Carrie Henn

''Aliens'' is a 1986 science fiction action film written and directed by James Cameron. It is the sequel to the 1979 science fiction horror film '' Alien'', and the second film in the ''Alien'' franchise. The film is set in the far future; Sigourney Weaver stars as Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of an alien attack on her ship. When communications are lost with a human colony on the moon where her crew first saw the alien creatures, Ripley agrees to return to the site with a unit of Colonial Marines to investigate. Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, and Carrie Henn feature in supporting roles.

Despite the success of ''Alien'', its sequel took years to develop due to lawsuits, a lack of enthusiasm from 20th Century Fox, and repeated changes in management. Although relatively inexperienced, Cameron was hired to write a story for ''Aliens'' in 1983 on the strength of his scripts for ''The Terminator'' (1984) and '' Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (1985). The project stalled again until new Fox executive Lawrence Gordon pursued a sequel. On an approximately $18.5million budget, ''Aliens'' began principal photography in September 1985. Like its development, filming was tumultuous and rife with conflicts between Cameron and the British crew at Pinewood Studios. The difficult shoot affected the composer, James Horner, who was given little time to record the music.

''Aliens'' was released on July 18, 1986, to critical acclaim. Reviewers praised its action, but some criticized the intensity of some scenes. Weaver's performance garnered consistent praise along with those of Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein. The film received several awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Weaver at a time when the science-fiction genre was generally overlooked. ''Aliens'' earned $131.1–183.3million during its theatrical run, one of the highest-grossing films of 1986 worldwide.

''Aliens'' is now considered among the greatest films of the 1980s, and among the best science fiction, action, and sequel films ever made, arguably equal to (or better than) ''Alien''. The film is credited with expanding the franchise's scope with additions to the series' backstory and factions such as the Colonial Marines. ''Aliens'' inspired a variety of merchandise, including video games, comic books, and toys. The film was followed by two sequels''Alien 3'' (1992) and ''Alien Resurrection'' (1997), neither of which were as successful, and the prequels ''Prometheus'' (2012) and '' Alien: Covenant'' (2017).

Plot

Ellen Ripley has been in stasis for 57 years aboard an escape shuttle after destroying her ship, the ''Nostromo'', to escape an alien creature that slaughtered her crew. She is rescued and debriefed by her employers at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who are skeptical about her claim of alien eggs in a derelict ship on the exomoon LV-426, since it is now the site of a terraforming colony. After contact is lost with the colony, Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman ask Ripley to accompany them to investigate. Still traumatized by her alien encounter, she agrees on the condition that they exterminate the creatures. Ripley is introduced to the Colonial Marines on the spaceship '' Sulaco'' but is distrustful of their android, Bishop, due to the android aboard the ''Nostromo'' having betrayed its crew to protect the alien on company orders.

A dropship delivers the expedition to the surface of LV-426, where they find the battle-ravaged colony and two live alien facehuggers in containment tanks, but no bodies or colonists except for a traumatized young girl, nicknamed Newt. The team locates the colonists beneath the fusion-powered atmosphere processing station and heads to their location, descending into corridors covered in alien secretions. At the station center, the Marines find opened eggs and dead facehuggers alongside the cocooned colonists now serving as incubators for the creatures' offspring. The Marines kill an infant alien after it bursts from a colonist's chest, rousing several adult aliens who ambush the Marines and kill or capture many of them. When the inexperienced Gorman panics, Ripley assumes command, takes control of their armored personnel carrier, and rams the nest to rescue Corporal Dwayne Hicks and Privates Hudson and Vasquez. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the survivors, but a stowaway alien kills the pilots, and it crashes into the station. Almost out of ammunition and resources, the survivors barricade themselves inside the colony.

Ripley discovers that Burke ordered the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship containing the alien eggs, intending to profit by recovering them for biological weapon research. Before she can expose him, Bishop informs the group that the dropship crash damaged the power-plant cooling system and the plant will soon overheat and explode, destroying the colony. He volunteers to travel to the colony transmitter and remotely pilot the ''Sulaco''s remaining dropship to the surface.

After falling asleep in the medical laboratory, Ripley and Newt awaken to find themselves trapped with the two released facehuggers. Ripley triggers a fire alarm to alert the Marines, who rescue them and kill the creatures. She accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers to implant her and Newt with alien embryos, allowing him to smuggle them through Earth's quarantine. The power is suddenly cut, and aliens attack through the ceiling. In the ensuing firefight, the aliens kill Burke, subdue Hudson and injure Hicks; the cornered Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves to avoid capture. Newt is separated from Ripley and taken by the creatures. Ripley brings Hicks to Bishop in the second dropship, but she refuses to abandon Newt and arms herself before descending into the processing station hive alone to rescue her. During their escape, they encounter the alien queen surrounded by dozens of eggs, and when one begins to open, Ripley uses her weapons to destroy them all and the queen's ovipositor. Pursued by the enraged queen, Ripley and Newt join Bishop and Hicks on the dropship and escape moments before the station explodes, consuming the colony in a nuclear blast.

Aboard the ''Sulaco'', the group is ambushed by the queen, who stowed away in the dropship's landing gear. The queen tears Bishop in half and advances on Newt, but Ripley fights the creature with an exosuit cargo loader and expels it through an airlock into space while the damaged Bishop keeps Newt safe. Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop enter hypersleep for their return trip to Earth.

Cast

* Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley: The sole survivor of an alien attack on her ship, the ''Nostromo''
* Michael Biehn as Dwayne Hicks: A corporal in the Colonial Marines
* Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke: A Weyland-Yutani Corporation representative
* Lance Henriksen as Bishop: An android aboard the ''Sulaco''
* Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden: A young girl in the colony on LV-426
* Bill Paxton as Hudson: A boastful but panicky Colonial Marine private
* William Hope as Gorman: The Marines' inexperienced commanding officer
* Ricco Ross as Frost: A private in the Colonial Marines
* Al Matthews as Apone: The Marines' cool-headed Sergeant

The Colonial Marine cast includes privates Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), Drake (Mark Rolston), Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash), Crowe ( Tip Tipping), and Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman), and corporals Dietrich (Cynthia Dale Scott) and Ferro ( Colette Hiller). In addition to the main cast, ''Aliens'' features Paul Maxwell as Van Leuwen (a member of the board reviewing Ripley's competence) and Barbara Coles as the cocooned colonist killed when an alien bursts from her chest. Carl Toop and Eddie Powell portray alien warriors.

Some scenes removed from ''Aliens''s theatrical version were restored in subsequent releases. Additional credits for these scenes include Newt's father, Russ Jorden (Jay Benedict), and her mother Anne (Holly de Jong). Henn's brother, Christopher, plays her brother Timmy, Mac McDonald portrays colony administrator Al Simpson, and Weaver's mother, Elizabeth Inglis, makes a cameo appearance as Ripley's daughter Amanda.

Development

Early development

The success of '' Alien'' (1979) led to immediate discussions of a sequel, but the production company Brandywine Productions struggled to convince 20th Century Fox to make it. Studio president Alan Ladd Jr. was supportive of the project but left Fox to found the Ladd Company, and his replacement, Norman Levy, was concerned about the cost of producing an ''AlienII''. Brandywine co-founder David Giler said Levy believed a sequel would be a "disaster". Fox executives believed ''Alien''s success was a fluke, and that it had not generated enough profit or audience interest to warrant a sequel. Box-office returns for horror films were also declining. Progress was further slowed when Giler and Brandywine co-founders Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll sued Fox for unpaid profits from ''Alien''. Using Hollywood accounting methods, Fox had declared ''Alien'' a financial loss despite its earnings of over $100million against a $9–$11million budget. Brandywine's lawsuit was settled by early 1983, the result being that Fox would finance the development of ''AlienII'', but was not required to distribute the film.

Levy's eventual replacement, Joe Wizan, was receptive to a sequel, and although other executives remained noncommittal, Giler's development executive, Larry Wilson, began looking for a scriptwriter by mid-1983. Wilson came across the script for the in-development science fiction film, ''The Terminator'' (1984), written by James Cameron. With Cameron's collaborative scriptwriting efforts alongside Sylvester Stallone on '' Rambo: First Blood Part II'' (1985), Wilson was convinced to show the script for ''The Terminator'' to Giler, Hill, and Carroll. In November 1983, Cameron submitted a 42-page film treatment for ''AlienII''—written in three days—based on Giler and Hill's suggestion of "Ripley and soldiers". The studio had a mixed reaction, one executive calling it a constant stream of horror without character development. Negotiations to sell the sequel rights to ''Rambo'' developers Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna failed and the project stalled again.

Revival

By July 1984, Lawrence Gordon had replaced Wizan. With few projects in development, Gordon looked at sequels to Fox's existing properties and came across the ''AlienII'' treatment; he said he was surprised no one had pursued it. Production of ''The Terminator'' was delayed for nine months because Arnold Schwarzenegger was contractually obligated to film ''Conan the Destroyer'' (1984). Cameron used the time to develop his treatment, expanding it to ninety pages. He drew ideas from "Mother", one of his story concepts about an alien on a space station involving a power-loader suit. Because of his low expectations for ''The Terminator'', Cameron had spent much of his free time during its production developing and trying out ideas for ''AlienII''.

This script was better received by Fox executives and Gordon, but Cameron also wanted to direct the project. Cameron was a relatively new director, his only directing credit being '' Piranha II: The Spawning'' (1982), a low-budget, independent horror film, and the studio was reluctant to grant his request. His credibility was elevated following the surprise financial and critical success of ''The Terminator'' in late 1984, and Gordon gave him the job. Cameron's associates tried to persuade him to reject the offer, believing anything good about the film would be attributed to ''Alien'' director Ridley Scott and anything negative to Cameron. Scott said he was never offered the chance to direct the sequel, possibly because he was difficult to work with on the original. The title ''Aliens'' reportedly came from Cameron writing "Alien" on a whiteboard during a pitch meeting and adding a "$" suffix. Cameron also wanted his collaborative partner and girlfriend, Gale Anne Hurd, to serve as the producer, but Fox did not take the request seriously, believing she could not stand up to Cameron, who believed she was the only person who would. Hurd had several industry associates contact Fox executives to convince them she was a legitimate producer.

Cameron turned in the finished script in February 1985, hours before a Hollywood writer's strike. Cameron recalled the audience reactions while seeing ''Alien'' in the theater and believed it would be difficult to recreate the emotion and novelty of the original. He and Hurd agreed to combine the horror of ''Alien'' with the action of ''The Terminator''. According to Hill, Cameron said if the first film could be compared to a haunted attraction, ''Aliens'' should be like a roller coaster. Cameron believed in having a strong female heroine to distinguish his films from typical Hollywood action fare and wrote the script with a picture of Weaver on his desk. He referred to ''The Terminator'', and how he removed the normal protective forces from Sarah Connor so she had to fend for herself. Cameron had also always wanted to make a film about space infantry.

The final script was well received, but Fox executives (including chairman Barry Diller