Aliens (1986)

Aliens (1986)

9/10

 

Starring

Sigourney Weaver
Carrie Henn
Michael Biehn
Lance Henriksen
William Hope
Paul Reiser

Directed by James Cameron

How often is a sequel better than the previous part?

Happening after Ellen Ripley woke up after 57 years in Hyper Sleep, Aliens a sequel to Alien (1979 directed by Ridley Scott) and was directed by James Cameron, who had just finished working on The Terminator at the time and was interested in doing a sequel to the Alien. He wrote a 45 page story and presented it to Fox and he was giving a deadline and minimal budget of 18 million to meet a release date of 1986.

After ten months of production, Cameron finally did it and met the production date after having to deal with issues with filming methods in England where the movie was filmed.

Also the issue that Fox wanted to go ahead and do the movie without Sigourney Weaver, who wanted to be paid $ 1 million dollars for the role, in which she played 7 years before for 30 times less. After a lot of dispute Fox caved and paid her the sum, and Cameron adjusted to filming in England, the movie Alien II was made and was a commercial success and a wonderful movie.

The difference between Alien and Aliens (Alien II) is the genre, while the former was more of horror with some action; Cameron opted for a more action movie (taking cue from The Terminator which was a success). The actions in the movie kicks off from the get go, after some introductions and setup towards the flight back to LV-426, the planet where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and her crew first encountered the Alien eggs from the moment they land things started to happen.

Ripley was called on as a consultant, to escort a crew of marines to LV-426 which was now home to a terraforming colony, a colony that has not been heard from for a while.

As usual the same way Alien by Ridley Scott went so did this one, there was mayhem, there were killings, there was betrayal and of cause there was action far more action than the predecessor.

Aliens is a film I recommend, and it is going to keep you glued to your sit. A lot more improvement was done to the graphics and the Aliens were given close range shots and we get to see them move, unlike the previous version where the Alien were being done using mainly camera work and lighting.

This film had great cinematography done by Adrian Biddle, who did the cinematography for V for Vendetta (2005) and was also involved in the camera work in Alien.