Aliens (Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: May be going too far but this is in my top 5 films ever
Review: Sequels as most directors will tell you, are a tricky thing. How do you further expand the story and the characters in the first without it being just a mere echo of the last one? Like a cover song, you can either just be note for note for the original or just be way off target. Aliens is a rare sequel that to me is better than it's original and like I mentioned, in my top 5 films ever.

A rescue team stumbles onto the shuttle Ripley escaped in at the end of the first one. While in the hospital, she's told she's been in cryosleep for 57 years. Furthermore, in a deleted scene, she's told that her 11 year old daughter died, but as a grown up woman. Insult to injury, she's demoted by the company that owns the Nostromo, the refinery she blew up.

For the past 20 years, Weyland-Yutani, a kind of futuristic Microsoft let's say, had terraformed LV 426, the planet she landed on in the first one. Now the planet is habitable and a colony is placed there. Word is lost with the colony so the company sends in marines to rescue any survivors. Only this time, Ripley isn't facing one, she's facing a legion of them.

While Alien was a more horror "fear of the unknown" kind of film, Aliens is a more terror "being hunted" kind of film with combat elements. Like the tagline suggests, it's war. The film certainly gets your blood pumping. And like Ridley's film, Aliens doesn't show all the carnage and blood and guts, just gives you a sense that whatever fate falls on its characters is gonna be a bad one.

Which brings up one little hiccup with the film: some of the marines. A couple of marines disobey a direct order to not use live ammunition which could set off a big explosion. And while he redeems himself in the end by going commando on several aliens, Bill Paxton plays probably the wimpiest marine you've ever seen but if that was the intent, kudos.

As for deleted scenes, it's more about character building which usually gets on the cutting room floor, although there's a cool scene with sentry guns that I thought could've been nice.

I'm not one to say "go see this film right now" or "no DVD collection is complete without it" but I definately recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Combat, Terror, and Escape from classic monster invention
Review: `Aliens', directed by James Cameron is one of those rare sequels like `Godfather 2' and `From Russia With Love' which is better than its parent film. Cameron, who both directed and wrote the script achieves this distinction as much by simply making it an entirely different kind of movie which just happens to have the same hero and heavy as the original.

`Alien' directed by Ridley Scott was a horror movie which could as easily be told on a lonely island with a run-down mansion and a mysteriously washed ashore egg as on an interstellar freighter which lands on an uncharted planet to investigate a mysterious signal. `Aliens' could as easily be told in the jungles of Vietnam or as a rescue mission to the missing colony of early Virginia settlers. In fact, `Apocalypse Now' and `Aliens' may be seen to have a remarkably parallel plot.

This DVD has several new scenes which were cut from the original theatrical release and, like virtually every case I have seen before, these scenes add virtually nothing to the interest of the movie and it is obvious that it was a good idea it cut them in the first place. The only interesting fact I noticed was that we learn Ripley's first name in one of the restored scenes. None of the restored scenes, for example, eliminate the need to have seen the first episode in the series to fully understand this second story. They also in no way help to understand the Alien creatures' objectives and intelligence. Unlike the alien character in `Predator' who is simply on a little hunting excursion on a backwater planet with fairly well equipped and skilled game to track, kill, and return to home with his trophies.

The heart of the problem is that while H.R. Geiger's exquisitely designed aliens are obviously intelligent, why are they so totally hostile to another intelligent race which is entirely capable of blowing their slime dripping, acid blooded heads clear off. It's obvious that in a fair fight, a heavily armed human has the advantage over the aliens, who seem to fight with nothing more than the weapons with which they were born, their claws, jaws, and tail. The deck is weighed heavily against the human marines in that they are fighting in confined spaces and the military command has taken no measures to adapt their tactics to the special abilities of their enemies. This is doubly puzzling in that the staff of the terraforming colony on the remote planet on which the aliens were found was clearly doing research on alien physiology. The two-week delay in telecommunications simply does not explain this lapse in the believability of the story.

And yet, the story is so told so well that these implausabilities do not interfere with our enjoyment of the movie until the third or fourth viewing. This, of course, is one sign of a great movie to own, in that it yields new pleasures after the first viewing, even if those pleasures involve picking holes in the fabric of the world woven by Herr Cameron and his colleagues.

Getting back to the alien behavior, I find it is much easier to believe the aliens' total hostility to humans in the light of recent fanatic Arab terrorism. Here we have humans whose world of beliefs and values is so different from those of a typical American that they can kill Christian Americans and their allies not only with no remorse, regret, or feeling of sin. They are so far removed from the way most people adjudicate conflicts that we find it easier to understand the Japanese kamikaze pilots who are defending a national homeland and attacking armed military combatants.

The aliens' total otherness can then be added to the fact that humans can literally be domestic animals to them. Humans can serve as a crèche for the parasitic alien embryos. But then, why don't the aliens simply work at domesticating humans as we domesticated pigs for our bacon and sausage? An even more interesting question is what is the nature of the species in which the aliens deposited their embryos before they ran into the human race, and why were there none of these critters on the derelict spaceship. One answer to this is that in spite of the fact that the aliens were smart enough to build a space ship, they still were not too bright. Or, maybe the alien race we encounter on this raw, isolated planet is a lesser form of being, in much the same way as the bugs in `Starship Troopers' had several different species, including a very fast hand to hand fighting infantryman backed by a `brain' creature which coordinated the various other species. But then, all this exposition would dissipate the sheer horror of anticipating the next encounter with the aliens.

And, it's possible that `Aliens' sets some kind of record in the swing of the situation between peril and expectation of relief. By my count, there are at least six swings of the pendulum from peril to safety starting at the point Ripley looses contact with Newt in the last half hour of the flick. Others have noted, and I agree that the intensity of this part of the movie is made even more gripping in that the situation puts a little girl in mortal danger. I pass no judgment on whether this was going too far. I will say that it makes this and many other parts of the movie very difficult to watch. I interpret this as an extremely successful application of the moviemaker's art.

I also was reminded that Cameron manages to slip in a clever little connection between the cyborgs in the `Alien' movies and events in the `Terminator' movies. Speaking of `Terminator', I really felt James Horner's music for `Aliens' did very little to enhance the experience, in comparison to Brad Fidel's score for `Terminator'.

This movie has staying power, so buy the DVD!


Rating:
Summary: Blockbuster Action Directors watch this to see how it's done
Review: Aliens is in my honest opinion the best offering which the action genre has ever produced, it can hold it's own when compared with the very best movies of the eighties.

The character of Ripley is given a very strong willful interpretation by Sigourney Weaver, her performance here when contrasted with the more demure and warm roles she has played reveal her to be an actress with some range. The secondary characters in the movie were likewise, well constructed and interpreted. Some of the scenes and characters are fascinating, from the Android knife trick to the occasional attenpts at humor (appropriately sequestered to the beginning of the film, before the tension takes hold) "Hey Vasquez did anyone ever mistake you for a man?" - "no, You?". The main villain in the movie, the character Burke, is very well acted by the actor who plays him, this guy comes across as oily and psychotic as...well...your average politician. Amother good performance was that of the young girl. As the tension builds and the body count rises, there are enough twists and changes to keep it extremely tense and entertaining. The Aliens themselves were fantastic, sleek chitinous insectile horrors with an air of extreme malevolence stalking the survivors through the abandoned space port.

What is especially interesting is the reversal of traditional Gender Roles in many parts of the film. Take Ripley and Hicks, this male character comes across as an awestruck schoolboy as he yields to everything Ripley suggests without any questions, while her character is deliberately designed (in the film) to exude a greater aura of command and courage than the Marines (to strengthen her warrior - credentials). The other female Soldier looks like a butch Lesbian (oops not very pc i know - sorry), even the little girl is portrayed as having more courage than one whining scared marine. Lastly the male commander of the mission is a slightly cowardly educated type who is unsure of himself.

Rating:
Summary: Great sequel
Review: I loved the sequel, but it just can't match the first. Who could? Ridley Scott set the bar impossibly high, but James Cameron does as good as anyone ever could in reaching it. Hell of a film!

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: What can I say that hasn't been said already?... Oh wait, here's something:

Remember that scene near the end where Ripley is shooting away at all the eggs in the Queen's hive, and she's like launching grenades from her pulse rifle and everything? Well she should have launched on at that damn Queen.

Focker out

Rating:
Summary: Ripley believe it or not: The first film was better!
Review: While this sequel film was almost perfectly done it lacks just one thing: the solid storyline feeling movies made before 1985 used to have. The 1970's first Alien movie had a more solid storyline feeling. I also felt this film had no right borrowing elements from the adrenaline-charging but limbbrained Rambo film series.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi Horror with a Punch as Viewers Will Gasp for Air...
Review: James Cameron's awareness of what happens in the darkness of a theater while the light is flickering on the silver screen is tremendous. Aliens, the sequel to Alien (1979), displays his cinematic skills of directing a fast-paced believable science fiction film combined with dreadful horror. The horror of Aliens grasps the audience by the throat from the beginning and slowly drops of some strange pod that will later explode inside the torso of the audience freezes the viewer as fear spreads. Despite being a sequel, Aliens seems to supersede the original in horror and suspense as the aliens crawl 12 meters, 11 meters, 10 meters, 8 meters, and closing while remaining hidden from the audience.

After Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) escape from the Nostromo she has been adrift in space for 57 years when a salvage space craft discovers her by a mere chance. Returning to an Earth space station Ripley finds out that her daughter died at the age of 66, which causes her much grief as she did not fulfill her promise to return to her on her 11th birthday. In addition, when the company for which she works for hears her story of the events on Nostromo they do not believe her. The company dismisses her as they deem her unfit for flight duty while making sure that they get psychological evaluations in order to keep her at a safe distance from the company's interests. Despite the company's disbelief, Ripley is caught in a post-traumatic nightmare that haunts her as she frequently wakes up drenched in sweat while being in a zombie state while awake.

For the past 20 years people have been populating the planet, where Ripley's crew discovered the predator-like alien life form, through creating an artificial breathable atmosphere through technological advances. However, when contact with the planet mysteriously is disrupted the company sends Burke (Paul Reiser) to convince Ripley to join them on an investigative voyage to find out what happened at the space station. Together with a group of Colonial Marines, for whom Ripley is to function as a consultant, she returns to the source of her recurrent nightmares as she must deal with her lost years as a mother.

Aliens was nominated for several Oscars, but only ended up with the Oscar in the special effects department. The special effects are brilliant as the alien life forms seem alive and ready to kill anything in their path. In addition, the mise-en-scene brings the film an authentic atmosphere which is essential for the films success as weapons, environment, and space crafts elevate the cinematic experience. Last, but not least, the performances of the cast is terrific as there is a wide range of characters that offer intrigue and further suspense as Aliens in the end turns out to be an excellent film that offers some truly harrowing shocks.


Rating:
Summary: A great action/suspense/sci-fi thriller
Review: I know I'm basically repeating what most of the other reviewers have already said about this film, but it is fantastic. Well-written, great cast, great characters, suspensful, action-packed -- how many more cliches can I throw at this thing?

Ripley returns, with a group of marines, to the planet where the Alien was first encountered in the previous film. This is one of those rare sequels that surpases the original. Highly, highly recommended. The DVD also includes the extended director's cut (which surpases the theatrical cut), and tons of goodies, including a commentary track with the cast and crew. It's an entertaining track, but writer/director James Cameron comes off as arrogant a bit. But arrogant or not, it's a great film, one of my all-time favorites, and for that, I'm thankful.