Alien III

An Audible Original Drama

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Alien III

By: William Gibson

Narrated by: Tom Alexander, Barbara Barnes, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Lorelei King, Laurel Lefkow, Keith Wickham

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About this listen

Audible is bringing William Gibson’s uncovered Alien III script to life in audio for the first time, to mark the 40th Anniversary of the birth of the Alien franchise.

Alongside a full cast, Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprise their iconic roles as Corporal Hicks and Bishop from the 1986 film Aliens.

Father of cyberpunk William Gibson’s original script for Alien III, written in 1987 as a sequel to Aliens, never made it to our screens, although it went on to achieve cult status among fans as the third instalment that might have been after being leaked online.

This terrifying, cinematic multicast dramatisation - directed by the multi-award-winning Dirk Maggs - is the chance to experience William Gibson’s untold story and its terrifying, claustrophobic and dark encounters between humans and aliens, as a completely immersive audio experience.

The story begins with the Sulaco on its return journey from LV-426. On board the military ship are the cryogenically frozen skeleton crew of that film’s survivors: Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop.

We travel aboard and hear an alarm blare. Our heroes are no longer alone....

Starring: Tom Alexander, Barbara Barnes, Michael Biehn, Cliff Chapman, Samantha Coughlan, Ben Cura, Dar Dash, Harry Ditson, Mairead Doherty, Lance Henriksen, Graham Hoadly, Lorelei King, Laurel Lefkow, Martin McDougall, Sarah Pitard, Michael Roberts, David Seddon, Andrew James Spooner, Siri Steinmo, Dai Tabuchi, Keith Wickham, Rebecca Yeo.

Science Fiction

Scary

"Every film fan has a mental list of the Greatest Movies Never Made. The greatest of these in the scifi genre has been William Gibson’s unmade script for ALIEN III. It’s by one of the giants of the literary genre, and takes the situation set up in ALIENS, moving forward into fresh regions of the Alien Universe and continuing the stories of our old friends from James Cameron’s movie. It’s been a privilege and honour to finally bring this story to life with this wonderful cast as an immersive audio movie." - Dirk Maggs, Director.

Listen to the trailer.

Alien III
By:William Gibson
Narrated by:Tom Alexander, Barbara Barnes, Michael Biehn, and others

Here’s a sneak peak of the terror to come….

Alien III
Here’s a sneak peak of the terror to come….

About the Director

Dirk Maggs is an innovator in the world of radio and audio production. A prolific writer and director, he is known for his cinematic approach to audio, utilizing scripts and fine-tuned sound effects layered with music to create a near visual effect. Maggs has previously worked on BBC Radio adaptations of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. He also excels at adapting graphic novels for radio. His award-winning credits include Judge Dredd, Superman Lives, and Batman: Knightfall. At Audible, Maggs has proven to be a breakout star, directing the groundbreaking original Alien series and adapting The X-Files: Cold Cases and The X-Files: Stolen Lives.

Most relevant

Alien was one of my favourite films of all time, few films have had me riveted to the screen quite so absolutely. Aliens, while different in character, was a fine follow-up and since then I've lost count of the number of discussions I've had with friends about which is the better film with us being split fairly well down the middle. What happens if you add Alien 3 into the mix? Well, the answer is that we're still evenly split, half of us with Alien being the best and the other half with Aliens. No-one but no-one ever tries to make a case for Alien 3! It's hard to imagine what they were thinking of choosing the script that they did and now I think we have a definite answer to the big question, yes there were better options out there!

What's great about this is that it delivers another action flick like Aliens albeit only in audio. Maggs / Audible throw their considerable expertise and experience with the franchise at it. There is a lovely solidity to the sound effects, really crunchy, solid sound with the noises made by the aliens particularly impressive. I can't wait to try this again through quality headphones, it sounded great through the Bluetooth so when I put a real bit of oomph behind it I think it will rock! The acting is also extremely good for the most part.

On the other hand, it does rely heavily on repeating things that have been done before and I don't think the story quite hits the heights, nor does Gibson's script use all the surviving characters as well as he could have done. It's also of course quite short for an audiobook though that's not surprising - it is a film script after all!

So, no doubt in my mind that while this isn't perfect, it's a class above the story / script they used for Alien 3 the film. I can possibly see why they didn't plump for this one, what I can't see is why they chose the one they did above it. In any case, I'm more than happy to have spent a credit on it and I am going to enjoy listening to it again at home!

By the way, if you can't remember how Alien 2 finished up then don't worry there is a good reprise of how it panned out at the start of this.