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james_71 remembers...This is my favorite movie of all time. I don't think it'll ever be replaced as my all time favorite ... More »
Posted on 04/07/08
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While not as bone-chillingly horrific as the first film, what Aliens lacked in fright it more than made up for in effect. James Cameron’s foray into the franchise began some three years before the film was released, when he submitted a treatment titled Alien II to the studio. In fact, it was the quality of Cameron’s script that purportedly brought Sigourney Weaver back for a second film, as she had been reluctant to for several years prior (other versions claim it was a Cameron ultimatum and Weaver’s paycheck). A decommissioned power plant in West London served as much of the film’s setting.
But once again, the star of the film was the alien itself, or in this case, the family of them. To up the ante from the first film, an alien ‘queen’ – requiring fourteen to sixteen operators – and her menacing brood came on to challenge Ripley (as well as her new supporting cast of fodder, which included Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Paul Reiser, and Jenette Goldstein, among others.) Most of the alien family was created using trick photography and copious amounts of K-Y jelly to mask the latex-treated spandex suits worn by the alien stuntmen.
After her horrific ordeal in the first film, Ellen Ripley is rescued from deep space after floating adrift for fifty-seven years. When the company refuses to believe her incredulous story about an ungodly alien, she’s sickened to discover that a terraforming colony has been sent to the planet she just escaped. Her worst fears are realized when communication with the colony is lost and she is recruited by company executive Burke (Reiser) to accompany a band of space marines charged with an investigative rescue mission to save a colony and destroy the creature.
After an extensive search of the devastation, the crew uncovers a single survivor: a young girl named Newt who witnessed the annihilation of the entire colony. The marines investigate their locator beacons, only to find themselves trapped by hundreds of ravenous aliens. Ripley saves them as disaster after disaster leaves them leaderless, weaponless, and hopeless with no means of escape. With Burke’s treachery undermining their efforts, the crew members are systematically wiped out by the alien horde, leaving Ripley to try and escape with the few remaining survivors before time runs out.
While tensions ran high during filming (as they generally seem to on a Cameron shoot), the results were nothing short of spectacular. Entertainment Weekly called it “greatest pure action movie ever” and voted it as the forty-second best movie of all time. And with $85 million in domestic box office, it financially outpaced many of the names ahead of it on the list. The film would bring home two Oscars, for Visual Effects and Sound Effects Editing, and several more nominations, including one for Weaver as Best Actress. Ripley and others would return in two more future installments – Alien3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997) – while the aliens would go on to star in many more incarnations thanks to the Alien vs. Predator series.
