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Warrant Officer [[Ellen Ripley]], the only survivor of the [[Weyland-Yutani| Weyland-Yutani Corporation]] space freighter ''Nostromo'', is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in [[Stasis (fiction)|hypersleep]]. |
Warrant Officer [[Ellen Ripley]], the only survivor of the [[Weyland-Yutani| Weyland-Yutani Corporation]] space freighter ''Nostromo'', is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in [[Stasis (fiction)|hypersleep]]. Traumatized by experiences that are still fresh for her, Ripley has recurring nightmares about the vicious alien that killed her crewmates aboard the Nostromo. After recovering in med-hold, Ripley is called to explain her story before a board of skeptical Weyland-Yutani executives. However, all evidence of the alien had been lost on board the Nostromo after Ripley set the ship for self destruct; the only verifiable fact from Ripley's story, and one used to end Ripley's career as a pilot for the company. Adding to her dismay, she learns that [[LV-426]], the planet where the Nostromo crew first encountered the alien, is now home to a [[terraforming]] colony; a situation of much concern to Ripley whose last warning to the executive board is that the alien she had fought came from one egg... out of thousands. |
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After Ripley takes a position loading cargo on a space-dock, Burke informs her that contact has been lost with LV-426, and the Company is sending him and a squad of [[United States Colonial Marines|Colonial Marines]] to investigate. Ripley is asked to accompany the expedition as an advisor; at first she declines, but her |
After Ripley takes a position loading cargo on a space-dock, Burke the company executive assigned to ease Ripley's transitional period, informs her that contact has been lost with LV-426, and the Company is sending him and a squad of [[United States Colonial Marines|Colonial Marines]] to investigate. Ripley is asked to accompany the expedition as an advisor; at first she declines, but motivated by her recurring nightmares and a desire to "wipe them [the aliens] out," she accepts Burke's offer. The expedition travels to LV-426 aboard the warship ''[[Sulaco (spaceship)|Sulaco]]''. Arriving in orbit, Ripley gives a briefing on the aliens to the marines, but her warnings are unheeded. |
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The expedition travels to the planet's surface via a dropship, and finds the colony abandoned, the only living things being two facehuggers on display in the colony's medical lab, and a traumatized young girl, nicknamed "[[Newt (fictional character)|Newt]]", who has survived by hiding in the colony's sprawling ventilation system. The |
The marine expedition travels to the planet's surface via a dropship, and finds the colony seeminlgy abandoned, the only living things being two facehuggers on display in the colony's medical lab, and a traumatized young girl, nicknamed "[[Newt (fictional character)|Newt]]", who has survived by hiding in the colony's sprawling ventilation system. The marines eventually locate the other colonists by tracking their surgically-implanted transceivers. Traveling to the site in their "[[Armoured personnel carrier|APC]]" combat vehicle, the Marines find a large alien nest, filled with the [[cocoon]]ed corpses of the colonists. The Marines destroy a newly-"born" chestburster, which in turn stirs the nest of mature aliens that had been lying dormant and unseen. After most of the squad is wiped out, Ripley takes control of the situation from the ineffective platoon leader, Lieutenant Gorman, and uses the APC to infiltrate the nest area, rescuing the only three remaining marines; Lance Corporal Hicks, Private Vasquez, and Private Hudson. Cpl. Hicks assumes command of the mission after it is discovered that Lt. Gorman had been knocked unconscious during the rescue. After brief discussion, Cpl. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the APC, with the purpose of returning to the ''Sulaco'' so that the colony can be nuked from orbit. Unfortunately, a stowaway alien kills the dropship pilots causing the vessel to crash into the colony's processing station. The humans barricade themselves inside the main colony complex, where Bishop points out a new problem: the damaged processing station is now unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a [[nuclear weapon]]. He volunteers to crawl down a pipe to the colony transmitter array and bring down another dropship by remote control. |
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Ripley and Newt have a confrontation with the two live facehuggers, when they are released from their containers by Burke, who hoped to dispose of the Marines during hypersleep and bring the two women's impregnated bodies back to Earth. After the two are rescued by the Marines, debate on what to do with Burke is cut short when the aliens bypass the barricades. During the resulting gun-battle, Hudson is pulled down through the floor, and a fleeing Burke is presumably killed, but Newt leads the others into the air ducts. While traveling through the ducts, Vasquez and revived Gorman are cut off and surrounded. Gorman detonates a grenade, killing them both and several aliens. The blast causes Newt to slip down a chute, where she is captured alive by an alien. Hudson is badly injured as he and Ripley make their way to Bishop, but they successfully arrive just as the second dropship lands. After tending to Hicks, Ripley gathers weapons and reenters the alien nest. She finds and frees Newt, but they accidentally stumble into the nest's main breeding chamber, where they confront the monstrous alien Queen. Ripley destroys the chamber's contents with a [[flamethrower]], enraging the Queen into ripping free from her [[ovipositor]] and chasing them up to the landing platform. Ripley and Newt board the dropship and escape moments before the colony is consumed in a nuclear fireball. |
Ripley and Newt have a confrontation with the two live facehuggers, when they are released from their containers by Burke, who hoped to dispose of the Marines during hypersleep and bring the two women's impregnated bodies back to Earth. After the two are rescued by the Marines, debate on what to do with Burke is cut short when the aliens bypass the barricades. During the resulting gun-battle, Hudson is pulled down through the floor, and a fleeing Burke is presumably killed, but Newt leads the others into the air ducts. While traveling through the ducts, Vasquez and revived Gorman are cut off and surrounded. Gorman detonates a grenade, killing them both and several aliens. The blast causes Newt to slip down a chute, where she is captured alive by an alien. Hudson is badly injured as he and Ripley make their way to Bishop, but they successfully arrive just as the second dropship lands. After tending to Hicks, Ripley gathers weapons and reenters the alien nest. She finds and frees Newt, but they accidentally stumble into the nest's main breeding chamber, where they confront the monstrous alien Queen. Ripley destroys the chamber's contents with a [[flamethrower]], enraging the Queen into ripping free from her [[ovipositor]] and chasing them up to the landing platform. Ripley and Newt board the dropship and escape moments before the colony is consumed in a nuclear fireball. |
Revision as of 23:21, 20 December 2006
Aliens | |
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Directed by | James Cameron |
Written by | Story: James Cameron David Giler Walter Hill Screenplay: James Cameron |
Produced by | Gale Anne Hurd Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill |
Starring | Sigourney Weaver Michael Biehn Lance Henriksen Carrie Henn Bill Paxton Paul Reiser |
Cinematography | Adrian Biddle |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates | July 18, 1986 |
Running time | Theatrical: 137 min. Special Edition: 154 min. |
Language | English |
Budget | $18,500,000 |
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction movie starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser. It is a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. Directed by James Cameron from a story written by him, David Giler and Walter Hill, the film is more of a high-paced, action adventure film than the atmospheric sci-fi horror of the first film. It was tremendously successful, following Cameron's The Terminator in helping to establish him as a major action director. The film, like its predecessor, was shot in England, this time at Pinewood Studios, with a budget of about $18 million. The production was somewhat problematic, marred by several disputes between Cameron and the film crew, which eventually led to an all-out strike late in the production.[citation needed]
Plot
Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in hypersleep. Traumatized by experiences that are still fresh for her, Ripley has recurring nightmares about the vicious alien that killed her crewmates aboard the Nostromo. After recovering in med-hold, Ripley is called to explain her story before a board of skeptical Weyland-Yutani executives. However, all evidence of the alien had been lost on board the Nostromo after Ripley set the ship for self destruct; the only verifiable fact from Ripley's story, and one used to end Ripley's career as a pilot for the company. Adding to her dismay, she learns that LV-426, the planet where the Nostromo crew first encountered the alien, is now home to a terraforming colony; a situation of much concern to Ripley whose last warning to the executive board is that the alien she had fought came from one egg... out of thousands.
After Ripley takes a position loading cargo on a space-dock, Burke the company executive assigned to ease Ripley's transitional period, informs her that contact has been lost with LV-426, and the Company is sending him and a squad of Colonial Marines to investigate. Ripley is asked to accompany the expedition as an advisor; at first she declines, but motivated by her recurring nightmares and a desire to "wipe them [the aliens] out," she accepts Burke's offer. The expedition travels to LV-426 aboard the warship Sulaco. Arriving in orbit, Ripley gives a briefing on the aliens to the marines, but her warnings are unheeded.
The marine expedition travels to the planet's surface via a dropship, and finds the colony seeminlgy abandoned, the only living things being two facehuggers on display in the colony's medical lab, and a traumatized young girl, nicknamed "Newt", who has survived by hiding in the colony's sprawling ventilation system. The marines eventually locate the other colonists by tracking their surgically-implanted transceivers. Traveling to the site in their "APC" combat vehicle, the Marines find a large alien nest, filled with the cocooned corpses of the colonists. The Marines destroy a newly-"born" chestburster, which in turn stirs the nest of mature aliens that had been lying dormant and unseen. After most of the squad is wiped out, Ripley takes control of the situation from the ineffective platoon leader, Lieutenant Gorman, and uses the APC to infiltrate the nest area, rescuing the only three remaining marines; Lance Corporal Hicks, Private Vasquez, and Private Hudson. Cpl. Hicks assumes command of the mission after it is discovered that Lt. Gorman had been knocked unconscious during the rescue. After brief discussion, Cpl. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the APC, with the purpose of returning to the Sulaco so that the colony can be nuked from orbit. Unfortunately, a stowaway alien kills the dropship pilots causing the vessel to crash into the colony's processing station. The humans barricade themselves inside the main colony complex, where Bishop points out a new problem: the damaged processing station is now unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a nuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl down a pipe to the colony transmitter array and bring down another dropship by remote control.
Ripley and Newt have a confrontation with the two live facehuggers, when they are released from their containers by Burke, who hoped to dispose of the Marines during hypersleep and bring the two women's impregnated bodies back to Earth. After the two are rescued by the Marines, debate on what to do with Burke is cut short when the aliens bypass the barricades. During the resulting gun-battle, Hudson is pulled down through the floor, and a fleeing Burke is presumably killed, but Newt leads the others into the air ducts. While traveling through the ducts, Vasquez and revived Gorman are cut off and surrounded. Gorman detonates a grenade, killing them both and several aliens. The blast causes Newt to slip down a chute, where she is captured alive by an alien. Hudson is badly injured as he and Ripley make their way to Bishop, but they successfully arrive just as the second dropship lands. After tending to Hicks, Ripley gathers weapons and reenters the alien nest. She finds and frees Newt, but they accidentally stumble into the nest's main breeding chamber, where they confront the monstrous alien Queen. Ripley destroys the chamber's contents with a flamethrower, enraging the Queen into ripping free from her ovipositor and chasing them up to the landing platform. Ripley and Newt board the dropship and escape moments before the colony is consumed in a nuclear fireball.
Back on the Sulaco, just as Ripley praises Bishop for all his selfless assistance, the android is impaled through the chest by the Queen's barbed tail: the creature stowed away on the dropship's landing gear. The Queen chases Newt around the landing bay, until Ripley emerges in a powered exosuit. Now an even physical match to the monstrous Queen, Ripley battles the beast, finally dropping her into a large vertical airlock and expelling her into space. Bishop is still functional enough to save Newt from being sucked out as well. The two women, along with Hicks and Bishop, enter hypersleep for the voyage home.
Awards
Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards and ended up winning two (Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects). Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination (Best Actress) for this film. Although Weaver did not actually win, it was considered a landmark for a nomination for Best Actress to even be made for a science fiction / horror film, a genre usually given little recognition by the Academy in those years.[citation needed]
Impact
The depiction of the female characters as fearless warriors made a considerable impression in the North American perception of women in action films, particularly in futuristic science fiction. Females in the film demonstrated a professional competence in their military roles, a diversion from previous films where the heroine lacked such strengths and apparent senses of duty. Since Aliens, it grew to be expected in futuristic stories that the female characters be as ready to bear arms and do battle on an equal basis with the male characters.
Releases
Template:Infobox movie certificates Aliens was released in the US and Canada on 18 July, 1986, and the 26 September in the same year in the UK. It had a running time of 137 minutes. Greatly anticipated by the public after the huge success of the original Alien (film),[citation needed] it took $10,052,042 in its opening weekend in the US[citation needed], and going on to take a total of $85,160,248.[citation needed] Roger Ebert called it "painfully and unremittingly intense" and a "hair-raising carnival ride that never stops"[1]. The film was released with a heavy marketing campaign, which helped boost box office takings.[citation needed]
Special Edition
A Special Edition was released in [[1992] on laserdisc and VHS that restored 17 minutes of previously deleted footage. It was then released on The Alien Legacy in 2001 on DVD. Both versions of the film were released together for the first time in the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set. Also there is a HD scan of the movie currently playing on Cinemax HD.
Music
Composer James Horner stated in an interview that he felt that James Cameron had not given him enough time to write a musical score for the film. Because of this he said he was forced to cannibalize previous scores he had done as well as adapt a rendition of "Gayaneh Ballet Suite" for the main and end titles. (This may be misdirection: the music for the opening sequence, where Ripley's lifeboat is discovered, is a fairly literal adaptation of the opening of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony). Horner stated that the tensions with Cameron were so high during post-production that he assumed they would never work together again. Cameron, however, was so impressed with Horner's score from Braveheart that he later asked him to compose the score for Titanic.
Trivia
- The 19-foot queen alien model is currently on display at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, as of 2005. It is on loan from its owner and an advisory board member of the museum, James Cameron.[citation needed]
- The Alien nest set wasn't dismantled after filming. It was unused until several years later when it was used as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman in 1989. When the crew of Batman first entered the set, they found most of the Alien nest still intact.[citation needed]
- "Sulaco" is the name of the town in Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo," which was the name of the ship in Alien. Scott is an admirer of Conrad.[citation needed]
- The weapons used by the marines are all based on real, fully functional weapons. The pulserifle is made from a Thompson SMG with an attached Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun, while the smartguns carried by Vasquez and Drake are based around the MG-42 machinegun, and are maneuvered with the help of a steadicam harness.[citation needed]
Cast and characters
- Sigourney Weaver as Lieutenant Ellen Ripley:
- Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden:
- Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks:
- Lance Henriksen as L. Bishop:
- Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke:
- Bill Paxton as Private W. Hudson:
- William Hope as Lieutenant S. Gorman:
- Jenette Goldstein as Private J. Vasquez:
- Al Matthews as Sergeant A. Apone:
- Mark Rolston as Private M. Drake:
- Colette Hiller as Corporal C. Ferro:
- Daniel Kash as Private D. Spunkmeyer:
- Cynthia Scott as Corporal C. Dietrich:
- Ricco Ross as Private R. Frost
- Tip Tipping as Private T. Crowe:
- Trevor Steedman as Private T. Wierzbowski:
- Paul Maxwell as Van Leuwen:
- Barbara Coles as Cocooned Woman (aka Mary):
- Mac McDonald as Colony commander Al Simpson: (deleted scenes)
References
- ^ "Roger Ebert review". SunTimes.com. Retrieved 2006-12-20.
External links
- Aliens at IMDb
- Harry Harris, owner of the largest collection of screen used props as seen in Aliens.
- Aliens first draft script
- Classicscifi.com, in-depth review.
- The USCM Charter, The USCM Costumers Website
- The Aliens Legacy Aliens props and movie discussion