"Fincher's early exterior landscape of Fury 161 has an apocalyptic gorgeousness that's in tune with the pessimism of his story, which replicates many elements of Alien and Aliens (more the former than the latter) while seeming intent on killing the series off. The much-ballyhooed revelation about Ripley's physical condition struck many in '92 as unforgivably mean but, in retrospect, it plays like the natural evolution of the franchise's running birth-mother-child subtexts, downbeat thematic threads well-suited to Fincher's gloomy, cynical Christ-like conclusion." - Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness