Almost Equal Sequels Part XX: Aliens

Franchises are not always obvious.  Who knew that taking the framework of 1958’s It: The Terror Beyond Space while mixing in some HR Giger artwork and then coating everything with KY jelly would result in such a hit with audiences?  But there was 20^th Century Fox, suddenly sitting pretty with Alien’s sizeable box office returns on their hands.  Perhaps Star Wars showed Fox the way to the realm of sci-fi riches, of fortune and glory.

Yet Fox didn’t own Star Wars, they only distributed it due to that pesky George Lucas and his cunning stunt of contractual legerdemain.  And I’m sure that realization really chafed the behinds at Fox when Star Wars went on to earn all the cash in the world.  In fact, more money had to be printed and minted just to keep day-to-day society running.      

I’m sure Fox thought that next time it would be different.  They wouldn’t play the chumps that miss out on the chance to own the next sci-fi moneymaker.  (Granted, this mindset also led Fox to Enemy Mine, followed bysmarting regret.)  When the idea for Alien came calling, Fox was listening and an outer space slasher movie proved to be just thing, years before sticking Pinhead and Leprechaun and Jason Voorhees up among the stars to wreak intergalactic havoc.

With that being the past, Fox moved along, distributing the last two Star Wars movies, wondering if they could ever capitalize on Alien going forward.  Well, that is, beyond the ill-advised but rather amazing Alien tie-in toys that were on the market for an audience that was too young to see the movie in theaters.  Perhaps bringing Ridley Scott back to do follow-up?  (Keep in mind this was years prior to Fox allowing Ridley Scott to come back to the franchise to progressively wither away his directorial reputation with unneeded Alien installments.)

But who was out there to take on the xenomorph?  Wait a minute…  What about xenomorphs!  That means that there’d be more than…one?!  Yep, genius move, I know.    

The Sequel: Aliens (1986)

Original Movie: Alien (1979)

Key Cast/Production Staff Returning from 1^st Installment:

Sigourney Weaver	Ellen Ripley
Walter Hill	Producer
David Giler	Producer

To Start With:

“Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?”

Director James Cameron was hot off the press with the release of 1984’s The Terminator and seemed to show a deft hand in dealing with sci-fi effects, given his past with Roger Corman.  Teamed with producer Gale Anne Hurd, Cameron was given the opportunity to follow-up the classic 1979 Alien with…Aliens!

Yes, having more than one alien was a critical story point going forward.  So even if Cameron had two guys in suits, he would have fulfilled the promise of the title.  Fortunately, he had a bit more than two, but not that many more than three.  In any case since there was more than one alien, no matter whatever happens, the film would have at least been accurate.

Sigourney Weaver, being the lone survivor from the first entry, was asked if she was interested in returning to the role of Ellen Ripley.  She was hesitant until she was offered the estimated combined amount of the total GDP of several Central American countries to come back.  Whatever misgivings that she might have had were now smothered to death by heaping bags of cash.  Weaver was back.

There was also a platoon of space marines, a synthetic humanoid, and a little girl.  Also cast was Paul Reiser, coming off being a sketchy cop alongside Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop to play a sketchy company man here, only to go back to play a sketchy cop in Beverly Hills Cop II.  I’d go further but details are sketchy.  (Ah, yes, easy, I know, but totally worth it.  Totally.  Totes.)

Other faces in the cast included The Terminator’s Michael Biehn and The Terminator’s Bill Paxton alongside The Terminator’s Lance Henriksen.  Where Cameron found these folks for Aliens was never really explained but modern cinema historians, through decades of arduous research, believe there might have been a connection with Cameron’s prior film, The Terminator.  (Hopefully, with more cascading grant money and voluminous funding, the answer will one day be found.)

With a larger well-armed cast battling it out with a few more xenomorphs, Aliens managed to slightly switch from the grim and gritty horror film original to a more action-packed explosive sequel.  All these pieces coalesced and Aliens, despite the weighty demands of Cameron and fights over the tea trolley, turned out to be a box-office darling.  It also earned critical kudos and audience love.  There was even a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for Sigourney Weaver!  Now she didn’t have a chance in hell of winning because sci-fi action is fun and therefore award-proof under the confines of the dowdy Academy.  (But hey, Weaver should have won because Marlee Matlin, the Best Actress that year, would have been dogmeat in the first 30 minutes of Aliens.  Let’s face it, she never even would have heard the aliens coming.)

Aliens became a benchmark of what makes for a good sequel in the intervening decades.  With that in mind, my wife and I decided to share it with our daughter and see what she thought.  She enjoyed the first installment, so there were high hopes that she’d want to go on this bug hunt called Aliens.  And she did!  She enjoyed herself capitally, which was delightful. After this recent rewatch, there were some things that I noticed after almost 40 years of watching Aliens. I thought I’d share them, because frankly, I must fill this format with something.  As you dear readers know, I wouldn’t be fulfilling my court-ordered duties if I didn’t, so let’s tuck in!   

Anything Done Better than the Original?

“Get away from her, you bitch!”

Sigourney Weaver knocks it out of the park in Aliens, showing a character arc that’s completely believable.  She isn’t some cloying girl boss with unearned respect and unexplained super-abilities.  Ripley at the end of the day is a survivor and Weaver conveys that throughout the film.  Ripley clearly suffers from a post-traumatic stress after the events of the prior movie, which completely clicks with her character.  Even with that hurdle, Ripley is no damsel in distress, and she wants to go back to face her demons if it means wiping the xenomorphs off the galaxy.  Along the way she’s able to play a mother figure for an orphaned survivor named Newt, which adds another layer to Ripley.  While great she was nominated, Weaver should have won that year.  It is such a shame in retrospect that it was totally worth that hilarious Matlin joke I made earlier. 

Speaking of another strong female character, the alien Queen is a wonderfully realized puppet and effect.  Nothing like it is in the first film and the genius of Stan Winston and his crew simply shines forth with this creature.  Despite being a puppet, it does convey reactions, which sounds weird for a xenomorph, but it works.  That you can tell when she’s pissed off is a testament to the work put into this creation.

And she’s the recipient of the most well-known line from the film.  Because frankly, the alien Queen is a bitch.

Anything as Good as the Original?

“I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.”

Lance Henriksen plays the synthetic humanoid known as Bishop.  He had rather large shoes to fill after the great performance of Ian Holm as Ash, the android in the first film.  Henriksen is completely wonderful here.  Stepping up when needed, Bishop is a truly heroic character, and he doesn’t even shoot a pulse rifle.  He has a childlike nature that is curious, an idea that gets exploited with future androids in the series.  But here in Aliens, it is pure, and in the end, it seems odd that one of the characters with the most soul is artificial.

The facehugger effects have maintained the course as being the most horrible part of the entire xenomorph lifecycle.  Seeing them float around in those tubes, lunging for the first face they sense is still very creepy and very powerful.  They play no favorites, looking to essentially assault anyone to get those future chestbursters planted.  They were effective in Alien and they only built off that here in Aliens.  Plus, Weaver truly makes you believe that she is fighting this damn thing in one of the most suspenseful scenes in the film.  Top marks.

Anything Not-So-Good as the Original?

“I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine.  This is an M41A pulse rifle.  Ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty-millimeter pump action grenade launcher.”

Ridley Scott was about building a mood.  James Cameron was about blowing it all up.  While I enjoyed the ride Cameron took us on, the whole film still seems too bright and not as dark and foreboding.  I understand that the colony set up here is not the space jockey’s ship from Alien, I do.  But even in the alien hive, it still is rather bright, which mutes a bit of tension while also exposing some of the effects work.

To the film’s credit, it is a different animal from the first movie, with a different vibe overall.  However, I think a bit less light on the sets would have enhanced the tension and build-up.  We know there will be aliens and that we will see them, but this crew of new faces hasn’t yet, so let’s not show our hand completely here.

Also, I must give notice about a slight step down with the music here.  Jerry Goldsmith did a great score for Alien, but I would expect nothing less from Jerry Goldsmith, a true legend of the artform.  Here James Horner takes the wheel and while I do love Horner, let’s face it: he reused a lot of themes in his work.  Look, I’m not trying to besmirch the man, while also acknowledging that I’m not the first soul to notice this with the music.  I know he was up against an unyielding Cameron in trying to get the score done.  But Horner’s space-related soundtracks all sound like pastiches of each other. 

Think about the music to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Got it?  Okay, now think about the scores to Battle Beyond the Stars, Krull, and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  Now think about Aliens.  Yeah, these are all different but all are similar sides of the same coin.  Not horrible mind you, not by a long shot.  But I shouldn’t be thinking about Kirk blowing up the Enterprise when Corporal Hicks is blasting aliens here.  I know I’m not the first to bring this up about Horner, but I will say this: his score for Commando is definitely not space-y, so good for him.  (Perhaps more steel drums were needed for Aliens, but then again, I think that every score would benefit from that addition.)

Anything Far Worse than the Original?

“Hey, maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!”

It takes a bit to get things going in this film.  I get that there is new backstory as Ripley has been in hyper sleep for over 50 years, every face besides hers is a new face that we need to get to know, etc.  But let’s get going to get some aliens!  We could afford the slow burn in first movie because the audience didn’t know anything about these lifeforms.  We were learning along with Nostromo’s ill-fated crew.  We were just as surprised about John Hurt’s reason for indigestion when it happens as the crew was.  So we’ve seen it, so let’s move on.

The most frustrating part about this length of time is that it isn’t used to flesh out the characters, even those who survive the longest.  Think about it, do we really know more about Hicks at the end of the movie than we do at the beginning?  Bill Paxton is rightfully the heart of this movie, but aside from the great dialogue, what do we know about his character?  I know that by that point in the movie, we need to get into action scene after action scene, but at the start, where that background filler could easily be put it, we don’t really get it.

During the attack in the hive, the marines all have attached helmet cameras.  As the platoon gets picked off, the cameras go all static and the names of the soldiers remain.  However, the first time we saw some of those names was when they were getting killed.  Why not show a little bit more of these people or give them lines or something rather than just as fodder for the xenomorphs.  Yes, I know that Cameron is not known for his introspective characters in his scripts, I get it.  But in Alien, even if we didn’t get deep backgrounds for the cast, we at least got character traits.  In Aliens, the impact of character deaths would be even greater if we knew their stories, even ever so slightly.

Although we know plenty about Burke, which makes his death all the more magically delicious.

Oh, and okay fine, I’ll say it: we just don’t get a ton of aliens.  Yes, there are indeed more than one, but there’s only one shot of the aliens crawling along the ceiling where you see at least 8 of them at the same time.  There’s so much exploding and firing and editing that you never see a teeming horde of these damn things.  This is a minor nitpick, but hey, I had the time so I thought I’d bring it up.

Follow-up installments?

“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.  It’s the only way to be sure.”

Oh, yes.  How I wish it weren’t so, but since the powers that be never consulted with my office since I don’t have an office, the world ended up with a buffet of ever-dwindling franchise returns.  Let’s now hold our respective noses together and look at as much bandwidth as I’m willing to use on these…things.

Alien³ (1992)

• David Fincher directs and proves that humor exists in other films.  If you suffer from depression, this entry is not recommended.  Alien³ is still used by scientists testing Zoloft in laboratory conditions.  Charles Dance and Charles S. Dutton are good.  There are others not named Charles in the cast.  Lance Henriksen is back in a thankless role.  Only No Time to Die is more irritating with implementing the foolish idea of killing off the main franchise character.

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

• A French director whose name is difficult to spell comes in to direct this entry.  Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman are there, looking relatively happy but confused.  Brad Dourif is an always reliable treat.  This movie is surprisingly better than it has any right to be.  However, that might just be a reaction more to the film before it rather than to the film itself.  Sigourney makes a basket.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

• Ooooh boy.  All right, first off, let’s be honest: it’s all Predator 2’s fault.  Throw in a cute little Easter egg in that movie and you eventually end up with this mess.  At least Lance Henriksen gets a paycheck.  Aliens and Predators fight Aliens and Predators as well as Predators and Aliens, which is only great because they don’t talk.  Unfortunately, the inane dialogue is then covered by the human actors.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

• There’s an Alien/Predator running around, an Alienator if you will because Predalien sounds stupid to say, hear, read, and think about it as a word.  Essentially this movie is a video game brought to life only minus the storyline, graphics, and fun.  At the end of the day, the Moon level in the NES Duck Tales is more rewarding and more watchable.  Ultimately these two entries make Freddy Vs. Jason the superior concept in execution on all fronts in comparison. 

Prometheus (2012)

• Ridley Scott returns to the franchise with an entry that is a prequel to Alien, but not really, but it is.  Michael Fassbender is a plus amongst the unnecessary backstory filling.  People run away from large collapsing things by remaining in front of them.  People take off their helmets to breathe atmosphere from an uncharted alien world and dare to act surprised when there are adverse reactions happening.   

Alien: Covenant (2017)

• Once again, Ridley Scott returns to the franchise with an entry that is a sequel to the prequel to Alien but not really, but it is.  Again.  Michael Fassbender returns too!  There’s two of him now because this franchise cannot find other solid actors to be in these films anymore.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

• Once again again, Ridley Scott returns to produce a sequel to Alien that comes before Aliens.  It stars…um…people.  And there are space colonists that encounter…xeno…morphs…  Yeah.  Guess that’s all this franchise can do.  Although it is a back-to-basics entry, since the first Alien already exists, what exactly is the point?  Sadly, it made money, which only encourages these people.

Alien: Earth (2025)

• After running out of scenarios, this Alien TV show (?!) puts xenomorphs on Earth, because of course it does.  The cast is filled with not-famous people who say they are actors and Timothy Olyphant, who I hope did this purely for a large paycheck.  Oh, and Ridley Scott produces because…well, he just does, okay?  Perhaps the aliens should just be put back in the eggs, back on the ship, back on the dreary rock they came from in the first place.  Then Ridley can concentrate on Gladiator 3: Electric Boogaloo.

And Finally:

“That’s it, man.  Game over, man.”

James Cameron used Aliens to build quite a tidy career.  He was demanding to be sure, but that’s because he could do everyone else’s job on the set.  Well, except for acting, which is a blessing, I’m sure.  As far as I know he cannot sing either otherwise Titanic wouldn’t have had such a big hit compared to Celine Dion’s version.

Aliens is a great sequel, filled with action and memorable dialogue.  The late and great Bill Paxton won our hearts forever and Sigourney Weaver earned a reputation as being a tough and smart person that you wouldn’t want to screw with.  A strong female lead in a sci-fi actioner that earns the audience’s respect, she isn’t one of the dreaded Mary Sues, and she isn’t played with a blistering amount of smug cockiness.  We like Ripley and ultimately not because we’re told to like Ripley; Ripley earns it and this is the key to her likeability.

Given the current state of cinema, who knew that this around 40-year-old James Cameron-directed sequel would be more advanced than most of the fare released today.  And since there was more than one alien, Cameron’s movie is one of the most honest films ever made.  Now if he would just stop making frivolous Avatar sequels…