Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction-action film written and directed by James Cameron. It is the sequel to the 1979 science fiction horror film Alien, and the second film in the Alien franchise. Set in the far future, it stars Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of an alien attack on her ship. When communications are lost with a human colony on the moon where her crew first encountered the alien creatures, Ripley agrees to return to the site with a unit of Colonial Marines to investigate. Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, and Carrie Henn are featured in supporting roles.
Despite the success of Alien, its sequel took years to develop due to lawsuits, a lack of enthusiasm from 20th Century Fox, and repeated management changes. Although relatively inexperienced, Cameron was hired to write a story for Aliens in 1983 on the strength of his scripts for The Terminator and Rambo: First Blood Part II. The project stalled again until new Fox executive Lawrence Gordon pursued a sequel. On an approximately $18.5million budget, Aliens began principal photography in September 1985 and concluded in January 1986. The film's development was tumultuous and rife with conflicts between Cameron and the British crew at Pinewood Studios. The difficult shoot affected the composer, James Horner, who was given little time to record the music.
Aliens was released on July 18, 1986, to critical acclaim. Reviewers praised its action, but some criticized the intensity of certain scenes. Weaver's performance garnered consistent praise along with those of Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein. The film received several awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Weaver at a time when the science-fiction genre was generally overlooked. It earned $131.1–183.3million during its theatrical run, making it one of the highest-grossing films of 1986 worldwide.
Aliens is now considered among the greatest films of the 1980s, and among the best science fiction, action, and sequel films ever made, often deemed equal to or better than Alien. It is credited with expanding the franchise's scope with additions to the series' backstory and factions such as the Colonial Marines. It inspired a variety of merchandise, including video games, comic books and toys. It was followed by two sequels: Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, a prequel film, Alien: Romulus, and a TV series, Alien: Earth.
Plot
A deep-space salvage crew find an escape shuttle where Ellen Ripley has been in stasis for 57 years after destroying her ship, the Nostromo, to kill an alien creature that slaughtered the crew. Ripley is debriefed by her Weyland-Yutani Corporation employers who doubt her claim about alien eggs in a derelict ship on the exomoon LV-426, now the site of a terraforming colony.After contact is lost with the colony, Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman ask Ripley to accompany them to investigate. Still traumatized by her alien encounter, she agrees on the condition that they exterminate the creatures. Ripley meets the Colonial Marines aboard the spaceship Sulaco but distrusts their android, Bishop, because the Nostromos android, Ash, betrayed its crew to protect the alien on company orders.
A dropship lands the crew on LV-426, where they find the battle-ravaged colony and two live alien facehuggers in containment tanks. The only colonist found is a traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt. The team locates the other colonists' signals beneath the fusion-powered atmosphere processing station and heads to their location, descending into corridors covered in alien secretions. At the station's center, the marines discover opened eggs, dead facehuggers, and cocooned colonists serving as incubators for the alien embryos. The marines kill a newborn alien after it bursts through a colonist's chest, rousing several adult aliens who ambush the marines, killing or capturing many. When the inexperienced Gorman panics, Ripley assumes command and rams their armored personnel carrier into the nest to rescue Corporal Dwayne Hicks, and Privates Hudson and Vasquez. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the survivors, but a stowaway alien kills the pilots, causing the dropship to crash into the station. Low on ammunition and resources, the survivors barricade themselves inside the colony facility.
Ripley discovers that Burke ordered the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship containing the alien eggs, intending to profit by recovering them for biological weapon research. Before she can expose Burke, Bishop reports that the dropship crash damaged the power plant's cooling system, and it will soon overheat and explode, destroying the colony. Bishop volunteers to travel to the colony transmitter and remotely pilot the remaining dropship to the surface.
Asleep in the medical lab, Ripley and Newt awaken to find themselves trapped with the two released facehuggers. Ripley triggers a fire alarm to alert the marines, who rescue them and kill the creatures. She accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers to implant her and Newt with alien embryos to smuggle them through Earth's quarantine. The power is suddenly cut, and aliens attack through the ceiling. In the ensuing firefight, the aliens kill Burke, subdue Hudson, and injure Hicks; the cornered Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves to avoid capture. Newt is separated from Ripley and taken by the creatures. Ripley takes Hicks to the dropship but refuses to abandon Newt and arms herself before descending into the processing station hive alone to rescue her. During their escape, they encounter the alien queen amid dozens of eggs. When one opens, Ripley burns the eggs and blows up the queen's ovipositor. Pursued by the enraged queen, Ripley and Newt reach the dropship and escape with Bishop and an unconscious Hicks moments before the station explodes, consuming the colony in a nuclear blast.
Aboard the Sulaco, the queen, stowed away in the dropship's landing gear, attacks the group. The queen rips Bishop in half and advances on Newt, but Ripley battles the creature using an exosuit cargo loader, expelling it into space through an airlock while the damaged Bishop shields Newt. Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop then enter hypersleep for their return trip to Earth.
Cast
- Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley: the survivor of an alien attack on her ship, the Nostromo
- Michael Biehn as Dwayne Hicks: a corporal in the Colonial Marines
- Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke: a Weyland-Yutani Corporation representative
- Lance Henriksen as Bishop: an android aboard the Sulaco
- Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden: a young girl in the colony on LV-426
- Bill Paxton as Hudson: a boastful but panicky Colonial Marine private
- William Hope as Gorman: the Marines' inexperienced commanding officer
- Ricco Ross as Frost: a private in the Colonial Marines
- Al Matthews as Apone: the Marines' cool-headed sergeant
Some scenes removed from Alienss theatrical version were restored in subsequent releases. Additional credits for these scenes include Newt's father, Russ Jorden, and her mother Anne. Henn's brother, Christopher, plays her brother Timmy, Mac McDonald portrays colony administrator Al Simpson, and Weaver's mother, Elizabeth Inglis, makes a cameo appearance as Ripley's elderly daughter Amanda.
Production
Early development
The success of Alien led to immediate discussions of a sequel, but the production company Brandywine Productions struggled to convince 20th Century Fox to make it. Studio president Alan Ladd Jr. was supportive of the project but left Fox to found the Ladd Company, and his replacement, Norman Levy, was concerned about the cost of producing an AlienII. Brandywine co-founder David Giler said Levy believed a sequel would be a "disaster". Fox executives believed Aliens success was a fluke, and that it had not generated enough profit or audience interest to warrant a sequel. Box-office returns for horror films were also declining. Progress was further slowed when Giler and Brandywine co-founders Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll sued Fox for unpaid profits from Alien. Using Hollywood accounting methods, Fox had declared Alien a financial loss despite its earnings of over $100million against a $9–$11million budget. Brandywine's lawsuit was settled by early 1983, the result being that Fox would finance the development of AlienII, but was not required to distribute the film.Levy's eventual replacement, Joe Wizan, was receptive to a sequel, and although other executives remained noncommittal, Giler's development executive, Larry Wilson, began looking for a scriptwriter by mid-1983. Wilson came across the script for the in-development science fiction film, The Terminator, written by James Cameron. With Cameron's collaborative scriptwriting efforts alongside Sylvester Stallone on Rambo: First Blood Part II, Wilson was convinced to show the script for The Terminator to Giler, Hill, and Carroll. In November 1983, Cameron submitted a 42-page film treatment for AlienII—written in three days—based on Giler and Hill's suggestion of "Ripley and soldiers". The studio had a mixed reaction, one executive calling it a constant stream of horror without character development. Negotiations to sell the sequel rights to Rambo developers Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna failed and the project stalled again.