The Alien 3 Scripts That Never Got Made, and Why David Fincher Disowned the Film He Delivered

Alien 3 was widely panned when it came out and was seen as a disaster both in front of and behind the camera. David Fincher famously disowned the project because it was not his vision, and James Cameron slammed it at the time, angry that it undid the entire point of his film. Over the years it has had something of a redemption arc, and the assembly cut has helped show what the original vision was, or at least come close to it.

I think the movie had a genuinely tall order because it was following two of the best films ever made, and on top of that the Dark Horse comics had already fleshed out a universe of stories centered on the survivors of Aliens, only for this film to wipe that out. I had a similar reaction to how people felt about Dark Fate killing off John Connor at the start of that movie. As far back as I can remember though, Newt and Hicks have always been dead, so it never shocked me the way it clearly shocked people who saw Aliens in theaters. It is a bit like how I just accept Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, whereas people older than me think Lucas ruined the franchise with them.

Fox Wanted a Xenomorph Invasion of Earth, and a Teaser Promised It

Alien 3 spent six years in development. Fox wanted a sequel that was more Aliens than Alien, which led to constant back and forth with Brandywine Productions, who did not want to simply repeat the first two films. Fox specifically wanted a military movie centered on Hicks fighting the Xenomorphs on either Earth or the creatures' home planet, and that push was fueled by a teaser Fox actually released promising the showdown would happen on our planet in 1992, with the tagline that on Earth everyone can hear you scream.

From what I can gather, Fox basically announced that date and concept publicly and told the people behind the scenes to make it happen, which left things a mess behind the scenes from the start. James Cameron did not express interest in returning, so a new director had to be found, and producers David Giler and Walter Hill were hesitant to make a third film at all, worried lightning could not strike three times. Production went ahead anyway, built around the original idea that the aliens themselves would end up on Earth.

William Gibson Wrote the First Draft, a Cold War Allegory Set on a Space Station

That first draft came from cyberpunk author William Gibson. Unlike most unproduced scripts, a lot of his ideas survive because his script was published as a book, then adapted into a comic and later an Audible radio drama starring Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen, which I recommend picking up.

In Gibson's story, the Sulaco drifts into space controlled by a futuristic socialist state called the Union of Progressive Peoples, an obvious Soviet analogy locked in a Cold War style arms race with Earth. Forces from the Union invade the Sulaco and find a facehugger that had been implanted inside Bishop's body during the queen's attack, which could also explain how eggs ended up on the ship in the final film. Bishop's body is then experimented on at a space station called Anchor Point under orders from Weyland Yutani, and Ripley's cryo tube is damaged, leaving her in a coma rather than needing to renegotiate with Weaver.

Hicks is debriefed on the station while Newt returns to Earth to live with her grandparents. Rumors circulate that the station's scientists have been secretly cloning Xenomorphs, and through Hicks we learn Anchor Point becomes ground zero for an outbreak once Bishop is repaired and returned. Weyland Yutani got far more focus as the story's antagonist, ordering the creation of a new hive and a mutated queen. The script ends with the survivors flying back to Earth realizing the Xenomorphs must be destroyed at their home world, setting up a planned fourth and final film. It was ultimately not used because the people behind the scenes reportedly found it uninteresting, though it has attracted a cult following since.

Renny Harlin Walked Away, and Eric Red's Rushed Rewrite Followed

Renny Harlin, fresh off Nightmare on Elm Street 4, was attached to direct next, but he was more interested in the origins of the Space Jockey, and when producers started dragging their feet he left to make Die Hard 2 instead, which in hindsight was the smart move.

Eric Red's version then went through eight reworks. It centered on special forces boarding the Sulaco to find everyone dead, before moving the action to a small US city, similar to what Alien vs. Predator 2 later did. Red was given only two months to finish the whole thing and has said the rushed process left him unhappy to have his name attached to it. Brandywine ended up rejecting that draft too.

David Twohy's Prison Planet Draft Set the Template Fincher Would Inherit

Brandywine turned next to David Twohy, whose version scrapped the Cold War metaphors as outdated and instead set things on a prison planet, with experiments on prisoners using facehuggers to breed new aliens. Fox president Joe Roth wanted the focus put back on Ripley, believing Sigourney Weaver was what sold tickets, and offered her four million dollars and a producer credit that came with creative control.

Weaver had a list of demands for the script: no guns in the film, that she have sex with the alien because she felt it continued the themes of Ridley Scott's original, and that her character die at the end in a way that meant she could never return. She did not end up having sex with the alien, but her producer credit did get her the no guns rule and the death she wanted. Twohy worked her requests into his draft, but he stepped away when he learned Fox was working behind his back with another writer on a completely different version. He went on to write and direct Pitch Black, so he still got to make his own prisoner in space movie, and I would argue Riddick is one of the greatest characters in science fiction.

Vincent Ward Wanted a Wooden Monastery in Space

The Navigator's Vincent Ward was brought on next, with producers hoping he would bring that film's tone across. The Navigator is a medieval odyssey set during the Black Death in which villagers dig a hole that takes them to the twentieth century, and I think you can feel that medieval tone mixed with future elements in the finished Alien 3.

Ward wanted to set the story on a monastery satellite made of wood, housing monks who had rejected all technology, full of religious allusions such as new life coming from death and Ripley's ship being seen as a fallen star from the heavens. The monks would view the Xenomorph as a demon, and Ripley would be put on trial in something like the witch trials in Salem. Both this version and Twohy's ended with Ripley's death. The studio worried this was not commercial and felt Ward was making more of an art house film. It was changed so the planet became Fury and the monks became prisoners, and Ward was fired after refusing to work with the studio's changes.

David Fincher Took Over, Fought the Studio, and Walked Away Saying He Quit

Ridley Scott was asked to return after Ward left but declined, and the job went to David Fincher, who was not well known at the time and had mostly directed music videos for Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, Billy Idol, and Paula Abdul, with his biggest hit being Madonna's Vogue. Fincher stated Alien was one of his favorite films and focused on recapturing that film's tone rather than Aliens' tone.

I think Fox saw someone they could push around, since he had mostly directed commercial projects and was wet behind the ears as a feature director. That did not go the way they expected. Post-production spiraled out of control, reshoots were demanded, and the film was edited over and over, with the cast reportedly sometimes learning, blocking and filming a scene only to be told it had been scrapped right after. Fincher eventually handed over an assembly cut and stepped away, and that assembly cut has since become the preferred version. Every other film in that box set got a director's cut made to market special editions, but Fincher rejected coming back to do one and never approved the version on the disc, saying it is not a director's cut and has nothing to do with him.

Why the Assembly Cut, Not the Theatrical Release, Is the One I Recommend

When I have broken down the theatrical cut before, I found it incredibly incoherent, and if I had not already had the assembly cut burned into my brain I think I would have gotten lost at certain points. The assembly cut adds an extra thirty minutes and helps flesh out a lot that the theatrical cut just flies past without explanation, cutting some of the most important material in the film. This breakdown works through the assembly version.

The Opening Crash Deliberately Undoes Aliens' Ending

The film opens on a down note beyond just Newt and Hicks dying. The familiar 20th Century Fox fanfare has its final note drone downward here, giving a feeling of dread that transitions into the score. We get titles against the void as always, but this time with an orange glow suggesting fire, a motif of fire and hell that runs through the whole film.

There is also an inconsistency worth noting: the production could not get its hands on the specific hibernation pods used at the end of Aliens, since those had a slightly different shape, so they had to reuse the pods from the first film. From the opening frame the movie is effectively set out to undo the world of Aliens. Inside the Sulaco, a hatched egg's facehugger goes to the pods and breaks the glass, and its acid blood causes the ship to crash, echoing the acid blood fear from the very first film, though this ship has far fewer levels than the Nostromo. The theatrical cut rushes through this so quickly that fans at the time were confused about what happened, since there was no internet to explain it.

Alan Dean Foster's Novelization Filled Gaps the Film Left Open

The novelization by Alan Dean Foster helped clear up the confusion, though Foster clashed with the studio and was not given full access to the script, forcing him to piece together several different drafts without knowing what made the final cut. Foster actually wanted to keep Newt alive by having her cryo tube merely damaged rather than fatal.

Because he lacked full access, his novel has Ripley's daughter Amanda retconned out of existence, with Ripley stating she does not have a daughter, reflecting that the daughter subplot had been cut from the theatrical release of Aliens. The novel also has Ripley searching the vents rather than the basement, a different fate for Dillon, and explains there were at least two eggs on the ship, though the film only shows one. I think the story actually needs two eggs to make sense, since facehuggers attach, impregnate, and then drop off and die, so if one infects Newt, a second is needed to reach Ripley, since the acid from a used facehugger would likely kill her.

H.R. Giger Returned With a Concept for an Alien That Killed by Kissing

H.R. Giger came back for this film and brainstormed a neurotic alien with lips, designed to kill people by kissing them, playing into the celibacy of the all-male colony. He reportedly wanted the mouth to resemble Michelle Pfeiffer's. There was also concept art for an aquatic facehugger that would have survived the crash and swum to shore.

None of that made the finished film, though those lips-alien and sexualized creature ideas would later surface in the work Giger did on Species. His one contribution that did make it into Alien 3 was the look used when the Xenomorph first bursts from its host, nicknamed the Bambi Burster by the crew. The creature effects were built by Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis, suggested by Stan Winston, who had worked on Aliens but could not return himself; that pairing would go on to work on the Alien vs. Predator films.

Fury 161: A Prison Planet Named for Innocence, Filmed on a Real Closed Colliery

The escape pod heads to Fiorina 161, nicknamed Fury, a prison planet where inmates are designated with XYY chromosomes, referencing the real condition Jacob's syndrome, associated with height and behavioral problems and once thought to predispose people to violence, a belief that has since been debunked. In the assembly cut, Weyland Yutani wanted to shut the facility down, but its residents wanted to stay as custodians, meaning some are prisoners by choice, having become institutionalized and made this their home rather than leaving when they could.

Though nicknamed Fury, Fiorina actually derives from Latin words meaning flower, bloom, or innocence, and I lean toward innocence being the intended reading, since the prisoners are trying to uphold values of innocence. The location used was Blast Beach, an abandoned industrial site down the road from where I live, though most of the industrialization there has since been stripped away, leaving just a beach today. County Durham, where Blast Beach sits, experienced real coal mine closures in the 1980s under Thatcher's policies, closures that ruined local towns and sparked mass protests over lost livelihoods. I think there is a real juxtaposition in using natural sand and beach set against gigantic metallic structures, which also plays into the film's religious imagery.

Clemens Was Stitched Together From Two Unused Characters, and Sits at the Center of a Fragile Prison Hierarchy

Charles Dance's Clemens was originally offered to Richard E. Grant, as Fincher wanted to reunite him with Withnail and I co-stars Ralph Brown and Paul McGann. Clemens becomes a Dallas-style co-lead before being killed around the midpoint, and I think Dance does a terrific job with a character built from Packard, a medical officer from Twohy's script, and Brother Jons, a monk who guided Ripley in another draft.

Clemens was a doctor who became addicted to morphine in medical school; after an industrial accident killed several workers, he was called in while high and prescribed the wrong painkiller dosage, killing eleven people. Stripped of his license and sentenced to seven years, he realized on release he had nowhere left to go, since his license would only be reinstated at a downgraded 3C level that would keep him from real work. Ripley went through something similar after her own hearing in Aliens. She recognizes Clemens as a prisoner from a barcode on the back of his head, a branding system that likely inspired Agent 47 in the Hitman series.

The prison's power structure is deliberately unbalanced: when we first see the warden, Andrews, he is surrounded by prisoners on the lower deck while a guard tower looms above, showing he is not the one truly in control. The assembly cut even has a line noting the prisoners could overthrow Andrews at any time since they have access to weapons through an honor system, but if they killed him the company's supply drops would stop, leaving them stranded.

Ripley's Shaved Head Became an Expensive, Contractual Ordeal

Ripley's shaved head idea reportedly came about when Sigourney Weaver asked Fincher how he pictured this new nineties Ripley and he simply said bald, which apparently won her over. Weaver wore a wig offset, since her two year old daughter reportedly hated seeing her bald, but Weaver had a clause that she would be paid forty thousand dollars if her head had to be shaved again for reshoots, which it was.

Greg Cannom was brought in to build a bald cap, which cost sixteen thousand dollars to develop because it had to fit Weaver specifically. He said he would only do it once, but ended up making it again for promotional shots and for the new ending, getting paid that amount each time. Ripley wakes up groggy from the crash, the drugs, and being thrown out of a cryo tube designed to wake its occupant slowly, and she starts rubbing her neck throughout the film, foreshadowing that a facehugger reached her there, echoing how she used to grab her chest waking from nightmares in Aliens.

Newt and Hicks' Deaths, and the Cholera Cover Story for the Autopsy

Ripley learns Hicks was impaled and died quickly, while Newt drowned in her cryo tube, though acid on the tank makes Ripley ask to see the body herself. It is a crushing moment given her last words to Newt had promised she could dream all the way home. The assembly cut adds a line where Clemens asks if Newt was her daughter and Ripley says no, summing up how much she has lost: her actual daughter died of old age while she was in cryosleep, and now the child she treated like a daughter has died too.

Finding no outward sign of infection on Newt's body, Ripley pushes for an autopsy, using cholera, wiped out two hundred years earlier in the story's timeline, as her cover. Clemens uses the same excuse with Andrews. The autopsy was originally far more graphic, but test audiences reportedly walked out during test screenings, so Fincher cut around the scene, leaving only the sound of the chest being opened and a brief glimpse inside.

Religious Imagery Runs Through the Entire Film

Orange and fire imagery recur from the opening titles through to Ripley's death by fire, and her head shaving evokes Joan of Arc, who was also burned for heresy. When she asks Dillon to end her life and later falls into the vat, she holds her arms out in a crucifix pose. The ship crash was designed around the Star of Bethlehem, with the ox herders standing in for shepherds, and lines about Christmas coming early and prayers recited throughout the colony. Some prisoners even get red rings on their heads at the end evoking halos.

The dining hall and mess hall entrance resemble a cathedral, crosses appear painted on walls throughout, and Bogs has one on his forehead. Golic's fate plays into what I read as parallels with the Book of Revelation, including the great red dragon, a beast rising from the sea, and a false prophet who deceives people into worshiping the beast, all of which the characters echo by literally calling the Xenomorph the beast throughout. I think that reading holds up reasonably well, even if some of the individual connections are more of a stretch than others.

Dillon's Character Contradicts Itself Because of All the Rewrites

Dillon, played by Charles S. Dutton, leads prayers, questions why the innocent are punished, and represents the prisoners' faith throughout. Dutton was jailed early in his life for manslaughter and has said he channeled that period of his life into the role, and I think he brings a lot to what is a genuinely memorable part. In early drafts the character was named Malcolm, which may explain his Malcolm X style glasses.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Dillon's characterization is inconsistent: at one point he treats Ripley as a source of temptation who has no place among the prisoners, and shortly after he saves her life from an attempted assault and becomes her closest ally following Clemens' death. That inconsistency stems from the character absorbing whatever different rewrites demanded of him, sometimes friendly toward Ripley and sometimes hostile, depending on which draft was in play at the time. His death was rewritten several times too; an earlier version had him die stopping the Xenomorph in the assembly hall after discovering a nest of cocooned victims, a scene later cut in favor of the finale we got.

Ripley and Clemens, Murphy's Death, and Bishop's Return

Ripley and Clemens eventually sleep together, the first relationship we see her in on screen, following unfulfilled chemistry with Dallas in the first film and Hicks in the second. I think after being isolated on an alien planet for so long, she simply wants a human connection, and Clemens is effectively the only normal person there. A more intimate scene was filmed but never used.

While that plays out, Murphy is killed cleaning ventilation shafts, spat with acid and then torn apart by a fan, echoing Brett's death in the first film. Clemens presses Ripley on why she insisted on cremating the bodies, and she admits she had a terrible dream and needed to be sure what killed Newt, another sign of her own infection. Ripley then activates Bishop, retrieved from a trash heap in bad shape; his introduction includes a dark joke about not being able to feel his legs. Bishop confirms an electrical fire caused the pod ejection, triggered by a facehugger that had been aboard the whole time after the queen laid an egg before being ejected into space, meaning there is in fact an alien somewhere in the facility, and the only person who can back up Ripley's story is Golic, dismissed as a lunatic.

Golic's Religious Devotion to the Creature Leads to Clemens' Death and the Franchise's Most Iconic Shot

Golic gets far more screen time in the assembly cut, including new material such as lighting a candle for Murphy and confessing real vulnerability, saying he loved Murphy and that Murphy never complained about him. He watches the Xenomorph move through the facility with something close to awe, treating it as a religious experience, similar to how Ash regarded the creature as a perfect organism in the first film.

The creature kills Clemens directly in front of Ripley, leading into what I would argue is the most iconic shot in the entire franchise, the alien's inner jaw extending toward Ripley's face before it inexplicably runs off. According to IMDb trivia, Fincher was reportedly denied permission to shoot this moment but grabbed Weaver and filmed it anyway, which is remarkable considering that image ended up on the back of the Alien Anthology box set and in most of the film's marketing.

Andrews Is Killed, and the Prisoners Plan to Trap the Alien in the Waste Furnace

Andrews is killed by the creature in front of everyone shortly after confidently dismissing its existence, leaving 85 in charge as next in line. Ripley works out the creature stays close to its prey like a predator, and proposes trapping it in the unused toxic waste disposal area. An attempt to corner it goes wrong when a dropped flare causes an explosion that burns several inmates alive, though one prisoner manages to lure the creature into the chamber and lock it in, sacrificing himself. Sprinklers douse the resulting blaze, and a cracked bucket shifts on its own from the sudden temperature change, foreshadowing exactly how the creature will eventually be killed through thermal shock.

I think the assembly cut benefits from giving the prisoners this small victory, whereas the theatrical cut just has the death happen with no payoff. Morse is later put on guard duty over Golic, still restrained and asking for help, and Morse makes the mistake of unlocking him and turning his back. Golic knocks Morse out and heads off to release the Xenomorph, later apologizing to a guard he kills in the process, playing into the same religious devotion that has defined his arc, before the creature kills him too.

Ripley Learns She Is Carrying a Queen, and the Final Standoff Echoes Terminator 2

Ripley eventually confirms through Bishop's scanner that she is carrying a queen embryo, and she asks Dillon to kill her, but he says he needs her alive since she is the only one who understands the creature and cannot be attacked by it while carrying its queen. He agrees to kill her painlessly once the Xenomorph is dealt with, echoing her earlier request to Hicks in Aliens. Dillon delivers a rallying speech about a last stand, winning most of the prisoners over except 85, who just wants to go home to his wife and kids.

The prisoners use themselves as bait to lure the creature to the furnace, and their plan to hold the line quickly collapses into panic. The finale, with Dillon submerged in the lead mold and Ripley luring the creature toward the vat before triggering a thermal shock explosion with the sprinklers, plays very similarly to Terminator 2, released a year earlier, right down to a sacrifice being lowered into molten liquid and a creature shattering apart from sudden cold after intense heat.

Is Bishop Human or an Android? The Clues Point One Way

The rescue team's Bishop, played again by Lance Henriksen, has been debated by fans for decades over whether he is human or another android, not helped by Henriksen giving conflicting answers in different interviews and the credits listing him as Bishop 2. Later Alien films clarify that Lance Henriksen also played Charles Bishop Weyland, founder of the Weyland Corporation, and Alien: Colonial Marines names an ancestor Michael Weyland, suggesting the surname later became Bishop, meaning this character could be Michael Bishop II rather than a second synthetic Bishop.

When he is struck at the end, his ear hangs off with red blood rather than the white fluid androids bleed in this franchise, and the script itself reportedly describes real blood, not milk. Unlike every other damaged android in the series, his voice does not become digitized when he is hit, and he shows genuine emotion toward Ripley. I think that points to him being a real man, possibly enhanced with cybernetic parts given his position in the company, rather than bad visual effects making an android look wrong.

Ripley's Death Plays Out Differently in the Two Cuts, and Fincher Preferred the Version Where the Creature Never Bursts Out

Bishop offers Ripley a deal to save her life and remove the creature, promising she could still have a life and children, but the company's true intentions are clear from how quickly they insist the creature must not be allowed to live. Ripley refuses and throws herself into the vat. In the theatrical cut, the chest burster actually emerges as she falls, using a small rig to achieve the effect. I prefer the assembly cut's version, where she falls with her arms spread in that same crucifix pose without the creature bursting out, since to me that makes her death feel more like it is on her own terms.

Fincher reportedly said it was important for the character to be at peace, and that audiences would feel worse seeing the creature burst out than seeing her simply fall. Notably, Alien 3 is the only film in the original quadrilogy that does not end with an alien being sucked out into space.

The Epilogue, Morse's Fate, and What Happened to Fincher's Career Afterward

The film ends with text stating Fury has been closed and sealed, the custodial presence terminated, and the equipment sold as scrap, covering up everything that happened. In the wider story, Morse, the sole survivor, was transported to another prison where he was plagued by nightmares of the Xenomorph and eventually lost his faith. Despite being warned by the company not to discuss what happened, he published a book called Space Beast in 2183, which was quickly banned though a few copies survived, and that book is how a character in Alien Resurrection later learns about Ripley. Space Beast was also the original working title for the very first Alien film.

Fincher's directing career did not end with the backlash to Alien 3. Sigourney Weaver publicly stood by him, and she is one of the reasons audiences learned how difficult the studio had been on the production. Producer Arnold Kopelson, aware of what Fox had put him through, gave Fincher another chance a few years later, which turned out to be Se7en.

Do you prefer the assembly cut's ending for Ripley, where she falls without the creature bursting from her chest, or the theatrical version where it does?