I remember when I was a teenager and while we created our characters for a RPG called "Recon" - a roleplaying game that takes part during the Vietnam War (1965-1975). During that session we watched two movies over and over. And over. At least 10 hours of war and scifi.
The first one was of course Platoon (1986) and the second was (Aliens). My first 15 rated movie at the theatres was Aliens in the early 1987. The Swedish premiere for this picture as January 30th 1987. I was just to become 14 that year but I managed to get inside. I haven't watched Alien before so for me it was just a complete new movie. I still remember the smell of the theatre and the arcade machines outside screaming for my money, but I had something else in mind.
I've watched "Filmkrönikan" on SVT (National Swedish Television) where they reviewed the picture. There I was in front of my TV, watching the face hugger scene from the medical bay in "Aliens" it totally changed me as a person.
I was completely blown away. This was way cooler than Star Wars and Terminator, Back to the future and everything else I've watched in the past. The sound, the lightning, the weapons, aircrafts, machines, soldiers, Ripley and of course the most fearsome of them all – aliens, blackish, creepy, deadly and extremely beautiful at the same time. Aliens changed everything. I even begin to play Aliens the board game.
And one of my friend had "Aliens" on his Commodore 64. There were endless opportunities for me as an Aliens lover.
In 1991 I went to Italy for a vacation where I bought Dark Horse Aliens comic (in italy).
It has to be one of the best movies ever produced. I absolutely love this movie. It’s a blend of drama, horror, aliens, and sci-fi, with a huge amount of dark humor, and it featured a witty crew of production designers and special effects artists. Only six alien costumes were made for the movie, but 40 years later, Aliens still works as a classic horror alien movie.
As a film maker I've always used Aliens as a reference for a scene, an action, dialogue, the editing and the sound. When working with a very tight or no-budget production you have to be innovative, trying to figuring out how to make this as spectacular as possible without a special effects team waiting for you and so forth. Aliens is a benchmark for a perfect popcorn movie wich got everything I want out of a movie.
Jim, or James Cameron: The master of pitching a project
One of the biggest challenges when making this movie was that Jim’s wife was the producer, and Jim was writing the next episode of the Rambo series at the same time as directing Aliens in England. And let’s not forget all the goofy events that took place in the studio, including the crazy outbursts of a cinematographer who didn’t understand Jim’s way of lighting a scene.
He's the man knows how to sell a vision. During the pre production of The Terminator, which was his golden ticket into Hollywood. His friend Lance Henriksen storm into a meeting dressed as a murderous cyborg, kicking down the door and staying in character until Cameron gently passed by to seal the deal. Jim's know how to entertain and make an entrance.
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| Concept images of Lance Henriksen as the original Terminator. |
Jim had another approach for Aliens. He just scribbled the word "Alien" on a piece of paper, added an "s", and then turned that "$" into a dollar sign.
Having The Terminator into their mind and what it did for 20th Century Fox box-office chops, they didn't hesitate. Cameron got the green light to turn Ridley Scott’s slow-burn horror into a full-throttle action sequel doing so by using his "old" story "mother", which he turned into Aliens.
Download the script of ALIENS here.
The fight to make Aliens – not a walk in the park
Despite Alien raking in nearly $185 million on an $11 million budget, 20th Century Fox box dragged their feet on a sequel, claiming the first film hadn’t made enough profit to justify the risk.
Lawsuits flew between Brandywine Productions (Walter Hill, David Giler, and Gordon Carroll’s baby) and 20th Century Fox box. It wasn’t until Lawrence Gordon took the reins at Fox in 1984 that Cameron’s Aliens treatment, originally titled "Alien II" and written in just three days under the concept "Ripley with Americans" finally got the go-ahead.
At the time Sigourney Weaver wasn't a newbie, she had a few more films under her belt. Pictures like "The Year of Living Dangerously", "Ghostbusters" but still she wasn't the major star to cast the head actor. Casting her again sparked a battle: Cameron and his then-wife-and-producer Gale Hurd insisted the film couldn’t work without her as Ellen Ripley, while 20th Century Fox box was ready to move forward with or without her. Sigourney liked the script but hated the idea of going back to space and all the guns (she's totally against guns). What we didn't knew then "Alien 3" was already lurking in the shadows.
Coming back as Warrant officer Ellen Ripley.
The script took Ripley in real, human directions. Being drifted in space for more than 57 years in cryo, she’s in deep trouble with Weyland-Yutani for blowing up their expensive ship. She’s adrift, especially after learning her daughter, now an old woman who has died some years earlier.
She ends up losing her title as pilot and begins working at a cargo dock, piloting a Power Loader (which, spoiler alert, comes in handy later). But she’s still not sold on returning to LV-426, even after contact is lost with the colonists. Finally, she agrees—on one condition: if the aliens are behind this, they get wiped out. Carter Burke (Paul Reiser, perfectly slimy) signs off.
Let's go and go bug hunting!
The bug hunt is on. Aboard the spaceship "Sulaco", we meet the rest of the kick-ass military crew. The casting isn’t quite as iconic as Alien’s, and some faces blur into the background. They become cannon fodder, just like in Ridley Scott’s prequels (Frost, anyone?). But oh, boy, it’s still a masterclass in back-of-a-postcard casting. Many of Jim's old friends are re-joining this space opera too.
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| William Hope and Lance Henriksen in the alien lab facility. |
Michael Biehn, fresh off The Terminator, is solid as Hicks (they had another guy who was casted but just before shooting he got fired and Michael got the part. Lance Henriksen, originally slated for Cameron’s cyborg, ends up as Bishop, the ship’s android. Bill Paxton (another Terminator alum) brings the laughs as Hudson. A man with a big mouth, no action when shit hits the fan.
And Jenette Goldstein? She steals scenes as Vasquez, a no-nonsense badass, even if the brownface casting was a misstep. Jenette is such a great actress and her role is memorable.
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| Comparison to the Blu-Ray and the 4K-version of Aliens I prefer the Blu-Ray. |
Tension you can cut with a knife
LV-426 is just as bleak as we remember. The early second act when the team lands and starts searching the colonists a masterclass in dread horror. Cameron wisely cut scenes of the colonists rediscovering the derelict alien ship, keeping the mystery of who and where is crew gone?
The evidence is clear: there’s been a battle, and live facehuggers mean only one thing, the colonists found the eggs. The only survivor? Newt (Carrie Henn), a scrappy looking kid who survived by hiding in the vents. She was just a schoolgirl in Lakenheath when Cameron’s team found her. She had no acting experience, just raw talent. She won a Saturn Award, then quit acting to become a teacher. Good for her, bad for us who loved the Alien franschise.
A budget marvel
We think of Cameron as a mega-budget guy now, however "Aliens" was made for a modest $18.5 million. For comparison, "Cobra" (Sly Stallone) cost $25 million that same year, and "Howard the Duck" yes, phew, breathe, yes, that's better. Well, "Howard the Duck" drained $37 million. With his budget, Cameron headed to Pinewood Studios to expand the "Alien" universe into an all-out war between Ripley, the warmongering Marines, and the Alien Queen’s horde.
The incredible Stan Winston’s team worked magical sets, weapons, creatures and all on a budget. They used mirrors, forced perspective, miniatures to make the film feel bigger than it was. The Marines’ guns? Retrofitted real firearms from the past (modified tommy guns with sawn-off pump-action shotguns ). The APC? A repurposed, bulky and extremely heavy airport tractor. The Power Loader? A stuntman hidden behind Weaver to help her move its hulking limbs. And the piece de resistance?
A 14-foot Alien Queen puppet, operated by a small army of crew members. That's quite impressive!
The results? Stunning? Marvelous I would shout. It's incredible what they actually achieved. The rear projection during the dropship crash looks a little creaky today, but "Aliens" still holds up – even 40 years later. The practical effects make modern CGI look wishy-washy. The Xenomorphs move like real creatures, not guys in suits. The clever use of wonky angles make the creatures look even more menacing and the Alien Queen? Still terrifying and very much an important character of the story itself.
Chaos behind the scenes
Jim delivered the production of "Aliens" on time and on budget, but not without friction. His style of film making was new and some of the crew had problems to adapt to. Later Jim's became legendary, when he rubbed the British crew the wrong way. Jim didn't understood and hated their tea breaks and tinkering, which annoyed the pros who thought he was green. A newbie in film making. The crew had T-shirts that said: “You can’t scare me. I work for James Cameron.”
When he fired a crew member, it sparked a walkout. Crisis interrupted when Cameron agreed to honor work hours if the crew committed. They got their tea breaks, but Cameron wasn’t backing down. His final speech?
– The only thing that kept me going was knowing that one day, I’d drive out of Pinewood’s gates and never come back — and you sad bastards would still be here.
Back in the U.S., Cameron had to trim the running time hit the two-hour mark which was 20th Century Fox’s sweet spot for box office success in the ‘80s. The final cut? 137 minutes?!
ALIENS the original Theatrical Cut is 137 minutes (2 hours and 17 minutes), and the Director's Cut (also known as the Special Edition) is 154 minutes (2 hours and 34 minutes)
The sound of fear
Jim tapped his friend James Horner for the score, a collaborator from his Roger Corman days. But their relationship soured when Horner realized he was scoring scenes Cameron was still editing. Jim and his wife created a lot of strange alien sounds in their own home with the remarkable "Fairlight synthesizer".
Last-minute changes caused Horner major stress. He vowed never to work with Cameron again—yet his Aliens score earned him his first Oscar nomination. A decade later, he broke that promise for "Titanic", winning Best Original Score and sharing the Best Song Oscar for “My Heart Will Go On.” And then they kept on working together with the first "Avatar" movie.
A legacy hits the jackpot
Aliens hit theaters on July 18, 1986, and became a critical and commercial smash. It earned over $130 million worldwide (some say up to $183 million, but global numbers were shaky back then), making it the 7th highest-grossing film of 1986. Critics debated whether it matched Scott’s original, but most agreed: it was a terrifying, action-packed sequel. Time Magazine even put it on their July cover, calling it “The Summer’s Scariest Movie.” In Sweden we had to wait until January 30th 1987 for the premiere of Aliens.
Awards season proved Aliens was something special. It dominated the Saturn Awards, winning 9 out of 11 categories, including Best Picture, Director, and Actress for Weaver. She even scored an Oscar nomination—a rarity for sci-fi/horror. The film earned seven Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.
Why Aliens Still Matters to me
40 years later, Aliens is still one of the greatest sequels ever made. Jim and his team pulled the same trick with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but Aliens endures because of its emotional core. I believe I with many others can feel the bond between Ripley and Newt. It's heartbreaking and the maternal themes mirrored by the Alien Queen and her eggs set the stage for one of cinema’s greatest showdowns. Watching when Ripley's exploding eggs and fire covering her entire nest is very emotional.
I had the opportunity to get to know Paul Weston who was the stunt coordinator for Aliens and also played one of the aliens in the movie. He's absolutely incredible and very British.
The escape into hypersleep is a perfect, satisfying conclusion of the picture itself. I remember watching the end and I thought. Oh, boy, now she and the rest of the remaning crew live on and everything will be perfect.
How I was wrong going further to 1992. I am back in a theatre in Skurup to watch "Alien 3", the sequel and the anticipation is higher than ever.... But that's another story.
What's your experience of ALIENS? - Let me know in the comments.
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