Aliens (film)

David Giler declared in 1979 Brandywine Productions were intent on "immediately making a sequel" to Alien, having the full support of 20th Century Fox president Alan Ladd Jr.. However, that year Ladd left amid Fox's transition to new owners Marc Rich and Marvin Davis, and the new studio management had no interest in the sequel.[9] Giler accused new president Norman Levy of being the one that held back the film's production; Levy would later declare that "It was a movie I wanted to make," but he felt another Alien would prove too costly. In the meantime, Giler and partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll sued Fox regarding the disbursement of the Alien profits. By the time the lawsuit was settled in 1983, Fox had new executives that got interested in continuing Alien.[10] Giler pitched the project to one of the executives as a cross between Hill's Southern Comfort and The Magnificent Seven.[9]

While the producers and development executive Larry Wilson sought a writer for Alien II, Wilson came across James Cameron's screenplay for The Terminator, and passed the script to Giler, feeling Cameron was right for the job.[10] Giler then approached Cameron, who was completing pre-production of The Terminator. A fan of the original Alien, Cameron was interested in crafting a sequel and entered a self-imposed seclusion to brainstorm a concept for Alien II.[11] After four days Cameron produced an initial 45-page treatment, although the Fox management put the film on hiatus, as some disliked the pitch, and they felt that Alien had not generated enough profit to warrant a sequel.[10][11] 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), allowing Cameron additional time to write a script for Aliens. While filming The Terminator, Cameron wrote 90 pages for Aliens, and although the script was not finished, Fox's new president Larry Gordon was impressed and told him that if The Terminator was a success, he would be able to direct Aliens.[9][10] Cameron even declared that he spent production of The Terminator thinking on which elements of that film could "make a good dry run" for the Alien sequel.[12]

Following the success of The Terminator, Cameron and producing 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 not to follow the same formula as Alien, but to create a worthy combat sequel focusing "more on terror, less on horror".[13] Sigourney Weaver, who played Ripley in Alien, had doubts about the project, but after meeting Cameron she expressed interest in revisiting her character. 20th Century Fox, however, refused to sign a contract with Weaver over a payment dispute and asked Cameron to write a story excluding Ripley.[9] He refused on the grounds that Fox had indicated that Weaver 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, a sum 30 times what she was paid for the first film[14] (and equivalent to $2,400,000 in present-day terms). Weaver nicknamed her role in the Alien sequel "Rambolina", referring to John Rambo of the Rambo series, and stated that she approached the role as akin to the titular role in Henry V or women warriors in Chinese classical literature.[14]

Cameron drew inspiration for the Aliens story from the Vietnam War, a situation in which 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."[11][15] The attitude of the Colonial Marines was influenced by the Vietnam War; they are portrayed as cocky and confident of their inevitable victory, but when they find themselves facing a technologically inferior but more determined enemy, the outcome is not what they expect.[13] Cameron listed Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers as a major influence that led to the incorporation of various themes and phrases, such as the terms "the drop" and "bug hunt" as well as the cargo-loader exoskeleton.[16]

Carrie Henn in 2008. Aliens is her only credited acting role as she opted not to pursue an acting career

Cameron opted to hire actors who had, or could imitate, American accents. After over 3,000 individuals in the United Kingdom were unsuccessfully auditioned, American actors were chosen instead, including three who had previously worked with Cameron on The Terminator: Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Michael Biehn. Actors who played Marines were asked to read Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers and undergo military training, which included running, lifting weights, learning salutes, marches, deployments, and maneuvers, for two weeks. Cameron wanted the Marines to train together so that they would form bonds that would show on-screen. Sigourney Weaver, William Hope, and Paul Reiser were absent from training because of other obligations, but Cameron felt that this suited their characters as "outsiders" in the film.[17]

Weaver reprised her role from Alien. Biehn was hastily cast a week after filming had commenced, and thus was not present for the military training that the other actors playing Marines went through[17] James Remar was originally cast as Hicks but left the project over creative differences with Cameron.[18] In an interview on episode #128 of the Sidebar podcast, Remar stated that he was replaced due to being fired after he was arrested for drug possession. Only a few shots of him remain in the film, which is where the team first enters the alien hive, only his back is seen. This was because those sequences were too expensive to re-shoot.[19]

According to the casting director, Newt was the most difficult role to cast: School children were auditioned, but many of them had acted in commercials and were accustomed to smiling after saying their lines. Henn, from Atwater, California,[20] was chosen out of 500 children for the role, although she had no previous acting experience.[17][13] She received a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor,[21] but chose not to pursue an acting career, and became a teacher.[22] Matthews attributed his casting to his military experience.

The producing team behind Aliens, James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd

Aliens was filmed over ten months on a budget of $18 million at Pinewood Studios in England.[11] Cameron, bound by a low budget and a deadline, found it difficult to adjust to what Paxton called the "indentured" working practices of the British crew, such as the tea breaks that brought production to a halt. Many of the crew had worked on Alien and were fiercely loyal to Ridley Scott, and they believed the 31-year-old Cameron was too young and inexperienced to direct. In response, he arranged a screening of The Terminator, which had not yet been released in the UK, but many of the crew did not attend.[23] They also mocked producer Gale Anne Hurd, insisting that she was only receiving the producer credit because she was married to Cameron. Cameron clashed with the original director of photography Dick Bush when Bush started production saying the schedule couldn't be met and when he insisted on lighting the alien nest set brightly. Cameron insisted on a dark, foreboding nest, relying on the lights from the Marines' armor. After Bush was fired, the crew walked out. Hurd managed to coax the team back to work, and Adrian Biddle was hired as Bush's replacement.[23]

Some scenes of the alien nest were shot at the decommissioned Acton Lane Power Station in Acton, London. The crew thought it was a perfect place to film because of its grilled walkways and numerous corridors, but had to spend money to remove asbestos from the station.[24] The Atmosphere Processor set was not dismantled after filming, and was reused in 1989 as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman (1989).[25]

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 completed and to 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 for reasons of time restrictions. Horner believed Cameron was preoccupied with sound effects, citing that Cameron spent two days with the sound engineer creating the sounds for the pulse rifles. He also complained that he was given an outdated recording studio; the score was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, a then-30-year-old studio that was barely able to patch in synthesizers or use the electronic equipment that Horner required.[26]

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 for the scene in which Ripley battles the alien queen was written overnight. Cameron completely reworked the scene, leaving Horner to rewrite 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 score. Horner felt that, given more time, he could get the score to 100% of his satisfaction rather than the 80% he estimated he had been able to achieve. The score was recorded in roughly four days.[26] Despite his troubles, Horner received an Academy Award nomination (his first) for Best Original Score.

Horner stated that tensions between himself and Cameron were so high during post-production that he assumed they would never work together again. Horner believed that Cameron's film schedules were too short and stressful. The two parted ways until 1997 when Cameron, impressed with Horner's score for Braveheart, asked him to compose the score for Titanic.[26]

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, six feet tall and three feet wide.[31] Filming the miniatures was difficult because of the weather; the wind would blow over the props; however, 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 really were, including rear projection, mirrors, beam splitters, camera splits and foreground miniatures. Due to budget limits, Cameron said he had to pay for the robotic arm used to cut into Ripley's shuttle in the opening scene.[31][32] Practical effects supervisor John Richardson (who won a special effects Oscar for his part in the film) declared his biggest challenge was creating the forklift power-loader exoskeletons, which required only three months of work and had Cameron complaining about visual details during construction. The model could not stand on its own, requiring either wires dangling from the shoulders or a pole through the back attached to a crane. While Sigourney Weaver was inside the power loader model, a stunt man standing behind it would move the arms and legs.[29]

The alien suits were made more flexible and durable than the ones used in Alien to expand on the creatures' movements and allow them to crawl and jump. Dancers, gymnasts, and stunt men were hired to portray the aliens. Various 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) mannequins also were created to make aliens that stood in inhuman poses, and could have their bodies exploded to simulate gunshot wounds. Stan Winston's team created fully articulated facehuggers that could move their fingers; these were moved by wires hidden on the scenery or the actors' clothing. The one that walked towards Ripley had a mechanism akin to a pull toy, with pulleys that moved the fingers, and its jump combined three models shot separately: the walking facehugger, a stationary model dangling on a table leg, and another model being pulled towards the camera.[30]

According to production staff, scenes involving the alien queen were the most difficult to film. A life-sized mockup was created by Stan Winston's company 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 final version. Standing at 14 feet (4.3 m) tall, 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 16 were required to move it. All sequences involving the full-size queen were filmed in-camera with no post-production manipulation.[31] Additionally, a miniature alien queen was used for certain shots.[33]

Eagerly anticipated by fans following the success of Alien,[34] Aliens was released in North America on July 18, 1986, and August 29 in the United Kingdom. In North America, the film opened in 1,437 theaters with an average opening gross of $6,995 and a weekend gross of $10,052,042. It was #1 at the North American box office for four consecutive weeks, grossing $85,160,248. Aliens was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 1986 in North America.[35] The film's worldwide total gross has been stated as high as $180 million, making Aliens one of the highest-grossing R-rated films at the time.[36] In 1992, Fox noted the worldwide gross was $157 million.[37]

Aliens received universal acclaim. Test and pre-screenings were unable to take place due to the film not being completed until its week of release.[38] Once it was released in cinemas, critical reaction was very positive. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[39]

Critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and called it "painfully and unremittingly intense" and a "superb example of filmmaking craft." He also stated "when I walked out of the theater, there were knots in my stomach from the film's roller-coaster ride of violence."[40] 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 despite your better instincts and the basically conventional scare tactics."[41] Time magazine featured the film on the cover of its July 28, 1986, issue, calling it the "summer's scariest movie". Time reviewer Richard Schickel declared the film "a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving Weaver new emotional dimensions to explore."[11] The selection of Aliens for a Time cover was attributed to the successful reception of the film,[42][43] as well as its novel example of a science-fiction action heroine.[44] Echoing Time's assessment, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called the film "one sequel that surpasses the original."[45] On the negative side, Gene Siskel described Aliens as "one extremely violent, protracted attack on the senses" and that "toward the end, the film resorts to placing a young girl in jeopardy in a pathetic attempt to pander to who knows what audience. Some people have praised the technical excellence of Aliens. Well, the Eiffel Tower is technically impressive, but I wouldn't want to watch it fall apart on people for two hours."[46]

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

Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Actress, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction. It won two awards for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and although she did not win, it was considered a landmark nomination for an actress to be considered for a science-fiction/horror film, a genre which previously was given little recognition.[13][38][47]

Aliens received four BAFTA award nominations and won in the category of Visual Effects.[48] It won eight Saturn Awards in the film categories of actress (Sigourney Weaver), supporting actor (Bill Paxton), supporting actress (Jenette Goldstein), performance by a younger actor (Carrie Henn), direction (James Cameron), writing (James Cameron), special effects (Stan Winston and the L.A. Effects Group), and science-fiction film.[21]

Time magazine named Aliens in its Best of '86 list calling it a "technically awesome blend of the horror, sci-fi and service-comedy genres."[49] In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named Aliens as the second-best action movie of all time behind Die Hard.[50] In a Rotten Tomatoes analysis of the top 100 science-fiction films, Aliens ranks tenth among the best-reviewed films of the genre.[51] In 2004, Aliens was ranked 35th on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" for the scene in which Ripley and Newt are attacked by facehuggers; the original Alien was ranked second for the chestburster scene.[52] IGN ranked it third in its "Top 25 Action Films of All Time", stating that "there won't be an Alien movie as scary—or exciting—as this one made ever again."[53] Empire voted it the 'Greatest Film Sequel Of All Time'.[54]

The film is also recognized by American Film Institute in the 2003 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains: Ellen Ripley as the #8 hero.[55]

Michael Biehn signing a copy of the film's DVD cover at an August 2012 Midtown Comics appearance

Aliens was first released on VHS in 1987, finishing as the tenth-best-selling title of the year.[56] A "special edition" of Aliens that restored 17 minutes of deleted footage was released in the UK on VHS on April 5, 1990[57] and in the US on LaserDisc in 1991 and on VHS the following year. These additions include a segment showing Newt's family first encountering the derelict spacecraft on LV-426, Ripley's learning that her daughter died during the years she was in hypersleep, a scene in the operations building in which the Marines use sentry guns against the aliens, and several extended dialogue scenes between Ripley and the Marines.[13] These scenes had been deleted from the original theatrical release as 20th Century Fox representatives thought the film was showing "too much nothing" and spent an unnecessary amount of time building suspense.[13]

Most of the special edition's footage was first seen when the film made its broadcast television debut on CBS in 1989, but two additional sequences concerning Burke's transmission to the colony about the derelict, and the Jorden family's subsequent discovery of the same, were added to the initial LaserDisc release. According to Cameron, the visual effects for the scene were incomplete, so he went back to the Skotak brothers and had them finish the sequences. All currently available versions of the special edition contain these scenes.

The special edition was released as part of The Alien Legacy 20th Anniversary Edition DVD box set in 1999 along with Alien, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. Both the theatrical version and the special edition were released again in 2003 as part of the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set along with similar versions of Alien, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. A separate two-disc "special collector's edition" DVD of Aliens was released on January 6, 2004, containing the same material as the two Aliens discs in the Quadrilogy set.[58] Additional content in these versions included an audio commentary for the special edition featuring director James Cameron, producer Gale Hurd, special effects artists and crew members. The second disc included special features relating to pre-production, production, and post-production.[59] The film was first made available on Blu-ray in the 2010 box set Alien Anthology,[60] before receiving a stand-alone release the following year.[61] Fox released the 30th-anniversary Blu-ray of the movie on September 13, 2016.[62]

Philosopher Stephen Mulhall has remarked that the four Alien films represent an artistic rendering of the difficulties faced by the woman's "voice" to have itself heard in a masculinist society because Ripley continually encounters males who try to silence her and to force her to submit to their desires. Mulhall sees this depicted in several events in Aliens, particularly the inquest scene in which Ripley's explanation for the deaths and destruction of the Nostromo as well as her attempts to warn the board members of the Alien danger are met with officious disdain. However, Mulhall believes that Ripley's relationship with Hicks illustrates that Aliens "is devoted ... to the possibility of modes of masculinity that seek not to stifle but rather to accommodate the female voice, and modes of femininity that can acknowledge and incorporate something more or other of masculinity than our worst nightmares of it."[63]

Several movie academics, including Barbara Creed, have remarked on the color and lighting symbolism in the Alien franchise, which offsets white, strongly lit environments (spaceships, corporate offices) against darker, dirtier, "corrupted" settings (derelict alien ship, abandoned industrial facilities). These black touches contrast or even attempt to take over the purity of the white elements.[64] Others, such as Kile M. Ortigo of Emory University, agree with this interpretation and point to the Sulaco with its "sterilized, white interior".[65]

While some claim that the shape of the Sulaco was based on a submarine,[66] the design has most often been described as a "gun in space" resembling the rifles used in the movie.[67] Author Roz Kaveney called the opening shot of the ship traveling through space "fetishistic" and "shark-like", "an image of brutal strength and ingenious efficiency"—while the militarized interior of the Sulaco (designed by Ron Cobb) is contrasted to the organic interior of the Nostromo in the first movie (also designed by Cobb).[68] David McIntee noted the homage the scene pays to the opening tour through the Nostromo in Alien.[69]

Roger Luckhurst in his 2014 book on the original Alien film, compared its underlying worldview to that of Aliens stating, "Even if Alien was a piece of leftist science fiction, the core of (its) myth could be inflected the other way. James Cameron's Aliens would be a defiantly Reaganite version of the story—pumped, militarized, libertarian and driven by a staunch defense of the nuclear family."[70]

The android character Bishop has been the subject of literary and philosophical analysis as a high-profile fictional android conforming to science-fiction author Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and as a model of a compliant, potentially self-aware machine.[71] His portrayal has been studied by writers for the University of Texas Press for its implications relating to how humans deal with the presence of an "Other",[72] as Ripley treats them with fear and suspicion after the android Ash tried to kill her in the original Alien movie, and a form of "hi-tech racism and android apartheid" is present throughout the series.[73] This is seen as part of a larger trend of technophobia in films before the 1990s, with Bishop's role being particularly significant as he doubly proves his worth at the end of the film, thus confounding Ripley's expectations.[74]

The film has remained critically acclaimed over the years. In a 2000 review, film critic 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."[75] Austin Chronicle contributor Marjorie Baumgarten labeled the film in 2002 as "a non-stop action fest."[76] In 2016, James Charisma of Playboy ranked the film #6 on a list of "15 Sequels That Are Way Better Than the Originals".[77]

Aliens holds a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 74 reviews, and an average rating of 8.99/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "While Alien was a marvel of slow-building, atmospheric tension, Aliens packs a much more visceral punch, and features a typically strong performance from Sigourney Weaver."[78] It also holds a score of 84 out of 100 based on 22 critics on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".[79] Aliens was also featured in Empire Magazine's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time poll at #30 in 2008, in Empire's 301 Greatest Films of All Time poll at #19 in 2014 and in Empire's recent The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time poll at #15.

In 2013, National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) released the first wave of highly detailed human and alien action figures from the respective film. NECA's Reel Toys worked directly with actors from the Alien franchise to release realistic figures based on select characters they portrayed in the films. NECA has released seven-inch figures based on characters such as Corporal Hicks, Private Hudson, and Bishop. During winter 2014, it was announced there would be multiple figures of Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's character from the Alien films. NECA worked directly with Weaver to develop these action figures, which are the first to feature her likeness.[80]

Three pinball adaptation of Aliens were also released, with two virtual and one physical. The first pinball adaptation of the film was one of four virtual tables in the 1999 computer game Sci-Fi Pinball, with the other three based on the first two Predator films, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Fly.[81] On April 26, 2016 Zen Studios released the Aliens vs. Pinball add-on pack for Zen Pinball 2, Pinball FX 2 and Pinball FX 3, which contained a digital pinball adaptation of the film featuring 3-D animated figures of Ripley and the Xenomorph Queen and omitting the film's graphic violence and strong profanity.[82] Nearly a year later, the short-lived Heighway Pinball developed and released a physical pinball adaptation of the first two films of the Alien franchise.[83][84][85][86]

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