Aliens (film)

This article is about the film; for the video games see Aliens (Square computer game) and Aliens (arcade game).

Aliens
The original 1986 theatrical poster
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	Story: James Cameron David Giler Walter Hill Screenplay: James Cameron
Produced by	Gale Anne Hurd Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill
Starring	Sigourney Weaver Michael Biehn Lance Henriksen Carrie Henn Paul Reiser Bill Paxton
Cinematography	Adrian Biddle
Edited by	Ray Lovejoy
Music by	James Horner
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	July 18, 1986
Running time	Theatrical Cut: 137 min. Special Edition: 154 min.
Countries	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$18,500,000
Box office	$131,060,248

Aliens is a 1986 science fiction/action film starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a benchmark for the action and science fiction genres. In Aliens, Weaver's character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet where she first encountered the hostile Alien; this time she is accompanied by a unit of Colonial Marines.

Directed by James Cameron, Aliens' action/adventure tone was in stark contrast to the science fiction/horror motifs of the original Alien. Following the success of The Terminator (1984), which helped establish Cameron as a major action director, Twentieth Century Fox greenlit Aliens with a budget of approximately $18 million. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios, the same location used for the filming of Alien, and at a decommissioned power plant.

Aliens earned $86 million in the United States box office during its 1986 theatrical release, the highest domestic gross of any film in the Alien series. It earned a total of $131 million internationally. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, which was considered a benchmark at the time when the Academy gave little recognition to the science fiction genre. It won in the categories of Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Given the combat-oriented nature of the film, Aliens was promoted with the tagline, "This Time It's War." The film's success led to the sequels Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997).

Plot

Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for fifty-seven years in hypersleep. Interviewed before a panel of executives from her employer the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Ripley's testimony regarding the Alien is met with extreme skepticism, as no physical evidence of the creature survived the destruction of the Nostromo. Ripley loses her space flight license as a result of her "questionable judgment" in destroying the Nostromo and learns that LV-426, the planetoid where her crew first encountered the Alien eggs, is now home to a terraforming colony. Ripley is visited by Weyland-Yutani employee Carter J. Burke, who informs her that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426. The company is dispatching Burke and a unit of US Colonial Marines to investigate, and offers to restore Ripley's flight status if she will accompany them as a consultant. Psychologically traumatized by her experience onboard the Nostromo, Ripley initially refuses to join, but accepts when she realizes the mission will allow her to face her fears. Arriving in orbit of LV-426 aboard the warship Sulaco, she is introduced to the Colonial Marines, including Lieutenant Gorman, Sergeant Apone and the android Bishop.

The heavily-armed expedition descends to the planetoid's surface via dropship, where they find the colony seemingly abandoned. The only living things found are two Alien "facehuggers" on display in the colony's medical lab and a severely traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt. The Marines locate the colonists, who are clustered in the colony's nuclear-powered atmosphere processing station. Traveling to the station, the Marines find a large Alien nest filled with the cocooned corpses of the colonists. When the Marines destroy a chestburster, a swarm of Aliens awaken and kill most of the unit. Ripley rescues Corporal Hicks and Privates Vasquez and Hudson. With Gorman temporarily unconscious, Hicks assumes command and orders the dropship to recover the survivors, intending to return to the Sulaco and destroy the colony from orbit. A stowaway Alien kills the dropship pilots in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station. The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the colony complex.

After learning that Burke has ordered Bishop to preserve Alien specimens for return to the company labs, Ripley becomes suspicious of Burke's intentions. She discovers that he ordered the unprepared colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship where the Nostromo crew first encountered the Alien eggs and threatens to expose him. Bishop declares that the damaged processing station has become unstable and will detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl down a service pipe to the colony transmitter and pilot the Sulaco's remaining dropship to the surface via remote control. Ripley and Newt fall asleep in the Medical Laboratory, awakening to find themselves locked in the room with the two facehuggers released from their tanks. Ripley is able to alert the Marines, who rescue her and Newt from the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of attempting to use her and Newt as hosts to smuggle implanted Alien embryos past Earth's quarantine procedures and of planning to kill the rest of the Marines in hypersleep during the return trip. Hicks is ready to execute Burke when the electricity is suddenly cut off. The Aliens enter through the ceiling and attack en masse, killing Hudson and Burke. The rest of the group escapes into the air ducts, where Gorman and an injured Vasquez, cut off and surrounded, sacrifice themselves by detonating a grenade. The force of the blast knocks Newt down a shaft, where she is captured by an Alien.

File:Anguish.jpg

The Alien queen in the atmosphere processor hive.

Ripley and an injured Hicks reach Bishop and the second dropship, but Ripley is unwilling to leave Newt behind. She rescues Newt from the hive in the processing station, where the two encounter the Alien queen and her egg chamber. Ripley destroys most of the eggs, enraging the queen who escapes by tearing free from her ovipositor. Closely pursued by the queen, Ripley, Newt, Bishop, and Hicks escape on the dropship moments before the colony is consumed by the nuclear blast. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley and Bishop's relief at their narrow escape is interrupted when the Alien queen, stowed away on the dropship's landing gear, tears Bishop in half. Ripley battles the queen using an exosuit cargo-loader. The two of them tumble into a large airlock, which Ripley then opens, expelling the queen into space. Ripley clambers to safety, and she, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop enter hypersleep for the return back to Earth.

Cast

See also: List of characters in the Alien series

• Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, the only character who previously encountered one of the Aliens, Ripley accompanies the Colonial Marines to investigate LV-426. Weaver reprised her role from Alien, with Ripley being the only recurring character from that film.
• Paul Reiser as Carter Burke, a corporate lawyer for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation who meets with Ripley after she is awakened from cryo-sleep. He accompanies Ripley and the Marines to LV-426 in order to oversee the company's interests.
• Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks, the Second Squad Leader of the Colonial Marines. Hicks forms a close bond with Ripley during the mission to LV-426.
• Lance Henriksen as Bishop, the android Executive Officer of the Sulaco, the Marines' ship. Bishop accompanies the team investigating the disappearance of the colonists on LV-426.
• Carrie Henn as Newt, a child who is the only survivor of the colony on LV-426. She forms a close bond with Ripley.
• William Hope as Lieutenant William Gorman, the Commanding Officer of the Colonial Marines sent to investigate LV-426.
• Al Matthews as Sergeant Al Apone, the Senior NCO of the Colonial Marines.
• Cynthia Dale Scott as Corporal Cynthia Dietrich, the Marine team's Corpsman.
• Bill Paxton as Private William Hudson, the Marine team's technician.
• Jenette Goldstein as Private Jenette Vasquez, the tough female marine and operator of their M56 Smart Gun. She shares a close bond with Private Drake.
• Mark Rolston as Private Mark Drake, Private Vasquez's Smart Gun partner.
• Colette Hiller as Corporal Collette Ferro, the Marines' dropship pilot.
• Daniel Kash as Private Daniel Spunkmeyer, dropship's Crew Chief.

Additional Marines were played by Ricco Ross (as Private Ricco Frost), Tip Tipping (as Private Tim Crowe), and Trevor Steedman (as Private Trevor Wierzbowski).

Production

Origins and inspiration

While completing pre-production of The Terminator in 1983, director James Cameron discussed the possibility of working on a sequel to Alien (1979) with Twentieth Century Fox producer David Giler. A fan of the original, Cameron was interested in crafting a sequel and entered a self-imposed seclusion to brainstorm a concept for Alien II. After four days, Cameron produced an initial forty-five page treatment, although management changes at Twentieth Century Fox resulted with the film put on hiatus as they felt Alien did not create a compelling profit to warrant a sequel. A scheduling conflict with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger caused filming of The Terminator to be delayed by nine months as Schwarzenegger was filming Conan the Destroyer, which allowed Cameron to write a script for Aliens. While filming The Terminator, Cameron wrote ninety pages for Aliens and although the script was not finished, Fox were impressed and told him if The Terminator was a success he would direct Aliens.

Following the success of The Terminator, Cameron and partner Gale Anne Hurd were given approval to direct and produce the sequel to Alien, scheduled for a 1986 release. Cameron was enticed by the opportunity to create a new world and opted to not remake Alien, but create a worthy combat sequel focusing "more on terror, less on horror". Sigourney Weaver who played Ellen Ripley in Alien had doubts about the project, although after meeting Cameron she was interested in revisiting her character. Fox refused to sign a contract with Weaver over a payment dispute and asked Cameron to write a story excluding Ellen Ripley. He refused as Fox had told him she had signed on when he began writing the script. With Cameron's persistence, Fox signed the contract and Weaver obtained a salary of $1 million, thirty times her fee for the first film.

Cameron drew inspiration for the Aliens story from the Vietnam War, with regards to situations where a technologically superior force was mired in a hostile foreign environment, "Their training and technology are inappropriate for the specifics, and that can be seen as analogous to the inability of superior American firepower to conquer the unseen enemy in Vietnam: a lot of firepower and very little wisdom, and it didn't work." The Colonial Marines were hired to protect the business interests of the company, to go with a myth that it was the reason troops were sent to South Vietnam. The attitude of the Marines was influenced by the Vietnam War. They were portrayed as cocky thinking they would win, although when pitched against a less technological advanced enemy that is more determined, the outcome will differ.

Concept and design

File:Ah1gm35.jpg

The AH-1 Cobra used in Vietnam served as inspiration for the design of the dropship

Early concept art was created by Syd Mead who had worked on 2010: The Year We Make Contact and Tron. The original design of the spaceship, the Sulaco was problematic due to its horizontal design which caused difficulties with the aspect ratio, as much of the ship would be out of frame. Cameron showed Syd his own concept art and the final result was a "rocket gun that carries stuff". Concept artists were asked to include subliminal acknowledgments to the Vietnam War, which included designing the dropship as a combination of a F-4 Phantom II and AH-1 Cobra.

Some scenes inside the Alien nest were shot inside a decommissioned power plant in Acton, London. The crew thought it was a perfect place to film as the walkways were grilled and the number of corridors. Problems were encountered with rust and asbestos, however, and the crew was required to spend money to clean the asbestos. The Alien nest set was not dismantled after filming and was unused until 1989 when it was used as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman. When the crew of Batman entered the set, they found most of it intact.

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The APC (armored personal carrier) was designed using an aircraft towing vehicle.

British Airways was re-equipping several of its aircraft towing vehicles, and the crew managed to purchase an old one to use it as the APC (armored personal carrier). It weighed 70 tons, and although the crew removed 35 tonnes of lead, the power station floor was reinforced to support the weight. The crew found using junk helpful in set design, which included Ripley's toilet, which came from a Boeing 747, using lockers, helicopter engines and vending machines in the opening hypersleep scene. Production designer Peter Lamont was asked to reduce the cost of several scenes which included the not-yet filmed hyper sleep sequence. Gale Hurd opted to cut it although Lamont and Cameron felt it was important. Instead of hydraulic chambers, wires and puppeteers were implemented and a mirror was used to give the illusion there were twelve hyper sleep tubes, although there were four.

Casting

Cameron opted to hire actors who had, or could create, American accents. Over 3,000 residents in the United Kingdom auditioned, although many were rejected. After auditions of UK residents proved unsuccessful, the crew imported actors from America including Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, who all worked with Cameron on The Terminator. Casting staff found the role of Newt the most difficult. They auditioned children at schools; many had acted in commercials and would smile after their lines, something the producers did not want due to the tone of the film. Carrie Henn, whose father was stationed at a United States military base, was picked out of 500 children for the role of Newt, having no acting experience.

Actors who played Marines were asked to read Heinlein's Starship Troopers and then to undergo military training which included running, weights, how to salute, march, deployment, and manoeuvre for two weeks. Al Matthews who plays Sergeant Apone had experience in the military and believed he was cast because of this experience. Cameron wanted the Marines to train together to bond so it would show on-screen. Sigourney Weaver, William Hope (Lt. William Gorman), and Paul Reiser (Carter Burke), were absent due to other obligations, although Cameron found it better suited as they are outsiders in the film. The actors were asked to personalize their armor by adding pictures and writing messages to make each unique. Michael Biehn was brought into Aliens one week after filming had commenced and was unable to participate in the training.

Filming

The producing team behind Aliens, James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd.

Aliens was filmed on a budget of $18 million at Pinewood Studios, with production lasting ten months. Production was affected by a number of personnel and cast disruptions. Shooting was said to be problematic due to cultural clashes between Cameron and the British crew, with the crew having what actor Bill Paxton called a "really indentured" way of working. Cameron, who is known to be a hard driving director and at the time was bound to a low budget with a release date set that he could not delay, found it difficult to adjust to working practices such as the regular "tea breaks" and "lucky dips" that brought production to a temporary halt. The crew were admirers of Ridley Scott, and many believed Cameron to be too young and inexperienced to be directing such a film as Aliens, despite Cameron's attempts to show them his previous film, The Terminator, which had not yet been released in the UK.

At one point, the crew members mocked Cameron's then wife, producer Gale Anne Hurd, by asking her who the producer was and insisted she was only getting producer's credit because she was Cameron's wife. A walkout occurred when Cameron clashed with an uncooperative cameraman who refused to light a scene the way Cameron wanted. Specifically, the cameraman believed in creative input onset lighting and had lit the alien nest set brightly, while Cameron insisted on his original vision of a dark, foreboding alien nest, relying on the lights on the Marines armor. After the cameraman was fired, Hurd managed to coax the crew members into coming back to work.

Weapons and props

File:PulseRifle.jpg

The pulse rifle was created using a Thompson SMG and the fore end of a shotgun

The weapons used by the Marines are based on real, fully functional weapons. British armorers used guns they found to be the most reliable when firing blanks and those which looked futuristic. The M41A pulse rifle was created from a Thompson SMG with an attached fore end of a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun and a Remington 12 Gauge Model 870P receiver with barrel. The M56 Smart Guns carried by Vasquez and Drake are based on the German MG-42 machine gun and are maneuvered with a steadicam harness, which was created using old motorcycle parts. The crew found flamethrowers the most difficult weapon to create and use, as it was the most dangerous and heaviest.

Music

Music composer James Horner felt he was not given enough time to create a musical score. Horner arrived in England and expected the film to be locked so he could write the score in six weeks, which he thought was a sufficient amount of time. Horner, however, discovered that filming and editing were still taking place, and he was unable to view the film. He visited the sets and editing rooms for three weeks and found that editor Ray Lovejoy was barely keeping up with the workload, due to time restrictions. Horner believed Cameron was so pre-occupied with sound effects, in which Cameron spent two days with the person who created the sound for the pulse rifles, that he was given an outdated recording studio. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra, the establishment was 30 years old and was barely able to patch in synthesizers and use electronic equipment required by Horner for this type of film.

Six weeks from theatrical release, no dubbing had taken place, and the score had not been written as Horner was unable to view the completed film. The final cue where Ripley battles the Alien queen was written overnight. Cameron completely reworked the scene leaving Horner to re-write the music. As Gale Hurd did not have much music production experience, she and Cameron denied Horner's request to push the film back four weeks so he could finish the musical score. He felt that if he was given more time he could get it 100% right, rather than his opinion of what was 80%. The score was recorded in roughly four days. Despite his troubles, Horner did manage to receive an Academy Award nomination (his first) for Best Original Score.

Horner stated tensions between himself and Cameron were so high during post-production that he assumed they would never work together again. Horner believed the film schedules that Cameron wanted to make were too short and stressful. The two parted ways until 1997 when Cameron, so impressed with Horner's score for Braveheart, asked him to compose the score for Titanic.

Visual effects

Brothers Robert and Dennis Skotak were hired to supervise the visual effects having previously worked with Cameron on several Roger Corman movies. Two stages were used to construct the colony on LV-426 using miniature models that were on average 6-ft tall and 3-ft wide. Filming the miniatures was difficult due to the weather; the wind would blow over the props, although it proved helpful to give the effect of weather on the planet. Cameron used these miniatures and several effects to make scenes look larger than they were, including rear projection, mirrors, beam splitters, camera splits and foreground miniatures.

The Alien suits were made more flexible to expand on their movements, such as crawling and jumping, to make them more of a character. Dancers and stunt men were in these suits which were made more durable than in Alien to allow these movements. The Alien's design was changed as the crew thought the original domehead would crack due to excessive mobility, whereas in Alien the Alien was limited in its movements.

Scenes involving the Alien queen were the most difficult to film according to production staff. A life-size mock-up was created in the United States to see how it would operate. Once the testing was complete, the crew working on the queen flew to England and began work creating the real Alien queen. Standing at 14-ft, it was operated using a mixture of puppeteers, control rods, hydraulics, cables, and a crane above to support it. Two puppeteers were inside the suit operating its arms, and siteen were required to move it. All sequences involving the queen were filmed in-camera with no digital rod removal.

Reception

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Aliens on the cover of TIME's July 28, 1986 issue.

Box office

Eagerly anticipated by fans following the success of Alien, Aliens was released in America on July 18 1986, and September 26 in the UK. The film opened in 1,437 theaters for an average of $6,995, and a weekend gross of $10,052,042. It was number one at the United States box office for four consecutive weeks grossing $85.1, the highest grossing Alien film in the country. The film took in $45.9 million in the international box office for a total gross of $131 million.

Reviews

Test and pre-screenings were unable to take place for Aliens due to the film not being completed until its week of release. Once it was released in cinemas, critical and audience reaction was very positive. Based on thirty reviews, the film has a fresh rating of 100% at Rotten Tomatoes' with an average critic score of 8.7. Critic Roger Ebert called it "painfully and unremittingly intense" and a "superb example of filmmaking craft". Time Magazine featured the film on the cover of its July 28 1986 issue, in which reviewer Richard Schickel declared the film "a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving [Sigourney] Weaver new emotional dimensions to explore." Walter Goodman of The New York Times said it was a "flaming, flashing, crashing, crackling blow-'em-up show that keeps you popping from your seat."

Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader said it was "One sequel that surpasses the original," while John Hartl Film.com called it "Absolutely smashing!" Austin Chronicle contributor Marjorie Baumgarten labeled it a "non-stop action fest," and James Berardinelli said "When it comes to the logical marriage of action, adventure, and science fiction, few films are as effective or accomplished as Aliens." In a 1997 interview, Weaver stated that Aliens "made the first Alien look like a cucumber sandwich."

Awards and accolades

Sigourney Weaver's Academy Award nomination for Best Actress was considered a benchmark at the time when the Academy gave little recognition to the science fiction genre.

Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Music, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration. The film won two awards for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Although Weaver did not win, it was considered a landmark nomination for an actress to be considered for a science fiction/horror film, a genre which was given little recognition by the Academy in 1986.

The film received four BAFTA award nominations and won in the category of Visual Effects. Aliens won eight Saturn Awards in the categories of Best science fiction film, Best actress (Sigourney Weaver), Best supporting actor (Bill Paxton), Best supporting actress (Jenette Goldstein), Best performance by a younger actor (Carrie Henn), Best direction (James Cameron), Best writing (James Cameron), and Best special effects (Stan Winston and the L.A. Effects Group).

Time Magazine named Aliens in their Best of '86 list calling it a "technically awesome blend of the horror, sci-fi and service- comedy genres." In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named Aliens as the second best action movie of all time, behind Die Hard. In Rotten Tomatoes analysis of top 100 science fiction films, Aliens ranks #10 among the best-reviewed science fiction films. In 2004, Aliens was named #35 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the facehugger attack towards Ripley; the original Alien was named #2 for the chestburster scene. IGN ranked it third in its Top 25 Action Films of All-Time stating, "there won't be an Alien movie as scary – or exciting – as this one made ever again."

Special edition

Aliens: Special Edition was released in 1992 on laserdisc and VHS that restored 17 minutes of deleted footage. These additions include a segment showing the colony on LV-426 when the colonists first encounter the Derelict Alien spacecraft which is infested with Alien eggs, a sentry gun scene in the operations building, Ripley's discovery of her daughter's fate while she was in hypersleep, and several dialogue scenes between Ripley and the Marines. These scenes were deleted from the theatrical edition as 20th Century Fox representatives thought the film was showing "too much nothing" and spent an unnecessary amount of time building suspense. It was therefore cut so it would have the maximum amount of screenings in cinemas.

The special edition was released on The Alien Legacy in 1999 on DVD. The special edition and theatrical editions were released in the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, and a 2-disc Special Collector's Edition DVD was released on January 6, 2004. The first disc included an audio commentary for the special edition which features Cameron, Gale Hurd, Stan Winston, special effects supervisors Robert and Dennis Skotak, miniature effects supervisor Pat McClung, actors Christopher Henn, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. The second disc included special features relating to production, pre-production, and post-production.

References

• Superior Firepower: The Making of Aliens, Alien Quadrilogy – Disc 3, 2003, 20th Century Fox

Further reading

• The Complete Aliens Companion (by Paul Sammon, Harper Prism, 1998, ISBN 0-06-105385-6)
• Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films (by David A. McIntee, Telos, 272 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-903889-94-4)

External links

• Aliens at IMDb
• Aliens at Rotten Tomatoes
• Aliens at Box Office Mojo

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