A Big-Screen Sci-Fi Presentation
at Friday Night Movies:

Aliens

Friday the 30th of April
Hosted by Wayne & Brent in Lynn

Pot luck supper @ 7pm
Movie @ 8pm

RSVP!

We'd better get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night... mostly.
--Newt (Carrie Henn)

USA: 1986 -- Directed by James Cameron
Written by author
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, and Bill Paxton

God damn it, that's not all! Because if one of those things gets down here then that will be all! Then all this - this bullshit that you think is so important, you can just kiss all that goodbye!
--Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley

Aliens is one of the few cases of a sequel that far surpassed the original. Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, who awakens on Earth only to discover that she has been hibernating in space so long that everyone she knows is dead. Then she is talked into traveling (along with a squad of Marines) to a planet under assault by the same aliens that nearly killed her. Once she gets there, she finds a lost little girl who triggers her maternal instincts--and she discovers that the company has once again double-crossed her, in hopes of capturing one of the aliens to study as a military weapon. Directed and written by James Cameron, this is one of the most intensely exciting (not to mention intensely frightening) action films ever, with a large ensemble cast that includes Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, and Michael Biehn. Weaver defined the action woman in this film and walked away with an Oscar nomination for her trouble. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com essential video

Hope to see you there. I'll save you an aisle seat and a 10-mm M41A pulse rifle with over-and-under 30-mm pump action grenade launcher.

Awards

Won Oscars for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Sigourney Weaver), Best Art/Set Direction, Best Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound

Won Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, Best Director (James Cameron), Best Actress (Carrie Henn), Best Supporting Actor (Bill Paxton), Best Supporting Actress (Jenette Goldstein), Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Carrie Henn), and Best Writing

Ranks #53 on the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Movies

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Memorable Quotes

Ripley: Get away from her, you *bitch!*

Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Vasquez: No. Have you?

Apone: All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!

Hudson: Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?
Gorman: All we know is that there's still no contact with the colony, and that a xenomorph may be involved.
Frost: Excuse me sir, a-a what?
Gorman: A xenomorph.
Hicks: It's a bughunt

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Trivia

All of the cast who were to play the Marines (with the exception of Michael Biehn, who replaced James Remar one week into filming) were trained by the S.A.S. (Special Air Service, Britain's elite special operations unit) for two weeks before filming. Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, and William Hope didn't participate/attend the training because director James Cameron felt it would help the actors create a sense of detachment between the three and the Marines - the characters these three actors played were all outsiders to the squad

Sigourney Weaver had initially been very hesitant to reprise her role as Ripley, and had rejected numerous offers from Fox Studios to do any sequels, fearing that her character would be poorly written, and a sub-par sequel could hurt the legacy of the original film. However, she was so impressed by the high quality of James Cameron's script - specifically, the strong focus on Ripley, the mother-daughter bond between her character and Newt, and the incredible precision with which Cameron wrote her character, that she finally agreed to do the film.

In an interview, composer James Horner felt that James Cameron had given him so little time to write a musical score for the film, he was forced to cannibalize previous scores he had done, . Horner stated that the tensions with Cameron were so high during post-production that he assumed they would never work together again. However, Cameron loved the score from Braveheart (1995) so much, the two mutually agreed that Horner would write the score for Titanic (1997), because it was a story they both wanted to do. They've let bygones be bygones ever since, especially when they won their Oscars for Titanic (1997) and collaborated again 12 years later for Avatar (2009).

More trivia

Goofs

Continuity: When the queen grabs the loader in the final fight scene, she topples it over first smashing the yellow rotating beacon light on the top then pulling it in the airlock, but when the loader is shown in the air lock the light is undamaged and operating.

Continuity: When Burke, Ripley and Lt. Gorman first enter the colony building, they pass through the pouring rain outside and get soaking wet. A few seconds later, inside the building, their clothes and Ripley's hair are dry again.

Factual errors: Burke clearly states to Ripley after her "unusually long hyper-sleep" that she will be "reinstated as a flight officer" if she agrees to go back to LV-426 and help to "completely wipe them out" (the aliens). Yet, she is outranked by Corporal (E-4) Hicks after Ripley states, "this operation is under military jurisdiction, and Hicks is next in the chain of command, am I right?" In the military, no enlisted person outranks an officer.

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