Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien³


From Digital Bits, 11-3-03
The documentary on Disc Six, now simply titled The Making of Alien³, was originally called Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien³. More than thirty minutes of material that was produced for this documentary was cut at the last minute. You might be wondering what difference thirty minutes could make in a three hour documentary. A big difference.

Gone now is much of the honesty and truth about the hell director David Fincher went through on the production. Among the footage lost were actual moments with Fincher on the set, where you saw his frustration and anger. You saw his struggles with producers. You heard from Sigourney [Weaver] and the other cast and crew members talking about the problems, and what a raw deal Fincher got. You even heard from the film's producers and Fox executives talking about what went wrong. Simply put, this disc was about as good a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Alien³ as you could ever hope to get, short of Fincher returning to address the production himself (and he WAS asked to do so, but declined). Unfortunately, what you get now, while it still does contain some of the above (including material that you've never seen before), it sort of teases the stuff you really want to know, then glosses by it.

UPDATED: Digital Bits 10-25-10
Wreckage and Rage, was censored by Fox back in 2003, with some 21 minutes cut prior to release - footage detailing director David Fincher's struggles and frustrations on the set. You'll be pleased to know that ALL of that lost footage been restored, making this the most complete version of the documentary to date.
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THIS ^^^ restored version is the one I'm currently watching. Be prepared for an update afterwards.

UPDATE: November 20, 2012
I forgot to update this, but Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien³ was an excellent documentary. Throughout this extensive 2 hour and 40 minute doc you could see what kind of pressure a studio can put on a director, especially a first time one and Alien³ was David Fincher’s first studio picture.

As detailed above you do get:
honesty and truth about the hell director David Fincher went through on the production. Among the footage lost were actual moments with Fincher on the set, where you saw his frustration and anger. You saw his struggles with producers. You heard from Sigourney [Weaver] and the other cast and crew members talking about the problems, and what a raw deal Fincher got. You even heard from the film's producers and Fox executives talking about what went wrong. Simply put, this disc was about as good a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Alien³ as you could ever hope to get, short of Fincher returning to address the production himself (and he WAS asked to do so, but declined). 

In the doc you also find out that Sigourney Weaver maintained a lot more control over the story than everyone previously thought. Without revealing any spoilers, Sigourney says herself on camera that it was SHE who decided to take the Alien³ story in a different direction than what happened in Aliens (Part 2). Everyone blamed Fincher for that, but it was Sigourney.

Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien³ is on the fifth disc of the ALIEN ANTHOLOGY BluRay set (Pictured right) and one of the best DVD/BluRay Extras I have ever seen in its comprehensiveness. 


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