Alien³ - The Assembly Cut - Audio Introduction

An Audio Introduction for the 1992 film Alien³

A small, round photo of a smiling man with a mop of dark hair and a pointy nose.

by Brett Coulstock. July, 2024.

Video

The recorded script performed by Kyle Warwick-Mathieu on Youtube.

Script

Alien³ Audio Introduction

Written by Brett Coulstock.

Performed by [NAME]

This is an audio introduction for the 2003 “Assembly Cut” of the 1992 film Alien³, and is a companion piece to the 2024 independent audio description.

It's important to note that the “Assembly Cut” is not a “director's cut” of the film.

The film had a troubled production history and many writers contributed several outlines and screenplays. Shooting started without a finished script, and director David Fincher joined the project late in process. Afterwards he described being subject to continual studio interference. After leaving the production, the film was re-cut without his involvement.

David Fincher, who would go on to direct Se7en and Fight Club, has largely disowned the film. In an interview in The Guardian in 2009 he stated:

I had to work on it for two years, got fired off it three times and I had to fight for every single thing. No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.

In 2003, the studio decided to release a box-set of the four existing Alien films, along with a director's cut of each. Fincher declined to be involved, and instead producer Charles de Lauzirika oversaw the creation of the “Assembly Cut” based on an early cut of the film prepared by Fincher and editor Terry Rawlings.

The two versions of the film differ greatly, the latter being longer, but the theatrical version includes some re-shot material not present in the Assembly Cut.

The World

The film is set on the planet Fiorana 161 [Fee-or-reen-a], nicknamed “Fury”. It is a decommissioned lead foundry works, and maximum security correctional facility.

Much like Fincher's work on subsequent films, the world of Alien³ is dirty, gritty and dingy. The dominating colour tone of the film is a coppery, muddy brown.

Most of the complex appears to be below ground. It is industrial and functional, featuring metal corridors designed to allow large equipment to pass through, exposed plumbing and conduits, and a complex system of vents, giant pipes and turbines.

Outside of the main areas, the complex has no lighting. When venturing outside the main areas, the prisoners use crude torches to light their way. They're roughly welded, with a handle, a hand-guard of flat metal, and a fizzing, sparking element that resembles a flare or firework.

Characters

Lieutenant Ripley

“This is a maximum security prison, and you have no weapons of any kind?”

Lieutenant Ripley is played by Sigourney Weaver. She's a light-skinned white woman in her thirties with brown eyes, and a square shaped face with high cheekbones. Early in the film she wears her dark curly hair cut above shoulder-length, keeping continuity from the previous film.

The rest of the characters on Fiorina 161 are men, who are either bald or have shaved their heads, and have no other facial hair. All the residents — both prisoners and warders — wear heavy lace-up boots, baggy green-grey pants, and either olive green parkers with fur-collars, or long grey overcoats.

Most of the clothing is branded somewhere with the Weyland-Yutani logo, a blocky, stylised "Y" combined with an overlaid "W".

The prisoners all have a bar code tattooed on the back of their head, just above the neck.

Some of the more prominent characters are:

Clemens

“An E.E.V's come down. Get down to the beach, there may be others.”

Clemens, the Chief Medical Officer, is played by Charles Dance. He is a white man in his mid 40s. He's tall with pale blue eyes, a long nose, and coppery-coloured short cropped hair.

Kevin

“This shit smells awful!”

Kevin, Clemens' assistant, is played by Phil Davis. He's a young-looking man in his late 30s. He's about a head shorter than Clemens, with a long, oval shaped face, a beaky nose, and a toothy smile.

Superintendent Andrews

“Thank you gentlemen. This is 'rumour control'. Here are the facts.”

Superintendent Andrews is played by Brian Glover [Glove-er].

He's a bullish white man with a stocky build, in his late 50s and is completely bald. He wears reading glasses on a cord around his neck, and often toys with a black rubber squeeze-ball in one hand.

Mr Aaron

“All right, all right, let's get it going. Keep it together. Come on. Right. Right. Here we go Mr Dillon.”

Andrews' second in command Mr Aaron, nicknamed “85”, is played by Ralph Brown.

He's a tall white man in his mid 30s, and often wears a cap decorated with the Weyland-Yutani logo. He has wide eyes, and the dark stubble on his scalp show a clear widow's peak.

Dillon

“Give us strength O Lord to endure. We recognise we are poor sinners in the hands of an angry god.”

Dillon is played by Charles S. Dutton.

Dillon is a leader among the community of prisoners, but his compassion is often tempered with ferocity and anger.

He's a brown-skinned black man, his left cheek marked with a vivid scar under his dark brown eyes.

Dillon is early 40s and has a stocky build, and stands just a little shorter than Ripley. He sports black leather gloves, and horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses.

Morse [Morrs]

“I just want to say I've taken a vow of celibacy, that also includes women. We've all taken the vow!”

Morse is played by Danny Webb.

Morse is a white man in his mid 30s. He's short and weaselly, with a receding chin, upturned nose and blue eyes. When he smiles, metal glints in his teeth. He wears work-gloves, and a rough grey scarf looped around his neck.

Golic

“He was special. Never complained about me once. I loved him.”

Golic is played by Paul McGann.

He's a tall, lean man in his early 30s. He has a long face with pale blue eyes, and a childish smile full of bad teeth.

David

“I saw a drum of this stuff fall into a beachhead bunker once. The blast put a tug in dry dock for seventeen weeks.”

David is played by Pete Postlethwaite [Postel (as in 'apostle') -thwait].

He's a white man in his mid 40s. He has bushy eyebrows, and hazel coloured eyes above sharp cheekbones and a bulbous nose.

Gregor

Gregor is played by Peter Guinness [Gin (as in "Begin") + Niss].

He's a white man in his early 40s. He has a round face, hazel eyes and distinctive arched eyebrows. He is often smoking, and later in the film is seen self-medicating with morphine.

Junior

Junior is played by Holt McCallany.

He's a young white man in his late 20s with high cheekbones. He has wide blue eyes, marked with a tear-drop tattoo under the right, and has distinct cupids-bow to his lips.

Junior is named relatively late in the production and is known as "tear drop" through the description.

Jude

Jude is played by Vincenzo [Vin-Chen-Zo] Nicoli [Nic-Coe-Lee].

Jude is a hefty man with broad-shoulders. He has a square face, a hatchet-like broken nose and wears a black knitted cap.

The Alien

The adult alien differs from the previous films. The film-makers wanted a more bestial, animalistic creature.

It is slender and elegant, with an external rib-cage which gives it a macabre skeletal appearance, but the biomechanical aesthetic is far less emphasised, favouring a more organic musculature. The vertebrae of the back extend past jutting hip-bones to become a long, powerful tail.

The alien has no eyes.

It has a sleek, ithyphallic cranium that sweeps backward from its skull-like face, and when running, rests along its spine.

It has sensuous lips, allegedly modelled on Michelle Pfiefer's, who has a cupids bow. When attacking prey, the lips pull back revealing large incisors bracketed by sharp fangs. Inside its mouth, instead of a tongue, is a second set of inner-jaws with smaller teeth; these can punch forward, extending about a foot and half, to bite deeply into its prey.

The alien has six slender fingers on each hand, the middle four paired like a Vulcan salute, each ending in a sharp claw.

About

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Find Brett on the web at “brett.coulstock.id.au” (spell it out).

Find [NAME] at [CONTACT ADDRESS].

Disclaimer

This is an independent Audio Introduction and not commissioned by the copyright owners. I believe in cultural competancy, inclusion and equality, and have attempted to describe the characters and situations fairly, without prejudice and without intent to offend. All information in this introduction is believed to be correct at the time of writing, but the accuracy or correctness of this content cannot be guaranteed.

If you have any concerns about the content in this audio introduction, please contact me.

Copyright and Licensing