The storyboards for the next Alien film are here.
Creative Staff:
Story: William Gibson
Art: Johnnie Christmas
Colors: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Nate Piekos of BLAMBOT
What They Say:
This is the official adaptation of the original screenplay for Alien 3, written by William Gibson, the award-winning science fiction author of the cyberpunk cult classic Neuromancer. You’ll see familiar characters and places–but not all is the same in this horrifying Cold War thriller!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After the success of both Alien and Aliens, a third film had a lot of people very excited. What would it do, where would it go, the possibilities were endless. With the way Hollywood works there are almost always a lot of different revisions and course changes along the way – which is why I’m hopeful Dark Horse can find more projects to do this with. The third film is controversial for a lot of fans, even those that love it, because it does do a lot of radical things in its opening minutes and has some great ideas that it explores – particularly in the director’s cut. But William Gibson’s original draft and second draft is a far, far different beast, just as the second film is a different beast than the first. While the third film may not be one I revisit hardly ever, it does fit in the overall tradition of doing something radically different each time around and I won’t begrudge its existence. But I also really, really, wish this had been made with a few more drafts to it.
The story takes a wider spread this time around as Weyland-Yutani forces back home reroute the Sulaco on its journey back to Gateway through the territory of the Union of Progressive Peoples, breaking a treaty that they have. We see some neat little bits in how nuclear weapons are locked down once it enters the territory to avoid problems, but we also see the UPP forces coming in to see what this ship is all about only to end up with one of their own lost to a facehugger that was in cryosleep with Bishop. They do take Bishop with them as well, which lets the UPP begin to find out what happened on LV-426 and to end up trying to clone the xenomorph, leading to their station where they explore all of this to end up just as badly as you’d expect. It’s a welcome subplot that connects at the end because we see the politics of the time and allows for an infestation there to take root while more careful events play out elsewhere.
That elsewhere is a WY scientific station, non-military, called Anchorpoint. They’re not thrilled with the Sualco there either as it causes problems with their agreements and provisions, but the WY executives that have come here ahead of time to smooth it out and collect the xenomorph materials are at the top of their game. We know through Aliens just how much they know and are trying to gain by it so it’s no surprise that the couple here are pretty much bad folks. And, of course, there are a lot of decent scientist types and general station folks who get caught up in this and try to do the right thing because you know a new infestation will play out. There’s plenty of familiarity but the welcome differences are like the differences in the films in that they come from locations. Everything we had before was pretty dark and murky. Here, we get a brightly lit research station that has to deal with it and one without weapons, making for some creativity as they have to survive and figure out a way to do so when the only course of action is to destroy the station.
Gibson talks in the beginning about not trying to make this a third act as part of the story that began in Alien and that works well because there are a lot of avenues to explore. What he does do here that is a little problematic – but would have worked at the time because of how casting was going – is that it largely keeps Ripley under and she’s “forwarded” to Gateway pretty early and isn’t involved in the story. That lets Hicks take more of a prominent position in the first half, particularly with Newt, while Bishop takes over the narrative in the second half as he comes back online in the UPP and ends up at Anchorpoint along the way too. Bishop is who Gibson wanted to focus on and it’s a nice continuation, especially considering how the actual film unfolded at the first with it eliminating everyone but Ripley and going for an all-new supporting cast.
In Summary:
I’ve read what feels like a million Alien stories since Dark Horse got the rights decades ago and so many of them would make good films. I can imagine what kind of launching points this project would have given creatives if it had been tweaked and filmed as there’s a lot to dig into. Gibson’s concepts are pretty good – and not cyberpunk at all – while Johnnie Christmas puts together a great book as expected based on past work. It’s a solid story that advances things but keeps the pressure on, familiar and different, with the threat the aliens represent. But that expansion aspect, minimal as it may be, opens up so many doors. I’m definitely glad that they put together this work and adapted the early screenplay. Additionally, the book comes with a really good foreward from William Gibson about the experience while the back has some of Johnnie Christmas’ designs before delving into several really great cover variants for the single issues run. All in all, a very solid book giving us a real sense of what could have been.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: August 7th, 2019
MSRP: $19.99
