Before 'Alien: Covenant,' revisit David Fincher's installment

It's time for another summer movie anecdote!

May 20, 1992: My father and I sit in his black 1988 Dodge Omni, listening to Jeremy Roenick and the Blackhawks beat the Edmonton Oilers in overtime of Game 3 of the Campbell Conference Final. Once the Oilers were vanquished, it was time for the late show at the giant Woodfield 1&2 theater in Schaumburg, where Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) vanquished the xenomorph in "Alien3." This was 13-year-old Sean's second R-rated movie in the theater; Dad had taken me to see "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" at Woodfield 3&4 the previous summer. It was a big deal.

On the heels of James Cameron's intense "Aliens," this third movie in a franchise that continues this weekend with Ridley Scott's "Alien: Covenant" was viewed as a letdown by fans, critics, studio executives and even its first-time feature director, a veteran of Madonna music videos named David Fincher. (He went on to direct "Seven," "The Social Network" and "Gone Girl," so he did OK.)

Like so many of Fincher's movies, "Alien3" is a downer: Ripley loses what few human connections she had before the opening credits finish. Her escape pod crashes on a desolate prison planet populated by rapists and murderers. After the plural thrills of "Aliens," Ripley was back to fighting just one space beastie. The high-octane action of the 1986 thriller was gone, replaced with a funeral, the revolting death of a dog, a romance with a wayward doctor (Charles Dance, aka Tywin Lannister) that's doomed from the start, and an ending that seemed to kill the franchise.

But I come not to bury "Alien3," but to praise it - in fact, it may be my second-favorite film in the series after Cameron's sequel. Sure, Scott's 1979 "Alien" is a perfect movie, but I dig audacious failures. And "Alien3" is certainly that, a supremely well-acted and well-shot film with religious, mythical and sexual undertones - but also underwhelming visual effects and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness that you don't often want in your summer blockbusters. (Sounds a bit like Scott's "Prometheus," no?)

"Alien3" is best experienced on the nine-disc "Alien Anthology" Blu-ray set, which includes two versions of each of the first four films in the series and feature-length documentaries for each one. The making of "Alien3" is particularly fascinating; its original incarnation by "What Dreams May Come" director Vincent Ward was to take place on a planet made entirely of wood and populated by monks. The version that ended up in theaters has been all but disowned by Fincher, who doesn't take part in interviews for the documentary and rarely speaks publicly about his tumultuous time on the set.

The alternate cut of the film, dubbed the "Assembly Cut" on both the nine-disc anthology and the more affordable four-disc "Alien Quadrilogy" set, reinstates 31 minutes of cut footage and is wildly different from the theatrical release. (For instance, that gory dog scene I mentioned earlier is a gory cow scene in this version.) It's a fascinating second look at a movie that deserved better, not only from the people who made it but the people who watched it. This 145-minute cut is also available digitally as the "Alien3 Special Edition."

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.