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After the first draft was complete (in which the Alien attacks a monastery), construction work began on the sets. The construction shut down, leaving the crew in limbo as the script was reworked. Although the location changed to a prison, it was decided that they would use the already half-built monastery sets.
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Dr. Clemens' line about Fury 161 being one of "Weyland-Yutani's backwater prison planets" was the first time the name Weyland-Yutani was spoken out loud. It had appeared on computer screens and props in the previous two films, but characters always referred to it as "the Company" in dialogue.
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First-time director David Fincher disowned the film, citing constant studio interference. He actually walked out before editing began.
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Cinematographer Alex Thomson replaced Jordan Cronenweth three days into shooting. Cronenweth was succumbing to Parkinson's disease. He died of it in 1996.
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Although the Alien that hatched from the dog was a rod puppet, early filmed tests used an actual dog in a costume.
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Off-duty, Sigourney Weaver had to wear a wig as her then two-year-old daughter Charlotte didn't like to see her mother bald.
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Multiple proposed scripts caused misleading advertising, implying the movie would be set on Earth. One trailer even had the tagline, "On Earth, everyone can hear you scream."
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A series of Aliens comic books were published that were set after the events of the second film, featuring an adult Newt returning to space with a shell-shocked Hicks to stop the retrieval of an Alien specimen by Weyland-Yutani corporation. The books were re-published to accommodate Alien 3, with Newt re-named Billy.
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At one point, David Fincher was denied permission by the film's producers to shoot a crucial scene in the prison understructure between Ripley and the Alien. Against orders, Fincher grabbed Sigourney Weaver, a camera and shot the scene anyway. This scene appears in the final cut.
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One possible idea for the movie included a Chestburster coming out of Michael Biehn's character Hicks. A replica of the actor with his chest torn open was created, but after Biehn discovered this, he threatened to sue the producers for using his likeness without his consent, and the idea was dropped. Later the producers paid him to use his picture at the beginning of the film for the crash report. He received more money for use of this one image than for his entire role in Aliens.
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The creature that the Alien impregnates was originally an ox. It was changed because an ox was cumbersome and was seen as somewhat incongruous when placed in the film's environment. This sequence was later restored for the extended Assembly Cut.
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Initially, Renny Harlin was attached to direct, but he left to direct Die Hard 2. Then Vincent Ward came on board. He only lasted a few months before being fired after several disagreements with the producers. Screenwriter Walter Hill was considered to direct as well, but he stepped back after David Fincher became available.
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To create a convincing corpse for the character of Newt, the filmmakers created life size mannequins using the molds of Carrie Henn from Aliens.
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On the set at Pinewood Studios, a giant lead foundry took 12 weeks to construct and put the production way behind. Even with 6 day weeks and 14 hour days, the crew were unable to keep up with the schedule.
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The Rottweiler (from which the Alien emerges) had to have part of his face shaved to indicate where the facehugger had gripped onto him.
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The production effectively shut down for three months while the script underwent massive rewrites.
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Early versions of the script and design featured a giant rustic monastery.
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The Alien in this movie differs from its predecessors in that the organic pipes on its back are now missing, it runs faster on all fours due to its different legs, and it now has a more pronounced set of lips.
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The film spent over a year in editing.
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Gabriel Byrne (End of Days, Stigmata) was offered the role of Clemens.
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Before filming had even started, $7 million had been spent on sets that were never used thanks to the ever-changing script.
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When the powers-that-be decided on a new ending to be shot, Elliot Goldenthal had one night to come up with a new score.
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To create some of the wet sounds that accompany the Alien, the soundmen went to Asian markets and bought animal heads and stomach linings.
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The crane that lifts the crashed EEV out of the water to dry land is a miniature built using the cannibalized parts from a Star Wars X-Wing fighter model kit.
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A cross is briefly seen on the planet surface to suggest the religion that some of the inmates have turned to. The model department held a competition to see who could design the best one. Four different models were created, and then David Fincher chose the version he liked best.
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In wide shots, most of the refinery is actually made of cardboard.
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An advanced type of Facehugger, one that impregnates Ripley with a Queen Embryo, was designed and built, but was cut from the Theatrical Version. It does, however, make a brief appearance in the extended Assembly Cut.
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Because of continuing troubles with the film, Fox halted production in Pinewood Studios in England in late 1991. The crew returned to LA, and an initial screening identified the missing parts of the film. A major part yet to be shot included killing the Alien in the lead pool. By the time of the new shots in LA, Sigourney Weaver's hair grew back, and she had an agreement with the producers that if she would have to cut her hair she would be paid a $40,000 bonus. The producers therefore hired Greg Cannom to create a bald cap with very short hair on it. The make-up process cost $16,000 and was very difficult and time-consuming because the hairline required the cap to be placed very precisely on Weaver's head.
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The concept by Vincent Ward on which the movie was green-lighted involved a wooded planet and a group of monks who thought they were living in post-apocalyptic dark ages. The group refused all kinds of modern technology, adopting a middle-ages lifestyle. When Ripley and the Alien crash land, they blame Ripley for the Alien attacks. Ripley was to be impregnated by the Alien "the old-fashioned way" rather than through a Facehugger, and therefore being impregnated with a human-Alien hybrid. According to the storyboards, she would dream of half-human, half-Alien creatures. Other storyboards included horse-Alien and sheep-Alien creatures. Ward left the project after the producers insisted he change the monks to prisoners and drop the wooded planet idea.
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Some of H.R. Giger's design for the film involved a puma-like Alien with claws. The producers also instructed him to do more sexy designs so he created a drawing of an Alien, which, in close view, had the lips of a woman. One of his ideas involved the Alien kissing the victims and killing them that way (an idea that was later used in the movie Species where the main creature was also designed by Giger).
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The tea glass that prison superintendent Andrews is sipping on is part of the BODUM series, a tableware manufactured in Denmark.
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Vincent Ward used his pay from this film to finance his next movie titled, Map of the Human Heart (1993).
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The same "dipping bird" appears on the warden's desk as was seen in the first film.
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The original budget was $45 million, including Sigourney Weaver's fee of $5.5 million. The budget soon spiraled however, with first Renny Harlin and then Vincent Ward both leaving the project before novice feature film director David Fincher came onboard. Extensive last minute re-shoots - especially after the finale was deemed to be too similar to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - ultimately pushed the budget into the region of $65 million.
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Ripley wasn't in some drafts of the script.
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Richard E. Grant turned down the role of Clemens. Director David Fincher offered him the role as he was a huge fan of Withnail & I and wanted to reunite Grant with co-stars Paul McGann and Ralph Brown.
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Sigourney Weaver had a clause in her contract specifying that Walter Hill and David Giler would write the final shooting script. Weaver has said that she considers Ripley a very difficult character to write, and, with the exception of James Cameron, only Giler and Hill have really ever written the character correctly.
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William Gibson wrote a very early script for the film. As Sigourney Weaver's involvement was in question, its main focus was on Hicks and Bishop. Newt returned to Earth to live with her grandparents. Ripley spent most of the story in a coma. Bishop and Hicks joined a new team of Colonial Marines, battling a rival faction of planets who use the Alien as a bio-weapon. Many consider this to be a much superior script. The only carry-over from this original script, however, is the bar codes on the back of the convicts' heads.
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There was some debate over whether the character of Ripley should actually feature in this film until Joe Roth, president of 20th Century Fox at the time, insisted otherwise.
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There are screenplay treatments by Eric Red, David Twohy, John Fasano and Rex Pickett. They can be downloaded in the Scripts subsection.
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With the release of the definitive Alien Quadrilogy on DVD in 2004, 20th Century Fox offered David Fincher the proverbial olive branch and asked him to assemble and comment on his own Director's Cut. Fincher declined. He was the only one of the four Alien directors to refuse to have anything to do with the project. This isn't surprising though, considering how Fincher was treated in the past, and Fox butchered the Quadrilogy's making of Alien 3 documentary so much that its producer removed his name from its credits.
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The company name written in Japanese can be briefly seen on the black box as Ripley retrieves it and on a poster in the office where 85 and Ripley contact the company for the second time. In a scene towards the end of the movie where Ripley and the inmates discuss killing the creature, several Kanji characters can be seen on the wall: "Chô-kô'on kiken" (danger: extremely high heat). The scrap yard where Bishop is discarded also displays a large red "tetsu" (iron).
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This film is believed to be set in 2179 just days or weeks after the events of Aliens.
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David Twohy contributed to the pile of abandoned scripts the movie's pre-production generated. In his version, the only returning character is Ripley, who only briefly appears on a file card. As in previous scripts, the story involves experiments in genetically-engineering Aliens as bio-weapons. This script introduced a high-security prison facility in space and its morally ambiguous inmates (one of which is an escape artist) as well as themes which made it into both the finished product and Twohy's own Pitch Black.
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When David Fincher asked Sigourney Weaver how she felt about going bald for the role, she jokingly replied, "It's fine with me only as long as I get more money!"
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The Hungarian title translated back to English is "Final Solution: Death."
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Morse is supposed to have made a deal with God that he would live forever. Funnily enough he's the only one among the prisoners to survive the Alien.
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