Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Movie Ever podcast.
My name is Ben Groves!
And my name is Rob McFarlane and welcome to the show, a movie podcast slash mental health
check-in for two broken brained best friends.
Broken!
Talking around their problems, but not about their problems.
Never!
We're laughing at movies.
But given that this is a thinly veiled mental health check-in, Ben, before we get to what
we're doing, how are you doing, babe?
How are you doing?
Oh, thank you very much, sir.
I am...
I'm doing good, man.
First off, fuck this heat.
It is a thousand degrees.
I hate every second of it.
I'm melting.
I look like I'm melting.
I feel like I'm melting.
Fuck this heat.
On that note, I just need to close my window and get even warmer because my neighbors are
doing a domestic violence.
And that'll be sad on the show, won't it?
Kind of.
I mean, we say some, we say some close shit.
I don't know what they're saying.
Are they cracking bangers?
What are they doing?
Is it like a proper domestic violence or is this just sort of like a, ah, fuck you.
You lost a tooth.
They're just moving a chest of drawers and, you know, and they've dropped it.
Good thing I closed the window.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, yeah.
No, the heat is intolerable.
I'm glad I closed my window and yeah.
In summation, fuck the heat.
Childish Gambino is a fucking wizard.
I haven't got time to get into that, but his new album broke my brain today.
And I don't know where my glasses are.
I've lost my glasses.
I need to read.
I can't read.
So this is the show.
How are you buddy?
My car continues to cause me issues.
I went out.
Fucking hell, what's going on now?
Well, I went out to get some milk, got my shopping.
Because canvas bags, you know, I care about the planet.
I keep my canvas bags in the boot and I wheel the trolley out to the car and I packed the
shopping in the boot.
Closed the boot, realized I've left my keys in the boot.
What?
That's my only way into the car and the dog's in the back.
So right.
So some nice, some nice police officers stopped by to get a sandwich.
I'm like, please, can you break my car window for me?
First off, that's the poshest trip to the thing.
I only use canvas bags and I accidentally left my car in my bags.
What fucking old woman shit is that?
Why do you have your car keys in your fucking canvas bags?
Pockets exist, buddy.
Pockets exist.
I had them in my pockets.
I opened my boot.
I put my keys down and I've got nine million bags for life because bag for life is to bag
for that shopping trip.
How much milk did you need?
A fair bit.
I'm the homelander of Dursley, mate.
Yeah, I was going to say, fuck it all.
What are we doing this week, Ben?
We need to move on.
This week, buddy, we are doing quite possibly the most important entry into the Alien franchise.
And we both agree on that fact, but for wildly different reasons.
Alien 3 or Alien Cube.
Because wherever I write it, it comes up with a little three, like cubed.
It's a little three.
Yeah, yeah, it's a little three.
It's Alien Cube.
This is my favorite Alien film by a wide margin.
Oh, God.
It is also the second worst Alien film by a wide margin.
It's like Alien and Aliens at 99th percentile.
This is 20th and then Alien Resurrections, you know, bottom of the heap.
At least it's a fucking story that hasn't been told twice.
I'm going to get into it.
Sorry, I'm going to get into it.
Sorry.
Get into it.
No, no, no.
But I have over researched, Ben.
And so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to use you like a mouth puppet.
And I've had to...
I've got such a long section that I've just given you prompts.
Because I don't want to spoil what I have to tell you.
I want you to hear this on air.
Buddy, you've been saying this to me for two fucking weeks now.
I've been desperate to record just to find out what this fucking FOMO is.
Because I've been doing nothing but sitting around being sort of like, well, this sounds
like a magical episode.
And then you were like, hey, I'm going to give you some words.
Can you just write a punch line with these words with zero context?
And I was like, sure.
Put it this way.
When Christopher Nolan met with one of his favorite directors, David Fincher, who directed
Alien cubed, Alien 3.
He did.
He was desperate to ask David Fincher about this film.
But Christopher Nolan was unwilling to bring it up.
He was too scared to talk to David Fincher about it.
Because David Fincher famously does not talk about this film.
I can't possibly guess why.
Can you imagine Christopher Nolan, the poshest director in the world, sat there going, I
just, I really want...
I can't.
I've directed Inception.
I've directed the Batman trilogy.
I've directed fucking cinema classics.
And I'm unwilling to bring this up to David Fincher.
I think that makes me like Chris Nolan a little bit more because I'm like, fair play.
That's respect.
Respect on Nolan's scarf.
You know what I mean?
In all fairness though, if we ever meet Fincher, it's the first thing that's coming out of
my mouth and it's going to irreparably damage any sort of potential relationship going forward
ever.
It's the first thing that's coming out.
Hi, my name's Ben Groves.
Alien 3?
Can we?
You will irreparably damage, probably more than this episode.
This episode will probably do it.
Oh yeah, this episode will bury us.
If David Fincher ever listens, yeah, yeah, right.
So we are talking development hell.
Poison chalices.
Bad CGI.
Worse people.
Ripley's ever-changing boss eye.
The abuse of power.
And God himself as told through romantic poet William Blake.
I fucking hate this already.
I'm sorry, I'm so, the rage bubble is actively, actively vibrated at the moment, right?
It's going to get better.
Also later in the show, we've got expert insight from Alien the 8th Passenger, our favorite
alien Instagram account.
Yeah buddy.
Love that guy.
Ben, this film cost $50 million to make.
That's outrageous.
They spent $50 million on this.
On what?
In 1992.
On what?
Where's the money?
Let me tell you, so little of that amount of money made it into the film.
Oh my fucking God.
Shocker.
Right.
This made just shy of $160 million, which-
How?
You get, no, no, no, no, Ben, that's a massive flop as far as the studio is concerned.
Oh sure.
Let me ask you this, adjusted for inflation, right?
It costs them.
So fuck 1992 money, today's money.
This film would have cost $120 million to make and would have made $380 million.
Oh okay.
All right, put it in that term.
Let me ask you this way, if June 3 came out and made $380 million-
Right, okay, yeah, I see your point.
$380 million total, devastating for June 3.
I guess this is the same thing, right?
Yeah, this is the same thing because back in the day when Alien Cubed came out, Aliens
was like one of the biggest franchises on the planet, right?
Anticipation was fucking huge.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Fuck man, okay, yeah.
Right?
It had been a long time since the last film, people were like fucking catting for this.
We're covering this because we're covering every Aliens movie ever in the main series.
Yes we are.
It's one of our favourite franchises.
It is.
This is my favourite film in the franchise.
That's outrageous.
I know it's not the best, but it is my favourite.
Outrageous.
This film, had you seen it before?
When we were texting, you were like, oh I hate this film, I hate Ron Perlman and I'm
like motherfucker, wash your mouth.
Hold on, let me clarify this.
You text me out of context and said, before you watch the film, because I know you haven't
seen it in a long time, what are you waiting for in this?
And I was like prison.
Ron Perlman in prison.
You were like that's Alien 4 and I was like, then I don't remember this film.
Right, right, okay.
I watched this when I was young and I remember having a very similar reaction to the reaction
that I had when I walked out of the cinema of episode one, Phantom Menace.
And I was furious because I was loving life in the Star Wars universe up until that point
and then I walked out and was like, well that's just punched my fucking childhood square
in the face.
Right.
Similar reaction to this, never watched it again.
Until now!
I did the opposite.
I watched it and it was, it took something I love and it destroyed it, but there was
something in the wreckage that I've not found anywhere else.
Trauma.
And it's only in the process of doing this episode that I've found your kink.
Why this is my favourite.
Okay.
Right?
Okay.
Well I'm interested to hear this one.
We're going to have a breakdown.
We are.
We're having a breakdown.
And you've written this week's breakdown where we go through the plot with a fucking tooth
comb.
I have.
So people know what we're talking about earlier.
There's spoilers.
All right.
There's spoilers.
This is the briefest one.
This is the spoiler warning.
But it's also from the nineties.
It's essentially 30 so much years old.
30 years.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Fuck you.
Go watch it.
It's been out forever.
If you're upset by the spoilers, it's on you.
Love you, but also grow up.
You know what I mean?
So it's your fault.
Here's a film I've not seen from 30 years ago.
Let me click on a podcast about it.
I'm sure they won't mention the plot.
Absolutely.
Egg on your face.
I've written this breakdown.
It is the briefest one that I've ever written.
I think it's also the most factually accurate one that I've ever written.
Also, I had to keep it brief because it made me angry type in the show.
Because after about 20 minutes, I'm like, this is 20 fucking minutes of my life on this
fucking film.
Again.
Are you ready?
Yes, please.
Part one, a gift from God.
Because she fell from the heavens.
Get it?
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Thanks.
After escaping the alien infested spaceship in aliens via automated escape pod, an unconscious
Ellen Ripley crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak and desolate prison planet inhabited
by male inmates with a self-sustaining religious community made up almost entirely of pedos
and rapists.
Take that Catholicism.
Wow, Rob.
That's a sharp take there.
Coming out of the gates hot there, buddy.
Ripley is the sole survivor of her escape pods crash, but unknown to her, an alien facehugger
has also made it to the planet.
As Ripley recuperates under the care of the prison's medical officer, Dr. Clemens, played
by Charles Dance, the prisoners become wary of her presence.
Part two, the mom alien.
Get it?
It's like mammalian, but mom really good.
Thanks, man.
I'm actually really happy with that.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Ripley discovers that the escape pod also contained an alien egg, which has unleashed
a deadly xenomorph dog type thing into the prison via a dead ox.
Because we watched the assembly cut, not the theatrical.
We'll get to that.
Yay.
The alien starts to kill the inmates one by one, spreading fear and chaos.
Ripley tries to convince the prison authorities and the inmates of the danger that they are
in, but they are initially skeptical because yet again, let's just write a bunch of fucking
male characters that don't listen to Ripley because woman.
Yeah.
As the body count rises, Ripley and the inmates do something we've never seen before.
They form a plan to seal off an area of the prison, just like in aliens, but this time
to trap and kill the alien.
Not quite the same as aliens, but it's fucking identical.
During this time, Ripley also learns that she carries an alien embryo within her.
Fuck you, right?
Implanted by a facehugger during her hyper sleep.
Ha.
Part three, going out with a bang, joke, joke, it's shite terminator.
Uh, Ripley learns that the Weyland-Yutani corporation wants the alien embryo inside her for their
bio weapons division.
Yes, just like the last two films, but somehow we're meant to be surprised at this point
for why.
What?
For the weapons division?
And is sending a rescue team knowing that they will not destroy the alien, but rather
exploit it.
Ripley decides to sacrifice herself to ensure the xenomorphs destruction.
In a climactic battle, the inmates managed to trap and kill the alien in a furnace.
As the rescue team arrives, Ripley throws herself into a vat of molten lead.
Like terminator?
Not like terminator.
No, no.
Oh yeah, my bad.
Killing herself and the alien queen embryo that she carries.
The movie ends with the already shut down prison being shut down and Ripley's voiceover
from her original flight recording playing over the scene, symbolizing her final rest.
So Ben, I was going to ask you what you thought of this film, but I'm beginning to get a sense
that it wasn't for you.
Right.
Okay.
The format of the show, we normally go through bit by bit and we have a little bit of a to
and fro each, but this one, this week, because you have prepped so much and I can visibly
see how fucking excited you are about this, I've changed the format a little bit.
I've constructed what I like to call Ben's hate sandwich.
Okay, nice.
Yeah.
And what I'm going to do is the bread of my hate sandwich is hate and rage.
And then the filling is delicious bubbly good stuff that I actually really fucking enjoyed
about alien three.
And then the last sliver of bread is bubbling hate and rage.
Okay.
No, that sounds delicious.
Let's get into that.
Let me take a bite.
Feed me.
I'm going to serve up your appetizer, right?
This is the aperitif of the show.
The rest of the show is you being excited.
Ready?
Order up, buddy.
I finally understand your issue.
When I bring a film to the table and you go, Ben, I didn't enjoy this because it's just
taking action figures and smashing them together.
I'm like, yes, Rob, that's the best thing about cinema.
It's fucking mint.
Yeah.
And then I watched alien three and I was like, Oh my God, I get it.
I get it.
I fucking get it.
Because what this film has done is it's watched alien and it's watched aliens and it's gone,
yeah.
Okay, I can fix the shit bits by taking out all of the good stuff and all of the law and
all of the fucking logic and just smashing the shit bits together and hoping something
sticks.
It's like throwing uncooked pasta at an Italian's wall with no warning.
It's borderline racist how fucking shit this film is.
It's fucking alien, right?
Alien.
No one listens to Ripley, even though she's the smartest fucking person in the room.
She knows exactly what she's going on about.
She's the only fucking survivor of that.
And this is all canon in the alien three universe.
She's the only fucking survivor of alien, right?
She's the fucking first person to live through that shit.
And then aliens, but she's not listened to at all.
Why?
Because woman and it's the seventies and you're almost like, okay, it's the seventies.
Bigotry was a thing.
That's fine.
Yeah.
It's not fine, but it's fine that that exists in that, that fucking part of the universe,
right?
It's the past.
It's a while ago.
It's a long, now Ripley's listened to.
What a fucking refreshing take.
It's 1980s now.
Yeah.
People are listening to women.
Let's fucking take a step forward and nice little social commentary.
What a lovely bit of fucking cheese, right?
But no, what aliens three has done is it's gone.
Yeah, but let's just suck off all that shit.
We're not listening to that fucking woman anymore.
Also, let's pepper in some extra bigotry.
Let's pepper that one in back in.
Don't feel like I had enough of that bullshit aliens.
They come up with a plan to trap the fucking thing.
We're going to seal off this area.
We're going to protect ourselves.
It's going to be sick.
Yeah.
Alien three.
We're going to do the exact fucking same thing.
Why?
Okay.
It didn't fucking work in either of those movies.
Anyway, sorry.
Sorry.
Hate bread.
Hate bread done.
That's the upper teeth.
Lovely.
Ready for the bubbly good stuff?
I'm ready for this.
This is the fillings.
Creamy filling.
This is the cream, the cream cheese, the creme de la creme buddy.
Moisten my mouth.
This film is one of the most gorgeous films you've learned.
I have ever seen in my entire fucking life.
I'm devastatingly beautifully bleak.
It is heartbreakingly beautiful.
It is fucking gorgeous.
It's like what I imagine a desolate post nuclear war cityscape would look like with about as
many inhabitants.
About as healthy as those inhabitants would be.
It's a planet built in the year 4,000.
In the year 5,000.
Yes.
That's exactly what it is.
And Fincher has fucking nailed it.
The cinematography, insane.
It's so unbelievably good, buddy.
I was off my chops for the first half an hour of this film.
I was like, everything is gorgeous.
The maggots and the little locusts that they call lice.
Sand fleas.
Disgusting.
That shit made my skin.
Covered the whole planet.
It was rank.
I was eating when I tried to watch this the first time.
Had to stop eating.
Noodles just gone to fucking waste because of weird little locust things.
I didn't realize were terrifying, but now I'm also have a phobia of.
Gorgeous.
Unbelievably good.
The acting, mate.
The acting.
Fuck me.
Charles Dance.
Holy fuck, man.
Yeah.
I'm giving Lannister on Game of Thrones for those people who aren't film nerds like us.
Bud, he's fucking insane.
This is him when he's 20 and fit.
He's fucking gorgeous and he's also, fuck me, mate.
He's just lovely.
Like, he knows that he's a bad person.
He's changing his ways, but he also takes no shit from anyone.
He's like, I'm doing what I need to do because I know it's the right thing to do.
Doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.
And you get all of that from his tone of voice.
Because he's a fucking min actor.
Literally.
It's insanely good how he does it.
Yeah.
Right.
I love the feeling, mate.
You ready for the dessert, buddy?
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, here's Hate Flan.
Ready?
What the fuck is the CGI in this film?
What is the CGI?
It's 1992.
It's not 1992 because we've got the fucking stuff.
We've got the stuff from Alien and Aliens.
And that shit was gorgeous.
It was incredible.
Yeah.
But I've got answers to all of this.
I know.
I know you have.
I need to get this out, though, because the rage bubble's here.
It's in my fucking throat.
I'm like a frog right now.
I'm just still fucking pulsating.
Tell me.
I'm just like, cough it up.
Come on.
The CGI, buddy.
It's like if Garfield was done live action in the 70s.
It's fucking rank.
It's so shit.
So unbelievably shit.
And it's just it ruins the entire thing for me.
It takes me so far out of it.
Not in a good way.
Not in a way where I'm watching like a creature feature and I'm like, when you're watching
them and a giant ant comes over a hill and you're like, well, that's fucking hilarious.
It's not that.
You're watching something that you know has already been done fantastically well.
It's worse than the Spawn live action.
Oh my God.
It's so much worse than Spawn.
The hate on this spread isn't as bad as the first one.
The first one, the lore and the logic of these fucking this universe just goes out the window
in this film.
No one gives a fuck about it.
No one cares.
I've got distinct explanations and rebuttals to that.
I want to hear all of them.
And we're going to get into it for just briefly.
It's not CGI.
That is a full puppet.
That is a full practical effect.
In what fucking universe does the practice.
How did you get it in the seventies looking better than it does in 1990?
That's ridiculous.
I'm going to tell you an incredible story, a story that I didn't know before I started
researching this episode.
Weave me in.
So each one of these movies has had some strong minded author creatives behind it.
Alien, you had Dan O'Bannon, I would say is the primary influence on that film.
Aliens, you had James Cameron.
But there were people involved in those films who didn't get the shine.
Producers David Guiler and Walter Hill worked on every one of those movies and they decided
this was their time to shine.
They were worried about where the franchise would go.
So they hired a very famous writer called William Gibson.
He wrote a book called Neuromancer.
It was one of the founding books of cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk wasn't a thing.
From this you got cyberpunk.
I know Neuromancer.
Right, exactly.
You're not a books guy, you know Neuromancer.
Books people, he's huge.
He's a titan.
Okay.
They got him to write the first script.
Okay.
He writes a script, but there's a writer's strike coming.
Right.
So they forced him to write a script in two months.
Wow.
Based on the treatment that they've put together.
William Gibson since come out and said that he was forced to write space commies, hijack
alien eggs and make a big problem in more world.
Space commies?
Yes.
Space commies.
Okay.
You ready for punchline number one?
Cause I'm guessing that that's the fucking...
Yeah, I gave you that as a prompt.
There you go.
So space commies is the prompt.
Is Bishop space JFK because he gets an ear injury.
Now hear me out.
There is a much more recent reference for that joke.
Uh huh.
But I don't think...
I might leave the podcast.
I don't think Jack Black will return my course if we, if we crack that one.
Yeah, fair.
It's there.
Yeah.
No one needs to touch it.
It's fine.
So in William Gibson's first script that he wrote based on Giler and Hill's treatment,
Hicks is the main character and this becomes important later.
Right.
Ripley is in a coma for the entire film and it's an action movie like aliens, not alien.
Right.
So coma patients, I'm guessing it's the second prompt here.
It is.
Yes.
Okay.
So coma patients was the second prompt.
The punchline I had written with zero context again.
Regretting this one.
The most coma patients, the most engaging characters to write into a rape allegory dot
dot dot too far.
And then I, in my mind, I thought that you would say Tarantino, but I've not communicated
this to you at all.
So why would you?
Okay.
Because you did it.
Thank you.
You killed Bill.
Exactly.
Someone needs to keep the Vaseline Empire afloat.
Oh my God, Ben.
Yeah.
See, you need to give me context in the future because now in the...
These are too strong.
In the context that you've given me, like post writing these, I'm getting, this is just
let's counsel Ben.
Yeah.
This is let's counsel Ben.
Fantastic.
So Michael Bean, Bane, Burn, Bane, Bane.
The actor who plays Hicks.
Yes.
He was on board to be the protagonist, right?
He was going to be your main guy in Alien 3.
Sounds great.
And they didn't know what they were going to do with Ripley, but because it was so action
focused and it was based around the U.S. Colonial Marine, they thought it was too similar to
what came before.
So they binned it off.
Oh, oh, they thought that was too similar.
Yeah.
Did they?
Yeah.
And they were like, now let's not do that because it's too similar.
Because Aliens is an action film.
We can't do that again.
We've got to do something that's not an action film because Aliens is one.
So they got Rennie Harlin, right?
Rennie Harlin, they didn't have a director.
Right.
They didn't have a director.
They haven't got a script, but they're like, fuck it.
Okay, sure.
Let's move on from not having a script.
Let's move on to the fact that we don't have a director.
Yeah.
So they hired Rennie Harlin, who had just directed Nightmare on Elm Street 4.
Nightmare on Elm Street 4 is the next prompt.
Nightmare on Elm Street 4.
Freddy's going to get you dot dot dot.
Eventually, also known as the unshakable determination of a pedophile.
This was quite late when you were writing, wasn't it?
It was very late.
It was like 2 a.m. and I was very tired.
But also, you had been texting me solid for about nine hours going, Ben, guess what I
found out?
Not telling you.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Good.
So Rennie Harlin's on board to direct, right?
Sure.
But he didn't want to do a retread of the earlier films.
He wanted to go to the alien home world and he had lots of ideas about the script, right?
He was like, we're going to go to the alien home world and see where they come from.
They were like, yeah, that's too expensive.
Fox won't give us the money.
Fire him off.
Right.
Okay.
But he did accept his recommendation for a writer.
Okay.
Eric Redd comes on the scene.
Eric Redd writes a script.
Okay.
Who wrote a script immediately killing all of the main characters.
And Alien 3 being an unrelated film in which aliens are found on a sort of ring world like
Elysium in Blomkamp's movie.
Sick.
So he just wanted to go full Halloween 3 and wipe them all out completely, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wiped them all out in the opening credits.
And then when it's going to be an earth like place, it's going to be like a halo world
where the astronaut lives and it's going to, we're back in more world, right?
So they binned Eric Redd off for that being too different to what came before.
Okay.
Right.
Now they've got no director, no writer again.
So they hired David Toohey.
Right.
And they go, look, we've got this William Gibson script with space commies in more world.
Can you punch that up?
Right.
And David Toohey goes on to make pitch black and all the Riddick movies.
Oh, ridiculous.
He hasn't made these yet.
So let's see how different from that future franchise, all of his ideas for alien three
were.
Right.
He sets it on a prison planet where there is a prisoner who sort of rise, right?
Studio wanted more Ripley.
Right.
So he writes Hicks out again.
Sure.
So now Michael Bean Bane, Boon Bane, actor who plays Hicks is fucking furious because
he's canceled his entire slate of upcoming films.
He's turned our millions of dollars worth of films and he's a low functioning alcoholic
at the time.
So his ability to deal with rejection is not great.
Oh fuck man.
That's rough.
That will come up later.
But Sigourney only agrees to come back to be an alien three if they sort the script
out because this story is dog shit.
She doesn't like this script at all.
Fucking hell.
And the film can feature no guns because she is a prominent anti-gun campaigner.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he gets writing on that, but they've still not gotten, they've still got no director.
So they approach Vincent Ward, who would go on to be Oscar nominated for Robin Williams
movie called What Dreams May Come.
Oh, heartfelt like romance movie about death.
Right.
Sure.
Get Robin Williams in to play the xenomorph.
This is another prompt by the way.
Goodwill hunt in xenomorph.
Like fusion world's best dad.
I don't know if you've seen that, but that could be played by xenomorph.
I mean, I was thinking you could have gone with the Aladdin genie.
Oh, that'd have been great.
The rub the lamp.
You rub the egg.
Your face comes out.
Yeah.
That's way better.
You should have just told me that.
That's way better than mine.
What the fuck?
Vincent Ward only agrees to direct if he can write his own script.
Right.
So they get him and a guy called John Fasano to write a script for Alien 3, but they don't
cancel David Tooey.
He's still writing an alien three script.
They've now got three people working on different scripts at the same time.
They get in touch with one another and they're furious.
I can imagine.
But they don't know which one's going to get bought.
So they keep working for being furious at Guiler and Hill.
And it's this script by Ward and Fasano that did the most to shape the film we got.
Okay.
Because the film was set on a wooden planet inhabited by nonviolent monks.
Okay.
And Ripley spends the entire film trying to kill herself, but they don't believe in suicide.
Fucking hell.
Right?
Studio wades in and says Ripley has to live.
She is our protagonist.
She is our star.
Sigourney Weaver says she won't come back if Ripley doesn't die.
Eh?
I won't return for Alien 4 unless Ripley is dead.
No, I won't return for Alien 3.
I won't be in this film unless you kill me at the end.
That makes sense.
That makes much more sense.
So the studio is telling these writers, Ripley, she survives.
Sigourney Weaver, I must die.
I must die or I'm not doing it.
Fucking hell, man.
They just figure out, you know, they just, we'll kick that problem down the road.
It's a thousand degrees right now and this is making me like anxiety sweat.
Like I'm getting fucking twitchy just hearing this.
So Fox go above Walter and Guila.
And they hire Larry Ferguson, who's just written Beverly Hills Cop 2, to write a 14th script.
When I say 14th script, that's not hyperbole.
That's how many scripts have been turned in for this film at this point.
Jesus Christ.
Right?
Jesus Christ.
That gets immediately rejected by Sigourney Weaver and Guila and Hill and the studio.
Right.
Because they're like, it's awful.
They wrote, she wrote Ripley like a bitch.
It was a comedy.
It was fucking awful.
Alien comedy.
Yes.
We've had horror sci-fi.
We've had horror, we've had sci-fi action.
Get fucking Eddie Murphy in on it.
You know what I mean?
Let's go.
Guila and Hill at this point are sick of fucking about.
So they go, problem with hiring all these genius directors who've got incredible careers
and have done stuff that's Oscar nominated or done stuff that's widely regarded as brilliant.
They've all got opinions and they're not listening to us enough.
So we're going to hire someone with no fucking track record, a young unknown, who will just
do what we tell him because he's grateful to have a shot.
So on the day he was hired, David Fincher had no feature films, had only done commercials
and music videos.
Okay.
He had no script.
He had no shooting schedule.
They had built half the sets for locations that they didn't even know if they wanted.
Oh my God.
And there was 11 months until the premiere of the film because they'd already released
a teaser trailer two years prior and wasted all the time.
Oh my fucking God.
He asked for 93 days of principal photography.
They denied him and gave him 70.
Holy shit.
Dude, right.
Sweats.
This is just pure stress.
This is fever dream right now.
It's his first film ever.
Fucking hell.
Right now.
Fuck.
He said later on, he said later on that he was interviewed and they said, you know, there's
a film you don't talk about.
He said, a lot of people hated Alien 3, but no one hated it more than I did.
It was a baptism by fire for a number of years.
I'd been around the kind of people who finance movies and the kind of people who were there
to make the deals for movie.
And I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make the movie as good as they can,
which is stupid.
So I learned on this movie that nobody really knows.
Therefore, no one has to care.
So it's always going to be your fault.
Right?
Surely you don't want to have the 20th century Fox logo on a shitty movie.
And they were like, well, as long as it opens.
Wow.
Fuck those guys, man.
Holy shit.
Sigourney was like, I had to start working on this picture.
We had no script.
We had no director.
And at the best of times, working on a film can be a nightmare.
They used his assistant as a spy.
They worked against him.
They undermined him.
He handed in, he hated the script.
Okay.
And his assistant, Bob Shock, her husband was a writer.
Right.
And she was like, look, I can see how much this movie is going to cost.
I can see how much this is affecting you.
He's willing to come in, punch the script up, do it for free.
He's like, fucking get him in.
Right?
Yeah.
Did some revisions to the script.
Walter Hill and David Guiler come back off holiday.
Okay.
Turn up to set and get megaphones out and get everyone to bring the script revisions
to the middle of the set so they can shred them in front of everybody and go, this is
our picture.
Rex Pickett, by the way, who is the man who punched that script up.
Yeah.
Barbara Shock's husband, who did the script revisions, wrote Sideways starring Paul Giamatti
a few years later.
Oh, leave shit.
Barbara Shock, who was at that time David Pervinche's assistant, won an Academy Award
for short film directing.
Fucking hell, man.
Yeah.
Bro, this is just cutting your nose off despite fucking everyone.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You're bound to shred the fucking reworks.
Revisions, yeah.
That is awful.
That's awful.
Yeah.
Can you imagine being the person that put in all that fucking work for free to just
watch it get publicly shredded?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bro.
David Fincher said, I had to work on this film for two years.
I got fired off it three times and I had to fight for every single thing.
Mate, as your first experience, it's not great.
He never finished this film.
Okay.
What happened was, is they knew that there were parts of the film missing.
They were filming as they went, they were writing script as they went, they were working
on effects as they went.
The reason the CGI is so ropey is because it's not CGI.
It's a mechanical puppet.
David Fincher got his start working at Industrial Light and Magic before he started becoming
a music and commercials director.
This film was the first instance where someone tracked exactly the movement of the camera
so that the effect house later could recreate the camera pans and sweeps and sways and track
a puppet on the same angles.
The alien in this is always a puppet and it looks incredible.
What doesn't look incredible.
Does it?
No, the puppet looks incredible.
Okay.
Doesn't look incredible is the big fucking outline around it because again, 11 months.
The lime green outline that just appears around it to make it look like a fucking coloring
book.
Because the compositing had to happen in weeks.
They didn't know what shots were in the film because David Fincher walked off.
He never completed a version of this film.
So who, how, what, how did this fucking get released?
How did they not just go, you know what, we need a year.
We just need one year.
They were filming in Pinewood and he said, look, we just need a year.
We need some more money.
They were like, tell you what, come back to LA, edit a cut of the film together.
And then you'll know what's missing.
Right.
Know what you need.
Right.
And then as he was editing it, it became apparent they were not going to give him more time.
Right.
What he had in the can was what he had and he ended up walking off the picture.
So there are two versions of this film.
There is a theatrical release, which I have on VHS and he does not want his name anywhere
near that.
He's like, it's nothing that I would have done.
Okay.
And then there's the version that I sent you and that we watched the assembly cut, which
is a version of his work in progress.
Right.
Okay.
Minus reshoots that he was planning to do, rewrites that he was planning to do, edits
that he was planning to do.
It was aware he was up to then.
Right.
Okay.
Before he eventually went, do you know what?
Fuck it.
And he spent three years back in the commercial and music video minds, confident that his
career was over until eventually he found the script for Seven, which was his second
film.
Okay.
Well, I understand.
Okay.
This is kind of like a fucking genius origin story.
Right.
One of the greatest directors that has existed.
Right.
Ever.
Right.
So he goes from Alien 3 having his shit pushed in at every opportunity by the studio, by
the producers, by fucking anyone and everyone that had a mouth and was like a hand in the
movie.
Right.
And then disappears for three years making music videos and commercials and then just
fucking comes out of the gate swinging.
Yeah.
With Seven.
Because with Seven, that script got turned down again and again and again and they were
trying to make it lighter and they were trying to make it lighter.
They were trying to make it more, you know, acceptable.
Okay.
Charles Dart.
Yeah.
Everybody on that picture was like David Fincher was incredible.
He was pulling like the longest days.
He was just bashing his face against this going, I'm going to make it work.
I'm going to make it work.
Okay.
And they bullied him off the picture until eventually he just went, no.
And here's the thing.
Here's where I think he was aiming for.
Right.
Okay.
Based on everything I've read about the script revisions.
Okay.
So we go back to monk planet, right?
Okay.
The idea of non-violent monks in a wooden environment, which is kind of carried on by these prisoners.
Sure.
Living this Catholic monastic life in a very old, bearing in mind the setting of this film
to the characters is medieval.
Sure.
We are looking at a future version of a cast.
Yeah.
Okay.
I see.
And they're all super, super Catholic in their thoughts.
You know, it's about redemption.
It's about finding forgiveness at the end.
Okay.
Kind of.
Again, I don't think, I don't think Fincher managed to get this in the film, but in alien
one, it's what is the alien?
Oh, it's male rape.
It's being penetrated.
It's this and the other.
In alien two, it's the social danger.
Then people over there are mindless and they're going to destroy our good live in nuclear
family.
So David Fincher is going, right, how are we ending this?
And I think he just goes literally and goes, the alien is a vengeful, angry God.
The prisoners are there waiting for their angry God, their redemption.
We're all waiting for the day that our God comes and redeems us.
Sure.
Right.
And two things fall from the sky in alien three.
You've got the dragon, the destroyer, and you've got a caring...
Oh my God.
...recepting, forgiving person, right?
It's a cosmic, unknowable, spiritual, religious horror.
Paul McCann, the character who played Gollick, he goes out on the expedition, the two guys
get killed and he gets literally baptized in blood.
Oh my God, he does.
And sent back as the prophet of the coming Lord.
Bishop is Lazarus, risen from the dead.
Oh my dude.
Fucking Bishop showed up in this.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Charles Dance confesses just before he's made forgiven and taken by the angry God.
He expresses his sins.
That's actually incredible.
And then they've all got shaved heads, that idea of Ripley as a cancer patient and the
alien as a tumor and the company wanting to use this angry God as a weapon.
And she falls, arms open like Jesus, back into the fire, dying so that we might all
live.
This is all fantastic.
And said the way that you've just said it is amazing.
Unfortunately...
It's not there.
It's not that.
It's nowhere fucking near that.
What it is, it's one thumbs up away from a shitty Terminator ripoff ending.
They both come out very similar time.
So Alien is being made for years and part of the changes in the theatrical cut is that
when she falls backwards, the alien queen thing bursts out of her chest and it looks
ropey.
It looks mega ropey.
And the guys that did it are like, we were ashamed, but we were given a week to do it
and we had to do it because Terminator 2 had come out and Skylar and Hill were shitting
themselves that they had the same ending as us.
So everybody making the film knew about Terminator 2 about a week before the film was finished.
Oh my God.
Okay.
Fair.
The one thing I will say about the end of this film that infuriated me beyond belief
is when Ripley was desperate to kill herself and was like, I'm going to sacrifice myself
so that you can live to this hate-filled murderer rapist.
And he's like the preacher of the prison.
And when she's like, I'm going to stay in this pit that is about to be filled of boiling
lead and I'm going to die with the alien and I was like, that is a poetic, poetic send
off for the person that's been face to face with this evil for three decades now.
Right?
He's like, nah, off you fuck, go on.
Now you're in God's hands now.
And then he dies in the pit of lead, which she then fucking kills herself in anyway,
but it's all done for a bit of bump so we can get a glimpse at Bishop, which I'm not
mad about.
It's almost like they didn't know how to end this movie because the star was adamant that
she had to die.
The producers were adamant that she had to live and no one knew how to finish it because
there wasn't a script.
I fucking hate how confused this bullshit is at the end though.
It would have been a good ending and it would have almost saved the complete lack of respect
for the previous films.
It would have almost justified it if I was like, oh, that's a good send off.
That's a good send off.
Being buried in molten lead?
Yes.
Right.
You want to find out that the xenomorph can somehow survive the molten lead?
Fuck yes.
That's a great send off for Ripley.
It is.
No.
It is.
And I think that's what Fincher was trying to get to.
I think it's the idea of religion and belief and the xenomorph being like a beast or a dragon,
red dragon with Ed Norton and Ray Fiennes, where he's got the big tattoo on his back and
it's the devil, right?
It's religious judgment.
It's the Hannibal Lecter trilogy, right?
I think it's that.
He's trying to create the alien being existential, cosmic, religious reverence, right?
When Gollick, the Paul McGann character, lets the alien out and is like, tell me what to
do next.
Oh.
And the god just fucking kills him.
You know, he's trying to, he's converted.
He now believe this is his god.
Fuck man.
The reason I think it's the perfect, that nearly made version is the perfect ending.
It's because alien one is the heroism of surviving.
You saved yourself.
Yeah.
Alien two, aliens is sacrificing to save others, innocent others.
Okay.
And alien three is heroism by sacrificing yourself to save guilty others.
Ooh, that's fucking gnarly.
Are you going to survive for yourself?
Are you going to survive for the innocent?
Okay, if you're willing to do that, then sacrifice yourself for the guilty.
So she would have killed herself.
She would have sacrificed herself for their sins.
Yes.
Ooh, that's fucking tasty.
She's killing herself.
Fuck yeah man.
So us horrible lot of murderers, pedos and rapists don't get killed by the alien.
Bro, that's a fucking great movie.
It's a fucking crying shame that we didn't get it.
Right.
Crying shame that we didn't get it.
She loses everything in alien three and all she has left are her principles and she stands
by them.
And they say, we can fix this.
We can, she goes, no, my pain is my own.
My loss is my own and it is not for sale.
Awesome.
That's fucking perfect.
And I love that you've taken me on this journey.
I really do.
It's, it's filled me with a new found respect for Fincher.
I had enormous like buckets of it for him already, but this film, I was watching it
and I was like, I can see where he is.
Yeah.
I don't see where he is with this.
I can see his influences.
I can see his like hand in the works.
I don't know why, but I can see it.
But I do have one question to build on your very sort of philosophical deep insight into
this film.
Yeah.
Um, why does the xenomorph being born out of an ox clear up Ripley's ever deteriorating
boss eye?
So there's two, there's two things here.
How does that happen?
What Fincher is doing or what Fincher was going to do if he'd been allowed to finish
the film.
Is that as, as new is being cut open and you're confronting the death of something that you
love, you're witnessing the birth of something you hate.
Oh, that's quite cool.
The monster is born with every, in every seed is new life.
Yeah.
The idea that the things that you love will die.
Got you.
Everything will die.
How are you going to meet that death?
Okay.
So you're working it in with Ripley being sick because she's been kicked out of hyper
sleep and so she's not going to necessarily notice that she's got the seed inside her.
Right?
Okay.
Bit difficult to keep track of what scene the contact lens is supposed to be in when
you don't know what order the film is in yet.
Okay.
So I think what you're saying is, is that with Fincher making one movie and the producers
thinking another, they don't want that movie.
They don't want you criticizing the Catholic church and saying everything dies.
Yeah, of course not.
Welcome to our lovely blockbuster.
Everything you love will die.
Yeah.
So you've got Fincher making that film and you've got the producers wanting to make another
film.
So you've got these two camps sort of going off and making the same film simultaneously.
Yeah.
Sigourney Weaver is an executive producer on this production.
So what her, what you're saying is, is that she had one eye on Fincher's film.
Yes.
One eye on the production that the producers wanted.
For the first 25 minutes of the film, it was uncertain which way it was going to go.
But then an alien was born and she was like, oh, I can't know what film I'm in now.
And a fucking eyeball.
She didn't have to look at two films anymore.
She knew it was the shit one.
She was like, well, fuck it.
We know, we know.
Sounds.
Now an interesting side effect.
And I brought him up earlier.
Michael Bean, Bane Boon, Bane Boon, who played Hicks.
Yeah.
Nailed it.
Got paid more for this film than he got paid for Aliens.
How?
So they blue balled him.
Of course.
And then they spent a lot of time and a lot of money on the prosthetic of his corpse that
was going to have a chest burst or injury.
Okay.
And he finds out about this and he goes, that's my fucking face.
And you're, I'm not in this film.
You can't use it.
And they don't know what they need or don't need because they don't have a script.
So they're like, we might really fucking need this.
Oh.
And they start playing, they start playing ball and he starts getting that figure up
and up and up and eventually says, the only thing that you can use, you can use one photo
of me and it's going to cost you this much.
And they fucking pay it because they don't know if they need it or not.
That is fucking incredible.
If I've ever heard a success story from a low functioning alcoholic, it's that.
Just kicking up shit for the sake of kicking up shit.
No, you can't use my face.
Oh, 20 million.
Yeah.
Fine.
We'll pay it.
Fine.
25, but for one picture.
And they're like, fuck it.
We don't know if we need it.
Yeah.
Take it.
Who cares?
And if you need any more confirmation that Guyler and Hill are cocks, they always say
that they were instrumental in the success of aliens because they wrote the original
talk.
Oh, they wrote the original treatment that they gave to James Cameron, right?
Fucking hell.
Do you want to hear James Cameron's version of what that treatment said?
Yeah.
James Cameron's summation of their treatment for aliens.
OK.
James Cameron says that outline said something like, Ripley gets rescued and goes back to
the planet with a bunch of soldiers.
They are attacked and eaten.
That was pretty much it.
Except that, and I'll never forget this, I'll never forget this, the outline concluded with
the sentence, and then some other bullshit happens.
Wow.
Which I thought trivialized the entire process of actually figuring out what the story should
be.
Dude, fuck these guys, man.
They have no respect for the franchise.
They don't care about you or whether you're a fan of this franchise.
One of Fincher's first writing meetings, one of the many directors that they went through,
one of their first writing meetings was an hour long.
And Guyler and Hill spent 45 minutes of that talking about how good the prostitutes were
abroad on the holiday that they'd just been on.
How much they would do anything.
My life.
That's fucking stupid.
It makes me so angry to think that, obviously we've invested so much time into this series
already.
Obviously, aliens are a big part of our fucking lives now, right?
Huge.
They are the template of what sci-fi should be to me.
Exactly.
And these guys are cashing in on that bullshit to fuck hookers around Europe when they're
abroad.
Are you taking the piss?
That's all they care about.
Fuck them.
David, our big problem with Alien 3 is that we didn't set out to make a movie.
We set out to make a release date and then forgot that we had more work to do.
Dickheads.
Absolute dickheads.
The silver lining is that this is the birth of David Fincher.
He busts out of the chest of this franchise.
Yeah, he does.
And you said you could see what Fincher was trying to do.
You weren't the only one.
Christopher Nolan said, I came out of that film and I had a conversation with a guy and
I said, I've just seen the new Ridley Scott.
I know who the new Ridley Scott is.
It's David Fincher.
And I wasn't wrong.
It is there in the movie, whether Fincher sees it or not.
It is there in the film.
It 1000% is there.
And the potential, it's dripping with this undeniable fucking dirty underbelly.
Gorgeous.
Ominous.
Creeping dread.
Dread.
It's just, it's grey.
It's miserable.
It's dark.
It's dank.
It's horrible.
But you're in it.
And only like Fincher has this fucking amazing talent of not just showing you a place and
going, Oh, isn't this a bit fucking dank and weird?
He's just sort of like, Hey, welcome to my world.
And then you're in and then you're like, Oh fuck, I live here now.
I live here now and I don't know how long I'm here for.
This is fucking horrible.
He's incredible.
I consider like the sets.
He didn't decide where the story was happening because when he turned up, they were built
and they are beautiful.
That end scene in the lead works, that's a practical set.
They built that.
Wow.
Okay.
And he's just like, right, okay, well I will just have this happen here.
And okay, we've got this other space.
I can have this happen here and just wrote the story around what he had.
He's a fucking genius for this movie, but it is unfortunately because of all of the
circumstances that are in this episode, it's never going to be more than just a beautiful
miscarriage.
You look at it and you go, Oh my God, you just go, that's way worse than my punchlines.
That's way worse.
But it's mine's accurate.
It's an accurate summation of what this film is.
It's a fucking shame.
Like I don't, I don't hold any ill feelings towards Fincher for this.
I don't blame Fincher at all for this film.
Not in, not in the slightest.
I feel like he did the absolute, I feel like he did better than anyone else could have
in the situation that he was in and fucking fair play to him for doing so.
Right.
And fair play for sticking out as long as he did.
I'm wanting to get something out of it because like after the story you told me, I'm getting
anxiety sweats.
I would have walked immediately.
I'd have been like, what the fuck is this?
I'd have been gone.
It's a fair play to him.
It's incredible.
I do however, despise the story.
I think the lore in it is fucking nonsensical.
I hate that they're rehashing the fucking most cliche, bullshitty bits from the first
two films and passing it off like it's something new.
It's a bit, it's a fucking alien pastiche.
It's a pastiche.
It is a pastiche.
It stands for it.
Here we go.
I'm learning.
There you go.
Self improvement bitch.
Just quickly.
I think it's time we let our good friend alien, the eighth passenger, uh, yeah, let's hear
what he's got to say.
It's a Scrum account by the way.
Fuck you love this person.
If you want to see more from this guy, literally just search on Insta alien, the eighth passenger.
They'll come up.
Their content.
If you like aliens is second to none.
Yeah.
And if you love alien three, fuck you.
Right.
Here we go.
Ask the expert.
There's a jingle.
I made it.
Listen to the jingle.
It's got a hell raiser quote in it.
I knew you'd love it.
From hell raiser four bloodlines.
Oh, fuck you buddy.
Fuck you for that one.
Is that from, is that from fucking bloodlines?
I hate this episode.
So I download the torrent of it.
Let's listen to, uh, let's listen to our buddy.
I wasn't asking you car duty.
I was asking the expert.
This is the first movie in the saga that really splits fans opinions.
Remember the first two movies hardly have haters, but the alien three stood up a lot
of discontent by killing off beloved characters from aliens, changing the script many times,
running into production issues and featuring questionable special effects.
Though to be fair, it does use more practical effects than digital ones.
What is true is that alien three has its own unique style, different from the previous
films.
And it's undoubtedly the darkest of the trilogy.
It creates an atmosphere of despair, but also one of redemption due to its religious
undertones.
You see a much more mature and human really aware of her imminent fate and through her
sacrifice she brings a definitive closure of her arc.
Well, maybe not.
Still alien three is definitely a significant contribution to the saga.
Did you know there is an early trailer of the movie that announces the story takes place
on earth.
This happened because the movie started being promoted without even having a finished script.
Later on they decided to change the setting to a penitentiary in a space colony.
Okay, so that was the teaser trailer.
Okay.
Like aliens on earth with a release date and they were like, yeah, Finch, you got 11 months.
Oh my God.
Can I just quickly mention as well, this guy's voice, this guy's accent is fucking chocolate
velvet.
Oh my God.
Szechial butter, right?
I could listen to this guy talk all fucking day long, release an audio book.
I will buy it.
So before we get to the writing, which I don't think is any mystery, got comment corner.
We've got, but we've got a bit of room now.
Okay.
And before we tell people are definitive nail in the coffin summation of alien three, I'm
I want to know how you really are.
I'm actually doing really good, man.
Yeah.
So I'm not, I'm okay.
I'm not really good, but I'm not really bad.
You can be, you know, it's allowed to be, you're allowed to be really good.
A thousand percent.
But do you remember like a couple months back, maybe three months back, I was saying I'm aiming
for beige days.
Yeah.
I want days to be normal so that when a good day rolls around, it's a fucking good day.
And when a bad day rolls around, it's a fucking bad day, but I can, I can tell the difference
and I can navigate the landscape comfortably.
Right.
I've acclimatized and I've been having good days and I've been having bad days, but they're
not world ended anymore.
And they're not make or break great days anymore.
It's just, I feel like I'm there.
I'm, I'm, I'm sort of leveling out and it's a weird feeling because it's fucking boring
to get here.
Yeah.
Not going to lie to you.
This is like going sober all over again.
Do you know what the most fun thing in the world to do is get absolutely shit faced,
get off your tits on a couple rails of cocaine and run around making life ending decisions.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like make huge impulsive life changing decisions on the fly.
Yeah.
Super fun because you wake up with a ton of stories to tell.
And a new bookshelf that you built out of some ladders and, and, and some planks.
Exactly.
You don't even remember making.
You're like, Oh, that looks mint.
I can't touch it.
It will fall down.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Don't even look at it.
Okay.
But you've also got now, now you've got shit to sort out and it gives you, it gives you
an almost like purpose.
And this is the mission.
Yes.
That's it.
Whereas now the mission is I'm going to get home from work.
I'm going to have a nice little bath.
I'm going to walk the dog.
I'm going to do a bit of editing.
I'm going to watch your film.
I'm going to have a nice little.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a hard thing to do.
It's shitty, weird, boring.
It's fucking boring.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm exactly the same boat.
I'm well, I'm further back than you because you're further ahead in your, in your sort
of trauma recovery process in a lot of ways.
I was fine with poverty.
I think going from the big income, the nice income, the exciting income.
Oh yeah.
The fun.
Yeah, I was like, I was, I was proud of myself for not caring about all the things that I
lost when I lost that income.
Yeah.
And it was naivety.
It was naivety because what I thought I'd lost was nights out takeaways and fancy new
gadgets, nice clothes, nice shoes.
I was like, I don't, I'm so proud of myself for not needing that shit.
I'm fine with that.
I don't need that shit.
It's not what I lost.
What I actually lost was any expedience in achieving what I needed.
If I need a thing now, it takes a year.
Yes.
It used to take three months.
Yes.
That I'm really struggling with.
It's a fucking sharp curve.
Right.
My car blew up.
I had to smash a window to get my dog out.
Both of those things cost money.
That set me back three months and it was 200 quid.
Yeah, dude.
Honestly, I used to spend that in a night.
I completely understand where you're coming from, man.
The big fun income is fantastic.
Yeah.
And you get to the big fun income and you get six, nine, 12 months into the big fun
income and you're like, I'm going out with two mates.
How much do I need for a night out?
I'm going to take 400 cash and I'll leave 600 in the account just in case no one can
get around it.
You know what I mean?
We're having fun at 10 o'clock and we want to put another fucking...
Bring into a dealer.
... new songs on the jukebox.
You know what I mean?
If we need to pop an order in and grab a couple more bags, why not?
We got it there.
We're good to go.
And that was fine.
And now my budget is 10 pounds a day and 8 pounds 50 of that goes to the boardroom cafe
every day.
It literally goes on a coffee and a sandwich.
You know what I mean?
I'm fond of a bad analogy.
I had a lovely sports car and when I lost it, I was like, that's fine.
I don't miss the leather seats.
I don't miss the six sound system.
I don't miss the GPS.
I don't miss the Neons.
And then I was like, shit, I need to walk.
Yeah.
I thought this was going to be a very personal insult towards me.
No, no, no, no.
I thought you were going to go, yeah, I don't miss the fancy fucking convertible Mercedes
and all this bullshit.
I'm fine in a Ford Fiesta from 2009.
I've got a 2004 Ford Focus.
Wow, buddy.
We are partying.
She's got a CD player and a radio.
You've got a fucking CD player.
All right, fancy pants.
You want to calm the fuck down?
No, I've got a CD player, player, player, but I don't want to talk about it anymore.
What are you rating Alien 3?
Everything that just happened there.
That's going to affect my rating.
Come on, that was good.
That was good.
It was great.
I haven't thought about it.
It's minus one now.
We don't do minus figures.
It doesn't lose a point.
I'm not in minus figures.
It's going to be, I hate this film.
I hate this film with a burning passion.
I've watched it four fucking times for this episode because I watched it the first time.
It made no sense and I was just yelling.
I couldn't make notes because I was just fucking ham fisted the entire time.
White knuckle rage.
The second time through, I started paying attention and was like, I fucking hate what
they're doing to the story.
Third time through, I was like, you know what?
It's kind of beautiful.
There's a lot of pretty shit going on.
And that fucking stupid dog alien with the green outline started running around and I
was like, fuck off.
And I'm immediately back to angry.
So the last time I watched it through, I was like, okay, I need to do positives.
I need to try and focus on the positives because otherwise I'm just going to end up like a
weird, angry, bellend, just yelling at nothing.
I'm going to be like the old man on the street.
I know your mom.
You know what I mean?
I couldn't deal with that.
I'm only 35.
I'm not there yet.
I'm going to give it a four.
Wow.
I think Fincher, what he's done with it, he's Fincher's vision of it.
You can see in the cinematography, you can see in the way the story is told visually
and the way the actors are directed in the way that they deliver it.
Fucking Charles Dance.
A revelation.
Hands down.
How the fuck that guy didn't get some sort of award for this film.
I know why, because it's a piece of shit.
No one ever watched it.
But anyway, yeah.
What are you rating it?
I know this is a bad film.
I know it is.
Oh, this is going to be upsetting.
This is going to damage our friendship.
It's not.
Okay.
I can't help but see that the central allegory, the central theme of this film is that there
are people who are so done with themselves.
They are so filled with guilt and self-incrimination that the idea of a xenomorph crash landing
on their planet is akin to God.
Right.
It's something that will take me away from me.
Yeah.
And somebody coming along and going, no, it's okay.
Because I'm as bad as you are and I'm going to save you from yourself.
I just find, I find the idea of-
Are you a religious man, Rob?
Not at all.
I mean, I know the story has been used before.
Do you know what I mean?
I know there's probably a book with that vague plot line in it, right?
It's been around a little while.
But God isn't a xenomorph in that one.
And I feel like they're missing the trick.
They did.
They missed a trick by not making God a alien.
If I went into a Catholic church and the east window was a face hugger coming at me, I'd
get on my knees.
All right.
So yeah, same to be fair.
Same.
Fair.
If it was Sigourney Weaver in the white and blue robe with a little baby xenomorph in
her, cradled in her arms.
Yes.
Fuck yeah, man.
Right?
Momalian.
Right.
Thank you.
Momalian.
Fuck yeah.
So it's something about my love for Alien 1 and 2, the afterglow of that being wrapped
up in that mythology, I love.
Okay.
But it is a beautiful miscarriage and therefore it's at best a 6.
Okay.
That's not as bad as I expected.
That's not as bad as I...
I legitimately thought you were going to come in with about like an 8, maybe a 9.
It's my favourite Alien film and it's the worst one if resurrections didn't happen.
I love that 6 is the worst one for you in the Alien franchise.
That's, that's, that's genuinely picked me up a little bit.
That makes me...
You know what?
Fuck it.
Five.
Yeah.
It gains its point back.
There you go.
I think we've just got time to comment corner.
Got one here from TikTok on one of our aliens reels.
It's from Meh and they were replying to their own comment.
So it's from Meh to Meh.
They replied to themselves saying, I watched aliens a few, few years ago.
It's a bit fucking George Lucas, you know, I appreciate the cinematic sort of reference
there.
I watched aliens a few...
Can you edit in the, the star Wars sort of like, you know, when the screen scrolling
things man.
Not happening.
I watched aliens a few, few years ago.
Please do.
After I saw every video game slash film ripping the look off.
So it felt like any other action movie for me.
I'm sorry, James Cameron.
I can't connect with your movies and let me just tell you Meh, the world is holding its
breath for the response from James Cameron on this one.
We've reached out for comment.
Unfortunately he's not answered my voicemails yet.
I'm also not sure, 80% sure that it's not his phone number and it might just be a man
called James.
I think we, I think we send James Cameron that comment and just go pitch for you James
Cameron Meh comments on a TikTok video, criticizes your film and then some other bullshit happens.
And maybe we'll get a cinematic masterpiece like we did with aliens.
I'll tell you what I want to say.
That seems to be the magic words for James Cameron.
Yeah, that's going to be incredible.
Okay.
I've just Googled James Cameron email address and James dot Cameron at Gmail has come up.
So I'm going to quickly send these guys an email just to see what he comes back saying.
We've actually doing this.
This is going to take longer than we have.
We're like over time and you're writing emails.
Bro, I haven't got my glasses on.
I can't see shit.
This is just going to be a jumble of just punched letters.
I'm sending to a stranger that I found on Google.
We used to wake up to find we'd send emails.
Yeah.
I used to leave notes to myself like this all the time.
Dear Ben, I'm sorry I hurt your liver.
I love Ben, but it was just scribbled in like crayon or ash.
You know what I mean?
I once got fucked up and applied for a job at Apple.
All I did was I attached a PDF copy of the entire script of the film hackers.
Incredible.
That's the best fucking thing.
Right.
I've sent that email.
Fantastic.
And we'll tune in next week to see what James Cameron says about the film pitch of the MET
trajectory.
I don't know how to.
It's a working title.
Some other bullshit happens.
That sadly is all the time we have this week.
Oh no guys.
We fucking love each and every one of you so much.
It's unbelievable.
Truly, truly do.
You make our days, you make our weeks, you make our fucking lives, you validate our existences.
We love this time that we spend with you.
Please keep reaching out.
Join the fucking discord.
Come and hang out with some of the coolest people that we've ever met in our entire lives.
There's tons of bonus shit in there.
We just post shit in there because where else are we going to post it?
Patreon.
We're not savvy enough for that bullshit.
There is full episodes in there that we're just not releasing.
Why?
Don't know.
I know why.
Same.
Let's brush over it.
Ben is now going to wrap up the thoughts, themes and subtext of this movie to thank you for
spending an hour every week with us.
We know a lot of you listen on a Monday and that means the world to us.
You've changed my outro on this, by the way.
I had this planned out and I was going to be hilarious.
I was going to build it up.
I was going to do this whole, buddy, I've got this whole thing planned out.
I'm going to say exactly what Alien 3 says to the audience.
And then when you were doing it, I was just going to stay fucking silent for the entire
thing until you had to stop because you were out of breath and I was going to go bullshit.
That was going to be it.
But because I've seen how passionate you are about this and how much you've enjoyed yourself
and I fucking enjoyed myself hearing everything that you've been saying that you've taught
me about this film.
That's incredible.
Thank you for that.
Very well.
It's changed my entire out.
All right.
You ready?
It's changed it.
I'm going to just tell the audience to consume.
Okay.
So hear me out.
Fincher, I was getting his shit pushed in left, right and center by fucking anyone that
had a finger in this pie.
You know, I mean, they were like, director, are we buddy?
You've done a fucking MTV music video.
Shut up.
Here's the thumb.
And you know what he did?
He worked his dick off.
He worked his absolute dick off and he got some nuggets of joy in there.
Even me.
I hated this fucking film with a burning passion.
I still got some joy out of this.
So it doesn't matter what you're working on.
It doesn't matter how fucking how little you think of what the contribution is that you're
making.
I'm telling you, buddy, someone out there is going to fucking adore it.
It's worth doing.
Do what you're doing.
Follow your passions.
I fucking love you.
Give me a shit.
I want to be the guy that's like, you know what?
That's pretty fucking good.
Unless it's not.
And I'll just tell you straight.
You know what I mean?
I'm cutting.
Also, fuck Alien 3.
Don't cut this.
Let me go.
Let me fucking cut.
You're the chef.
Let me cook.
Fuck you Fincher.
It was my movie.
So I need to fucking put M.A.P. respect into you.
I'm out.