My Favorite Alien³ Quotes

Twenty years ago this year the movie Alien³  hit theaters to mixed reviews and underwhelming box office success although it did just fine over time on video and overseas. In direct contrast to and in contradiction of the prevailing view that Alien³ was and is inferior to Alien and Aliens I feel it is a perfect coda to them and completes the Alien trilogy storyline in a perfectly unsatisfyingly satisfying manner (or perhaps in a perfectly satisfyingly unsatisfying manner). It is certainly the most atmospheric and dark and brooding movie of the three and in its uncut form is so long and so dark that it really pulls you within itself to a degree the others cannot.

For those of you unfamiliar with the general plot of this movie I wish to without getting bogged down simply say that our heroine Ellen Ripley gets stranded on an isolated penal colony on a distant planet (Fury 161) and finds herself in a familiar position once again of being hunted by a xenomorph and having it kill off everybody around here within a confined space (this time a lead foundry facility and not a trans-stellar spaceship or distant planetoid colony). The character of Dillon, played by Charles S. Dutton, has most of the best lines in the movie including many more I don't list here for the sake of brevity. He is the penal colony inmate leader and is the main male character in the movie. He leads an apocalyptic Christian-esque cult in which all the inmates are members and look to Dillon as their spiritual leader and preacher. Andrews is the crotchety senior official managing the facility while Aaron is his dim-witted but good-hearted assistant. David is a more senior inmate played by Pete Postlethwaite.

Below are the film quotes that I am most touched by or have otherwise stuck in my mind for reasons I cannot fully explain. They are featured here in the sequence in which they appear in the movie.

Andrews: We commit this child and this man to your keeping, O Lord. Their bodies have been taken from the shadow of far nights. They have been released from all darkness and pain. The child and the man have gone beyond our world. They are forever eternal, and everlasting. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Dillon: Why? Why are the innocent punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren't any promises. Nothing's certain. Only that some get called, some get saved. She won't ever know the hardship and grief for those of us left behind. We commit these bodies to the void... with a glad heart. For within each seed, there is the promise of a flower. And within each death, no matter how big or small, there's always a new life. A new beginning. Amen.

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Dillon: Do you have any faith, sister?

Ripley: Not much.

Dillon: Well, we've got a lot of faith here. Enough even for you.

Ripley: I thought women weren't allowed.

Dillon: Well, we've never had any before. But we tolerate anybody. Even the intolerable.

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Aaron: Yeah, you can get these drums organized.

David: Right, 85.

Aaron: And, uh... don't call me that.

After Aaron walks away...

Ripley: What's this 85 thing?

David: Couple of us sneaked a look at his personnel file the day he arrived; it's his IQ.

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Ripley: It's like a lion. Sticks close to the zebras.

Aaron: Zebras?...Oh, right. But look, running around down here in the dark- are you kidding? Once you get out of this main shaft, there's no overheads.

Ripley: Don't we have flashlights?

Aaron: We've got thousands of them, but no batteries. I told you, nothing works.

Ripley: Torches? Do we have the capacity to make fire? Most humans have enjoyed that privilege since the Stone Age.

Aaron: No need to be sarcastic.

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

Ripley: Don't be afraid, I'm part of the family.

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Ripley: When they first heard about this thing, it was "crew expendable". The next time they sent in marines - they were expendable too. What makes you think they're gonna care about a bunch of lifers who found God at the ass-end of space? You really think they're gonna let you interfere with their plans for this thing? They think we're - we're crud. And they don't give a fuck about one friend of yours that's - that's died. Not one.

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Dillon: You're all going to die. The only question is how you check out. Do you wanna go on your feet? Or down on your fuckin' knees, beggin'? Well I ain't much for begging! Nobody ever gave me nothin'! So I say fuck that thing! Let's fight it!

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Quotes courtesy of many redundant sources and my own recollections.