Aliens (1986)

Debates may rage on as to whether Aliens is actually a better film than Alien, and I’m of two minds myself on it myself, but regardless of the conclusion, one thing is clear — they are both exemplary works of science fiction cinema.  Ultimately, where you stand will probably have more to do with what kinds of movies you have a preference for.  If you like intelligent, absorbing sci-fi and atmospheric horror, Alien is the choice.  If you like adrenaline-charged action and mind-blowing special effects, Aliens gets the nod.  Or if you’re anything like me, and love both styles of movies, you’ll be in for a treat, as both films are near the tops of the list no matter which way you try to slice it.

Aliens is the right way to do a sequel.  It carries the story-line where the first film leaves off, and rather than regurgitate the formula, it takes the story into a new direction and does so without ever losing momentum in the process.  There is also a maturation in the characters, all of whom change as the film drives forward, rather than stay stuck in shallow stereotypes.  Ripley (Weaver) started off Alien as your average woman who is thrust into bravery out of necessity, and this trend continues, seeing her go the distance in becoming a full-fledged soldier in doing what’s right (from a humanistic point of view).  Even the supporting characters change on a smaller scale, with the diminutive Newt learning that she can trust someone again, while the big-talkin’ Hudson (Paxton) eats a bit of humble pie once he gets a taste of how dominating the menace truly is.  This isn’t just great action, it’s terrific character development, and while the technical aspects do leave a lasting impression, it’s really the quality character build-up by Cameron that allows the film to pay off in a large way as the film heads toward its explosive conclusion.

Although the film starts where the first one leaves off, with Ripley in a cryogenic sleep drifting in the escape shuttle, what Ripley doesn’t know until after she is rescued is that she has been that way for 57 years.  When she gets back, the company that owned her ship is very interested in why she decided to blow it to smithereens, and are not too impressed with her implausible “alien on board” story, since they have recently inhabited the newly terraformed world Ripley claims to have encountered the alien on, and have found nothing to indicate there is any danger there.  That is, until the company loses all signal from the far-off settlement, and offers Ripley full reinstatement if she will act as an advisor to a squad of Marines sent to investigate the affair.

Despite its success at the box office, it took seven years to produce a sequel to the 1979 hit, Alien, which not only performed well in theaters but garnered an even bigger following in terms of repeat video rentals and cable showings in the subsequent years. In essence, it was adrift in space in its own form of hypersleep. As much as it would seem a natural choice to follow up, a legal dispute between Brandywine Studios and 20th Century Fox over the profits caused a major entanglement that wasn’t resolved until 1983, whereby Fox settled the dispute by proposing to put a sequel in development that could generate more money for both sides, if done right. Even though they didn’t actually have to actually fully make or release the film, it was a risk Brandywine was willing to take, believing in the viability of the project.

Though it made the proposal, Fox was worried about the second film, fearing its cost might negate the chance for much in returns, and they might even take a disastrous loss if it met with disinterest. They put up about $18.5 million to make the film, which was more than the first film, but not by much if you factor in inflation. It really did feel like a film with twice that budget, but they got away with it through the ingenious use of miniatures, clever editing, and creative optical effects to make the sets seem much larger on the screen than they appeared in real life. Ultimately, the returns were huge, with an overall haul of over $80 million in the United States, and over $130 million if you factor in the worldwide returns, placing it firmly as one of the top ten biggest money earners of 1986, with only Platoon earning more among R-rated releases. Vietnam-era films were particularly hot in the mid-1980s, abut few audiences would know that Cameron was using the harrowing Vietnam experience he had heavily researched while writing his script for Rambo: First Blood Part II as an inspiration allegory for his cocky and well-equipped Marines going into enemy territory fighting an enemy that used its environment to their every advantage, and it also colored Ripley’s motivation to go back and confront those nightmares that continue to haunt her.

Its success was far from certain, however, as Ridley Scott was not secured to return as the director. They needed a screenplay first, and given that Brandywine had personal issues with Alien‘s screenwriter, Dan O’Bannon, over authorship, they wanted someone they could work with. At that time, in the summer of 1983 when the development of the project began, James Cameron was not even a successful director, having done some work for Roger Corman on visual effects and art design, and one day as a director on a low-budget shock-and-schlock horror flick called Piranha II: The Spawning.  While Cameron waited for Arnold Schwarzenegger to complete his work on Conan the Destroyer to begin production on The Terminator, Brandywine brought the inexperienced filmmaker in to develop a script treatment based on producer David Giler’s impression of his Terminator screenplay, with a condition that he be allowed to also direct if they proceeded forward. Their initial pitch was for a film that somewhat resembled Spartacus but set in the future, to which Cameron was uninterested in pursuing. But he did seem very interested when one of the options would be a follow-up to Alien, then called Alien II, which was so early in the concept phase that their only story elements included Ripley fighting alongside a group of futuristic soldiers.

Cameron went to work, completing a 42-page treatment in only three days. Cameron considered the 1979 film to be perfect and unable to be replicated; the only way he could make a follow-up would be to take the ideas and filter them into another genre, one that would bridge the gap between Alien and his action-oriented sci-fi horror ideas developed for The Terminator. Even with the success of The Terminator, Cameron, who had sold off the rights for next to nothing for the right to be the director, he didn’t have a great deal of financial leverage, but that would all change when The Terminator proved to be a big hit, with Brandywine eagerly accepting his treatment and pushing forward for him to take the helm of the project. They were so high on Cameron’s potential to make this film that they didn’t even bother to ask Ridley Scott if he were interested in returning, something he says hurt his feelings a bit given that he thought they did a fine job with the first one.

The crew at Pinewood Studios also felt Scott should be the one to direct as well, not only because he is British and Cameron a Canadian (though most viewed him as an American director nonetheless), but they also thought he did a much better job in listening to them on the technical side, and they had worked with him on several films up to that date (Cameron was a complete nobody at that point in their eyes). Despite his disappointment, Scott does commend Cameron for what he did with the initial premise and calls Aliens a very good picture; Scott eventually would get to tell more stories in Alien universe through the prequel series to Alien he did years later, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

Despite the green light, Fox was not as eager as Brandywine to push forward with it in 1983, feeling that there were too many horror elements within the script, and not enough emphasis on building up the characters, even though the original film had even more horror and less character development than what was being proposed. They were beginning to grow disinterested in the concept and even began mulling over a deal to sell off the rights to the sequel to the Rambo series production team, who Cameron would work with by providing the script for Rambo: First Blood Part II during the same period in which he wrote the Aliens treatment and polishing up his Terminator script. A deal on that couldn’t be reached and any sell-off plans would fall through when Fox would get a new head in 1984, independent producer Lawrence Gordon, who was a collaborating partner with Brandywine’s Walter Hill on the 1982 hit, 48 Hrs., and eventually would greenlight the project going forward.

Still, Fox balked at the proposal from Aliens producer and collaborating partner (and soon-to-be wife) of James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, with professional budget crunchers at the studio estimating the cost to put all of the script ideas to film would easily cost about $35 million. They put a hard limit on the production of only $12 million, causing Hurd and Cameron to walk away, but only temporarily, with Gordon vouching for Hurd’s initial $15.5 million request, thinking that the making a sequel as a “no-brainer”.  Despite the Fox estimates, the film would end up getting made at about half of what they surmised it might cost and was completed on time, making it a win for all sides all around.

Their return would be short-lived, as they also threatened to leave the project due to Fox’s refusal to not publicly announce that Sigourney Weaver, who had been uninterested in a sequel until she read the script and loved the mother-daughter aspects of the Newt-Ripley story, would be the only actor they were seeking to reprise the role of Ellen Ripley, as they felt that she would be asking for much more money, knowing the picture would not be made without her signing on.

To make matters worse, Fox had wanted him to write an alternate script without Ripley in case negotiations with Weaver fell through; he refused, stating that no one would be interested in a sequel to Alien if Ripley is left out. Cameron would ultimately prevail. Weaver would sign on for nearly $1 million and a percentage of the box office returns for the role; she only received $30,000 for her prior part in Alien. She also had a good deal of say as to how her character, Ripley, would act or react in any given scene, something that James Cameron would appreciate and incorporate into his storyline for motivation, including her post-traumatic stress nightmares, her maternal regrets at feeling she (unintentionally) abandoned her only daughter, as well as her protective nature and overwhelming sense of duty.

For her impressive effort, she would score her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (as well as a Golden Globe nomination), the first-ever nomination for a woman in an action movie, It was one of seven Oscar nominations for Aliens, taking two for its visual effects and sound editing. Even James Horner received a nomination for Best Score, deservedly so, which is even more amazing when you learn that he had to complete it in less than a month (Horner says he had to cannibalize elements from prior scores to make the deadline), and it wasn’t even complete until mere days before the film’s release date. Tensions grew so high between director and composer that Horner vowed never to work with Cameron again, though they would eventually patch things up, with Cameron securing the composer for his biggest films, Titanic and Avatar.

As far as other casting went, James Remar had been slotted to play Corporal Hicks but ran into some legal troubles shortly after shooting began, subsequently replaced by Terminator co-star Michael Biehn at a moment’s notice. Many actors play against type, and many characters play against stereotype, with Cameron fully enjoying subverting expectations based on who is playing the roles and how they may be perceived through Ripley’s (and our) eyes given the events of the first film. This would be the first and only film role for then nine-year-old Carrie Henn, who plays Rebecca “Newt” Jorden, who was an American military brat with no prior acting experience attending school in England at the time of her discovery (one of the reasons she speaks some words with a slight English accent); Henn would grow up to become a school teacher, but would remain in contact with Sigourney Weaver over the years, who she regards as a great mentor and friend.

Once completed, Fox was not happy with the length of the film, clocking in at 137 minutes. Fox wanted to get the film down below the two-hour-and-five-minute cut off in order to increase the number of average daily showings per screen by one. Cameron and Hurd took a look at what they could cut out but felt that the film wouldn’t make any sense if twelve whole minutes were excised. They decided to stick to their guns and refused to cut any more than they already had, and Fox ultimately consented to go with it as it was. Despite losing money on a per-screen average, one could argue that Fox would come out ahead in the end, as their backing down with Cameron made him consider signing on for a deal to the director, before Aliens was released, for two additional films, which if they had cut the run time down and tried to negotiate, probably in vain with a disgruntled Cameron. Fox was also lucky to get that deal made, as they ended up in a couple of lawsuits, one from a company doing effects work, and another by Brandywine, Cameron, Weaver, and Hurd for not receiving payment of the percentage of the box office take they were entitled to in their contract.

With an intensity that builds to a fever pitch, Aliens is a true rollercoaster ride that only accelerates to white knuckle proportions right up until the cataclysmic ending.  This is action film-making at its finest, with complex plot developments, an absorbing science fiction backdrop, and truly heinous villains to make you squirm in your seat.  The funny thing about it is, I’m only describing the second half of the film.  The first hour is almost nothing but the plot and character development, with only the merest hints of an alien monster to be found.  You’ll never notice, because the drama is every bit as interesting as the further action scenes, working perfectly in concert to make each half all the more satisfying.

Audiences loved the film. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times shortly after its release, Cameron was ecstatic at witnessing a crowd in theaters reacting with strong emotions at the film he had made.  It’s a great action, science fiction, horror, drama, thriller, adventure, and war film all rolled into one — working so wonderfully on all levels that you almost forget the underlying social commentary on the evil motivations of corporate greed and the continuation of the female as an action hero that Cameron would perfect in the Terminator films.  It’s a dark and sticky descent, but effectively so, as the grotesque imagery only makes the situations all the more horrific, and the danger to the precious little girl Ripley all but adopts all the more immediate.

As for Cameron, he was offered a chance to do the next film in the franchise as part of his deal with Fox, but he was not interested in doing another, choosing instead to do a more personal passion project called The Abyss for his next feature. Nevertheless, the studio and Brandywine would greenlight the next film anyway, going with another unproven but promising director named David Fincher for Alien 3, this time with studio meddling that would nearly derail the project altogether.

Aliens is absolutely must-see for anyone who has seen Alien, and both films are essential viewing to anyone who enjoys science fiction and horror.  Sadly, this is also the final film in the Alien series that I accept to be part of the story, as subsequent entries do little more than destroy almost every facet that made the first two films so wonderful to behold.  Cameron’s mastery of action is prodigious, Weaver’s Ripley is fantastic, and the special effects wed the story to perfection.  Pure adrenaline for all action junkies — it’s one of the best thrill-rides ever made.

• The “Director’s Cut” runs about 17 minutes longer, filling in some action sequences (especially regarding the use of the sentry guns), showing the discovery of the alien ship by Newt’s family, and introduces us to a substory revealing that Ellen Ripley had a daughter, Amanda, who grew up and old while she was in hypersleep (the picture of the elderly daughter is actually a shot of Sigourney Weaver’s real-life mother). Reportedly, the impetus for the Special Edition released on some home video platforms was due to Weaver’s dissatisfaction with the daughter backstory being cut from the theatrical release, given that what she does for the rest of the film is propelled by her reaction by what goes on during this scene, prompting her to say she would never do another Alien film.

Qwipster’s rating:  A+

MPAA Rated: R for violence, sexual references, gore, scary images and language
Running Time: 137 min. (theatrical) / 154 min. (director’s cut)

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, Jenette Goldstein, Al Matthews, Mark Rolston
Director: James Cameron
Screenplay: James Cameron