James Cameron calls out 'Alien 3' in candid podcast interview

James Cameron didn’t hold back his criticism of 1992’s Alien 3 in recent interview.

During a recent episode of the Just Foolin’ About with Michael Biehn podcast, shared on December 23, the 71-year-old director, wrote and directed Aliens (1986), the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien.

In Aliens, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is awakened from stasis 57 years after the events of the first film and returns to the moon where she first encountered the deadly alien, joining a new team that includes Biehn as Dwayne Hicks, Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke, Lance Henriksen as Bishop, and Carrie Henn as young survivor Newt.

But in Alien 3, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop are all killed within the first moments, leaving Ripley alone again.

“Were you disappointed when they made the decision to kill Newt?” Biehn, 69, asked.

He said, “Disappointed didn’t cover Cameron’s feelings. ‘I thought that was the stupidest f------ thing,’ You build a lot of goodwill around the characters of Hicks and Newt and Bishop, and then the first thing they do in the in the next film is kill them all off, right? Really smart, guys. And replace them with a bunch of f------ convicts that you hate. And want to see die. Really clever.”

The filmmaker praised director David Fincher, calling him a “big fan” and giving him a “free pass” due to the famously difficult production.

Biehn, however, criticised the plot and recounted his personal issue with the film: his likeness was used to show Hicks with his “chest blown out,” which he opposed.

“We ended up negotiating and Fincher called me on the phone and I was like, ‘Go f--- yourself, man,’” Biehn said.

Though James Cameron didn’t favour Alien 3, he did praise the TV series Alien: Earth but added, “You couldn’t pay me enough money to go back to that franchise there. It’s sort of almost become fan-driven at this point.”