"I used to joke with Lamar that we were the mother and father of Precrime. Well, in my experience, parents very often see their children as they want them to be and not as they are."

"I was doing genetic research at the Woodhaven Clinic, treating children of drug addicts. This was ten years ago, when neuroin first hit the streets. It was an impure form of the drug, not the engineered cocktail that became so popular among the more educated. All of these kids were born with severe brain damage; most died before the age of twelve. Those few, those precious few who survived, they had a gift. I call it a gift; for them it was more like a cosmic joke. They would wake up in the night, curled up in the corner of their room, screaming, clawing at the wallpaper. Because, when these little children, as they closed their eyes at night, they dreamt only of murder, over and over, one after the other. And it didn't take long for us to realize that the real nightmare was that these so-called dreams were about to come true; these murders were actually happening!"

"[Final voice-over] In 2054, the six-year Precrime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location, a place where they could find relief from their gifts. A place where they could live out their lives in peace."

"In the middle of the Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus observing that a limb may be sacrificed to save a life, but a life is never wisely given to save a limb."

"Lois Smith – Dr. Iris Hineman"

"Jessica Capshaw – Evanna"

"Patrick Kilpatrick – Knott"

"Samantha Morton – Agatha"

"Neal McDonough – Fletcher"

"Steve Harris – Jad"

"Max Von Sydow – Director Lamar Burgess"

"Colin Farrell – Danny Witwer"

"Tom Cruise – Chief John Anderton"

"You Can't Hide"

"The Future Can Be Seen. Murder Can be Prevented. The Guilty Punished Before the Crime is Committed. The System is Perfect. It's Never Wrong. Until It Comes After You."

"Get Ready to RUN!"

"The system is perfect until it comes after you."

"Everybody Runs"

"What would you do if you were accused of a murder you had not committed … yet?"

"[Showing off a revolver, given as a gift by his staff] Revolvers like this one were given to generals at the end of the Civil War by their troops. The cylinders were loaded with five gold-plated bullets, to symbolize the end of the destruction and death that had ripped the country apart for five years. Ladies and gentlemen, with PreCrime going national, maybe we can all look forward to a time when none of us will have to discharge another firearm ever again."

"You know what I hear, Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no hovercraft outside the window, no clickety-click of little spyders. Do you know why I can't hear any of those things, Danny? Because right now, the precogs can't see a thing. [kills Witwer]"

"We don't choose the things we believe in; they choose us."

"You can choose …"

"You still have a choice."

"Can you see?"

"[Offering John the antidote to a plant that has poisoned him] You'd better drink this. Soon you won't be able to swallow, and then you'll be totally buggered."

"It's funny how all living organisms are alike. [She starts crushing a mutated plant] When the chips are down, when the pressure is on, every creature on the face of the Earth is interested in one thing and one thing only. [the plant cuts her palm] Its own survival."

"For some, part of the interest of the Alien franchise comes from the underlying elements of maternal malevolence and gender-subversion, from a male giving birth to the penetrative-parent alien. You can see Alien 3 as extending these intriguing elements, with Ripley forced to dominate a group of males, and in the process masculinising herself (witness that shaved head), before dying in the midst of giving birth to a beast that she, understandably, does not want to introduce to the world. According to Hill, though, giving too much Freudian thought to this tale of torrid parentage is best approached with caution. “You would really need to explain some of that stuff to me,” he chuckles. “Listen, I once made a wise ass remark. It was about 25 years ago and I have never had so many letters in my life. I said something about psychoanalysis – basically that it is astrology for intellectuals, and I got about 200 letters scolding me. Everybody has to make a living, though, and some people have obviously decided they can make living out of writing that stuff on the Alien films. But that is not the business I am in. All I know is that we just wanted to make good scary movies. Maybe some stuff got snuck in there without me realising – who knows?”"

"Initially, the plan was to concentrate on Michael Biehn’s Hicks character – with Weaver taking a back seat to the action. When this idea was scrapped, later screenplays were commissioned – including an aliens-on-Earth option courtesy of Eric Red (who had penned the popular vampire potboiler Near Dark) to the now-legendary wooden-monastery planet take instigated by Vincent Ward (who obtained a credit for “story” on the final flick). Finally, though, original Alien creators Walter Hill and David Giler were brought in, alongside Highlander scripter Larry Ferguson, to form the film that became Alien 3 – although Fincher and his own pen-man, Rex Pickett, would do a further rejig as shooting was about to commence."

"By all accounts, Alien 3 should have been one of the most successful sequels of all time. At the close of 1986’s rip-roaring Aliens, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, having defeated her interplanetary acid-blooded adversaries, retreated into a space pod bound for Earth accompanied by her compatriots Bishop, Hicks and Newt. All four characters were (seemingly) put into a very safe cyber-sleep. The next instalment, one assumed, would pick up shortly thereafter – with the fabulous foursome awake, and in fresh surroundings, pitted against a new horde of hot-tempered Xenomorph menace. Unfortunately, it was not to be. With ex-music video helmer David Fincher opting to take the franchise in an unexpectedly dark and dingy direction – with a plot detailing Ripley’s struggle for survival on an inauspicious all-male prison-world – 1992’s would-be summer blockbuster, Alien 3, was not what anyone expected. Highlighting just one solitary space-beast, and a group of gun-less victims, the often-meandering movie could not be further removed from the “gung-ho”, blood-pumping bullet ballet that propelled its immediate predecessor into a pop culture phenomenon."

"The Alien itself remains a technical marvel in its three repugnant forms, more a tribute to H.R. Giger’s original design than anything else. Fincher, turning to musicvideo editing techniques, resorts to rapid-fire glimpses of the beast, relying on a variety of methods ranging from rotoscoping to puppetry. Still, we’ve seen those dripping jaws before, and even impressive shots of the creature rapidly scurrying across ceilings don’t justify the fare to be a passenger on this latest voyage. Other technical aspects are also top of the line, although the production design proves so relentlessly bleak that there’s no relief from the film’s oppressiveness, even when there are lapses in the tension. While the look is an accomplishment, this isn’t the sort of environment that tag-along filmgoers–or even those who bring them–will relish visiting."

"Music video director David Fincher doesn’t reveal much finesse with actors in his bigscreen debut, and the screenplay (by producers Walter Hill and David Giler, plus Larry Ferguson) proves fraught with lapses in reason, motivation and logic. That leaves Weaver to carry the load, but her character is so encumbered with baggage that she can’t really showcase the qualities–particularly evident in the second film–that made the audience empathize with her. Much has been made of her shaved head, but Weaver has more importantly been shorn here, for the most part, of the epic strength that made Ripley such a striking female protagonist in “Aliens.” As for the much-discussed re-shoot of the movie’s ending, one can only judge what’s on screen, which shows that the screams of heavy-handed religious symbolism can be heard even in space."

"In any event, Ripley (Weaver) finds herself stranded on a planet with a bunch of converted convicts who’ve embraced religion, led by Charles S. Dutton of TV’s “Roc.” The colony’s kindly doctor (Charles Dance), with whom Ripley shares another kind of close encounter, suspects something is wrong, but throughout the early part of the story Ripley won’t share her suspicions with him that an Alien has landed on the planet. That reticence is only one of numerous inexplicable aspects of “Alien3,” which again relies on the same faceless “company” as an unseen heavy while toying furtively with the sexual politics of a lone woman trapped on a planet of murderers, rapists and miscreants. In that vein, a significant problem stems from the fact that aside from Ripley and perhaps Dutton and Dance, none of these characters has a defined persona, making the bald convicts all virtually indistinguishable Alien-bait."

"The shape-shifting "Alien" trilogy reverts back to the form of the first film in this third close encounter—a muddled effort that offers little more than visual splendor to recommend it. Although certain to open strong thanks to the must-see faithful, look for a quick fade beyond the first couple of box office orbits as word-of-mouth and the dour tone pull "Alien3" down to earth, making it a likely also-ran among this summer's blockbusters. In interviews, star/co-producer Sigourney Weaver has spoken of the producers’ conflict with Fox over crafting a more cerebral film rather than an outright thriller, and that indecisiveness shows."

"The alien is all she has, and all she has to kill; Holmes is nothing without Moriarty, Achilles needs Hector more than he ever did Patroclus. Their whole life resides in these few hours of remorseless wrath. What of soul is left, I wonder, when the killing has to stop? These are grand ways of looking at it, but then the Alien trilogy is grand. Not pretentious and talkative, just laden with images of doom and sexual control, the unstoppably fecund as well as the unbearably blocked. The final part doesn't let us down here, with all its writhing corridors and Satanic furnaces, the odd tongue of flame rasping against Piranesi girders and whale-grey walls. It suffers from poor supporting performances, and a plot that splutters instead of pushing on; but when the chase is on, all is forgiven. Fincher brings on the Steadicam and whips it through tunnels at alien pace, flipping upside down and bulging the walls with wide-angle lenses. You can't tell what the hell is happening, but you know it's hell all right. I can't give the ending away, but I wish I could. Everything is wrapped up a treat - Fincher can't really tell a tale, but he can wheel on the awe with the best of them. I think he must have been watching Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc, which I saw again last month. Both films are graced by actresses with shaven heads and staring eyes, at the furthest reach of their powers; both pound along towards fire and sacrifice, and edit our nerves into thin strips. Dreyer made a masterpiece, Fincher made a mess; but he rounds out a modern myth, and in so doing ensures that, like Lieutenant Ripley, we will never sleep easy again."