Aliens (1986)

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the sole survivor aboard the ship Nostromo. Almost fifty years have past when she is found by a salvage ship somewhere in deep space. Before she is fully recovered, the company questions what happened to her crew and the ship, and don’t believe her stories about an Alien being on board. The planet LV-426 is now a filled with over two hundred colonist’s making the air breathable. When Ripley discovers this she is distraught with concern and tells a liaison of the company, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) about it. What she doesn’t know is that he issues an order for the colonists to search the location Ripley gave to see if the Alien ship is still there. Suddenly, they lose contact with the colonists. Burke returns to Ripley and begs her to be a consult on the mission to go to the planet and see what’s what. After much persuasion, she’s agrees. A team of space marines come for protection, and when they arrive, they find the place completely deserted, or so it seems. 

 

Aliens had the same writers as Alien, but a new director, James Cameron,with an even larger scale of ideals about the sequel to an already classic science-fiction film. He took Aliens and turned it into masterful production of science-fiction and action-adventure combined. The base for the storyline was already built on the first film, and so the second already had it’s mythology created. A series of new characters make this cut. Some heroic, some villainous, and some just props for the show, but each engaging and compelling as the time is taken to develop each one, and mold out their personality types, so even your “C” character’s are three dimensional. As stand out as some of the performances are, Sigourney Weaver captivates each scene she is in. Her conflict of fear and nightmares with her own strong will and bravery makes for a heavy, and extremely complex character, that has numerous motivators. It was without question Oscar quality. 

 

Some of the most ground breaking special effects ever were used to create LV-426 and the Aliens that inhabited it. Even watching it twenty years after it was filmed in a time where CGI is now so common placed, it stands on it’s own. The creatures look real, and even more so the world itself feels real. While the movie is full of suspenseful non-stop action there is always time for reflection and certainly always time for an unforgettable one liner by any character.  In the back round the most intense score by James Horner sends an even more eerie and ominous feeling about the destiny of our heroes.

 

Aliens was so perfectly sculpted into the masterpiece it became that there is no room for improvement. The time was taken for each character to be fleshed out even to seem real, and the story built layer upon layer of back story and structure to give it legitimacy. The physical appearance of the Aliens and LV-426, and the vastness of space is still up to par with today’s work. These are only a few of the reasons why I would deem Aliens the best science fiction film of all time, and my favorite movie of all time. It is perfection in creation. A film that will last for eternity in heart and mind. Four out of Four stars. I wish I could give it one hundred.