Well, I talked about Alien3 a while ago and made plenty of comparisons to Aliens, now I think it's time to talk about my favourite of the Alien movies and one of my favourite sci-fi films of all time*Spoilers Ahead*
Aliens takes place 57 years after Alien where Ripley has been frozen for so long, everything she knew is gone. Now, with Weyland-Yutani dismissing her report and saying LV-426, the planet where they found the Alien, is now inhabited by a colony. However, they soon lose contact with that colony and send down a squad of marines along with Ripley as a consultant along with a representative of the company named Burke and an android named Bishop to find out what happened. They soon discover the entire colony abandoned and torn to pieces, with only one survivor, a little girl named Newt. After being attacked by the aliens, wiping out half the marines, leaving the survivors outnumbered, outmatched and with no way of escape. Eventually, Bishop is able to secure a spaceship and set the colony to explode, killing the aliens, and Ripley and the other survivors board a ship, kill the queen alien and destroy the colony.
What makes this film so good is that every element is as good as it can be, in the wrong hands, this could have easily fallen apart, but James Cameron is such a strict and detailed director who will try as hard as he can to make things as perfect as possible and giving us a masterpiece. Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver yet again, starts off as a broken victim of PTSD who wakes up in the middle of the night, terrified by what she's experiences and with her life in ruins, everything she's ever known is gone. But once she's down on the colony, forced to fight against these things again, she becomes the most badass woman in all of science fiction, she takes charge, she kills these bugs, all while keeping a calm head. But what really makes her badass is that she is clearly terrified, like anyone would be, she flinches around corners, sweats profusely and shakes at the thought of them, she faces the greatest fear in the universe and is still willing to continue fighting, that's the sign of a true hero, not showing no fear in the face of danger, but overcoming that fear. Ripley is one of my favourite characters in sci-fi, one of my favourite characters in action, one of my favourite characters in general. Also she bitch slaps the queen alien, because she's a motherfucking badass.
And then there are the Aliens, also known as Xenomorphs, these guys are the scariest creatures in science fiction, the designs alone are terrifying, the lack of eyes, the shark teeth, aggressive hisses and screeches, the penis symbolism (Look it up), the fact that they can tear a person to pieces within seconds, they blend in with their surroundings and they are smart, they hide and they hunt. Though one strange thing is how this film both makes them more terrifying and also less. In the original film, it was just the one Alien, nothing could stop it, but in this film, the marines rack up one hell of a body count. But to make up for it, they make them so much more aggressive. The first film sometimes made the Alien seem like he was trying to run away rather than kill them, here, they just keep coming, nothing will stop them and that makes them even scarier. Also the fact that they kill half the marines within one attack shows how dangerous they are. Also the introduction of a queen alien helps to fix some plot holes of the first film, the main one being where the hell the eggs came from.
Another thing is there is no bad supporting member of the cast, the marines are very memorable, even the ones that are killed off in the first attack are still memorable like Apone and Frost, what makes them engaging is how they all feel like legitimate pals before going down to the colony, like Frost and Vasquez budding heads like old pals, you feel a history between them. But of course the surviving members are the most interesting, Vasquez is strong-headed, brave and toting the biggest gun in the team, because Vasquez is awesome, she dies the way she lived, killing as many motherfuckers as possible. Hicks is calm and responsible, and because of that is the only one to survive, i also love the chemistry between him and Ripley as being the only responsible people amongst everyone. Hudson is all bark and no bite, once things get real he is the first person to lose his cool, but eventually redeems himself by killing as many Aliens as he can, the same with Gormon, who started out as a coward and incompetent at his job, but ends it by sacrificing himself to save the rest. Burke the biggest asshole you can hope for, because everyone working for Weyland is an asshole.
Bishop always remains the intelligent and reasonable member but always with that element of curiosity in him, he always has it in his heart (or microchips) to help the others, but the fact that he remains the same from beginning to end is what makes him engaging because the previous film had the emotionless android be the traitor, so here, our android remains emotionless, but stays honest and true from the start to the end. Newt is just adorable, but more than that, she's not annoying, if anything, she's pretty cool, she's able to survive for 17 days all on her own against the aliens, the marines couldn't even survive a day. It's the relationship that builds between her and Ripley that is what makes her a worthy character, she brings emotional stability to an unstable person...but mostly because she's adorable, seriously though, it's the cutest thing when she calls Ripley "mommy" just that one word completes Ripley's character arc in the film.
Also the end of the film is also something that I love, in the first one, Ripley being the only survivor felt predictable, but here, having multiple survivors makes it feel more realistic and satisfying, but not too many, just a handful, while everyone else had a satisfying character arc of their own. But at the same time, they wrote the characters well enough to make the audience care about them rather than just Alien bate. This still remains one of the best written action films I have ever seen, the story is engaging and well paced, the characters likeable and the villain terrifying.
Then there are the special effects of the film, they are impressive as hell, not only for the fact that there is no CGI, but how minimal things really are. Watching the film, you believe that there are an army of these creatures all coming to kill them, but in reality you will never see more than six of them on screen at a time. But the aliens look amazing, the amount of effort that went into these costumes, sets and props, it's all top notch, creative and clearly a lot of work. Not to mention the sound effects of the guns are some of the most iconic sounds in the film, and i have no idea why, it just sounds nice to hear them.
Personally, i prefer the special edition release rather than the 1986 original, the added extra scenes flesh out the characters just that little bit more to make them even better and it doesn't slow the pacing of the film at all, so if you can, watch that version.
As for issues, i don't have any, everything about this film works for me, James Cameron has made a lot of amazing films in his time but this remains his best. To simply put it, I love this film because it has the best female action icon, the best sci-fi monsters and the best soldier ensemble. I'm giving Aliens a 10/10.
-Danny
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