Alien³

 

 

 

Screenplay by                             Larry Ferguson

                                                 David Giler

                                                 Walter Hill

 

Produced by                               Gordon Carroll

                                                 David Giler

                                                 Walter Hill

 

Directed by                                David Fincher

 

 

 

Cast List:

 

Sigourney Weaver                   Ripley

Charles S. Dutton                     Dillon

Charles Dance                          Clemens

Paul McGann                           Golic

Brian Glover                            Andrews

Ralph Brown                            Aaron

Danny Webb                             Morse

 

 

Unused Script

 

 

 

FADE IN:

 

 

DEEP SPACE – THE FUTURE

 

The silent field of stars – eclipsed by the dark bulk of an approaching ship.

 

 

ANGLE ON THE HULL

 

A towering cliff of metal, Sulaco.

 

 

INT. SULACO – HYPERSLEEP VAULT

 

TRACKING DOWN the line of empty, open capsules. Frozen twilight. The final four capsules are sealed, lids in place.

 

 

ANGLE – INSIDE CAPSULE

 

NEWT, then RIPLEY. HICKS next, his head and chest bandaged. Then BISHOP in his caul of plastic. But the lid of Bishop's capsule is misted with hothouse condensation.

 

 

CLOSER

 

A tear of fluid streaks the condensation.

 

An alarm SOUNDS.

 

A monitor begins to scroll data.

 

 

TIGHT ON MONITOR

 

"TROOP TRANSPORT SULACO

CMC 846A/BETA

MISSION/LV-426 / RETURN

STATUS RED

TREATY VIOLATION

REF: #99AG558L5

CAUSE: NAVIGATIONAL ERROR"

 

Bland feminine voice of the ship's computer, as the alarm continues to SOUND.

 

COMPUTER

Attention. Due to failure of navigational circuitry, Sulaco has entered a sector claimed by the Union of Progressive Peoples. Auxiliary systems are now on line. Course corrected. Hardwired protocols prevent, repeat, prevent arming of nuclear warheads in the absence of Diplomatic Override, Decryption Standard Charlie Nine. On present course, Sulaco will exit the U.P.P. sector at nineteen hundred hours fifty three point eight minutes.

 

 

EXT. SULACO

 

The ship slides past beneath us. A U.P.P. interceptor descends INTO FRAME, matching course and speed with Sulaco. The interceptor settles on Sulaco like a wasp.

 

 

INT. INTERCEPTOR

 

Three commandos climb into spacesuits. The Leader opens a hatch in the deck, revealing one of Sulaco's airlocks. FIRST COMMANDO, a young Vietnamese woman, scrambles down and attaches magnetic units to the airlock. SECOND COMMANDO studies a monitor, tapping out a sequence on a keyboard. First Commando gestures from hatch: no good. Second Commando tries again. A grating SOUND as Sulaco's airlock begins to open.

 

 

INT. SULACO – CARGO LOCK

 

Darkness. Armed commandos climb through opening and descend a ladder. Reaching the deck, they fan out, weapons ready. Their leader examines the damaged dropship. First Commando gestures urgently. She's found something.

 

Bishop's legs, broken, grotesquely twisted, still in fatigues, the white android blood clotted into powder. First and Second Commandos exchange looks through their faceplates.

 

COMPUTER

Attention. Integrity breach, Cargo Lock 3. Security alert. Integrity breach, B Deck...

 

 

INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT – LEADER'S POV

 

The chilly aisle of capsules.

 

Commandos move down the line, guns poised. They peer in at Newt, Ripley, and Hicks, but the lid of Bishop's capsule is pearl-white. The Leader tries the controls at the foot of the capsule, where green and red indicators glow.

 

Nothing happens. He opens a panel, finds an emergency lever, tries it. The green indicators wink off. The lid rises. A dense pale mist flows out, spilling over the edges of the capsule, revealing the ovoid of a gray Alien egg. Rooted in the center of Bishop's synthetic entrails, the egg instantly ejaculates a Face-hugger, which strikes the leader's faceplate in a spray of acid. He screams, blinded by the acid, grappling with the thing as it begins to force its way into his helmet, its tail lashing furiously. Clawing at it, he plunges blindly back down the aisle, stumbling, smashing into the empty capsules. He vanishes through the entranceway, his screams giving way to frenzied gagging SOUNDS.

 

The First Commando scrambles after him.

 

 

INT. CARGO LOCK

 

The Leader writhes on the deck beside the main cargo lock. First Commando rushes in, crouches beside him, takes careful two-handed aim with her sidearm – she FIRES, attempting to kill the face-hugger without hitting the Leader. The face-hugger EXPLODES in a gout of acid; ragged holes burn through the side of his helmet. First Commando frantically works the lock controls.

 

As the inner lock opens, she shoves the leader over the edge with her foot.

 

 

EXT. SULACO

 

Helmetless, headless, trailing a cloud of blood and acid, the Leader tumbles through space.

 

 

INT. CARGO LOCK

 

Eyes of the First Commando through her faceplate. Beat. Something moves, behind her. She spins, bringing up her gun. Backlit in the entrance to the vault, a black, multi-armed figure. The beam from her lamp finds it – the Second Commando, with Bishop in his arms.

 

DISSOLVE TO:

 

 

IN DEEP SPACE – VARIOUS ANGLES

 

A station the size of a small moon, and growing; unfinished sections of hull are open to vacuum. A vast, irregular structure, the result of the shifting goals of successive administrations.

 

MOVE IN on hundreds of windows – most of them dark. A light comes on in one of the windows.

 

 

INT. ANCHORPOINT – TULLY'S SLEEPING CUBICLE

 

A phone is RINGING. The cubicle, terminally sloppy, resembles the nest of a high-tech hamster, not much larger than a berth of a train. The walls are plastered with a wistful collage of posters, ads, photos torn from magazines: beaches, desert, the Grand Canyon, redwoods, blue sky – a hedge against claustrophobia and the emptiness of space.

 

TULLY, sitting up in bed, knuckling sleep from his eyes, wincing at the light; he slaps the phone console and the glum face of OPERATIONS OFFICER JACKSON (female) appears. She wears a nylon baseball cap with a computer light-pen attached to the bill.

 

JACKSON

'Morning, Tully.

 

TULLY

Morning? Jesus, Jackson, it's the middle of my downtime...

 

 

CLOSE ON THE CONSOLE SCREEN

 

 

ANGLE

 

The room behind Jackson is Achorpoint's nerve-center, the Ops Room.

 

JACKSON

None of us up here in the Ops Room have seen downtime for a while, Tully. A Marine transport came in on automatic sixteen hours ago.

 

She bobs her head as she speaks, using the pen on her cap to move a cursor on a screen in front of her.

 

JACKSON

(continuing)

The Sulaco. Departed gateway four years ago with a compliment of fifteen. A dozen marines, an android, a company representative, and the former warrant officer of a merchant vessel...

 

TULLY

So?

 

JACKSON

So, the bio-readout gives us the warrant officer, one – count him – marine, and a nine-year-old girl. Makes you wonder what happened out there, doesn't it?

 

TULLY

So ask 'em. Wake 'em up and ask 'em. Them, not me.

 

JACKSON

But that's the good news, Tully. Three hours before Sulaco turned up, we docked a priority shuttle out of Gateway. Two passengers. Milisci, Tully. Weapons Division.

 

TULLY

That the bad news?

 

JACKSON

They want the ship pulled in, with full biohazard precautions, by oh-eight-hundred hours. BioLab techs are priority for the deck squad. That's you Tully.

 

The phone screen goes blank.

 

TULLY

(heartfelt)

Shit.

 

He begins to fumble through his sleeping bag, looking for his clothes – disturbing SPENCE, a young technician, who sits up groggily, hugging the bag to her breasts.

 

SPENCE

What? What is it?

 

TULLY

It's called the military-industrial complex; it's called my ass out of bed; it's called jerking me around... Any way you wanna call it, it's the same bullshit...

 

 

INT. CORRIDOR

 

Tully, groggy and irritated, emerges from his cubicle, wearing a battered leather flight jacket, its sleeves plastered with embroidered logo-patches for various products. His photo, name, job description, and number are slotted on the door in a transparent envelope – TULLY, CHARLES A. TECH-5, TISSUE CULTURE LAB.

 

DISSOLVE TO:

 

 

INT. ANCHORPOINT – DRY DOCK

 

A plain of gray steel, the size of several carrier decks, walls lost in dark and distance. Service vehicles lumber past in the b.g. Massive floods on towers of raw scaffolding backlight twenty waiting figures, the Deck Squad.

 

Their spacesuits are white, clinical; over these they wear disposable Biohazard Envelopes of filmy translucent plastic. Some are Colonial Marines, armed with pulse-rifles or flame-throwers. Others are scientists and technicians, carrying recording and sampling gear. Their voice, over helmet-radio are furred with STATIC. Something CLANGS and BOOMS overhead, metal thunder.

 

OFFICER (V.O.)

Deck Squad brace for pressure drop. She's in the cradle. She's coming in.

 

A sudden WIND rushes across the deck, then dies. RUMBLE overhead as a monstrous hanger door rolls slowly open, revealing the naked stars. The dark hull of Sulaco blots out the stars as it descends.

 

OFFICER (V.O.)

(continuing)

Entry team to secondary cargo lock.

 

A cherry-picker vehicle, with extended boom, WHINES up to Sulaco.

 

The lock SIGHS open on darkness.

 

BUZZ of static, indistinct RADIO exchanges, as a half-dozen lights play over the drop-ship, the walls of the lock. Tully enters, stares around, eyes wide through his faceplate. Beside his is a MARINE with a pulse-rifle – obviously psyched for combat.

 

TULLY

Lights, how come they got no lights?

 

MARINE

Hey, man...

 

He shines his light on a blackened scar on the bulkhead.

 

MARINE

(continuing)

Lookit that. Been some action in here...

 

TULLY

Action?

 

MARINE

Man, what the fuck you supposed to be doing here?

 

TULLY

Forging a new home for mankind in the depths of space.

 

The Marine isn't amused. Tully raises an instrument; it makes a SUCKING noise.

 

TULLY

(continuing)

Collecting atmosphere samples.

 

MARINE

So just do it, right.

 

He move away.

 

TULLY

Sure.

 

But he doesn't want to be alone; hustles after the Marine.

 

OFFICER (V.O.)

Technician Tully to the hypersleep vault, atmosphere sample...

 

MARINE

Sounds like you.

 

TULLY

Yeah.

 

MARINE

Let's not keep the man waiting.

 

 

INT. ENTERANCE TO HYPERSLEEP VAULT

 

The Marine OFFICER holds up a tracker – one of the small motion-sensors familiar from the previous film. Beside him are TWO MORE MARINES. The Officer raises the tracker and scans the face of the door.

 

 

EXTREME CLOSEUP

 

Of tracker screen: zero.

 

 

ANGLE

 

OFFICER

One sample, here.

 

SOUND of Tully's device sucking air.

 

OFFICER

(continuing)

Get another on the way in. Have they patched line in yet?

 

SECOND MARINE

Yessir. Lights on in there.

 

The Officer presses a button.

 

The door slides open. Bright, white. The aisle. Empty. The row of capsules. Tully's Marine is first through the door, gun ready, slow, careful. Tully steps in after him, raises his instrument, takes a sample.

 

 

INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT

 

The other two Marines move past Tully. Soft SCUFF of their boots on the deck. Tully doesn't know quite what to do. Lowers his sampler, hesitates. The first Marine reaches Newt's capsule. He lowers his rifle.

 

MARINE

(something startled, almost gentle in his voice)

They're here...

 

Eight inches of razor-sharp serrated tail plunges out through the back of his suit as he's lifted off his feet by something we can't see. Ugly RIPPING noise as the ALIEN withdraws its stinger – blood tidily contained by the translucent membrane of the biohazard envelope.

 

The stinger of a second Alien whips around the neck of one of the other two Marines; the Alien is clinging to the ceiling. He screams. Tully's Marine sags against the foot of Ripley's capsule, his arm across the controls – the green indicator lights go out – as the first Alien lunges up INTO VIEW.

 

 

CLOSE

 

On the jaws.

 

 

ANGLE ON RIPLEY

 

Her eyes snap open.

 

 

RIPLEY'S POV

 

As the beast mounts her coffin, terminal nightmare.

 

ANGLE

 

RIPLEY

No-ooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

Her hands claw frantically at the smooth curve of the plastic canopy.

 

The remaining Marine, crazy with adrenaline and terror, unleashes his flame thrower. The first Alien and Ripley's capsule vanish in a napalm fireball. The Marine spins, screaming incoherently, and liquid fire hoses the second Alien, which drops its victim and falls burning into the deck.

 

The vault is an inferno. Ripley's capsule is sagging, melting.

 

DISSOLVE TO:

 

 

A SCORCHED HYPERSLEEP CAPSULE

 

Is wheeled in under brilliant lamps. The waiting crisis team plug bio-monitor leads and a HISSING air-supply line into sockets on the capsule. A technician with a small hand-held power saw begins to cut away the heat-crazed canopy. Hands in surgical gloves lift the canopy away.

 

Ripley lies curled in a tight fetal knot.

 

 

INT. ANCHORPOINT – MEDLAB QUARANTINE

 

A small white room, a white bed surrounded by medical gear. Hicks, in his underwear, is hunched on the edge of the bed, impatiently smoking a cigarette. The dressing on his head and shoulders have been changed. Spence enters. She wears a biohazard envelope over coveralls, bubble-goggles, a transparent filter-mask.

 

SPENCE

(lightly)

You know you can't smoke in here?

 

HICKS

Yes, ma'am.

 

He takes a puff.

 

SPENCE

I'm Spence. I'm not a medic, I'm from the tissue culture lab. I have to get a sample.

 

She opens a small white case and takes out a gleaming cylinder.

 

SPENCE

(continuing)

Uh, just stick your thumb in here.

 

Hicks gives her a hard look, inserts his thumb; she touches a stud – SNIK! – he winces, look ruefully at his thumb.

 

SPENCE

(continuing)

Sorry.

(putting the tissue-sampler away)

You're the last one...

 

HICKS

(grabs her wrist)

The others. Ripley, Newt – they came through okay?

 

SPENCE

Who's Newt?

 

HICKS

The kid.

 

SPENCE

Rebecca. Rebecca's fine.

 

HICKS

Ripley?

 

SPENCE

(hesitates)

Ripley's fine, Hicks.

 

HICKS

Bishop. Where's Bishop?

 

SPENCE

(puzzled)

Bishop?

 

HICKS

The android.

 

SPENCE

(carefully, worried that she's gotten in over her head)

There were three of you. Three that I know of, anyway. Maybe you should try to sleep now. You want the nurse? They can give you something...

 

HICKS

(leaning forward, still gripping Spence's wrists)

Why haven't I been debriefed? Where's the brass?

 

SPENCE

All I know is, we've all been sleeping short hours since your ship came in, soldier.

 

A CRASH from the corridor, a pained BELLOW, and Newt scuttles in, wearing a hospital gown. She backs into a corner as a large ORDERLY rushes in, clutching his right hand. Like Spence, he wears biohazard gear.

 

ORDERLY

Goddamn it! She bit me!

 

He starts for Newt. Hicks comes off the bed like he's mounted on springs, hand cocked for a trained blow. The Orderly backs off.

 

NEWT

(near hysteria)

Where's Ripley? Where is she?

 

HICKS

(straightens out of hand-to-hand crouch without losing any of the threat)

She's asking you a question.

 

ORDERLY

You looking to get yourself sedated, Corporal?

 

NEWT

Where is she?

 

HICKS

Now I'm asking you the question...

 

Spence yanks her mask down in a reflexive, very human gesture. Move slowly toward Newt, extending her hand.

 

SPENCE

Rebecca... Newt. Honey. It's okay. Ripley's going to be okay. C'mon now, I'll take you, you can see her...

 

ORDERLY

Spence, there's no way –

 

He moves to stop them, but Hicks takes a very deliberate step forward.

 

 

INT. MEDLAB – ANOTHER ROOM

 

Ripley lies in a coma, monitored by assorted white consoles. Her forehead is taped with half a dozen small electrodes. Newt, expressionless, walks slowly to the bedside as Hicks and Spence look on.

 

SPENCE

She's sleeping.

(she and Hicks exchange glances)

Sometimes people need to sleep... To get over things...

 

Newt looks up at a monitor that display's Ripley's EEG. Watches the jitter of peaks and valleys.

 

NEWT

Is Ripley dreaming?

 

SPENCE

I don't know honey.

 

NEWT

It's better not to.

 

 

EXT. RODINA, THE U.P.P. STATION – VARIOUS ANGLES

 

Smaller than Anchorpoint.

 

 

INT. RODINA – CYBERNETICS LAB

 

CLOSE on Bishop. He stares straight ahead, the corner of his mouth twitching mechanically. PULL BACK. Bishop's torso is mounted in the center of a large square platform; tubes are wires snake from his ruined lower ribcage. The walls of the labs are lined with monitor screens and printers.

 

Information is being reamed out of the android at high speed, printouts of measurements, graphs, formulas. COLONEL-DOCTOR SUSLOV is beside the Vietnamese Commando, who wears a sleeveless fatigue-blouse revealing regimental tattoos: a yin-yang, hashmarks, an ID marker like a supermarket bar-code. They watch as a graphics program generates a detailed anatomical drawing of a face-hugger on a large monitor. She says something short and emphatic in Vietnamese, repeats it: yes.

 

SUSLOV

And this?

 

He taps a keypad and the face-hugger vanishes. The screen begins to draft an Alien in side and frontal projections.

 

FIRST COMMANDO

(eyes fixed on the screen in horror and fascination)

No...

 

On the slab, the robotic tic still works the corner of Bishop's mouth.

 

 

INT. SULACO – CARGO LOCK

 

Two TECHNICIANS in biohazard gear squat on either side of Bishop's legs. An electronic microscope has been set up on a low tripod. A small monitor displays magnified skin and a few dark gobules. One Technician extracts an ultra-fine probe from its sterile package and leans forward.

 

TECH WITH PROBE

You getting tape of this, Miller?

 

SECOND TECH

You bet your ass. Orders.

 

TECH WITH PROBE

That's good because I'd swear I just saw a piece of this shit move...

 

On the monitor, the tip of the probe trembles, brushes one of the globules.

 

The Second Tech takes it, inserts it in a plastic tube, seals the tube in a small metal canisters, and writes #17 on the side in red grease pen.

 

SECOND TECH

Since when do androids get diseases?

 

TECH WITH PROBE

I dunno. Sure looks like something got to this poor bastard...

 

 

INT. ROSETTI'S OFFICE CUBICLE

 

COLONEL ROSETTI, Colonial Marines, is Anchorpoint's head of military operations. His office is furnished in the best futuro-Pentagon style: imitation rosewood, division insignia plaques, a desktop model of the drop ships from "Aliens."

 

Rosetti glances up from his monitor as his SECRETARY enters, a young woman in semi-dress Marine uniform.

 

SECRETARY

(hands him a stiff red plastic envelope)

Welles and Fox, Colonel. Military Sciences, Weapons Division.

 

Rosetti eyes the envelope with evident distaste, scrawls his signature in the required box before opening it, removes documents, and the empty envelope back.

 

ROSETTI

Show them in.

 

Secretary exits.

 

 

ROSETTI'S POV – CLOSEUP

 

Two plastic microfiche cards, each with front and side views of Fox and Welles, retinal I.D. images, scaled-down fingerprints, etc. Stamped "MILISCI, WEAPONS DIV."

 

FOX (O.S.)

Kevin Fox, Colonel.

 

 

ROSETTI'S POV – FOX

 

Is tanned, athletic, hyperconfident, his smile a heart-less display of state-of-the-art enamel-bonding techniques. WELLES is just behind him.

 

WELLES

Susan Welles.

 

Same spa-tuned look, same expensive casualwear.

 

ROSETTI

(flatly, with no other effort at greeting)

Welcome to Anchorpoint.

 

Fox and Welles seat themselves without waiting to be asked.

 

FOX