William Gibson’s Never-Filmed Aliens Sequel | Hacker News Reader

William Gibson’s Never-Filmed Aliens Sequel

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158 pointsandyjohnson088 comments

I can remember reading this; it was posted in its entirety on Usenet.

Here's a link to the screenplay: http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt

> But there’s an alternate universe where the series’ propulsive momentum only increased — a reality in which the third Alien film featured advanced xenomorphs [...]; where cold-warring rival space stations of communists and capitalists race to outdo one another with their genetic experiments on the aliens’ tissue; where a flock of the phallic horrors flies through the void of space, only to be beaten back by a gun-toting robot.

There were already a few similarities between the Alien and Starcraft worlds, but this definitely pushes it closer.

SC1 draws lots of inspiration from other works of fiction in it's domain. Aside from the Zerg being Blizzard's take on xenomorphs, the SC1 Goliath design is pretty much the Robocop enforcement droid, and the Protoss are their take on Predators.

I'm always surprised by fans who defend game designers and state that it's just a coincidence, or even that there's anything inherently wrong with taking something from another IP and repurposing it for your game and/or paying homage to it, since what you're using probably wasn't a completely original thought either, and was in turn inspired by something else.

I know a few game devs/designers and have gotten to experience the design process at a major game company first-hand, and they're completely honest about using other stuff as an inspiration or template for their concepts, but they're not allowed to admit it publicly for a variety of reasons (lawsuits I guess...). Stuff from other IPs is directly referenced when brainstorming and designing.

I think people who don't know anything about game design or universe building don't realize just how much media the people involved in these fields consume. It's silly to think that they won't be basing their stuff off things that they're fans of.

"Milspec ED 209 on", yeah, there's a bunch of little easter eggs in starcraft.

Protoss always seemed more like "Eldar" from warhammer 40k. I vaguely recall the old rogue trader saying Eldar warp in to the battlefield, just like the Protoss.

They probably drew from everything they'd ever read and seen, not at all surprising there are a bunch of references.

Starcraft was originally a Warhammer 40k game. They lost the license but published it anyway after changing the names.

Also the Tyranids and Zerg are so close in concept it's not even funny. Still, you're right, there is no original art/thought etc. Ultimately our brains have a finite amount of possible states, so everything is a remix.

Whut? Protos are clearly inspired by Warhammer 40k Eldar

It's a mashup of both, actually. Go take a look at the Zealot concept art in the original Starcraft 1 manual and compare to a Predator.

I like Alien 3. I don't know exactly what it is that I like, but it's there. Maybe it's the religious penal colony theme? The Quake-esue feel to the setting? The different direction in style and setting it took from the other two?

Alien 3 is a lot like Temple Doom (which I also like). It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better, I think everyone just writes off the remaining film.

Interesting you mention Quake in this connection - I feel like at least someone on the Dead Space 2 writing or design team must've seen Gibson's spec script at some point. Some of the Anchorpoint sequences in the script match pretty closely with some of the game's sequences in the "Sprawl" station - and I mean, the station is called the Sprawl, so it's not exactly a far reach to suggest the game devs had some Gibsonian influence going on.

Not a criticism, I should note - I feel like that's some of the strongest material in Dead Space 2, which is admittedly very uneven, but when it's good, it's good indeed. If we couldn't have Gibson's version of Alien 3 - and I agree with the article author that we'd have been better off with that one than with the one we did get - then it's nice at least to see some of it end up surfacing in another venue.

> It's just that, in each franchise, the other two movies are so much better

Alien 3 is a fun/exciting movie. But it never lived up to Ridley's Alien nor Cameron's Aliens standard.

It is not a terrible movie by a long shot. But when you compare it to the two masterpieces that preceded it, it disappoints.

It's funny how Gibson's screenplay was marked "not innovative" but now The Master himself, Sir Ridley Scott, is basically churning out the same movie over and over again (Prometheus and Covenant). In the end, Hollywood franchises will go on no matter what.

And Gibson is still churning out books with the same ideas -- even sometimes essentially the same characters with different names.

Crazy rich guy driving everything from behind the scenes? Check.

Voodoo beliefs transplanted into modern/futuristic society? Check.

Cayce Pollard vs Hollis Henry? They are essentially the same character.

I still enjoy his work, but it's impossible not to notice the repetition, going from the Pattern Recognition trilogy all the way back to Count Zero.

Yup. Read the Sprawl trilogy, the Bridge trilogy, and Burning Chrome, and you're done.

While the bigend trilogy isn't his strongest work there are some interesting concepts toyed in there that are certainly achievable in todays world. Garage Kubrick, Secret Brand and Serious Political Trickster.

The peripheral, however, is not to be missed.

Yes! I had the same reaction when I finished up the Bridge Trilogy. It's the same overarching plot in almost all his novels. However, I don't think one reads Gibson for the quality of plot or language, but rather for technological concepts he conjures up.

Without spoiling anything (I hope) for those that haven't yet seen Alien Covenant, there are lot of similitudes between that script and the new movies, it's almost uncanny.

Much of what I read in the article about what he wrote reminds me heavily of Alien: Resurrection.

> Alien: Resurrection.

That was a really, really bad movie. Jeunet had absolutely no idea what he was doing directing that movie.

I find it no worse than Alien 3, at least it had some aesthetic style.

I think the key here, in retrospect, is that this would have been Gibson in his 30s, immediately after writing Count Zero (and Neuromancer before that).

I can't think of a better thematic match to continue on from Aliens.

Also incredibly annoyed that the noted reason it got shot down was "not being innovative enough." I feel like most movies die from overly innovative scripts, whereas most of the classics, reduced to script form, are really simple ideas executed well.

I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens.

> I mean, &#(@, look at the script for Alien and Aliens.

I am a huge Alien fan, but I can't understand the fascination with Aliens, it always seemed like a cheap action movie when compared with the true psychological horror of the first one.

I think it's just that people have seen Aliens more, because it's easier to jump into it and have a good time, laugh at the "Game over man" scene, etc. Whereas with Alien you are on the edge of your seat the entire time. Much more draining.

Aliens is a bit different from your typical action movie in that the heroes are getting their butts kicked the entire time. The only time where the heroes really had a fist-pump moment was when the 2 sacrificed themselves by blowing up a bomb and taking out a couple of aliens.

> Aliens is a bit different from your typical action movie in that the heroes are getting their butts kicked the entire time

Yeah, especially the first scene at the beginning when they start to get into the Alien lair and get their ass massively kicked. That whole scene was awesome from beginning to end.

Alien always reminded me of Japanese horror (implied), whereas Aliens was Western (shown).

Here's a scene from Alien known as the "chestburster":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD6AL3HJtM

(it's plenty graphic)

It's also one of the only such moments in the movie where you clearly see the horror and gore. You've cherry-picked the one contradiction.

30 years later Aliens looks like a cliché action movie. I think it looks that way because it set a lot of standards for action movies. Poke around at popular action movies from the early 80's. Aliens has no Star Wars mysticism. Aliens lacks Star Trek optimism. It's not 'a guy with a grudge' like Rambo or Commando or any of a dozen others.

It certainly pulled from old westerns and war movies, but did it in a (imho) pretty innovative way.

In a lot of ways, it's Alien: Vietnam.

"I am a huge Alien fan, but I can't understand the fascination with Aliens, it always seemed like a cheap action movie when compared with the true psychological horror of the first one."

Having seen both movies during their original release, I originally liked Aliens more; probably a side-effect of being in my teens and liking guns and explosions. As I've gotten older, as much as I've come to further appreciate the suspense and design of the original, Cameron's film is still one of my favorite movies and IMO is a rare example of a worthy sequel.

In Alien, Ellen Ripley is a victim of circumstance. She's the smarter-than-average crewmember whose advice is largely ignored and despite doing the best she can barely survives an ordeal that should be guaranteed to leave her with a lifetime of PTSD.

In Aliens, we quickly find out that Ripley is once again a victim of circumstance: her lifeboat drifted off course while she was in stasis, resulting in her returning home after decades. Nobody believes her about the Xenomorph, and she's considered a responsible party for the destruction of the ship in the first movie. Deleted scenes (restored in the director's cut, I believe?) revealed that her daughter died of old age before Ripley returned.

She's in rough shape. Traumatized by what happened and relegated to menial work due to her perceived unreliability, she's given a path for redemption: go back to where it all started and help the military (which is revealed to be largely incompetent and impotent when things go south).

Alien is a great horror movie, to be sure. But Aliens is, IMO, a redemption movie when you look past the swagger and gunfire. A smart character who should be in good shape (after being victorious in the first movie) is shown to be a fractured, vulnerable person who still summons the strength to face her fears, rescue another victim of circumstance (Newt), overcome her bias (against Bishop), presumably prevent the problem from ever happening again, and definitively prove that she was right all along.

And all, IMO, without cheapening the first movie and by revisiting one of the strongest female characters to appear in a movie franchise. It nukes the Bechdel test from orbit.

This is also why I hate Alien 3, as it was released, with a burning passion. It completely invalidates Ripley's character arc in Aliens with the lazy reverse deus ex machina of killing Newt, Bishop and Hicks in the first act. I'm not a huge fan of Gibson's screenplay, but it would have been much better than the dreck that was ultimately released.

> This is also why I hate Alien 3, as it was released, with a burning passion. It completely invalidates Ripley's character arc in Aliens with the lazy reverse deus ex machina of killing Newt, Bishop and Hicks in the first act. I'm not a huge fan of Gibson's screenplay, but it would have been much better than the dreck that was ultimately released.

Agree. I hate Alien 3 even more knowing Fincher directed it - he made so many good movies I can't understand for the life of me how he butchered that one so bad.

Please note that Fincher disowned the movie and walked away due to his claim of studio interference. He wasn't involved in the final production of the film. I haven't seen it in a while but I believe Fincher's name is not in the credits.

I did not know that. Yet he still made the movie with the script knowing exactly what was in the story, which was really shit if you ask me, compared to the first two episodes.

I read a lengthy interview a few years ago with Fincher, and he essentially said that he knew Alien 3 was a disaster before they started shooting.

Although there was a large budget, he was viewed as an inexperienced director and the studio wouldn't give him enough money in one chunk to construct the sets he wanted.

This meant he had to make substantial compromises, particularly with respect to shooting the alien, and the lengthy takes he had planned simply weren't possible because he didn't have enough of a built set to shoot.

The movie also shows a female hero without putting a thumb on the scale. Compare Ripley's descent into the Alien Queen's lair vs. that time the girl kicked a whole Velociraptor out the window using gymnastics

Yup, but to be honest very few actresses can play such kind of roles. Sigourney Weaver is just an extraordinary fit for these kind of characters.

> but I can't understand the fascination with Aliens

Aliens is THE perfect movie for me. The story is simple but eventful and with lots of surprises. There are many characters that are well written and who all have their opportunity to shine. Cinematography-wise, it's extremely solid with Cameron as a director, doing some of his very best work. Casting was perfect, everyone fit extremely well in their roles. Even special effects for the most part, were extremely well done and remain believable to this day. And the musical score was the icing on the top.

Really, I can't find anything wrong with Aliens. I like Alien (1) as well but it's a very, very different movie.

Agreed. Alien 3's problem was that it came out when every action movie thought it needed CGI, even though CGI wasn't ready at the time. So scenes with the aliens look comically bad, like a cheap video game.

I'm not sure whether you mean the alien shots look bad because they had to use primitive CGI?

That movie's pretty much all man-in-suit and practical props, with a number of shots using rod puppets on blue screen. Those shots do look bad, but it's because of the bad compositing (not sure if optical compositing or bad, early digital compositing, the blacks and matte lines are horrible). True CGI would have looked and moved worse.

There's pretty much one CGI shot in there though, and that's when the alien's head dome crackles under thermal shock in the foundry (looks like CGI crackles comped onto man-in-suit plate, from memory).

Haven't watched the "behind the scenes DVD" features in a couple years though. I think it even has Richard Edlund and Tom Woodruff talking about how they were one of the last movies to do most everything the old way at that time.

I'd say Alien 3's bigger problem is the development hell it suffered from, as mentioned by others.

Thank you for the info! Very interesting. I always though it was bad CGI, couldn't imagine it was anything else.

> even though CGI wasn't ready at the time.

Excuse me ? Terminator 2 came out in the very same year, and had fantastic CGI. It's just a matter of who works on them, even at the time.

I had a copy of the script once, when I lived in Hollywood. It was an awesome coffee-table curio, which more than a few of my friends begged to borrow (I denied). Before the franchise expanded to its current form, it really was something I thought I'd see turned into a production at some point, being a Gibson fanboix.

That said, I look forward to seeing the new Alien Covenant and noting the inspiration that is no doubt to be found.

I remember reading this script on a Usenet Newsgroup a long time ago. I think it was rec.arts.sf.movies. A quick search returns https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.sf.movies/XqL... with some comments. It seems like a place called the "Pix Poster Cellar" was selling "a photostat of a photostat of a typewritten screen-play" but the store burned down in 1993.

I found the Gibson script (which version though I don't know) a few years ago and read it - it was indexed by google.

well the current fave of many on SyFy; The Expanse; has its own alien life that can propagate by touch and airborne means. While not creating acid spewing monsters of its own the humans do a good job trying to make super soldiers from something they don't fully understand. Even better, even that form it still keeps to its own agenda

This was my first thought when I read this article. It seems someone there read Alien III before creating the Expanse, and then greatly added to it. I'm so glad I started watching the Expanse and hope it continues to improve.

Second season was just as good as the first, for me!

I can't get into details without spoiling both seasons of the show and some pretty considerable plot turns in Caliban's War and possibly Abaddon's Gate as well - but I will say that I've been really disappointed with the way the latter half of the second season, in particular, has turned some major characters into absurd caricatures of themselves. I don't know whether I'd feel the same way if I hadn't read the novels, but considering that I've long since lost patience with writers who waste my time or insult my intelligence or both, I suspect strongly that I would.

In any case, if you're uncertain over whether to read the novels or watch the series, and intend to invest time in only one of the two - go with the novels. The show has impressive space visuals, I give it that unreservedly - but in every other respect, the novels outdo the show to a frankly embarrassing degree.

Will definitely give the books a try then.

Agreed there there was some stilted dialog and testing the limits of character believability for purposes of plot movement. But all in all I still enjoyed the pacing. (Trying to word this ambigiously) I think the political side was better done than the micro. (Also, Shohreh Aghdashloo is a great actress)

I agree - and she is! It's always a pleasure to see her in something that lets her show off her chops.

I think I can skate up to the edge of spoiling, but not cross over the line, in saying: the character beats, especially late in season 2, are clearly drawn directly from the novels, and in the novels they work - but in the show, the way that they're misordered, compressed in time, and exaggerated in intensity to the point of excess makes them really hard to take. It's not that the show does everything wrong, by any means - up until roughly mid-season 2, it did enough things well enough that I was willing to excuse the missteps. Since then, though, while they haven't started doing more things right, they sure have started doing more things wrong, and at this point I'm all out of forbearance - I only watched to the end of season 2 out of an urge to finish what I'd started.

Another interesting never-realized Alien film is Vincent Ward's version of Alien 3. Among other thing, it was set on a space-monastery made entirely from wood (looking like the interior of a medieval church, and powered by windmill), and the main monster was a an Alien-Sheep (made by incubating in one of the farm animals). The set-piece would have been the Alien attacking our heros in an indoors wheat-field.

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/wooden-world-vi...

I remember reading that script, some years ago. I feel like it would've ended up like Jodorowsky's Dune if they'd tried in a serious way to make it - failing that, like Lynch's, with the same heroic but ultimately foredoomed struggle to carry a burden of story and symbolism that's just too heavy for a feature film to bear.

Alien 3 traditionally gets a lot of flak, but it is actually quite a remarkable movie. It left strong impression on me and is so rich in story and emotions I watched it many times over.

The premise and setting are very depressing, yet the prison, its visuals and inhabitants quickly get intriguing. This is a great narration of how people that have nothing but each other and their faith realize that their only real chance of survival is to work together and fight the beast. It is also a story of one strong woman who wakes up in a world where every hope of hers gets destroyed one by one. Just when you think things cannot get more dire, there is another bad luck, another loss, another jolt of despair.

Extremely strong emotions, thrilling chase and a great finale where Ripley's final decision is the perfect and only possible conclusion of a life that destroyed her hopes and gave her nothing except for a chance to fight for others, and win.

The film's music is beautiful and visuals are very good. I think people say bad things about the film mostly because they expected Aliens: the sequel where Cameron's vision would continue. Don't get me wrong, Aliens is a great film, and the novelization by Foster a great book to read. But if you take Alien 3 as an independent vision of the theme, you will enjoy it.

Still waiting on a Neuromancer film or better yet, a mini-series.

It's just going to look exactly like Blade Runner [1] :)

[1] http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.as...

An adaptation of Pattern Recognition is supposedly in the works.

I've always been a big fan of Gibson penned Johnny Mnemonic, which, if you can get past the bad acting and wooden dialogue, has plenty of trademark Gibson cyberpunk tropes.

Actually, there is also a film adaptation of New Rose Hotel, which is in the same setting as Johnny Mnemonic and the Sprawl trilogy.

[1] http://imdb.com/title/tt0133122/

Yep!

With Christopher Walken, no less--it's one of my favorite obscure gems of the cyberpunk film genre.

The BBC produced a radio drama a number of years ago. I don't have a good source for it now, though.

I feel like the window of opportunity for a Neuromancer film has closed... so many of the tropes that it invented have now become clichés that at this point the film would just feel stale. That's what happened with the Ghost in the Shell movie and Neuromancer would have it even worse.

Nah, the original Ghost in the Shell movie still feels fresh. What happened to the Ghost in the Shell movie, was a mixture of whitewashing, script butchering, and plain-old bad direction, etc. Not to mention that it was "reinventing" something that already existed, in a sub-standard way.

I agree, and I would also like to see something from the Shadow World rpg realm. I think movie technology has progressed to the point where a really cool adaptation could be done.

I'm thinking you meant Shadowrun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun ) and not Shadow World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_World_(role_playing_gam... ). I'm not familiar with the latter, but the description of 'high-fantasy' suggests to me that you meant the former.

That said, the Shadowrun universe is certainly an interesting mashup of magic and technology, and the fact that it exists outside of a particular story or stories seems like it would lend itself to interpretation and exploration beyond that of an adaptation of a static tale.

My 12 yo daughter loves sci-fi movies and we just started watching the Alien franchise in preparation for Alien: Covenant this weekend.

My plan was to show her Alien, Aliens, then Prometheus. I hadn't even planned to watch Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection (or any of the spinoffs like AVP). But after reading this, maybe we should at least watch Alien 3.

Any suggestions?

I recently reached alien 3 thinking it doesn't get a fair shake.

It's possible that it's overly maligned. But it's not good.

Yeah, it's a complete mess, but it's an interesting mess at least. Resurrection is kinda the same level of mess I guess; a few amazing scenes, really interesting underlying ideas that seem to have been gimeped by rewrites/lost in the edit.

Resurrection is unwatchable in my opinion. I didn't even bother with the AvP films.

s/reached/rewatched/

FWIW, I think that AVP is interesting in that it juxtaposes two diametrically opposite creatures. It's a fun literary exercise with kids to point out all the ways that a dichotomy is expressed, and IMO it makes "reading" the Aliens franchise easier because its tropes are easier to see in relief.

For instance, both creatures (or whatever you want to call em) have an approach to technology... one uses tools, one embodies the tech. There are a good number of tropes along those lines which, IMO, bring out a lot of interesting ways of thinking about the aliens.

Just a suggestion from a literature geek.

yeah, I figured maybe after all the Alien franchise, we could watch Predator I then maybe AVP.

I always watch Alien and Aliens back to back. From time to time, if I have more time to kill, I watch Alien 3 ( the extended director's cut ). I watched Alien: Resurrection once and have never watched it again and have no desire to. Terrible movie.

I will never be able to forgive Alien 3 for killing off hicks and newt so unceremoniously ( off screen ). That was so lazy and cowardly, it ruins what is a fun movie to watch.

If you intend on watching Alien 3, maybe go for the assembly cut - it's like an unofficial director's cut made for the DVD release and fixes a number of issues with the theatrical cut.

That's nonsense.

The Apple //c never had a version of Microsoft Word for it.

I noticed the article on MetaFilter [1] and there's some discussion about the word processor in the comments there. Some people are suggesting Apple Writer or Word Perfect.

[1] http://www.metafilter.com/167000/Sulaco-has-entered-a-sector...

They are probably thinking of Word Perfect.

It has been said he used AppleWorks on Apple II when his typewriter broke but went back to a (new) typewriter pretty quickly.

Also, why are we discussing this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

Wouldn't surprise me at all considering he didn't understand computers at all back then. In an audio interview [0], he explains how he contacted Apple support because his Apple II's disc drive was so loud.

In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology".

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5oU2Xx6s

> In his imagination computers had not been supposed to be so loud and crude, but rather crystalline and silent, so he was confused by actual the computers being rather loud and using such "victorian technology"

I mean, aren't we still at this point? Some historical artifacts (e.g. Sutherland's Sketchpad demo, AmigaOS) still blow modern systems away in terms of UX.

> Also, why are we discussing this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

Poe's Law probably applies here.

I always liked the monk idea, but had never read Gibos script.

Some many better ideas -

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3/33600/alien-3-the-st...

I hated Aliens 3 - it's like the guy who got it basically wanted to say "f* you" to Aliens, which was a good, fun, if not particularly deep movie.

Alien 3 was actually a famously troubled production and a prime example of "development hell".

Alien 3 is clearly a lesser alien work, but it's still very interesting to watch as an early david fincher work.

Just read the script from the link in the article. It's... not good. Pretty obvious why it never got made.

> An alien (left) and William Gibson.

Rather rude caption.

Gibson seems like a person who'd appreciate the joke.

It's the same joke on the wikipedia with the penguin and the bagpiper.

It's rude but I can take a joke when it's about someone else.

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