- "The surface of Fiorina was as barren as its sky, a riot of gray-black stone scoured by howling winds. A few twisted, contorted growths clung to protected hollows in the rock. Driving rain agitated the surface of dank, cold pools."
- ―Alien3 novelization, chapter 1
Fiorina "Fury" 161 (variously: Fiorina 161: [Fury], Fiorina 161, Fury 161 or Fury-161) is a barren, windswept world in the Neroid Sector, orbiting around a binary star system. The planet's exact location is kept classified by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation for security reasons. Its position can be estimated to 19.5 light years from Earth, hardly outside the border of the Galactic Nucleus.
Terrain and ClimateEdit
Fiorina 161's surface is barren, rocky and brownish-gray, much like the similarly bleak LV-426. The planet experiences extreme temperatures which range between 40°C in daylight to -20°C at night (+100°F to -40°F). This is likely due to its location in a binary star system. The planet's atmosphere is breathable to humans, and it possess ample liquid surface water in the form of large oceans, which is likely why the atmosphere has a considerable amount of oxygen. However, these water bodies are dark, oily and acidic in nature. Fiorina 161, due to its flat terrain, has severe howling winds, which worsens the temperatures felt on the planet and often carries stinging rain. The sky of Fiorina 161 is not clear, but rather cloudy and hazy gray.
Fauna and FloraEdit
The soil on the planet's crust is rocky and thin, and as a result of this, combined with the planet's extreme seasons, very few plants grow on Fiorina 161, and the few plants that do grow grow in between the black rocks and are small, twisted, frail and brittle in nature. It is entirely plausible that no crops can be grown on Fiorina 161.
Fiorina is home to several indigenous species, although none of these lifeforms are particularly advanced. Several species of fish-like organisms live in the planet's oceans, while the land masses support a genus of slow, primitive ground-dwelling animal. By far the most widespread organisms on the planet are its swarms of insects (some of which are carnivorous and can even threaten humans under certain circumstances). There is a particular problem with tiny parasitic arthropods that feed voraciously on the keratin in hair (but curiously not fingernails), and as a result all human inhabitants are forced to continually shave their heads and bodies. The planet is also home to several species of algae, moss and primitive salt grass.
Due to the planet's intense climate, large oceanic coverage and arid, desert covered landscape, Fiorina 161 was perfect for industrial facilities. Fiorina 161 was only known for its two establishments, an industrial lead smelting works and a Double-Y chromosome work correctional facility, both owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. After these were closed down, they were kept operational by a small inmate skeleton crew who chose to stay behind. As a result of its prior industrialisation, the planet is littered with abandoned and derelict industrial structures.
The Fiorina 161 Class C Work Correctional Unit (reg. 12037154) at one point maintained thousands of Double-Y Chromosome maximum risk prisoners but in 2179 supported twenty-two inmates and three custodians. Because of the extreme weather conditions and drastically fluctuating surface temperatures, the inmates and custodians would stay in the foundry facility which was partly underground. The Correctional Unit on Fiorina 161 maintained an active lead works prior to the dissolution of its prisoner population. A morgue, mess and infirmary were amongst the few facilities available in the compound. The compound is almost ten square miles in diameter, with a total of approximately 600 active and inactive ventilation ducts.
In 2179, Ellen Ripley and the other survivors of Hadley's Hope (excluding Corporal Dwayne Hicks) were jettisoned from the USS Sulaco in a Type 337 EEV after a Facehugger caused an electrical fire in the hypersleep compartment. The EEV subsequently crash landed on Fiorina 161, killing both Newt and Turk (mistaken for Hicks). However, Ripley, survived and was taken to the nearby prison facility, while Bishop, who was damaged further, was then placed in a scrap heap by the prisoners on the colony.
A Facehugger emerged from the ruins of the EEV and impregnated the prison's dog, Spike. Later, during the funeral of Newt and Turk, the Xenomorph embryo violently emerges from Spike and begins to mature within the correctional facility's ventilation ducts. The Alien begins a killing spree in the correctional facility, causing mass hysteria. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. An explosion is caused by the Runner's premature intervention, resulting in numerous casualties and several deaths.
The remaining survivors later form another plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners, except for Morse, who pours the liquefied lead into the mold, hoping to kill the four-legged monster. However, the Alien (now covered in molten metal) barely escape from the mold, but is killed by Ripley when Morse tells her to turn on the fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock.
A Weyland-Yutani "rescue team" arrived on Fiorina 161 aboard the USCSS Patna after the company was contacted by Francis Aaron regarding the presence of the Xenomorph, personally accompanied by Michael Bishop himself. The latter tries to convince Ripley to turn herself in so that they can extract the Queen embryo inside within her, but Ripley refuses as she does not trust Bishop; she steps back and climbs onto the mobile platform. One of PMCs open fire and shoots Morse in the leg while Aaron, believing the group leader to be an android, assaults him with a piece of metal before a Commando shoots and kills him. Ripley helps Morse to move the platform over the furnace before she chooses to sacrifice herself to destroy the Queen Chestburster in order to keep the company from getting their hands on it by throwing herself into one of the furnaces. At that moment, the presumed dead Corporal Hicks and Samwell Stone, having come to rescue her and the others in the EEV, arrived only to witness her death. Hicks and Stone were captured, while Robert Morse was presumably relocated. Weyland-Yutani subsequently terminated the prison's contract; the remaining functional lead works apparatus was scrapped and the Fiorina 161 Correctional Unit was closed for an indefinite period.
Concept and CreationEdit
20th Century Fox approached Brandywine Productions to create two more sequels were Ripley would be killed off leaving Hicks as the lead role, Sigourney Weaver wasn't available, however, when a final screenplay (by David Twohy) was delivered to Fox president Joe Roth, he didn't like the idea of Ripley being removed, declaring that "Sigourney Weaver is the centerpiece of the series".
David Giler and Walter Hill went through a number of scripts and rewrites that included William Gibson's script, the storyline for the film picked up after Aliens, as the Sulaco drifts into an area of space claimed by the 'Union of Progressive Peoples', due to a navigational error. The ship is boarded by people from the U.P.P, who are attacked by a facehugger hiding in the entrails of Bishop's mangled body. The soldiers blast the facehugger into space and take Bishop with them for further study. The Sulaco then arrives at Anchorpoint.
Eric Red, writer of the cult horror films The Hitcher and Near Dark, version opened with a team of Special Forces marines boarding the Sulaco unarmed and finding that all the survivors of the LV-426 mission had fallen victim to the aliens. The only reference to the first two films was a torn spacesuit name tag that is found bearing the name 'Ripley'. The screenplay in a sense was even bolder than the Gibson script, in that it took place entirely in a small-town USA city in a type of bio-dome in space.
David Twohy was next to work on the project. His version featured a prison planet, which was being used for illegal experiments on the aliens for a Biological Warfare division. The screenplay details how inmates on death row were "mock executed" in a gas chamber, while actually being kept alive and being used as bait in experiments with the Aliens.
Vincent Ward with co-writer John Fasano had Ripley's escape pod crash landing on a monastery-like satellite, which had parts of its interior both wooden and archaic in design. The Alien 3 special features disc set, Alien Quadrilogy explained how Ward came about creating the story for this partially wooden satellite also as a place of refuge for Luddite-like monks.
After a number or rewrite of the script, producers Walter Hill and David Giler took control of the screenplay themselves, melding aspects of the Ward/Fasano script with Twohy's earlier prison planet screenplay to create the basis of the final film.
Behind the ScenesEdit
The large miniature that portrayed the colossal furnaces on the surface of Fiorina was built by Boss Film Studios, while the huge cranes (seen most clearly in the extended Assembly Cut of Alien3) were designed by Norman Reynolds. The appearance of the cranes was based on the constructivist architecture typical of communist-era Russia.
The Fiorina 161 set was filmed on location at Blyth Power Station, Northumberland, UK, Dawdon Beach, County Durham, UK and Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire UK. The planet's surface was produced using matte backgrounds, miniatures and full sets, this included the salvage of the EEV with oxen, background of the surface with a cross, a crane salvaging the EEV, Ripley's return to the EEV to use a stasis' scanner and the opening sequence. During post-production, some early CGI was also added to the film to enhance the effects. Later the USS Patna arrived with Michael Weyland and an assortment of Weyland Personnel with the spacecraft flying near the surface and the foundry facility and penal colony. Michelle Moen matte department supervisor and Paul Lasaine matte painter painted all the matte backgrounds for the surface, sky and surface features. This included the EEV's atmosphere entry from space and as it entered the atmosphere and crashed into the water the crew used an ultraviolet light to give the clouds a glow against a matte painting of the sky, this was an animated shot with the water splash a digital shot.
- The day-night cycle on Fiorina appears to be far longer than that on Earth — the events of Alien3 occur over the course of several days at least (Earth time), and yet take place almost entirely during a single night on Fiorina. This must be because Fiorina 161 moves very slowly on its axis, similar to the planet Venus.
- Fiorina 161 has a diameter of 12,655km (7,863 miles) and a circumference of 39,760km (24,705 miles), making it just slightly smaller than Earth (24,901 mile circumference), which explains its Earth-like gravity.
- Fiorina 161's geostationary orbit is 35,192km (21,867 miles).
- The atmosphere of Fiorina 161 is composed of primarily nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide.
- In the novelization of Alien3, the planet is known as Fiorina "Fury" 361, not 161 as in the film.
- In Alien Resurrection and the script for Alien Resurrection, Fiorina is called "Fiori 16" by Jonathan Gediman.
- Alien3: The Gun
- Alien 3 (video game)
- Aliens: Nightmare Asylum (indirect mention)
- Aliens: Music of the Spears/novel (mentioned only)
- Alien Resurrection/novel/comic (mentioned only)
- Aliens versus Predator (video game)
- Aliens versus Predator 2 (multiplayer only)
- Aliens: Colonial Marines (multiplayer only)
- Stasis Interrupted
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Alan Dean Foster. Alien3, p. 16 (1992), Warner Books.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Alien Anthology - Alien3 - 2003 Special Edition - main menu
- ↑ Alien Anthology - Alien3 - screen right before the version selection
- ↑ Aliens: Colonial Marines Collector's Edition - "UNITED STATES COLONIAL MARINES - USS SEPHORA" - "MISSION BRIEFING" - "IN FURTHER, ASCERTAIN ACTIONABLE INTEL AS TO WHY AN FTL-CAPABLE SHIP WAS INACCURATELY REPORTED DESTROYED OVER FURY-161."
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 S. D. Perry. Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report, p. 129 (2014), Insight Editions.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Alan Dean Foster. Alien3, p. 18 (1992), Warner Books.
- ↑ Alan Dean Foster. Alien3, p. 85 (1992), Warner Books.
- ↑ Alan Dean Foster. Alien3, p. 40 (1992), Warner Books.
- ↑ Jody Duncan. The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio, p. 206 (2006), Titan Books.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Jody Duncan. The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio, p. 208 (2006), Titan Books.
- ↑ http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Alien-Resurrection.html