Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen
Screenplay: James Cameron
137 mins. Rated R for monster violence and for language.

• Academy Award Winner: Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing
• Academy Award Winner: Best Effects, Visual Effects
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Actress [Sigourney Weaver]
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Art Direction – Set Decoration
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Sound
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Film Editing
• Academy Award Nominee: Best Music, Original Score
• IMDb Top 250: #69 (as of 10/6/2024)

James Horner described the experience as a “nightmare.” Lance Henriksen (Jennifer’s Body) was on the verge of quitting the acting profession. Sigourney Weaver (Wall-E) was not interested in returning. There were frequent clashes between the director and the crew. There’s no way this could work, but somehow, this is one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. It’s also one of the best sequels in film history. This is Aliens.

Decades after entering cryo-sleep, Ellen Ripley (Weaver), last survivor of the Nostromo, is rescued and woken up, only to discover that she’s missed out on her entire life. All alone in a future she doesn’t have a place in, she’s asked to join a group of colonial marines on a mission to LV-426, the planet where her crew first encountered the alien. Upon arriving, it’s clear that the entire colony of terraformers on LV-426 has been wiped out, and there are far more of the creatures on the planet waiting for them. This time it’s war.

I could spend hours waxing on the various elements of production that I find so fascinating, but the incredible special features on the physical media releases, as well as the new documentary Aliens Expanded (nearly 5 hours in length) do a lot better job than I could at it, so I’ll try to stay as concise as possible. Suffice it to say that I was not a fan of the original Alien when I watched Aliens for the first time. I’d seen the original film on television in a heavily-edited format, which really lessened the impact for me. I specifically remember the morning I watched Aliens for the first time. It was a life-changing experience. I didn’t know sequels could be like this. I didn’t know MOVIES could be like this.

Everyone knows the story of James Cameron (Titanic) walking into the meeting and writing Alien$ on the board, but what’s most fascinating is how he was able to convince Weaver to return to return. She loved his script. Weaver had been hesitant about returning to Ripley following the universal success of the previous film, but even she was taken by the sheer audacity of Cameron’s ambitious screenplay. His ability to take all the mythology developed by the original film and add to it in such an organic way is incredible. He furthered the Xenomorph life cycle without losing any of the mystique that comes with them. Cameron spent the beginning of his career working for low-budget visionaries like Roger Corman, which I feel led to his ability to be economical in his writing and directing, learning exactly how a script can be used to achieve the intended success, and he eventually rose above many of the directors around him.

Now that she’s is past the Final Girl role that she filled in the original Alien, Weaver is able to really do something different this time around. Cameron’s organic way of molding her character into the motherly role for the film is so subtly done that most of the information is fed without realizing it wasn’t already in place in the previous movie. By introducing and then removing the daughter character, we now have a character who has become unhinged from time, and only the connection with Newt (Carrie Henn, In Search of Tomorrow) later in the film can tether her to her new reality. It creates multiple reasons why Newt is an important character apart from being a plot device. Weaver then picked up the character and further progressed her development seemingly without skipping a beat, challenging some of Ripley’s decisions and reactions in the script and working with Cameron to make the character work for both of them. This led to a well-deserved Best Actress nomination in a time when sci-fi performances rarely received Academy acclaim.

Weaver wasn’t the only one to have a say in her character. Bill Paxton, someone Cameron had known for years, was given the ability to improvise quite a bit, apparently coming up with some of his most iconic lines in the film. Henriksen was also able to have a say in his performance as android Bishop. Cameron and Henriksen had to find a way to make Bishop an interesting flip on the android from the first film by giving Ripley reason to distrust Bishop and then making him the only person who can actively support her mission at times. It’s a well-done subversion of our expectations.

Again taking from his Corman background, Cameron was able to stretch the hefty budget to amazing lengths by hiring solid crew who knew how to design and build sets and props. When the studio saw footage from the dailies, they were reportedly upset that all their budget was being blown on elaborate sets until producer Gale Anne Hurd assured them that the sets they were looking at were actually miniatures and less expensive than they expected. I actually believe that Hurd is very much the underrated hero of this production, keeping the peace between Cameron and the very frustrated British crew, who operated very differently than the director had ever experienced. Hurd was also the producer most willing to challenge Cameron during production, while also defending him when the studio had concerns.

Aliens is a great film even without the finale, but that sequence with the Alien Queen is one of the most jaw-dropping set pieces of any film ever. I still can’t believe how good it looks nearly 40 years later. Requiring 14-16 operators for any given scene would be difficult to capture without accidentally catching one of the crew in the shot, but watching it again today, I believe it’s real. The Nest was actually so well constructed it was even reused for the Axis Chemicals set in the 1989 Batman film.

But a big bad Alien Queen is only as good as a little bad company man, which is what we get with Paul Reiser (Whiplash) in a career-defining role as Carter Burke, who capably seems like the smiling friend with a knife in your back. I love the trustworthy nature he’s able to capture early on before the cracks in his facade start showing. All the while with Ripley dealing with Bishop, assuming he has the company’s best interests in mind, and she doesn’t notice the devil right in her midst. It’s a terrific character turn that, again, makes solid use of audience expectations from the first film.

Nearly four decades later, Aliens is about as perfect a film as you can get, and it’s a brilliant sequel that stands on its own while respecting all the dominoes set up by its predecessor. In fact, I would argue that it actively uplifts the original film in the process. I know Cameron doesn’t like calling it a sequel, as if that word is somehow denigrating, but I think it’s a silly argument. Aliens is made better by the original film and reciprocates, which is why so many of the Alien sequels borrow from both of them. If you’ve avoided Aliens due to the hype, I implore you to check it out, preferably the somehow-even-better Extended Cut.

5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Ridley Scott’s Alien, click here.
For my review of Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus, click here.
For my review of James Cameron’s Avatar, click here.