Aliens (1986) Review

Aliens (1986) Review

Alien was a huge success when it came out in 1979, yet a sequel took a number of years to enter production. How could it possibly be topped in terms of scares and originality? Writer-director James Cameron—a lesser-known director back then, now famous for the two most-successful films of all-time, Avatar and Titanic—had a pitch for an action-packed follow-up, and wow, did it pay off. 

When the first Alien begins, it seems like Dallas is going to be the main character, but then he gets killed long before the end of the movie in what I think is a pretty surprising and horrific subversion of expectations. Who could have guessed at the beginning of the movie that Ellen Ripley would be the one to lead this franchise for a further three movies? Well, there’s just something about Sigourney Weaver; even in that first scene when they all sit around at the table eating and talking, she stands out in a way none of the others do. And I’m not just saying that because of any prior knowledge of the series. When I first watched Alien, I didn’t know anything about the direction the series would take, yet I still could sense Ripley’s heroism even that early on. She has an undeniably strong presence that radiates through all of the films. 

So of course, Ripley had to come back. I doubt the series would have garnered the same kind of recognition or longevity had a sequel followed a new character. Before, the cast was quite small, and the setting very contained. In Aliens, the cast expands, and so does the setting. A terraforming colony is established on the same planetoid Ripley and the others discovered the derelict ship filled with eggs, and sure enough, they’ve lost contact with the colony, so Weyland Utani (just referred to as “the company” in the first movie) send a team of space marines to check it out. Along for the adventure is company-man Burke (Paul Reiser), android Bishop (Lance Henrikson) and Ripley. The lone survivor they find is Newt (Carrie Henn), a young girl who Ripley bonds closely with, for they both underwent similarly horrific traumas at the hands of the alien, which is referred to as a “xenomorph” by Lieutenant Gorman at one point—a name adapted by fans as the overall name for the species, and has since become a common term. 

Aliens is a truly unique sequel, in that it simultaneously gives viewers more of what they loved from the first movie, while also becoming a new thing. If you really break the structure down, Aliens is a lot like Alien. People arrive on planet, find creature(s), get attacked, and comes down to blowing up place to destroy creature, ending with one-on-one fight between Ripley and stowaway creature. But, the important difference is the way the story is told and the characters featured. 

Aliens is not told in the same suspenseful way as the first movie. This is certainly not a haunted house in space. It’s action-driven, while still being scary. The producers themselves even said Aliens was not as scary as the first Alien. Overall, yes, I get that, but honestly, I think Aliens has aged better in terms of being scary than the first Alien has. It doesn’t really repeat the horror of the first movie. We don’t get a rehash of a facehugger leaping on an unexpected person and everyone being shocked by a chestburster, instead we get facehuggers in observation tanks and a chestburster scene that does two things: it brings back horrible memories for Ripley, making it a character-building moment, and it falsely establishes the marines as a formidable force against the xenomorphs, because they instantly torch it with a flamethrower and kill it. What used to be the ultimate evil before is now cannon fodder…but only individually. Once the creatures amass in great numbers and overwhelm the marines, the horror grows exponentially. 

This group of characters is totally different than before. The marines are a mix of wise-crackers, over-confident bad-asses, and inexperienced leaders. Individuals like Michael Beihn’s Hicks (“Stay frosty”) and Bill Paxton’s Hudson (“Game over man!”) are arguably greater than some of the characters from the first Alien. In Alien, everyone is either stoic or annoyed or terrified for pretty much the whole movie. In Aliens, they go from cocky to terrified to just pissed-off, and the dialogue, though lacking the casual, improvisational flow of the first movie, is realistic, quotable, and just plain great. 

Aliens is, I would argue, perhaps the best horror sequel ever made. It ups the ante in every way, further develops Ripley, transforming her into the iconic badass female hero she’s become known as today, and deepens the already deep lore of the extraterrestrial species in ways that have been irreversibly integrated into pop culture and influenced the future of the franchise, for better and worse.

Related: Aliens (Favourite Films Series): http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2017/04/aliens-1986-favourite-films-series.html