COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^085
demanded radical changes to other areas that
pulled Ward’s intriguing concept apart.
“They suggested convicts instead of monks
and a mining colony instead of a monastery- all out of fear that the fi lm would be too
religious, which certainly wasn’t my intention,”
Ward continued. “The producers were under
a lot of pressure to get [the fi lm] out as soon as
possible, and I believe that studios can be very
conservative beasts who go for what has gone
before. That’s the problem you face when you
want to do something interesting.”
Although set construction had already
commenced (courtesy of Oscar-winning
production designer Norman Reynolds), the
gradual erosion of Ward’s idea together with
a meeting that scrapped the ‘wooden planet’
locale entirely resulted in the fi lmmaker and the
producers parting ways.
A young David Fincher was hired to replace
Ward largely on the strength of his impressive
music video and commercials career. But it
was to be a bumpy ride, particularly when
production commenced without a completed
script. “Eventually, Sigourney agreed that if
Walter and I write it she would do it on faith and
Fincher did too,” refl ected David Giler.
In essence a vague ‘spin-off’ of Vincent
Ward’s original idea, events for Alien 3 took
place on a prison planet populated by entirely
male inmates. Fincher wanted Richard E Grant
for the role of Clements, the medical doctor
that Ripley eventually becomes intimate with,
however, producers preferred older thespian
Charles Dance.
A slate of predominately British thespians also
made up the supporting cast, including Paul
McGann, Brian Glover and Pete Postlethwaite
amongst them, while Lance Henriksen briefl y
returned to portray both Bishop and his human
creator. “I love David Fincher and thought he
was a brilliant young man but I felt ‘why revisit
something like that?’ I did it once – it’s enough,”
he recalls to SciFiNow. “But Walter Hall called
and said: ‘Go to England have a cup of tea and
a donut and come home. You’re going to be
playing Bishop 1 and 2.’”
H R Giger was also brought back to do some
redesigns for the returning xenomorph, most
of which regrettably didn’t come into fruition
or were cut from the theatrical release. This
included the infamous Ox-chest bambi-burster
scene, which was restored for the intriguing
2003 ‘Assembly Cut’. In fact, the entire
production was constantly adapting to new
material, with both the studio and producers at
loggerheads with a defi ant Fincher. Despite his
determination, Fincher’s vision was compromised
and signifi cantly scaled back due largely to
budgetary concerns, with scenes snipped
without his consent in the fi nal edit. Fincher
subsequently disowned the fi lm and to this day
rarely talks about it.
“I didn’t think it worked – I went to a lot of
trouble making the background charactersPrometheus explored
the backstory to Alien.COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U K |^085
demanded radical changes to other areas that
pulled Ward’s intriguing concept apart.
“They suggested convicts instead of monks
and a mining colony instead of a monastery
- all out of fear that the fi lm would be too
religious, which certainly wasn’t my intention,”
Ward continued. “The producers were under
a lot of pressure to get [the fi lm] out as soon as
possible, and I believe that studios can be very
conservative beasts who go for what has gone
before. That’s the problem you face when you
want to do something interesting.”
Although set construction had already
commenced (courtesy of Oscar-winning
production designer Norman Reynolds), the
gradual erosion of Ward’s idea together with
a meeting that scrapped the ‘wooden planet’
locale entirely resulted in the fi lmmaker and the
producers parting ways.
A young David Fincher was hired to replace
Ward largely on the strength of his impressive
music video and commercials career. But it
was to be a bumpy ride, particularly when
production commenced without a completed
script. “Eventually, Sigourney agreed that if
Walter and I write it she would do it on faith and
Fincher did too,” refl ected David Giler.
In essence a vague ‘spin-off’ of Vincent
Ward’s original idea, events for Alien 3 took
place on a prison planet populated by entirely
male inmates. Fincher wanted Richard E Grant
for the role of Clements, the medical doctor
that Ripley eventually becomes intimate with,
however, producers preferred older thespian
Charles Dance.
A slate of predominately British thespians also
made up the supporting cast, including Paul
McGann, Brian Glover and Pete Postlethwaite
amongst them, while Lance Henriksen briefl y
returned to portray both Bishop and his human
creator. “I love David Fincher and thought he
was a brilliant young man but I felt ‘why revisit
something like that?’ I did it once – it’s enough,”
he recalls to SciFiNow. “But Walter Hall called
and said: ‘Go to England have a cup of tea and
a donut and come home. You’re going to be
playing Bishop 1 and 2.’”
H R Giger was also brought back to do some
redesigns for the returning xenomorph, most
of which regrettably didn’t come into fruition
or were cut from the theatrical release. This
included the infamous Ox-chest bambi-burster
scene, which was restored for the intriguing
2003 ‘Assembly Cut’. In fact, the entire
production was constantly adapting to new
material, with both the studio and producers at
loggerheads with a defi ant Fincher. Despite his
determination, Fincher’s vision was compromised
and signifi cantly scaled back due largely to
budgetary concerns, with scenes snipped
without his consent in the fi nal edit. Fincher
subsequently disowned the fi lm and to this day
rarely talks about it.
“I didn’t think it worked – I went to a lot of
trouble making the background charactersPrometheus explored
the backstory to Alien.