Aliens (film)

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It has been suggested that LV-426, United States Colonial Marines, Bishop (Aliens), Corporal Dwayne Hicks, Private William Hudson and Newt (Aliens) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

This article is about the film; for the video games see Aliens (Square computer game) and Aliens (arcade game).

M577 A.P.C. redirects here

For the US Army M577, see M113 Armored Personnel Carrier variants.

Aliens
The original 1986 theatrical poster
Directed by	James Cameron
Produced by	Gale Anne Hurd Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill
Written by	Story: James Cameron David Giler Walter Hill Screenplay: James Cameron
Starring	Sigourney Weaver Michael Biehn Lance Henriksen Carrie Henn Paul Reiser Bill Paxton
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Adrian Biddle
Editing by	Ray Lovejoy
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	July 18, 1986
Running time	Theatrical Cut: 137 min. Special Edition: 154 min.
Country	United States  United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$18,500,000
Gross revenue	$131,060,248[1]
Preceded by	Alien
Followed by	Alien 3
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

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.^[2][3] In Aliens, Weaver's character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet where she first encountered the hostile Alien; this time 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,^[4] 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 $131 million internationally,^[5] and 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.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Origins and inspiration 3.2 Concept and design 3.3 Casting 3.4 Filming 3.5 Weapons and props 3.6 Music 3.7 Visual effects 4 Reception 4.1 Box office 4.2 Reviews 4.3 Awards and accolades 5 Special edition 6 Literary allusions 7 Notes 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

[edit] 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 will 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 is 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 is 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.

[edit] Cast

See also: List of characters in the Alien series

• 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 is 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).

[edit] Production

[edit] 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.^[6] A fan of the original film, Cameron was interested in crafting a sequel and entered a self-imposed seclusion to brainstorm a concept for Alien II.^[6] After four days Cameron produced an initial forty-five page treatment, although management changes at Twentieth Century Fox resulted in the film being put on hiatus, as they felt that Alien had not generated enough profits to warrant a sequel.^[6] A scheduling conflict with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger caused filming of The Terminator to be delayed by nine months (as Schwarzenegger was filming Conan the Destroyer), allowing Cameron additional time to write a script for Aliens. While filming The Terminator, Cameron wrote ninety pages for Aliens, and although the script was not finished, Fox was impressed and told him that if The Terminator was a success, he would be able to direct Aliens.^[7]

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".^[8] Sigourney Weaver, who played Ellen Ripley in Alien, had doubts about the project, but after meeting Cameron she expressed interest in revisiting her character. Fox, however, refused to sign a contract with Weaver over a payment dispute and asked Cameron to write a story excluding Ellen Ripley.^[7] He refused on the grounds that Fox had indicated that Weaver had signed on when he began writing the script. With Cameron's persistence, Fox signed the contract and Weaver obtained a salary of $1 million, a sum equal to thirty times what she was paid for the first film.^[9]

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."^[6] 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 are 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 is not what they expect.^[8]

[edit] Concept and design

Early concept art was created by Syd Mead, who had worked on 2010 and Tron. The original design of the spaceship Sulaco was horizontal,^[10] which proved problematic as the film's aspect ratio would cause much of the ship to be out of frame. Cameron showed Mead his own concept art and the final result was described as a "rocket gun that carries stuff". Concept artists were asked to incorperate subliminal acknowledgments to the Vietnam War, which included designing the dropship as a combination of a F-4 Phantom II and AH-1 Cobra.^[11] Because of its influence on the structure, its name was attributed to the UD4L.^[12] The use of a gatling gun was inspired by the GAU-8 Avenger, used on the USAF A-10 Thunderbolt II, alongside the F-4 Phantom II's body, tail and enigine vents; whice served as a cosmetic element of the of the UD4L.^[13]

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.^[11] The Alien nest set was not dismantled after filming, and was reused in 1989 as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman. When the crew of Batman entered the set, they found most of it intact.^[14]

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. It weighed 70 tons, and although the crew removed 35 tons of lead from it, the power station floor 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.^[11]

[edit] Casting

Cameron opted to hire actors who had, or could create, American accents. Over 3,000 residents in the United Kingdom auditioned, although many were rejected. After auditions of UK residents proved unsuccessful, the crew imported actors from America including Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Michael Biehn, who had all worked with Cameron on The Terminator. The role of Newt was the most difficult to cast according to the casting director. The casting team auditioned schoolchildren, but found that many of them had acted in commercials and were accustomed to smiling after saying their lines, a trait that the producers wished to avoid due to the dark tone of Aliens. Carrie Henn, whose father was stationed at a United States military base, was chosen out of 500 children for the role of Newt,^[8] although she had no previous acting experience.^[15]

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, 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 would 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 training 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 was not cast until one week after filming had commenced.^[15]

[edit] Filming

Aliens was filmed on a budget of $18 million at Pinewood Studios, with production lasting ten months.^[6] Production was affected by a number of personnel and cast disruptions. Shooting was said to be problematic due to cultural clashes between Cameron and the British crew, with the crew having what actor Bill Paxton called a "really indentured" way of working. Cameron, who is known to be a hard driving director and at the time was bound to a low budget with a release date set that he could not delay, found it difficult to adjust to working practices such as the regular "tea breaks" and "lucky dips" that brought production to a temporary halt. The crew were admirers of Ridley Scott, and many believed Cameron to be too young and inexperienced to be directing such a film as Aliens, despite Cameron's attempts to show them his previous film, The Terminator, which had not yet been released in the UK.^[16]

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.^[16]

[edit] Weapons and props

The weapons used by the Marines were based on real, fully functional weapons. British armorers used guns they found to be the most reliable when firing blanks and those which looked futuristic. The pulse rifles were created from a Thompson SMG, with an attached fore end of a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun and a Remington 12 Gauge Model 870P receiver with barrel. The smart guns carried by Vasquez and Drake were based on the German MG-42 machine gun and were maneuvered with steadicam harnesses created using old motorcycle parts. The firing and foregrip handles were taken from a Kawasaki motorcycle. The crew found flamethrowers the most difficult weapon to create and use, as they were the heaviest and most dangerous.^[17]

There are several kits available to convert the Tokyo Marui M1A1 Thompson airsoft gun into an M41A Pulse Rifle used by Sigourney Weaver in the film. One version is available from Monsters In Motion.^[18] Monsters in Motion/Tek Arms also created a non-functional model kit that could be modified to house the TM M1A1. A less expensive kit (with a 100% static non-working shotgun) is currently under development at Arnies Airsoft.^[19] Several manufacturers of infrared gaming guns also make a Pulse Rifle model, such as Battlefield Sports.^[20]

[edit] Music

Music composer James Horner felt he was not 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.^[21]

Six weeks from theatrical release, no dubbing had taken place and the score had not 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 did not 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 had been able to achieve. The score was recorded in roughly four days.^[21] Despite his troubles, Horner received an Academy Award nomination (his first) for Best Original Score.

Horner stated that tensions between himself and Cameron were so high during post-production that he assumed they would never work together again. Horner believed that Cameron's film schedules were too short and stressful. The two parted ways until 1997 when Cameron, so impressed with Horner's score for Braveheart, asked him to compose the score for Titanic.^[21]

[edit] Visual effects

Brothers Robert and Dennis Skotak were hired to supervise the visual effects, having previously worked with Cameron on several Roger Corman movies. Two stages were used to construct the colony on LV-426, using miniature models that were on average six feet tall and three feet wide.^[22] Filming the miniatures was difficult due to the weather; the wind would blow over the props, although it proved helpful to give the effect of weather on the planet. Cameron used these miniatures and several effects to make scenes look larger than they really were, including rear projection, mirrors, beam splitters, camera splits and foreground miniatures.^[22]

The Alien suits were made more flexible and durable than the ones used in Alien, to expand on the creatures' movements and allow them to crawl and jump. Dancers, gymnists and stunt men were hired to portray the Aliens. The creature's head was changed from the sleek shape used in Alien, as the crew thought that the original shape would crack with the creatures' increased mobility. Ridges were added along the head to increase its durability during movements.^[22]

Scenes involving the Alien queen were the most difficult to film, according to production staff. A life-sized mock-up was created by Stan Winston's company in the United States to see how it would operate. Once the testing was complete, the crew working on the queen flew to England and began work creating the final version. Standing at fourteen feet, it was operated using a mixture of puppeteers, control rods, hydraulics, cables, and a crane above to support it. Two puppeteers were inside the suit operating its arms, and sixteen were required to move it. All sequences involving the queen were filmed in-camera with no digital rod removal.^[22]

[edit] Reception

[edit] Box office

Eagerly anticipated by fans following the success of Alien,^[23] 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.^[1]

[edit] Reviews

Test and pre-screenings were unable to take place for Aliens due to the film not being completed until its week of release.^[24] 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".^[25] 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."^[26] 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."^[6] Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader called the film "one sequel that surpasses the original."^[27]

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."^[28] 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."^[29] Austin Chronicle contributor Marjorie Baumgarten labeled the film in 2002 as "a non-stop action fest."^[30] 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.^[31]

[edit] Awards and accolades

Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Music, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. It won two awards for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and although she did not 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.^[8][24][32]

Aliens received four BAFTA award nominations and won in the category of Visual Effects.^[33] It 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).^[34]

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."^[35] In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named Aliens as the second-best action movie of all time, behind Die Hard.^[2] In a Rotten Tomatoes analysis of the top 100 science fiction films, Aliens ranks tenth among the best-reviewed films of the genre.^[3] In 2004, Aliens was ranked thirty-fifth on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" for the scene in which Ripley and Newt are attacked by facehuggers; the original Alien was ranked second for the chestburster scene.^[36] 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."^[37]

[edit] 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 she 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.^[8] These scenes had been deleted from the original theatrical release as 20th Century Fox representatives thought the film was showing "too much nothing" and spent an unnecessary amount of time building suspense.^[8]

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.^[38] Additional content in these versions included an audio commentary for the special edition featuring director James Cameron, producer Gale Hurd, special effects artists and crew members. The second disc included special features relating to pre-production, production, and post-production.^[39]

[edit] Literary allusions

Several movie academics including Barbara Creed have remarked on the color and lighting symbology in the Alien franchise, which offsets white, strongly lit environments (spaceships, corporate offices) against darker, dirtier, 'corrupted' settings (Derelict alien ship, abandoned industrial facilities). These black touches contrast, or even attempt to take over, the purity of the white elements.^[40] Others such as Kile M Ortigo of [Emory University]] agreed with this interpretation, and pointed to the Sulaco with its "sterilized, white interior" as representing this element in the second film of the franchise.^[41]

Academics analyzing the role of the Ripley character remarked on the symbolism of the Sulaco's cryo chamber. Ripley is compared with an incorrupt Catholic saint preserved in a glass coffin (akin to Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, both in her lying in state in the cryotube as well as for her her 'incorrupt body' which has twice survived being almost infested with the Alien). Accompanied by the Agnus Dei of the Ordinary Mass playing in the background of the opening, it is argued that the Sulaco has been transformed "into a holy site where the iconic bodies of a fetishistic religion lie in state" - setting the scene for a lone facehugger attacking its victim (corrupting it) and also causing the emergency system to evacuate the cryotubes into space, to plunge down to Fiorina "Fury" 161 (representing the Fall of Man).^[42]

While some claim that the shape of the Sulaco was based on a submarine,^[43] the design has most often been described as a 'gun in space' resembling the rifles used in the movie.^[44] The opening shot of the ship travelling through space has been called 'fetishistic' and 'shark-like', "an image of brutal strength and ingenious efficiency" - while militarized interior of the Sulaco (designed by Ron Cobb) is contrasted to the organic interior of the Nostromo in the first movie (also designed by Cobb).^[45] Other sources have also noted the homage the scene pays to the opening tour through the Nostromo in Alien.^[46]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Superior Firepower: The Making of Aliens, Alien Quadrilogy – Disc 3, 2003, 20th Century Fox

[edit] Further reading

• The Complete Aliens Companion (by Paul Sammon, Harper Prism, 1998, ISBN 0-06-105385-6)
• Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films (by David A. McIntee, Telos, 272 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-903889-94-4)

[edit] External links

• Aliens at the Internet Movie Database
• Aliens at Allmovie
• Aliens at Rotten Tomatoes
• Aliens at Box Office Mojo

Preceded by The Karate Kid, Part II

Box office number-one films of 1986 (USA) July 20, 1986 – August 17, 1986

Succeeded by The Fly

Awards
Preceded by Back to the Future	Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film 1986	Succeeded by RoboCop

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v • d • e Films and television series by James Cameron 1970s-1980s Xenogenesis (1978) • Piranha II: The Spawning (1981) • The Terminator (1984) • Aliens (1986) • The Abyss (1989) 1990s Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) • True Lies (1994) • T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996) • Titanic (1997) 2000s Dark Angel (2000-2002) • Expedition: Bismarck (2002) • Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) • Aliens of the Deep (2005) • Avatar (2009) • Battle Angel (TBA) • The Dive (TBA)