History Film / Alien3

** The film features an outrageously straight version of this trope. "All right. Let me get this straight. You want to burn it down and out of the pipes, force it in here, slam the door -- and trap its ass? And you want help from us Y-chromo boys?" One can only wonder how Ripley managed to explain the plan in a way convoluted enough that Dillon had to get it straight, though from his tone of voice, he understood perfectly, and was just sneering at the idea that Ripley needed their help.

* RageBreakingPoint: The Runner spends the entire movie refusing to harm Ripley, on the account of being able to smell the Queen, the future of its race, gestating inside her body; not even being goaded and beaten on the head by her with lead pipes and burning flares was enough to make it raise a single clawed-finger against her. However, the sheer '''agonizing''' pain of being drowned in molten hot lead was enough to make it spectacularly '''snap,''' leap out of said metallic deluge, ''break inprogrammed-instinct'' and charge Ripley in a blind rage with every intent of tearing both her and the Queen inside of her to pieces to avenge this painful insult.

* ConvenientlyClosePlanet: Fiorina "Fury" 161 serves as this for the Type 337 Emergency Escape Vehicle at the very beginning of the film, even though the whole crash-landing part of the sequence easily results in the deaths of Hicks and Newt with Ellen Ripley also being the one and only survivor afterwards as the Bishop Android is also even hopelessly smashed up beyond all possible repair during said crash-landing sequence.

* NotDistractedByTheSexy: Ripley gets out of bed fully naked and asks Clemens if he has clothes or if she should go see the warden like this. Clemens definitely appreciates her form (and notes he's not seen a woman in a ''long'' time), but maintains his professional composure and gets her something to wear.

* RevisedEnding: When David Fincher was shooting the film, his intended ending did not involve the Xenomorph bursting out of Ripley's chest. After Bishop II implores her to let them surgically remove the alien, she remains in thought for over thirty dialogue-free seconds--an eternity in film time--before denouncing them and flinging herself into the furnace (a trimmed-down version of this wherein the queen does ''not'' burst from her chest is retained in the Assembly Cut). However, during the extensive reshoots, the studio--fearing that the scene was too similar to the ending of ''Film/Terminator2''--mandated that the queen erupt from her chest, forcing her to grab it and [[TakingYouWithMe take it with her into the fire as she's dying from the wound]], turning a quasi-religious moment of temptation and self-sacrifice into a mere formality to keep it out of Weyland-Yutani's hands.

* HopeSpot: Aaron survived the Xenomorph Runner attack, so he survives right? Wrong, he attacks Michael Bishop after realizing Ripley was right about the company and is shot by one of the Weyland-Yutani commandos accompanying Bishop.

* TheLastDance: Ripley. "You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else."

* LetMeGetThisStraight: The film features an outrageously straight version of this trope. "All right. Let me get this straight. You want to burn it down and out of the pipes, force it in here, slam the door — and trap its ass? And you want help from us Y-chromo boys?" One can only wonder how Ripley managed to explain the plan in a way convoluted enough that Dillon had to get it straight, though from his tone of voice, he understood perfectly, and was just sneering at the idea that Ripley needed their help.
** Also, more humorously: "Let me see if I have this correct, Lieutenant - it's an 8-foot creature of some kind with acid for [[AlienBlood blood]], and it arrived on your spaceship. It [[AlwaysChaoticEvil kills on sight]], and is generally unpleasant."

* HeroicSuicide: Ellen Ripley, which was [[EnforcedTrope enforced]] by Weaver so she wouldn't have to reprise the character again. Sigourney Weaver does return in [[Film/AlienResurrection the next film]], however, but not as the original Ellen Ripley since things are a little, well, [[CloningBlues different]].

* SeriesContinuityError: In the [[Film/{{Aliens}} previous film]], the ''USS Sulaco'' sports a dark blue hue, its name written in black on its right side, and cryogenic stasis pods that look quite different from the ones aboard the ''USCSS Nostromo''. In this film, the ''USS Sulaco'' sports a bright brown hue, its name written in white on its left side, and cryogenic stasis pods that look ''identical'' to the ones aboard the ''USCSS Nostromo''.

* ActionizedSequel[=/=]SequelEscalation: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] when compared to the [[Film/{{Alien}} first film]] and also [[InvertedTrope inverted]] when compared to the [[Film/{{Aliens}} second film]] as this third instalment returns to the formula of the first film that only features one single adult nearly unkillable non-royal Xenomorph specimen throughout the entire runtime and a human cast without access to any real manmade weapons, and this third film is more of a claustrophobic horror than ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' as a result of such, but ironically, the number of people killed onscreen, roughly thirty, depending on the cut, is higher than that of the two previous films COMBINED, more specifically six and fifteen respectively.

*** Theory #2: Bishop did it. People have also noted that after dropping Ripley in the Atmospheric Processor, Bishop had fifteen minutes to fly to the Derelict, obtain an egg and return. This theory is relatively unpopular, since it turns fan-favourite Bishop into a villain, or relies on him unconsciously working for Weyland-Yutani. Earlier versions of the script actually did use this version, albeit without making Bishop responsible - the [[Creator/WilliamGibson Gibson script]] had Bishop's innards infected with material that grew into an egg while he was in stasis.

* PuzzleBoss: The total absence of any manmade weapons from the Fiorina "Fury" 161 Class-C Correctional Work Unit easily causes this trope to be taken to [[ExaggeratedTrope ridiculous extremes]] with the "Dragon" this time around. More specifically, the local prisoners and Ellen Ripley end up having to draw him over into the local lead-works, pour tons and tons of molten lead down on top of him, and finally dowse him with freezing sprinkler water, exploding his whole entire body to bits via intense thermal shock if you will in order to be able to kill him off near the end of the film.
* RageBreakingPoint: The Runner spends the entire movie refusing to harm Ripley, on the account of being able to smell the Queen, the future of it's race, gestating inside her body; not even being goaded and beaten on the head by her with lead pipes and burning flares was enough to make it raise a single clawed-finger against her. However, the sheer '''agonizing''' pain of being drowned in molten hot lead was enough to make it spectacularly '''snap,''' leap out of said metallic deluge, ''break inprogrammed-instinct'' and charge Ripley in a blind rage with every intent of tearing both her and the Queen inside of her to pieces to avenge this painful insult.

* RecycledInSpace: Actually an [[InvertedTrope inversion]] where in which some fans call this film "the first ''Film/{{Alien}}'' but [-IN A PRISON!-]" since it only features one single nearly unkillable Xenomorph Runner attacking and killing off a DwindlingParty of now truly unarmed humans one after the other much like the already aforementioned first film.

* RevisedEnding: When David Fincher was shooting the film, his intended ending did not involve the Xenomorph bursting out of Ripley's chest. After Bishop II implores her to let them surgically remove the alien, she remains in thought for over thirty dialogue-free seconds--an eternity in film time--before denouncing them and flinging herself into the furnace (a trimmed-down version of this wherein the queen does ''not'' burst from her chest is retained in the Assembly Cut). However, during the extensive reshoots, the studio--fearing that the scene was too similar to the ending of ''Film/Terminator 2: Judgement Day''--mandated that the queen erupt from her chest, forcing her to grab it and [[TakingYouWithMe take it with her into the fire as she's dying from the wound]], turning a quasi-religious moment of temptation and self-sacrifice into a mere formality to keep it out of Weyland-Yutani's hands.

* OneProductPlanet: Acheron only had a closed down prison on it

* PlotArmor: Invoked in-universe, when Ripley uses the knowledge of the xenomorph being unable to attack her (due to her carrying a Royal Chestburster inside of her in order to lure it into the leadworks during the finale of the film, via having Dillon pretend to take her as a mock hostage and threaten to kill her to draw the creature's attention.

** The most notorious one in the series seeing as how all of the Xenomorph Drones were destroyed during the previous film, and their Queen also tore off her ovipositor when she went after Ripley, but in this film however [[ContinuitySnarl there is someway somehow an Ovomorph aboard the Sulaco]] within a room that the Queen both did not and also could not ever possibly enter. Popular [[FanWank fan theories]] are that the Queen keeps an [[HandWave extra egg]] stored within some other part of her body [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief for emergencies]], but that still doesn't explain how it got where it did. Earlier versions of the script did try to justify this as the [[Creator/WilliamGibson Gibson script]] had Bishop's innards infected with material that grew into an egg, and the comic adaptation explains that the original host was ''Newt'', having been impregnated at the end of the previous film (although [[VoodooShark the timeline's too compressed and we see Ripley torch the facehugger meant for her]]). When she began to drown, the Royal Chestburster switched over into Ripley's body, ([[VoodooShark which just raises further questions.]])
** The follow-up to that, of course, is where the ''other'' facehugger came from as the opening sequence depicts ''one'' Ovomorph, which presumably is the one that infects Ripley, but since the facehuggers die after implantation, it must be dead before Ripley was ever ejected from the Sulaco, so there's no indication at all where the second facehugger, the one that reaches the surface of Fury 161 in the EEV and likewise infects the dog, came from. (''Videogame/AliensColonialMarines'' goes to great lengths to explain how [[{{Retcon}} Hicks survived]], and shows the facehugger attacking Ripley, but oddly still neglects to reveal it got there.) The Assembly Cut introduces the bigger "Royal Facehugger" and implies it infected Babe the ox as well, which goes some way towards filling this plot hole, at the expense of [[HandWave hand-waving]] it by introducing a creature that can implant multiple types of Xenomorphs into multiple different victims.
** The previous film strongly suggested the Xenomorph acquisition project was dead, and that Burke acted alone based entirely on Ripley's story to further his career. Otherwise, why would the Weyland-Yutani Corporation have settlers on LV-426 for 22 years without ever making them scour it for the most precious lifeform within the universe? In this film, however, they act more like a Xenomorph-worshipping cult, able to send a Conestoga-class starship with a compliment of mercenaries, scientists, and a high-ranking executive to Fury 161 at a moment's notice, completely ignoring the [=ICC=] quarantine plot point from the previous film. However, this is more debatable, as ''Aliens'' never made it explicit that the project had been shelved, and it is possible that it was top secret and known only by an elite few, who didn't know what planet the Nostromo had landed on.
** A rather strange example of this is the mysterious character known as Vincent as in all versions of the film, the bait and chase sequence begins when Kevin hears a prisoner screaming and then finds the Xenomorph Runner mauling his dead body, but in the Assembly Cut, David identifies the dead body as Vincent, but this is odd as everyone who was at the meeting in the furnace is still alive at this point in time and Vincent was nowhere to be seen during that scene.

* BaldHeadOfToughness: Downplayed. Ellen Ripley was already an ActionGirl and FinalGirl after being the sole survivor of her crew in ''Film/{{Alien}}'' and going against and killing Xenomorphs in both preceding films. In this movie, her going bald is incidental: a lice break out on the ship forces ''everyone'' to shave their heads completely bald to stop the spread. That said, it's in this film [[spoiler:she becomes a survivor of attempted rape and musters up the willpower to [[HeroicSacrifice kill herself in order to kill the Xenomorph Queen embryo gestating inside of her]].]]

* PlotHole: The most notorious one in the series seeing as how all of the Xenomorph Drones were destroyed during the previous film, and their Queen also tore off her ovipositor when she went after Ripley, but in this film however [[ContinuitySnarl there is someway somehow an Ovomorph aboard the Sulaco]] within a room that the Queen both did not and also could not ever possibly enter. Popular [[FanWank fan theories]] are that the Queen keeps an [[HandWave extra egg]] stored within some other part of her body [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief for emergencies]], but that still doesn't explain how it got where it did. Earlier versions of the script did try to justify this as the [[Creator/WilliamGibson Gibson script]] had Bishop's innards infected with material that grew into an egg, and the comic adaptation explains that the original host was ''Newt'', having been impregnated at the end of the previous film (although [[VoodooShark the timeline's too compressed and we see Ripley torch the facehugger meant for her]]). When she began to drown, the Royal Chestburster switched over into Ripley's body, ([[VoodooShark which just raises further questions.]])

* AnyoneCanDie: The survivors of the previous film, after fighting through all of ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and surviving, all die right in the beginning, except for Ripley. [[spoiler:The prisoners are all killed one by one, with a lot of them completely unexpected. Clemens, Ripley's love interest, is one of the first among them. Ripley herself even dies at the end.]]

* CrapsackWorld: Fury (Fiorina) 161.

* DeadlyEnvironmentPrison: Incarceration on the penal planet of Fury 161 is entirely voluntary. There's a minimal staff with no weapons, as there's no place for anyone to escape to without a functioning spacecraft. However, the facility used to house several thousand prisoners, so presumably security was more expansive when the site was fully operational.

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Dr. Clemens is built up as a main character, but then he suddenly gets grabbed by the Alien and killed off.

* YouNeedToGetLaid: Inverted, in that Ripley admits she's gone a ''very long time'' without sex; it's strongly implied, however, that she needs companionship, period, since almost everyone she knows is gone.

The film is most known for having an infamously TroubledProduction. The project went through several producers, writers, and directors before finally settling on David Fincher's rewrite, with [[{{Sequelitis}} predictable results]]. Fincher has since [[OldShame disowned the movie]] due to the ExecutiveMeddling he had to endure during production. However, due to the special edition of the film, the Assembly Cut, which greatly expands upon many scenes and characters, [[VindicatedByHistory the film has undergone something of a reevaluation]].

* ActionizedSequel[=/=]SequelEscalation: AvertedTrope -- the third instalment returns to the formula of the first film, with one single adult Xenomorph and a human cast without access to real weapons. The film is more of a claustrophobic horror than ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. Though ironically, the number of people killed onscreen (roughly thirty, depending on the cut) is higher than that of the two previous movies combined (six and fifteen respectively).

* BigNo: Bishop II's prolonged "''NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!''" when [[spoiler:Ripley kills herself.]]

* DeadlyRotaryFan: One of the prisoners (Murphy) is killed by falling into a ventilation fan (after the alien spits acid in his face).

* DeadStarWalking: [[spoiler:Dr. Clemens is set up to be the main male character, but gets killed about an hour in, and Dillon takes over the role for the rest of the film.]]

* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler:[[Creator/CharlesDance Clemens]] quickly becomes Ripley's ally at the prison and even ends up sleeping with her. He's set up to be a major part of the story, then he gets slaughtered by the alien and Captain Dallased less than halfway through the film.]]

* DiabolusExMachina: ''Alien 3'' makes the end of ''Aliens'' this retroactively when it is revealed that an Ovomorph made it onto the ship, not only causing it to crash but infecting Ripley with the new Xenomorph Queen, necessitating a HeroicSacrifice.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Newt, Hicks and Bishop are all unceremoniously dumped.[[note]]''Colonial Marines'' retcons Hicks's death by showing he was retrieved and replaced with another soldier.[[/note]] There's only a brief scene with Bishop in which he asks to be turned off because he'll never be top of the line again.

* EnhancedOnDVD:
** One of the sequences restored in the Assembly Cut involved the chestburster being born from an ox and scurrying away. This sequence never had its effects completed and utilizes a hybrid of combining footage of the creature’s birth between the two cuts, along with a digital creature for the unfinished shot of it scurrying away.

* JustDesserts: Mr. Andrews was an obstructive jerk who [[CassandraTruth disregarded Ripley's story]] and tried to have her confined - partially to protect her from the prisoners and partially to maintain his control over them. He's eaten by the Xenomorph while in the middle of shouting down her warnings and telling the guards to have her taken away and sedated.
* TheLastDance:
** Ripley. "You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else."

* ActionizedSequel[=/=]SequelEscalation: Averted when compared to the first film and also inverted when compared to the second film since this third installment returns to the idea of there only being one adult Xenomorph specimen present throughout the entire runtime and also since the human heroes have absolutely no access to any manmade weapons with which to fight back against this third film's lone Xenomorph Runner specimen, easily making for another mainly straight, slowly-paced, and also claustrophobic horror drama much like ''Film/{{Alien}}'', but the number of human kills seen throughout the film is actually higher than that of the sum of its two main predecessors' human kill counts COMBINED, however.
* AllForNothing: The first five minutes render the events of ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' completely moot as Hicks and Newt, who after battling all the way through the last movie, are abruptly [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off-screen]] and Ripley is essentially sent right on back to EXACTLY where she was at the end of the first ''Film/{{Alien}}'' film.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
** Both Hicks and Newt get this during the EEV's crash landing, Newt for being trapped unconscious in her tube and drowning, Hicks for having his head completely pulped by a support beam that came down on him.

* ActionizedSequel: Averted when compared to the first film and also inverted when compared to the second film since this third installment returns to the idea of there only being one adult Xenomorph specimen present throughout the entire runtime and also since the human heroes have absolutely no access to any manmade weapons with which to fight back against this third film's lone Xenomorph Runner specimen, easily making for another mainly straight, slowly-paced, and also claustrophobic horror drama much like ''Film/{{Alien}}'', but the number of human kills seen throughout the film is actually higher than that of the sum of its two main predecessors' human kill counts COMBINED, however.

[[caption-width-right:350: It's in an ox. Or a dog, depending on [[ReCut what version]] you're watching.[[note]]The tagline is likely referring to the fact that [[spoiler:Ripley has been infected with an Alien herself.]][[/note]]]]

-->-- '''Ripley''', talking to the Alien

This film introduced the concept of aliens having different shapes depending on their host bodies.

The film is most known for having a legendarily TroubledProduction. The project went through several producers, writers, and directors before finally settling on David Fincher's rewrite, with [[{{Sequelitis}} predictable results]]. Fincher has since [[OldShame disowned the movie]] due to the ExecutiveMeddling he had to endure during production. However, due to the special edition of the film, the Assembly Cut, which greatly expands upon many scenes and characters, [[VindicatedByHistory the film has undergone something of a reevaluation]].

%%* ActionizedSequel: Averted when compared to the first film and also inverted when compared to the second film since this third installment returns to the idea of there only being one adult Xenomorph specimen present throughout the entire runtime and also since the human heroes have absolutely no access to any manmade weapons with which to fight back against this third film's lone Xenomorph Runner specimen, easily making for another mainly straight, slowly-paced, and also claustrophobic horror drama much like ''Film/{{Alien}}'', but the number of human kills seen throughout the film is actually higher than that of the sum of its two main predecessors' human kill counts COMBINED, however.

* HellholePrison: This movie gets in on the act with Fiorina-161, a/k/a 'Fury', a maximum-security prison world with no weapons of any kind because without a functioning starship escape is impossible anyway. The wardens as a result are nearly powerless against the apocalyptic cult that has gained control over the population, to say nothing of the Xenomorph that hitchhiked aboard the escape pod from the ''Sulaco''. Interestingly it actually was a better prison in the past when it was properly staffed before Weyland-Yutani abandoned it; a facility built for 5,000 inmates has been reduced to housing 25 inmates with a 3-man staff.

* HeroicSuicide:
** [[spoiler:Ellen Ripley]], which was [[EnforcedTrope enforced]] [[spoiler:by Weaver so she wouldn't have to reprise the character again. Sigourney Weaver]] does return in [[Film/AlienResurrection the next film]], however, but not as [[spoiler:the original Ellen Ripley]]. Things are a little, well, [[CloningBlues different]].
** [[spoiler:Dillon also does this to keep the Alien trapped in the lead mould.]]
* HopeSpot:
** Aaron survived the alien attack, so he survives right? Wrong, he attacks Michael Bishop after realizing Ripley was right about the company and is shot by one of the Weyland-Yutani commandos accompanying Bishop.
** In the Assembly Cut, Ripley and the inmates manage to trap the alien in the leadworks, [[spoiler:only for Golic to release it again]].

* RecycledInSpace: Some call this film "the first ''Film/{{Alien}}'' but [-IN A PRISON!-]"

* RevisedEnding: When David Fincher was shooting the film, his intended ending did not involve the Xenomorph bursting out of Ripley's chest. After Bishop II implores her to let them surgically remove the alien, she remains in thought for over thirty dialogue-free seconds--an eternity in film time--before denouncing them and flinging herself into the furnace (a trimmed-down version of this wherein the queen does ''not'' burst from her chest is retained in the Assembly Cut). However, during the extensive reshoots, the studio--fearing that the scene was too similar to the ending of ''Terminator 2: Judgement Day''--mandated that the queen erupt from her chest, forcing her to grab it and [[TakingYouWithMe take it with her into the fire as she's dying from the wound]], turning a quasi-religious moment of temptation and self-sacrifice into a mere formality to keep it out of Weyland-Yutani's hands.

* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:Morse, one of the Fury 161 prisoners, is the only person to make it off the planet alive when the Weyland-Yutani crew leaves.]]
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: At the beginning of the film, the Sulaco launches an escape pod which lands on a planet. Newt and Hicks are both killed in gruesome ways (the gory aftermath is shown), while Bishop has one scene in which he asks to be turned off. Note that this differs from the comic continuity (which was ongoing at the time of the film's release), which saw Hicks and Newt survive, and was later changed to separate both characters (renamed Wilks and Billie) to differentiate the different timelines.
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath:
** Dr. Clemens is built up as a main character, but then he suddenly gets grabbed by the Alien and killed off.

* SwissCheeseSecurity:
** Fiorina, a maximum security prison, has three unarmed staff members to police the inmates, all violent murderers and rapists. The guards have no access to firearms of any kind for emergencies and the CCTV doesn't work. When Ripley asks what prevents the inmates killing them, Andrews responds that there'd be no point, as there's no way of escaping from the place anyway. And "we're on the honor system."

* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Averted as the Runner Xenomorph instead dies off as a result of being doused with a combination of [[LiterallyShatteredLives hot molten lead and high-pressure cold water]].
* TrueLoveIsBoring: Pretty much [[WordOfGod stated by Vincent Ward]] as the reason why he (and the producers) chose to kill off Hicks, Newt and Bishop at the start:

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** The ''USS Sulaco'' is last seen drifting on through space after ejecting the escape pods with the LV-426 survivors onboard -- it was originally planned to be shown partially exploding in the film, and even had a scene written for it and models allegedly built, but the sequence was scrapped before filming.[[note]]''VideoGame/AliensColonialMarines'' later stated that the ship was recovered and used by Weyland-Yutani as a staging area for a hive until the events of the game, where it is destroyed by the ''USS Sephora'' as both ships fire on each other.[[/note]]

* YourDaysAreNumbered: Halfway through the film Ripley discovers [[spoiler:that she's carrying the embryo of a Xenomorph Queen. One way or another, she knows that she's going to die when it rips out of her and at one point even begs Dillon to kill her.]]

* LetMeGetThisStraight:
** The film features an outrageously straight version of this trope. "All right. Let me get this straight. You want to burn it down and out of the pipes, force it in here, slam the door — and trap its ass? And you want help from us Y-chromo boys?" One can only wonder how Ripley managed to explain the plan in a way convoluted enough that Dillon had to get it straight, though from his tone of voice, he understood perfectly, and was just sneering at the idea that Ripley needed their help.

* PlotHole:
** The most notorious one in the series seeing as how all of the Xenomorph Drones were destroyed during the previous film, and their Queen also tore off her ovipositor when she went after Ripley, but in this film however [[ContinuitySnarl there is someway somehow an Ovomorph aboard the Sulaco]] within a room that the Queen both did not and also could not ever possibly enter. Popular [[FanWank fan theories]] are that the Queen keeps an [[HandWave extra egg]] stored within some other part of her body [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief for emergencies]], but that still doesn't explain how it got where it did. Earlier versions of the script did try to justify this as the [[Creator/WilliamGibson Gibson script]] had Bishop's innards infected with material that grew into an egg, and the comic adaptation explains that the original host was ''Newt'', having been impregnated at the end of the previous film (although [[VoodooShark the timeline's too compressed and we see Ripley torch the facehugger meant for her]]). When she began to drown, the Royal Chestburster switched over into Ripley's body, ([[VoodooShark which just raises further questions.]])

* PostClimaxConfrontation: After killing off the "Dragon", Ripley is confronted by a mysterious man who claims to be the creator of the Bishop Android, even looking like him, as well as the Weyland-Yutani soldiers and Aaron, but Ripley kills herself off within the furnace in order to avoid letting the Weyland-Yutani Coorporation get their hands on the Xenomorph inside of her.

* PowerOfTrust: After Clemons gives his long story of ruining his medical career, he asks her, "Now... do you trust me with a needle?" Ripley's response: bare her arm. [[spoiler:The warm moment is shattered by the Alien killing him.]]

* RecycledInSpace: Some call ''Alien³'' "the first ''Alien'' [-IN A PRISON!-]"
* RedemptionEqualsDeath:
** [[spoiler:Junior in the special edition. He leads the gang trying to rape Ripley, but when she tries to distract the Alien from him in the attempt to trap it in the bunker, he instead runs inside, taking it with him. It rips him apart of course, but the mission succeeds because of him.]]
** Seems to be a major theme of the film, as [[spoiler: pretty much all of the prisoners and Ripley]] die at the end of the film to prevent Weyland-Yutani from getting their hands on the Xenomorph Runner. This also seems to be the main reason why the writers opted to kill off Hicks, Newt and Bishop at the beginning (see: TrueLoveIsBoring below).

* AssholeVictim: Most of the characters in the film are convicted murderers and rapists. Some even try to rape Ripley at one point, and Golic is straight-up AxCrazy. It therefore becomes hard to root for a lot of them when the Alien kills them. However, this does play into the film's themes of redemption.

** Seems to be a major theme of the film, as pretty much all of the prisoners die at the end of the film to prevent Weyland-Yutani from getting their hands on the Xenomorph Runner.

* TrueLoveIsBoring: Pretty much stated by WordOfGod as the reason Hicks, Newt and Bishop were killed off between ''Aliens'' and ''Alien³''.

* RevisedEnding: When David Fincher was shooting the film, his intended ending did not involve the Xenomorph bursting out of Ripley's chest. After Bishop II implores her to let them surgically remove the alien, she remains in thought for over thirty dialogue-free seconds--an eternity in film time--before denouncing them and flinging herself into the furnace (a trimmed-down version of this wherein the queen does ''not'' burst from her chest is retained in the Assembly Cut). However, during the extensive reshoots, the studio--fearing that the scene was too similar to the ending of ''Film/Terminator2JudgementDay''--mandated that the queen erupt from her chest, forcing her to grab it and [[TakingYouWithMe take it with her into the fire as she's dying from the wound]], turning a quasi-religious moment of temptation and self-sacrifice into a mere formality to keep it out of Weyland-Yutani's hands.

* RevisedEnding: When David Fincher was shooting the film, his intended ending did not involve the Xenomorph bursting out of Ripley's chest. After Bishop II implores her to let them surgically remove the alien, she remains in thought for over thirty dialogue-free seconds--an eternity in film time--before denouncing them and flinging herself into the furnace. A trimmed-down version of this is retained in the Assembly Cut. However, during the expensive reshoots, the studio mandated that Ripley die while giving birth to the alien, turning a quasi-religious moment of temptation and self-sacrifice into a mere formality to keep it out of Weyland-Yutani's hands. Since this is ''Alien 3'', perhaps the nadir of ExecutiveMeddling, Fincher's version was naturally shot down.