watching movies one cup at a time

This is generally considered to be the best Alien film in the four part series. And I must agree it is the most fun to watch. Each film is very different in tone and style. The first Alien movie was much more of a classic haunted house story where this movie clearly borrows from the action movie genre. This is really James Cameron’s vision as he came up with the story idea, wrote the screenplay and directed the film. There is a lot of connection to similar war movies with soldiers under siege. And following this movie, there were many more sci-fi stories involving soldiers in space, both in film and on television.

The story follows Ripley after her scape from the Nostromo. She’s been in space for 57 years and returns to an unfamiliar Earth and a shell of her former life. Colonists has populated the planet from the first film and discovered the alien creatures. Ripley and a team of marines go to investigate the colony’s communication breakdown under the direction of the Weyland-Yutani corporation (”the Company”). Of course all hell breaks loose and it becomes clear that the Company wants the alien for it’s bio-weapons division. Ripley barely escapes alive along with colony child-survivor Newt, the last marine Hicks, and the android Bishop. The colony explodes in a nuclear meltdown and presumably it takes all the aliens with it. The movie ends on a happy note as a mother-daughter bonded Ripley and Newt go to peaceful cryo-sleep on their way back to Earth.

While entirely different from the first film, I enjoyed Aliens a lot. I liked finding out more about the Alien species as well as the whole “evil corporation” angle that was strongly presented through the Burke character. It gave the film some depth instead of being just a shoot-em-up. Ripley felt like a much more developed character in this film and an undeniably bold female lead who really keeps her act together. Her ability to both lead the remaining marines and be a mother to Newt is done well and believably by Weaver. The other actors in the film do a great job as well. Paul Reiser is exceptional as the slimy corporate weasel Burke. And Michael Beihn is perfect as Hicks.

James Cameron does a brilliant job directing the action. He doesn’t reveal to much and really gets a good feel for the claustrophobic spaces the fights take place in. Plus the shot of Hicks looking up into the ceiling as dozens of aliens are swarming in above them is classic. He directed this after the first Terminator and before The Abyss, showing a clear progression in his style and his film budgets. Aliens really solidified him as a top-level director.

What really makes me mad though is that we spend all this time and energy with Ripley rescuing Newt and there is this great ending where things finally work out and they escape, and the next film, Alien3, just f***s it all up in the first 5 minutes!!!! That is SUCH a let down! I know that’s a whole other movie but still, I’ve rewatched Aliens several times since I’ve seen Alien3 and the fact that they all frickin’ die anyway just hangs over everything like a dark cloud. There are many different ways they could have taken the story in a following movie, the way they did it was probably the LEAST interesting and just rips the heart out from this greatly superior film.

Some fans have speculated that Alien3 was just a cryo-sleep dream Ripley had. And I like that idea. Tho that doesn’t jive with the fourth film. And style-wise I like Alien: Resurrection a lot, but again, the story is just not as good as Aliens.

If you only get the chance to see one Alien movie, see this one.