Aliens (film) Totally Explained

Everything about Aliens Film totally explained

#Merger proposal|date=March 2008}}:This article is about the film; for the video games see Aliens (Square computer game) and Aliens (arcade game). Aliens is a 1986 science fiction/action film starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a benchmark for the action and science fiction genres. In Aliens, Weaver's character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet where she first encountered the hostile Alien; this time she's accompanied by a unit of Colonial Marines.
   Directed by James Cameron, Aliens' action/adventure tone was in stark contrast to the science fiction/horror motifs of the original Alien. Following the success of The Terminator (1984), which helped establish Cameron as a major action director, Twentieth Century Fox greenlit Aliens with a budget of approximately $18 million. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios, the same location used for the filming of Alien, and at a decommissioned power plant. Aliens earned $86 million in the United States box office during its 1986 theatrical release, the highest domestic gross of any film in the Alien series. It earned a total of $131 million internationally. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, which was considered a benchmark at the time when the Academy gave little recognition to the science fiction genre. It won in the categories of Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. The film's success led to the sequels Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997).
Plot
Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for fifty-seven years in hypersleep. Interviewed before a panel of executives from her employer the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Ripley's testimony regarding the Alien is met with extreme skepticism, as no physical evidence of the creature survived the destruction of the Nostromo. Ripley loses her space flight license as a result of her "questionable judgment" in destroying the Nostromo and learns that LV-426, the planetoid where her crew first encountered the Alien eggs, is now home to a terraforming colony. Ripley is visited by Weyland-Yutani employee Carter J. Burke, who informs her that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426. The company is dispatching Burke and a unit of Colonial Marines to investigate, and offers to restore Ripley's flight status if she'll accompany them as a consultant. Psychologically traumatized by her experience onboard the Nostromo, Ripley initially refuses to join, but accepts when she realizes the mission will allow her to face her fears. Arriving in orbit of LV-426 aboard the warship Sulaco, she's introduced to the Colonial Marines, including Lieutenant Gorman, Sergeant Apone and the android Bishop.
   The heavily-armed expedition descends to the planetoid's surface via dropship, where they find the colony seemingly abandoned. The only living things found are two Alien "facehuggers" on display in the colony's medical lab and a severely traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt. The Marines locate the colonists, who are clustered in the colony's nuclear-powered atmosphere processing station. Traveling to the station, the Marines find a large Alien nest filled with the cocooned corpses of the colonists. When the Marines destroy a chestburster, a swarm of Aliens awaken and kill most of the unit. Ripley rescues Corporal Hicks and Privates Vasquez and Hudson. With Gorman temporarily unconscious, Hicks assumes command and orders the dropship to recover the survivors, intending to return to the Sulaco and destroy the colony from orbit. A stowaway Alien kills the dropship pilots in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station. The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the colony complex.
   After learning that Burke has ordered Bishop to preserve Alien specimens for return to the company labs, Ripley becomes suspicious of Burke's intentions. She discovers that he ordered the unprepared colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship where the Nostromo crew first encountered the Alien eggs and threatens to expose him. Bishop declares that the damaged processing station has become unstable and will detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl down a service pipe to the colony transmitter and pilot the Sulaco's remaining dropship to the surface via remote control. Ripley and Newt fall asleep in the Medical Laboratory, awakening to find themselves locked in the room with the two facehuggers released from their tanks. Ripley is able to alert the Marines, who rescue her and Newt from the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of attempting to use her and Newt as hosts to smuggle implanted Alien embryos past Earth's quarantine procedures and of planning to kill the rest of the Marines in hypersleep during the return trip. Hicks is ready to execute Burke when the electricity is suddenly cut off. The Aliens enter through the ceiling and attack en masse, killing Hudson and Burke. The rest of the group escapes into the air ducts, where Gorman and an injured Vasquez, cut off and surrounded, sacrifice themselves by detonating a grenade. The force of the blast knocks Newt down a shaft, where she's captured by an Alien. Ripley and an injured Hicks reach Bishop and the second dropship, but Ripley is unwilling to leave Newt behind. She rescues Newt from the hive in the processing station, where the two encounter the Alien queen and her egg chamber. Ripley destroys most of the eggs, enraging the queen who escapes by tearing free from her ovipositor. Closely pursued by the queen, Ripley, Newt, Bishop, and Hicks escape on the dropship moments before the colony is consumed by the nuclear blast. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley and Bishop's relief at their narrow escape is interrupted when the Alien queen, stowed away on the dropship's landing gear, tears Bishop in half. Ripley battles the queen using an exosuit cargo-loader. The two of them tumble into a large airlock, which Ripley then opens, expelling the queen into space. Ripley clambers to safety, and she, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop enter hypersleep for the return back to Earth.
Cast

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, the only character who has previously encountered one of the Aliens. Ripley accompanies the Colonial Marines to investigate LV-426. Weaver reprised her role from Alien, with Ripley being the only recurring character from that film.
Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke, a corporate lawyer for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation who meets with Ripley after she's awakened from cryogenic stasis. He accompanies Ripley and the Marines to LV-426 to oversee the company's interests in the mission.
Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks, the Second Squad Leader of the Colonial Marines. Hicks forms a close bond with Ripley during the mission to LV-426.
Lance Henriksen as Bishop, the android Executive Officer of the Sulaco. Bishop accompanies the team investigating the disappearance of the colonists on LV-426.
Carrie Henn as Newt, a child who is the only survivor of the colony on LV-426. She forms a close bond with Ripley.
William Hope as Lieutenant William Gorman, the Commanding Officer of the Colonial Marines sent to investigate LV-426.
Al Matthews as Sergeant Al Apone, the Senior NCO of the Colonial Marines.
Cynthia Dale Scott as Corporal Cynthia Dietrich, the Marine team's Corpsman.
Bill Paxton as Private William Hudson, the Marine team's technician.
Jenette Goldstein as Private Jenette Vasquez, the tough female Marine and operator of their M56 smart gun. She shares a close bond with Private Drake.
Mark Rolston as Private Mark Drake, Private Vasquez's smart gun partner.
Colette Hiller as Corporal Collette Ferro, the Marines' dropship pilot.
Daniel Kash as Private Daniel Spunkmeyer, the dropship's Crew Chief.
Additional Marines were played by Ricco Ross (as Private Ricco Frost), Tip Tipping (as Private Tim Crowe), and Trevor Steedman (as Private Trevor Wierzbowski).
Production

Origins and inspiration
While completing pre-production of The Terminator in 1983, director James Cameron discussed the possibility of working on a sequel to Alien (1979) with Twentieth Century Fox producer David Giler.
   Following the success of The Terminator, Cameron and 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".
   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." In the story of Aliens the Colonial Marines are hired to protect the business interests of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, corresponding to a myth that corporate interests were the reason that American troops were sent to South Vietnam. The attitude of the Marines was influenced by the Vietnam War; they're portrayed as cocky and confident of their inevitable victory, but when they find themselves facing a less technologically advanced but more determined enemy, the outcome isn't what they expect.
   Some scenes of the Alien nest were shot in a decommissioned power plant in Acton, London. The crew thought it was a perfect place to film due to its grilled walkways and numerous corridors. Problems were encountered with rust and asbestos, however, and the crew was required to spend money to clean the asbestos. British Airways was re-equipping several of its aircraft towing vehicles, and the crew managed to purchase an old one to use as the armored personal carrier (APC). It weighed 70 tons, and although the crew removed 35 tons of lead from it, the power station floor still had to be reinforced to support the weight. The crew used many "junk" items in the set designs, such as Ripley's toilet which came from a Boeing 747. Lockers, helicopter engines, and vending machines were used as set elements in the opening hypersleep scene. Production designer Peter Lamont was asked to reduce the cost of several scenes, including the not-yet-filmed marine hypersleep sequence. Gale Hurd wanted to cut the scene altogether, but Lamont and Cameron felt it was important to the sequence of the film. To save on cost, only four hypersleep chambers were created and a mirror was used to create the illusion that there were twelve in the scene. Instead of using hydraulics, the chambers were opened and closed by wires operated by puppeteers.
   Actors who played Marines were asked to read Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers and then to undergo military training which included running, lifting weights, and learning salutes, marches, deployments, and maneuvers for two weeks. Al Matthews had experience in the military and believed he was cast as Sergeant Apone because of this experience. Cameron wanted the Marines to train together, so that they'd form bonds that would show on-screen. The actors were asked to personalize their armor by adding pictures and writing messages on them to make each suit unique. Sigourney Weaver, William Hope, and Paul Reiser were absent from these trainings due to other obligations, but Cameron felt that this suited their characters as "outsiders" in the film. Michael Biehn was also absent from the training, as he wasn't cast until one week after filming had commenced.
   At one point the crew members mocked Cameron's wife, producer Gale Anne Hurd, by asking her who the producer was and insisting that she was only getting producer's credit because she was married to the director. A walkout occurred when Cameron clashed with an uncooperative cameraman who refused to light a scene the way Cameron wanted. The cameraman had lit the Alien nest set brightly, while Cameron insisted on his original vision of a dark, foreboding nest, relying on the lights from the Marines' armor. After the cameraman was fired, Hurd managed to coax the crew members into coming back to work.
Music
Music composer James Horner felt he wasn't given enough time to create a musical score. Horner arrived in England and expected the film to be "locked" so he could 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 due to 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 thirty-year-old studio that was barely able to patch in synthesizers or use the electronic equipment that Horner required.
   Six weeks from theatrical release, no dubbing had taken place and the score hadn't 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 didn't 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'd been able to achieve. The score was recorded in roughly four days.
Reception

Box office
Eagerly anticipated by fans following the success of Alien, Aliens was released in America on July 18 1986, and September 26 in the United Kingdom. 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 number one at the United States box office for four consecutive weeks, grossing $85.1 million domestically, the highest-grossing Alien film in the country. The film took in $45.9 million in the international box office, for a total gross of $131 million.
Reviews
Test and pre-screenings were unable to take place for Aliens due to the film not being completed until its week of release. Once it was released in cinemas, critical and audience reaction was very positive. Critic Roger Ebert called it "painfully and unremittingly intense" and a "superb example of filmmaking craft". 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." Time Magazine featured the film on the cover of its July 28, 1986 issue, in which reviewer Richard Schickel declared the film "a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving [Sigourney] Weaver new emotional dimensions to explore."
   Reviews of the film have remained mostly positive over the years. In a 1997 interview, Weaver stated that Aliens "made the first Alien look like a cucumber sandwich." 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." Austin Chronicle contributor Marjorie Baumgarten labeled the film in 2002 as "a non-stop action fest." Based on thirty-seven reviews, the film has a "fresh" rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average critic score of 8.7 out of 10.
Awards and accolades
Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Music, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. The film won two awards for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Although Weaver didn't win, it was considered a landmark nomination for an actress to be considered for a science fiction/horror film, a genre which was given little recognition by the Academy in 1986. Aliens won eight Saturn Awards in the categories of Best science fiction film, Best actress (Sigourney Weaver), Best supporting actor (Bill Paxton), Best supporting actress (Jenette Goldstein), Best performance by a younger actor (Carrie Henn), Best direction (James Cameron), Best writing (James Cameron), and Best special effects (Stan Winston and the L.A. Effects Group). Time Magazine named Aliens in their Best of '86 list calling it a "technically awesome blend of the horror, sci-fi and service- comedy genres." In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named Aliens as the second-best action movie of all time, behind Die Hard. 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."
Special edition
A "Special Edition" of Aliens was released in 1992 on laserdisc and VHS that restored seventeen minutes of deleted footage. These additions include a segment showing Newt's family first encountering the derelict spacecraft on LV-426, Ripley learning that her daughter died during the years that Ripley 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.
   The special edition was released as part of The Alien Legacy DVD box set in 1999 along with Alien and Alien 3. 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. Additional content in these versions included an audio commentary for the special edition featuring director James Cameron, producer Gale Hurd, special effects artist Stan Winston and supervisors Robert and Dennis Skotak, miniature effects supervisor Pat McClung, and actors Christopher and Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. The second disc included special features relating to pre-production, production, and post-production.

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