My tastes are actually fairly mainstream, I just hold off for longer than 10 minutes after leaving the theater to make up my mind if what I just saw was the finest piece of American cinema yet created.

Enough set up. I'm starting a new series of blog posts about movies that I love and I feel are average films, but that were general maligned by the audience and critics. I'd encourage the other contributors of Dirty Sprocket to join in the fun.

Alien³ - Five reasons it was hated:

1.  People loved 'Aliens' because it was caulked full of Cameron's militaristic hard-on. Alien³ is completely devoid of this. People just wanted to see 'Aliens' again.
2. Everyone knew it had been a troubled production, so instead of watching the film that was on the screen, audiences kept saying "but I wanted something else to happen," which really meant "I wanted to see 'Aliens' again".
3. The CGI was shitty. This isn't to say all the effects were bad. In fact, most of the practical stuff was pretty good. But there are a handful of cgi or cgi enhanced shoots that, even for 1992, were jarringly bad. We're talking the plane crash at the end of 'Air Force One' bad here.
4. Not only does the Ripley die, but an alien bursts out of her chest while she is plummetting into an inferno to be instantly incinerated. It's not quite like killing Rocky, but almost.
5. Audiences couldn't make out half of the dialogue and couldn't tell one character from another. This is a common problem when you use English actors. Google "Don'  You Go Rounin' Roun To Re Ro" and you'll see get the picture.

Five reasons I loved it:

1. It wasn't 'Aliens', nor was it 'Alien'. I like both those movies a lot, but I had seen them already, many times, and wanted something new and that's certainly what I got.
2. A lot of critics called this film nihilistic or fatalistic. Yup, that's part of it. While most folks hear those terms and think depressing, I'm drawn to it. No, I'm not a nihilist or a fatalist, but I do like to wonder about such things. I like that Ripley sacrificed herself.
3. The Company was really, really evil in 'Alien'. Not so much in 'Aliens'. Though Cameron tried to personize the Company in Paul Reiser's character, he was played for laughs. I didn't get the impression that the Company was all that bad, so much as Paul Reiser's character was just a jerk. In the third film, the Company is evil again and the threat it represents is what gives Ripley's life meaning.
4. There are some really bittersweet moments. There's a sort of romance between Ripley and Clemens that makes you really angry when the alien gets him. There's the dynamic between Ripley and the heavily damaged Bishop, who we thought was a good, but now we're not so sure, but he did save Ripley in the previous film, so maybe... There's the dynamic between Ripley and Dillion – is he showing sympathy or is he simply using her as a tool to get revenge against the alien. There's more, but moving on.
5. At the time of its release, I remember more than a few critics saying the movie was about AIDS. I never really got that entirely. Yeah, everyone had shaved heads and was going to die, but is the alien suppose to be AIDS? How so? There are a number of ways to avoid contracting AIDS. The Alien, not so much. Whatever the intention of director David Fincher, I think the movie is about corperate greed and that individuals are not powerless. No, an individual can't take a company down, but they can hurt it. Taken that way, the movie is very ironic.

I'd give the movie a good solid B-.