who has recently been featured in two poorly received modern adaptations with two different lead actors, finally gets an appearance worthy of his character, and it's frankly quite amazing that a film with such broad ambitions manages to depict the character so well. Mark Ruffalo is fantastic as Hulk alter ego Bruce Banner, playing the role of the socially awkward scientist in the midst of a crisis situation. Making another smart choice, Whedon's screenplay prevents Banner from unleashing 'the other guy' until the latter half of the film, leaving the audience to wonder how long he can truly contain his anger and when he does lose control, where he will direct his rage. It's quite a potent buildup, and does more for the anti-heroic status of the character than the two Hulk movies combined.
Loki himself, who is often recognised as the weakest element of Marvel's Thor, is a much better villain this time around. He isn't written particularly intelligently, but his self obsessed ranting and self indulged moments of scheming make you quite happy to see him get the beating he deserves.
Newer characters Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Natasha Romanov/Black Widow, who were featured briefly in Thor and Iron Man 2 respectively, are given their own subplot this time around to integrate them fully into the story - testament to Whedon's caring treatment of even the lesser characters.
Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is a show stealer as always, getting most of the witty lines and some incredible set pieces, most notably at the end of the film. His conclusion does border on the realm of cheesiness, but it's quickly rescued by sharp, humorous dialogue.
Joss Whedon seems to write with the philosophy of, 'if it doesn't quite seem credible, make it funny instead,' and for the most part it works. The final act itself - with its epic scale urban destruction - might have seemed reminiscent of Michael Bay's Transformers if it wasn't for the snappy dialogue, humour and well developed team character dynamic. This a blockbuster action picture that's been lovingly crafted by a writer/director who knows the importance of grounding a film in some kind of reality - albeit a heightened on - before launching the characters into larger than life situations.
Quite simply, all the characters here do what you would expect them to do, they look good doing it, and for many Marvel fans I'm sure that's a huge relief.
Avengers succeeds greatly despite the odds being stacked so heavily against it. Despite its protagonists being an odd squad of superheroes with bright latex costumes, Whedon gives them a dash of humanity and they almost become fully formed, believable characters. The action is slick and well conceived, and when the film reaches its final act, the climactic battle is mesmerising to watch. I found myself amazed not only by the stunning visuals and well conceived set pieces, but by the fact that I was engrossed in an adventure of such absurdly epic proportions and loving every minute of it. Joss Whedon deserves an enormous amount of praise for pulling off a feat as extraordinary as any depicted in the film. I sincerely hope he gets the credit he deserves for making the unbelievable so believable. It's bizarre to think of it this way, but essentially, it took the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer to show Hollywood how to make a decent Marvel film.
To give a fair judgement of Solomon Kane, it's important to first put the film into context.
I - as many others surely did - watched the TV spots and trailers prior to the film's release in 2009 and judged it to be nothing more than a horrible B-movie fantasy, fit only for direct to DVD release. Made on a low budget and helmed by a relatively unknown director with not much to his name but the 2002 WW1 thriller Deathwatch, it wasn't looking all that enticing. Due to a poor marketing campaign, it reeked of video game style movie making, and trying to cash in on the works of Robert E. Howard; the famous writer behind Conan The Barbarian. I dismissed the film almost immediately.
Fast forward to 2011, and along came the reboot of Conan itself. Although I have the greatest respect for John Milius' original camel-punching Conan adventure of 1982, I was incredibly excited to see Conan back on the big screen, and curious to see where they took the character with modern effects and ofcourse, without Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Conan - This picture says it all really
So 2011's Conan was directed by Marcus Nispel, the guy behind the trashy remake of Friday the 13th. Taking up the mantle of Conan himself was Game of Thrones' Jason Momoa, possibly the only current actor who could play the character with any degree of credibility.
But let's be honest here - the film was awful. So bad that it barely had any redeeming features. The characters were bland, the origin story of Conan was rushed into a 15 minute opening sequence and the villain was laughably weak, spouting inane dialogue and facing off against Conan in one of the the most poorly conceived showdowns ever seen in cinema. The music by regular Zach Snyder collaborator Tyler Bates was a generic buzz of audio with a barely recognisable main theme, which is even more insulting when considering the epic score Basil Poledouris cooked up for the 1982 film. 2011's Conan felt like it was churned out of the cold Hollywood machine, marketed for a mindless teen audience whose main priority was to see a few heads roll in 3D. There were impressive visual effects and the characters certainly looked the part, but jaw dropping CGI and commendable costume design hardly made up for poor direction and the lack of a recognisable narrative. Gone was the epic fantasy tale of revenge depicted in the Milius film. Instead we get a bland, generic, hack and slash B-Movie with a high budget polish that's supposed to convince us that any genuine feeling went into the production. And with a budget of nearly 80 million dollars, one could surely have expected something more?
With Conan behind me and hopefully forgotten, I decided to give Solomon Kane a viewing. My expectations at this point were tremendously low - 'it can't be any worse than Conan, can it?' Add to that the knowledge that Kane's budget was half of that for Conan, and I was letting myself in for a laugh a minute attempt at the fantasy adventure genre that was likely to have more in common with Monty Python's Holy Grail.
Except that wasn't the case. While Solomon Kane is far from being a genre masterpiece, when compared to its competition, it tick's all the boxes that a pulp fantasy adventure should.
James Purefoy is charismatic and convincing in the lead role, and his character gets a substantial 30-40 minutes of screentime to establish himself as the brooding anti-hero. The supporting cast includes the late Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige, Jason Flemyng and Max von Sydow, and they all deliver acting turns worthy of a film with a much more established name, giving credit to a director who was obviously determined to get the best from his cast.
The primary antagonist is a voiceless, masked rider who aptly demonstrates his lust for violence at numerous points in the movie. While he isn't nearly as intimidating as the greatest of cinema's villains, he certainly carries enough heft to make you root for Solomon Kane. What's more, the villain gets a sliver of backstory, which is indeed rare for a film of this type.
The masked antagonist
Fighting is well choreographed and suitably violent at points, and the dialogue is sharper and more refined than I was honestly expecting. What's most important is that the viewer fully understands the characters' motivations before the violence ensues, which increases the dramatic impact of everything to follow. Not rocket science, but often so overlooked in other similar films.
There is plenty of religious reference throughout - as you would expect when the titular character owes his soul to the devil and turns to God for sanctuary - but none of it is overwhelmingly forced upon the viewer. It actually works quite nicely within the context of the film.
But most impressive here is the atmosphere that accompanies the narrative, depicting a rainy England filled with poverty and violence. To the director's credit, soundstages and sets are scarcely used, and instead we get real locations mildly adjusted with computer imagery. It really makes a huge difference when you know Kane is fighting enemies in a patch of real forest rather than on a small set surrounded by blue screen. It gives the film a sense of perceptible scale as Kane travels across the land in search of his objective.
Klaus Badelt's music score is suitably epic, romantic and memorable. It lends itself incredibly well to the film, and gives it a sense of grandeur that belies its low budget origins. For me, the score was the 'icing on the cake,' as no adventure movie can be complete without a memorable theme for it's titular character, and no fantasy film can be complete without sweeping orchestral overture. Kane has both in great quantity, and it's worth noting that this is something that Tyler Bate's Conan score is sorely missing.
I could mention more - the imaginative and varied cinematography that puts Conan to shame, the unexpected narrative twist, the costume design by Patrick Tatopolous (Stargate). But I'm sure you get the point.
Solomon Kane is an independent production that managed to muster a budget of $40 million, and 2011's Conan is a tentpole studio film with a budget of nearly $80 million. But in almost every way, Solomon Kane is superior. Granted, my low expectations could have affected my opinion of it to a degree, and there are a few cringe worthy and cliched moments in the film, but overall it's an enjoyable experience. If you expect something with the depth and scope of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, you will certainly be disappointed. But within its own niche, Solomon Kane is a highlight of the genre, and is certainly the better Robert E. Howard adaptation of recent years.
There isn't likely to be a single person out there who isn't atleast aware of the Titanic disaster, and there are certainly many who have been touched in some way by the story of the ill-fated liner, whether it be through a personal connection to the sinking or simply by embracing the scale of the tragedy.
2:30am this morning marked the centenary of the sinking, and enthusiasm towards the ship and its story doesn't seem to have dwindled one bit, even after 100 years. Various documentaries and dramatisations are being broadcast across various TV channels - some with lavish production values and others being less adventurous rehashes of previously seen material.
But out of all of these programmes, the one that's impressed me the most is the National Geographic documentary Titanic: Case Closed. Rather than simply regurgitate old ideas or provide a dramatic insight into what 'might' have happened, Titanic investigator and published author Tim Maltin has gathered years of meticulous research and presented his well studied theories to the viewing public. His aim is to establish exactly what happened that fateful night - why did such a marvel of technical shipbuilding with such an experienced crew meet such an unexpected fate? And I have to say, his findings are fascinating.
Tim Maltin examines the Titanic deck plans
Maltin poses a number of questions as the programme opens. Why did the Titanic lookouts fail to see the iceberg until it was so close to the ship, particularly since the conditions that night were apparently so clear, and why did the nearby steamer Californian fail to respond to the Titanic's visual Morse code distress signals across the open ocean? These are questions that have remained unanswered for a hundred years due to insufficient scientific knowledge.
After the sinking of the liner, many supposedly 'incompetent' crewmen were blamed for their failure to avert the disaster, becoming the scapegoats for White Star Line's mistakes as the shipping company faced financial disaster. Captain Stanley Lord of the Leyland Line steamship Californian, for example, had his name disgraced and his career ruined for apparently 'ignoring' the call for aid from the sinking ship. The lookouts on the Titanic, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, were disbelieved when they claimed a certain 'haze' had hung over the horizon that night, therefore making the iceberg near impossible to spot until it was nearly within striking distance. They were even accused of not paying proper attention to the sea, and blame was pointed at the officers for failing to equip them with a needed pair of binoculars.
Maltin's documentary boldly suggests that it wasn't human error responsible for the sinking of the ship, as previously believed. He effectively tries to clear the names of all those who've gone down in history as failing to perform their duties. Perhaps this is too late for those particular individuals, but as far as setting the record straight goes, it's a huge achievement.
Maltin visits the famous piece of Titanic's hull looking for clues
Maltin's theory suggests that atmospheric conditions on the night of April 14th/15th 1912 were infact imperceptibly dangerous, despite the calm appearance of things.
"It was very much a killing zone of nature due to atmospheric conditions - extreme high pressure and no moon, calm waters, and most importantly, this thing called a thermal inversion. A mirage, high pressure and darkness just came together."
Trying to illustrate Maltin's theory
Maltin's 'thermal inversion' occurred when the warm air of the Gulf Stream was suddenly cooled when coming into contact with the icy water of the Labrador current flowing south with the ice field, creating a layer of extremely cold air beneath a layer of warm air. Maltin explains that a 'cold water mirage' caused by this meeting of air temperatures would have effectively contorted the view of the horizon by refracting light. These conditions would have caused an array of atmospheric anomalies, many having been described in detail by survivors of the sinking but ignored due to lack of relevant knowledge in years past. It certainly matches up with Fleet and Lee's description of a 'haze' on the horizon. The effect of this mirage would have prevented the lookouts from seeing the iceberg against the night sky, perhaps even with a pair of binoculars, and almost certainly would have caused great confusion for Captain Stanley Lord in trying to identify the profile of the distant Titanic.
Another side effect of the refraction would have been the impression of vividly twinkling stars due to the bending of light in the air as it passed through the two temperate layers - something else which eyewitnesses reported seeing that night. It's no stretch of the imagination to suppose that Captain Lord would have had immense difficulty recognising the flashing of Titanic's morse code signal with both an unclear horizon and the distraction of so many blinking stars.
Cold water mirage effect caught on camera
There are many other theories and scientific explanations presented, including the idea that the heart of the 'killing zone' where Titanic foundered could have been a pocket of atmospheric pressure higher than anywhere else in the northern hemisphere at the time, with dramatically lower temperatures than normal. Weather records from ships travelling the Atlantic shipping lanes during 1912 seem to support this theory, with temperatures abruptly dropping from around 13 degrees Celsius to as low as minus 1 while crossing the Titanic disaster site - the same drastic drop in temperature that Titanic passengers themselves experienced not long before the ship struck the iceberg. The clash of warm and cold fronts at that particular time and location had created the perfect conditions for the disaster to occur, and it's possible than any number of bizarre atmospheric phenomenon could have been witnessed that night.
It is important to remember that these are all just theories, but what Maltin gets crucially right is showing evidence of these 'phenomenon' in action, aswell as lots of supporting texts including historical documents and overlooked statements from the survivors themselves. The findings are incredible, and by the time the credits rolled, I had no doubt they were as accurate as they could be considering the years that have passed. My immediate reaction to all the information presented was, how on Earth hasn't this come to light before? It will entirely change popular perception of what happened that night in 1912. No more blame to be laid upon crew members or apparent flawed shipbuilding. The Titanic was purely unlucky that night, meeting an entirely unforeseen side effect of the unpredictable environment, and sinking in possibly the worst icy conditions imaginable.
I highly recommend disregarding my overly simplistic explanation of these theories and checking the documentary out yourself, especially if you're remotely interested in Titanic. It's the first piece of television in many years - or any entertainment format for that matter - that's deeply affected my opinion of what happened that night. And unlike the barrage of overly familiar material that hits our screens on important occasions like this, it does what a good documentary should do. It teaches us new things.
In the space of the next few (?) paragraphs, I'm going to convince you to shell out between £3 and 5 and buy Red Faction: Guerilla on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, even if you've owned it before.
This is the only game I've ever bought twice. Come to think of it, I can't remember why I got rid of it in the first place (probably to fund some new and disappointing Xbox release). But I've been craving some Red Faction action ever since, and with the hefty price tag of £3 preowned attached to it at my local CEX store, I took a leap and bought the game again.
It feels like forever since I first played through Guerrilla, but in reality it's only been two and a half years, so take the term 'retrospective' in the title lightly. Guerrilla is still a current gen game and it's largely competitive with anything in the game charts. Graphically, it's still above average and it's one of the most technologically innovative games available, even when squared up against the current competition. This game is incredible, and having only great memories of it on the first playthrough, picking it up a second time was a no brainer.
Open World
This is a sandbox game, but unlike other such games the map's not overly large and there's always some degree of story oriented guidance to keep you focused and prevent you from getting bored. There's not much of a reason to stray from the beaten path anyway (unless you want to smash things, which is ridiculously enjoyable), as most of the open terrain is dusty, rocky and generally red. It's the barren surface of Mars, but that's part of the charm. As the sun pans across the sky in an accelerated day/night cycle, real-time shadows shift across the terrain, and at night shooting stars travel from horizon to horizon. This is an open world sci-fi game, and in that sense it's something of a rarity. Small outposts and colonial structures clutter the landscape, and buggies, trucks and military vehicles populate the roadways while EDF gunships patrol the skies. The map is divided into sectors of control which must be fought for, and once your influence in a particular sector has become significant enough, Red Faction soldiers will come to your aid during combat. When you get into a combat situation in this game, a combination of hilarious vehicle physics and low gravity can lead to quite the memorable set piece. But essentially, it's the environment and its ridiculous levels of destruction that make Guerrilla so much fun.
Destruction
Guerrilla has the best destruction system I've ever seen in a game, courtesy of the Geomod 2.0 engine. As you smash your way through walls with the franchise's iconic sledgehammer, it feels like they're coming apart brick by brick. Setting explosive charges and demolishing a building by destabilising its centre of gravity never gets old, watching it crumble like a real world demolition as pieces of the construct topple down in ever more interesting ways. Destabilising a huge industrial chimney and watching it fall through the roof of the next door building to crush your foes is particularly incredible. Nothing is scripted - it's just the unpredictable physics of the game at work. Optional hostage rescue missions, which are usually a chore in any other game, are a particular highlight. Go in all guns blazing, snipe captors from afar, or my particular favourite - ram a dumper truck through the walls and bring half the building down, pick up the hostages and drive off. Child's play. And rather than let your enthusiasm for these amazing physics dwindle over time, destruction has been implemented as a fundamental mechanic of the game. Toppled structures deposit chunks of scrap metal that must be collected in order to upgrade and purchase weapons at a Red Faction headquarters. Smashing things becomes compulsively addictive as you strive to unlock the biggest gun to smash through more buildings. Destruction is such a pivotal feature of the game that a turn based 'wrecking crew' mode can be accessed from the main menu, which challenges you to smash up as much of a particular scene as possible within an allotted time limit.
Drive thru
It makes me feel like a badass
This game is not easy, especially if you ramp the difficulty up to the higher levels. But regardless of the odd game rage inducing moment where several AI controlled EDF vehicles decide to steamroll your corpse until you are dead, it's escapist fun. Weapons are powerful and varied, so blasting your way through hordes of enemies is addictive. Manning turrets on armoured cars (some of which look strikingly like the APC from James Cameron's Aliens) is thoroughly satisfying. When your vehicle gets damaged, simply eliminate the crew of the next one and commandeer another. The low gravity comes into play here, allowing you to take lunging aerial leaps and come down on top of a vehicle, or even on an unsuspecting foe's head with your sledgehammer. And there's a cover system, which isn't nearly as advanced as the one featured in the Gears of War franchise for example, but considering the entirely destructible nature of Guerrilla's battlefield, I'm impressed it works as well as it does. The explosive charges deployed to bring down structures can be thrown and attached to just about anything, including enemy infantry (just like the original Red Faction). Nothing revolutionary here, but the game certainly knows how to let you be creative with your killing. Then there's the jet pack, which allows you to launch yourself skyward for a good 3-4 seconds before coming down in an advantageous location. It's certainly not possible to fly around the map (although the jet pack on the multiplayer modes allows a little more air time), but these minor restrictions feel like they were always supposed to be part of the game design, rather than being shoehorned into the final product to aid with player vs. AI balancing. Mention must also be made of the walkers, both industrial and military. These are mechanical suits, similar in nature to the famous powerloader from James Cameron's Aliens (the influences of popular film on this game are obvious). Usable as vehicles in Guerrilla, they allow you to run, punch, smash and shoot your way through just about every inanimate and hostile object in the game. Using them makes you feel like a badass.
Building + Propane tank + rifle fire = flying man
'Get your ass to Mars'
Yes it's true that Red Faction is as close to 'Total Recall: The Videogame' as we're likely to get. And just to clarify, I'm talking about the 1990 version of Total Recall, where he actually goes to Mars. Red Faction: Guerrilla gives you the red planet and the rebelling force of miners and civilians versus the oppression of a larger military force. It gives you the quaint little bubble cars and Martian vistas. It gives you the lone protagonist and the means to lay waste to everything, Schwarzenegger style. It highlights and utilises a lot of the points that made that film great, but it does it without a movie licence hanging over it, which inevitably seems to ruin everything video game related.
Paul Verhoeven's Mars in Total Recall, 1990
The multiplayer is good aswell
With a lengthy campaign including plenty of side missions to see you through to 100% completion, and a full expansion pack to further extend your solo playtime, Guerrilla is quite a substantial single player experience. But despite this, there's a multiplayer offering too, and it certainly hasn't been tacked on as an afterthought. There are the typical game modes such as deathmatch and capture the flag style matches, but there are also destruction based modes where you must raze your opponent's base to the ground. In turn, your enemy have a 'reconstructor' device they can use to rebuild their structures while trying to destroy yours. It's important to mention that this game mode is very fun, and very unique to this game and its destruction engine. Also featured are different 'backpacks' for different player classes, each offering a specific powerup including the ability to run faster, fly for a short period of time, burst through walls, or send out a damaging shockwave. Playing matches awards the player points which count towards a basic, but effective unlock system.
To sum up...
Now I've told you how amazing it is, I have to be fair and say this game isn't perfect. Some may criticise it for being ugly at times. The Martian vistas can look anywhere from beautiful, to lazy and empty. The visuals themselves can look a little messy in places, like too much has been crammed into one space (the PC version is supposedly superior in this respect). But these are flaws that can easily be overlooked where I'm concerned, as the game is just too much fun to deny. Getting killed by the rampant AI can be irritating sometimes, but I can never be angry with it for long. The destruction system and physics are something to behold, and I'm still surprised that Geomod 2.0 hasn't been used in more game titles since Guerilla's 2009 release. There is ofcourse the sequel to consider - Red Faction: Armageddon - but the linearity of that newer title is somewhat offputting. The destruction of Geomod is so much more entertaining when employed in a open world/sandbox environment.
So really, if you like the idea of smashing things apart, driving around Mars in various vehicles inspired by popular sc-fi movie culture to the vibe of Total Recall (1990), then you can't go wrong. Especially for under £5.
The original title of this article was 'Most Hated Sequel' - a status that Alien 3 has held onto since the first time I saw it. I remember my unpleasant reaction to the film clearly, and my subsequent decision to forget I'd ever seen it. But many years have passed, and having purchased the Alien Anthology on Bluray, I decided to revisit the Special Edition (Assembly Cut) of Alien 3 and see if time has altered my opinion of the film.
What The Film Got Right
David Fincher's Alien 3 isn't universally hated. There are many who would defend it to the bitter end, and I will admit that it does have redeeming features - particularly in the Assembly Cut, which is far superior to the theatrical version of the film.
Visually the film is quite striking - possibly the best looking film in the series - and the music score by composer Elliot Goldenthal is highly under-appreciated, perhaps being the most genuinely moving and memorable element of the movie. The film itself can feel very emotionally inaccessible (or overwhelming for some), and Goldenthal's music is the element that elevates it to another level and emphasises those key emotional beats. In fact, it fits the film like a glove, and while I can't motivate myself to sit through the gruelling experience of Alien 3 on anything but the rarest of occasions, I listen to the music frequently. Odd.
Music by Elliot Goldenthal written for the film's finale
Another thing that Alien 3 at least attempted to get right was taking the franchise back to basics by including a lone alien antagonist. It's still a bit formulaic and not quite different enough from its predecessors, but at least it avoided pitting an army of aliens against an army of marines, which most assumed would be the inevitable amplification of the series after James Cameron's Aliens. Admittedly, an all out battle between aliens and marines sounds like a good idea until you realise the franchise would have been quickly watered down into an action cliche with monsters in it (I guess that sort of happened in 1997 anyway with Alien Resurrection). The Alien series isn't supposed to be about 'fighting aliens,' and Alien 3 did well to steer clear of depicting an all out alien war, which was most definitely considered as an option during the film's planning.
While taking the opposite approach, Alien 3 went too far in its exploration of the darker tones of the series, and the result is an unbearably dystopian sci-fi film that all but invalidates everything that happened in the previous movie. But more on that later.
There are also some interesting concepts in the film, such as Ripley being 'violated' and impregnated by the alien facehugger and then finding herself surrounded by rapists and murderers on Furia 161. These inmates have the opportunity to redeem themselves in her eyes and show their inner decency, and this concept is carried for a little while, but ultimately wasted.
Also nice is the use of religious iconography. The prisoners have accepted God in an attempt to put their shady pasts behind them. Ripley is the female temptation in their midst, and Dillon is their preacher. The alien represents evil in the shape of a demon, and they are lambs to the slaughter (the choir in Goldenthal's score sings 'Agnus Dei' which in latin means lamb of God). Inmate Golic even begins to worship the alien like some kind of religious figure, freeing it from containment in the Assembly Cut and asking what it wants of him. These are all interesting ideas.
This picture sums up Alien 3 nicely
The film is in some regards quite stylistically unique. From beginning to end, it's steeped in a feeling of sheer hopelessness (perhaps embodying the feelings of director and crew during the film's troubled production) that no other film has quite managed to capture, which is at once both an incredible achievement and its ultimate undoing. If you want to be utterly emotionally exhausted by a film, Alien 3 is a fine choice, but your average cinema-goer doesn't want that kind of experience, especially when the film is deciding the fate of characters they've already invested themselves in. The viewer is bombarded with one depressing revelation after another, and after a while it becomes a little too much. The only redemption to be had in Alien 3 is by the act of self sacrifice.
Where Did The Alien Come From?
The alien in this movie comes from a lazy place known as 'plot convenience.' In the opening sequence, we find an alien egg is stowed away in the interior of the Sulaco. 'What?' you say. 'But the only way that egg could have gotten there is if the Alien Queen left it during the final confrontation in Aliens. But according to that movie, the Queen herself doesn't lay the eggs, they come from a giant ovipositor that she nests with. She certainly wasn't carrying that in her pocket when she boarded the Sulaco.' Yes, this means there's no logical explanation for the egg at the beginning of Alien 3, right?
How did you get in here?
According to the two previous films in the Alien series, a facehugger lays one infant alien in its host, then falls off and dies.
As for the theatrical release of Alien 3, the facehugger attaches itself to Ripley and impregnates her with an infant Alien Queen, then goes on to lay another in the dog on planet Fiorina
In the far superior Assembly Cut, we are told that a 'Queen Facehugger' lays the embryo in Ripley and then in an Ox on 'Fury' 161, sort of justfying its questionable ability to infect more than one host. But if you look very closely in this version there are now two distinctly different facehuggers involved - a regular one on the Sulaco, and the Queen Facehugger in the scene with the Ox. Now how do you suppose two Alien eggs got aboard? This clearly demonstrates the lack of coherency at this point in the production - the explanation we are given conflicts directly with what we see onscreen. The flawed opening act opposes the established concepts of the series in favour of a forced and convenient way to propel the third film forward. Even if you accept the explanations given, it's still all very vague and...convenient.
The blame for these oversights can't be directed at anyone in particular. Almost every Alien 3 script penned by various writers between 1988 and 1992 forcefully introduces the concept of an egg hidden away on the Sulaco, and each and every one of those scripts fails to give a rational explanation for it being there. Fox's desperation to get a sequel produced is evident, even at the expense of basic continuity.
Killing Major Characters During The Opening Credits
Within the first ten minutes of Alien 3, Newt is dead. The little girl that Ripley risked everything to save in the previous movie is gone, and the entire third act of Aliens becomes redundant. The audience is alienated as major characters are eliminated from the story to conveniently turn the focus back to Ripley, whom the producers deem to be the indispensable element of the franchise. Later in the film, we even see Newt being dissected on an autopsy table, as if killing her wasn't enough to disgust fans. Even now, watching this and already knowing what happens, the opening scenes are still pretty harsh to watch if you're a fan of the first two entries in the series.
Newt's drowned body in the EEV, very briefly seen during the theatrical cut
Oh and Hicks, the marine who outlasted his entire platoon in Aliens? The only glimpse we get of him is of his mangled corpse in the escape craft wreckage. His head was pulverised by a falling 'safety beam.' I can just envision the conversation that took place now.
Producer: Hicks is not in the script. He died. At least that's one less actor's salary we have to pay. Prop Artist: But surely he needs to be dead in the escape vehicle at the beginning, otherwise people will wonder where he went? Producer: We'll smash his head off then, so we don't have to pay Michael Biehn for the use of his likeness.
The insulting thing is, Michael Biehn wasn't even invited to reprise his role. He was simply informed that he wasn't wanted for the sequel. This revelation was 'heartbreaking' to the actor as he'd just assumed that such well developed characters as Hicks and Newt would return.
'It's a slap in the face for fans and myself,' said James Cameron when he learned of the demise of the characters that he had lovingly written and directed for Aliens. Sci-fi novelist Alan Dean Foster - who also novelised Alien and Aliens - was so enraged by the deaths of these characters that he attempted to 'adjust' the course of events in the novelisation, but was subsequently forbidden from doing so by Fox.
At least Bishop (Lance Henriksen) got to make a cameo appearance, if that's any consolation?
Hey look Bishop made it...sort of
One might assume that it was Fincher or screenwriters David Giler and Walter Hill who were responsible for so insensitively killing off these major characters. But in fact New Zealand filmmaker Vincent Ward, who was director of Alien 3 for a length of time during the post-production stages, had written the first version of the story to outright kill Hicks and Newt. His story was to have taken place on a giant wooden planet inhabited by monks, and while this concept was abandoned, many elements from his story were adopted by the final draft of the screenplay, including the overall story structure and characterisation. The religious inclinations of Ward's monks would also be adopted by the inmates of 'Fury' 161.
"One of the first things I wanted to do was kill her off. She kind of annoyed me" - Vincent Ward speaking of Newt's character, 1990
By the time Giler and Hill took over screenwriting duties and merged the various screenplay ideas together, the core concept of the film was already way into post-production and their ability to mould the story to any great degree was limited. The fates of Hicks and Newt were sealed.
Hicks was quite a major character in the previous film. Honest.
Killing New Major Characters For No Reason
As if the 'slap in the face' of Hicks and Newt's death wasn't enough for you all, the film spends a good while introducing Charles Dance's new character Clemens. Don't worry, Clemens isn't a rapist or murderer like everyone else around these parts. He's just a disgraced doctor - absolutely nothing to worry about there. But despite everything, we start to take a liking to Clemens. He's compassionate about Ripley's predicament, and he's always around to hold her hand or keep a watchful eye over her. There is that awkward and utterly random sex scene between them in the theatrical cut, apparently included because one of the producers suggested it was about time Ripley had a man (idiots). But despite that, Clemens quickly becomes a real character among the mob of indiscernible angry bald men. We even think he may be able to redeem this film to some degree, as he's another potential companion for Ripley (as Hicks was) and he's displaying traits that suggest he's fundamentally good and...oh wait, he's just had his brain splattered up the curtain for no apparent reason whatsoever. Wow, this film is doing a fine job of winning me over.
The other character to get some real screen time is Dillon, played by Charles S. Dutton. He's a rapist apparently, but regardless of this he claims to have found God, and offers Ripley a degree of protection. In the final act, he gets killed too.
There's definitely a clearly defined message in Alien 3 - that being good, honest and just in this universe means certain gory death. The alien becomes a figurative representation of sin, and in facing up to your sins you're squaring yourself up against the alien, which never ends well. Not exactly uplifting material.
If people look this happy in Alien 3, someone is surely about to die
Giving Ripley's Character An Anticlimactic Resolution
Cue the most beautiful music in the Alien series, a vat of bubbling molten metal not unlike that from the conclusion of Terminator 2, and a heroine ready to sacrifice herself for the good of mankind. It's the recipe for the ultimate finale to a turbulent trilogy. So why do I not care?
Well first of all, Ripley's character already had resolution at the end of Aliens, and if I'm honest I really prefer that conclusion to the Alien saga. In that sense, Alien 3 felt like an unnecessary continuation of a story that was already told to its natural finish.
Still, Ripley's sendoff at the end of Alien 3 could have been spectacular, but it seems the writers decided to eliminate all emotional vices from the get-go. Think about it. Ripley is standing over a pot of molten metal. Newt is dead, Hicks is dead, Clemens is dead (perhaps not so important), Bishop is in parts somewhere, she's got nothing on Earth to go back to, the Weyland Yutani guys are there trying to get their grubby hands on the alien which, as it happens, is just about to pop out of her chest. Bishop 2 (or Charles Weyland if you prefer) is telling her she can 'still have a life,' yet as soon as she steps onto the gantry above the vat of metal, her decision is justified when he reveals his motivations are not for her safety. If you add that all up, I think anyone would jump to their death under those circumstances. There's little to no emotional conflict in the scene.
On speaking of his disappointment with the story, author Alan Dean Foster suggested they could have kept Newt alive for the duration of the film - perhaps in stasis or in a limited role - and used her to create conflict in that final scene as Ripley decides between death, and Newt, and ultimately decides to jump into the lead to ensure a safer future for the child. It's perhaps the bright spark of hope the film needed to justify all the pain the characters go through.
Despite the failings of Alien 3, Director David Fincher has more than proven himself in the years since with such films as Fight Club, Seven and Zodiac, and despite severe pressure from interfering studio execs during Alien 3's production, early hints of his distinctive style are evident in that film too. Whether his stylistic influence was responsible for the overwhelmingly depressing tone of Alien 3 is debatable (Fox execs seem to think his 'artsy' and non-commercially friendly approach ruined the movie), but in honesty the faults of the film lie with the writers. Vincent Ward decided to kill Hicks and Newt - a decision which was to divide the entire fanbase - and a variety of writers were responsible for the implausible opening with its magically appearing alien egg. Fincher's job was merely to come in and pick up the pieces, and make the best film he possibly could with an array of pre-conceived ingredients. It's fair to say that for his first directing job, Alien 3 must have been a bitter experience.
He's since distanced himself from the franchise entirely, stating his dislike of Alien 3 and refusing to partake in any of its subsequent digital re-releases. In addition to this, he's also refused to work on any sequels or sci-fi films in the intervening years - a sure sign of the impact such a troubled production has had on his views of film making.
Director Fincher on the set of Alien 3 at the age of 28
The popular opinion is that Fincher was chosen particularly because he was young and inexperienced at the time, and the producers wanted someone they could control. It backfired in their faces when he turned out to have his own strong vision for Alien 3, and their constant interference caused huge conflicts on the set. One famous quote jokingly suggests there were more producers on the set than actors.
The problem was, from the moment of its conception to the last day of production, each and every person involved had a different idea of what Alien 3 should be. Nobody could agree on a single concept, and no single person was allowed to pursue their creative vision. It's an assortment of ideas all merged together into one inconsistent final product, unlike Alien and Aliens, where the respective directors were allowed more creative freedom. Fincher never had that luxury.
Although responsibility ultimately lies with numerous conflicting parties, it's pretty evident that it was greed on the part of Fox that made this sequel what it is. The script was still in development when principal photography had begun, two directors were fired before Fincher himself was shoehorned into the role (who himself was fired as the film went into the edit room). A release date had even been announced before a final decision was made on a director or a story. The now famous teaser trailer, released far ahead of schedule to secure an audience and push the production forward, depicts a different scenario entirely, with the narrator stating 'on Earth, everyone can hear you scream.' Going into production, Alien 3 had no idea what it was or where it was going - its producers only knew that they wanted to make a large amount of money with the franchise name.
"As a studio we set out to make a release date, not a movie" - Jon Landau, Ex 20th Century Fox producer
Having watched the film again I can conclude that Alien 3 is still a terrible sequel. Not only did it fail to do justice to its predecessors, but it also did a narrative U-turn that directly opposed the expectations of 90% of its audiences. The elimination of some of my favourite characters is still unforgivable, and I can only wonder what this film could have been if creativity had been the focus rather than money. Watched as a continuation of James Cameron's Aliens, Alien 3 is hard to stomach as it shows blatant disregard for continuing characters and the established logic of the series. But watched individually and judged on its own merits, it's a well executed film that is intriguing, darkly atmospheric and beautifully shot. It presents some interesting ideas that simmer under an oppressively dark atmosphere, and it clearly wears the damaging marks of an overcomplicated and tense production schedule on its shoulders.
And therein lies the problem. Alien 3 is not actually a bad film, it's just an awful sequel - probably being the reason I'm still writing articles about it 19 years after its release. I can't write it off because there are elements of it that I thoroughly enjoy, and if the writers hadn't taken such liberties with characters and story, I might actually recommend it as an intriguing slice of dystopian sci-fi. The Assembly Cut (Special Edition on DVD or Bluray) is the version to watch, being as close to Fincher's envisioned final cut as we're likely to see. This version adds some enlightening scenes and removes some unnecessary ones, and is clearly a more engaging viewing experience.
Releasing trailers for a film that still doesn't have a script is always fun
Fact: David Twohy wrote an early draft of Alien 3 which featured the prison planet 'Fury' 161, but no sign of Ellen Ripley. It was the accepted screenplay for a length of time until Fox gradually moved to another director (Vincent Ward) and another concept. While Twohy's script was abandoned, elements of it were retained in the final screenplay, and the concept itself was later rewritten and made into sci-fi/alien/thriller Pitch Black featuring Riddick, a Furian criminal.
Fact: The original concept for Alien 4 was to claim that Alien 3 had been Ripley's bad dream during hyper sleep in an attempt to appease the fans.
