Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a benchmark for the action and science fiction genres. In Aliens, Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet LV-426 where she first encountered the hostile Alien. This time she is accompanied by a unit of Colonial Marines.
Aliens‘ action-adventure tone was in contrast to the horror motifs of the original Alien. Following the success of The Terminator (1984), which helped establish Cameron as a major action director, 20th Century Fox greenlit Aliens with a budget of approximately $18 million. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios, and at a decommissioned power plant.
Aliens earned $86 million in the United States box office during its 1986 theatrical release and $131 million internationally. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver. It won in the categories of Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.
Trivia:
Hicks was originally played by James Remar, but Michael Biehn replaced him a few days after principal photography began, due to “artistic differences” between Remar and director James Cameron. However, Remar still appears in the finished film – but wearing the same armor, and shot from behind, it’s impossible to tell the difference between the two actors.
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; Ripley being an advisor to the Marines while on the trip to LV-426, Burke being there just for financial reasons and Gorman being a newly-promoted Lieutenant with less experience than most of the Marines.
Armorer Terry English made three sets of Armour for each member of the cast who needed to wear Armour. He was only given two weeks to complete the job and upon arriving back at his workshop a few hours drive away from the film set, he realized he had forgotten the scrap of cloth James Cameron had given him so that the camouflage on the Armour could be matched correctly to the uniforms the marines would be wearing. Instead of going all the way back, Terry painted the completed sets of Armour from memory. The result was a pattern and color combination not too dissimilar to the British Army DPM pattern. Fortunately, Cameron liked the contrast between the Armour and the BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms) the marines wore beneath it, saying it make the Armour more obvious to the eye. The graffiti you see on some of the Armour was done by the actors themselves, with a little help from English for a few details like Hicks’ clasp and padlock on his chest Armour. The Armour was had made from Aluminum and all in one size, with on set adjustments made by English to make them fit each actor.
According to the 1991 Special Widescreen Collector’s Edition Laserdisc release of the movie (presented on the Bonus Disc of the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD Box Set), James Cameron turned in the first treatment for the film, called Alien II at the time, on September 21, 1983. Some of the differences between this initial treatment and the final film included the following: – The character of Carter Burke was absent, instead, his dialogue was given to someone named Dr. O’Niel, who did not join Ripley and the marines on their voyage to the colony planet. – Instead of being taken to the Gateway Station, Ripley was taken to Earth Station Beta. – The name of the colony planet was Acheron, taken from the script of Alien (1979), instead of LV-426. – Ripley’s daughter was alive, and Ripley had a disheartening videophone conversation with her, where she blamed Ripley for abandoning her by going to space. – There were multiple atmospheric processors on the planet. – The initial discovery of the aliens on the colony planet is much longer, where it is shown how Newt’s father gets to the site of the eggs and is jumped by a facehugger. – An additional scene involves a rescue team going to the site of the alien eggs and being jumped by tens of facehuggers. – The aliens sting people to paralyze them before either killing or cocooning them. – At one point Ripley, Newt and Hicks get cocooned. – The aliens cocooning people are a different breed. They look like smaller, albino versions of the warrior aliens. – Bishop refuses to land on the planet and pick up Ripley, Hicks and Newt, indicating “the risk of contaminating other inhabited worlds is too great.” – Ripley ends up using the colonists’ shuttle to get back to the Sulaco. – Bishop tells her: “You were right about me all along.” The first draft script was turned in by Cameron on May 30, 1985. This draft was quite different from the treatment, but very close to the final film.
The title of Alien (1979) in Hungarian was “The 8th passenger: Death”. Consequently, the title of Aliens (1986) was: “The name of the planet: Death”.
A scene on the colony before the alien outbreak was deleted from the final cut. Elements of that scene show up in later James Cameron projects. The line, ‘… and we always get the same answer: ‘Don’t ask’.’ was used in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In fact the entire scene in Terminator 2 follows the same pacing and tone as the scene cut from the theatrical version of Aliens: – an employee flags down a supervisor and they walk together, talking about the behavior of their employer – Weyland-Yutani in Aliens, CyberDyne Systems in Terminator 2 – and ending in the line ‘…don’t ask.’. The character name ‘Lydecker’ was used in “Dark Angel” (2000).
During the sequence in which Newt and Ripley are locked in MedLab, Ripley is attacked by one of the two facehuggers after setting off the sprinklers, resulting in the facehugger wrapping its tail around her neck after jumping off of a table leg. To film this, director James Cameron had the Special Effects crew design a facehugger fully capable of walking towards Ripley on its own, but to make it appear as if it jumps off of the table, and Cameron then used backwards-filming. He set up the facehugger on the table leg, then dragged it off and later edited the piece of film to play backward to make it appear to be moving forward towards Ripley. Crew thought that the fact that water was falling down during this whole scene would affect the sequence that was filmed backward (it would show the water moving up instead of down). In the end, the water was not visible enough to see the direction in which it was falling.
The “special edition” includes extra scenes: Newt’s parents discovering the abandoned alien ship on LV-426, scenes of Ripley discussing her daughter, Hudson bragging about his weaponry, robot sentry guns repelling first alien raid, and Hicks and Ripley exchanging first names. Also included is a scene on LV-426 where a child rides a low-slung tricycle similar to one ridden in The Terminator (1984), also directed by James Cameron.
During Hudson’s (Bill Paxton) boasting monologue aboard the drop ship (special edition only) he talks about some of the weaponry of the Colonial Marines, mentioning a “phased plasma pulse rifle” – the pulse rifles the marines carry are ballistic, not “phased plasma”, but the line references The Terminator (1984) (also directed by James Cameron, and featuring Paxton in a minor role) in which the terminator asks a gun store clerk for a “phased plasma rifle”.
Lance Henriksen wanted to wear double-pupil contact lenses for a scene where Bishop is working in the lab on a microscope and gives a scary look at one of the Marines. He came to set with those lenses, but James Cameron decided he did not need to wear them because he was acting the character with just the right amount of creepiness already.
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 Alien (1979). 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, such as elements from his Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) scores, as well as adapt a rendition of “Gayane Ballet Suite” for the main and end titles. 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).
The initial cinematographer was Dick Bush. However, director James Cameron fired him a month into production because he wasn’t satisfied with the lighting, and the two men reportedly hated working with each other. Cameron then tried to hire Derek Vanlint, the DP on the previous film. Vanlint wasn’t interested, but recommended Adrian Biddle for the job.
The difficulties surrounding Sigourney Weaver’s contract negotiations were such that James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd – recently married – announced that if the deal was not done by the time they got back from their honeymoon, they were out. When they returned, no progress had been made – so James Cameron, determined to make the film and wary of the deadline scenario he had created, devised a scheme: he telephoned Arnold Schwarzenegger’s agent for an informal chat and informed him that, thanks to his newfound standing in Hollywood following The Terminator (1984), he had decided to make this film entirely his own by writing Ripley out; as Cameron anticipated, Schwarzenegger’s agent immediately relayed the information to his colleague representing Weaver at ICM, who in turn contacted 20th Century-Fox Head of Production Lawrence Gordon; both men, determined that under no circumstances whatsoever would Ripley be written out, wasted no time in sealing Weaver’s deal.
Having hired James Cameron to write the screenplay, 20th Century Fox then did the unthinkable when he left the production to direct The Terminator (1984): they agreed to wait for Cameron to become available again and finish the screenplay. Cameron had only completed about 90 pages at that stage, but the studio had loved what he had written so far.
The Alien nest set was kept intact after filming. It was later used as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman (1989). When the crew of Batman (1989) first entered the set, they found most of the Alien nest still intact.
Budget constraints meant that they could only afford to have six hypersleep capsules for the scenes set on board the Sulaco. Clever placement of mirrors and camera angles make it look like there’s about 12. Each hypersleep chamber cost over $4,300 to build.
One of the perfect locations they found was a decommissioned coal-fired power plant in Acton, West London. The only trouble with it was that it was heavily riddled with asbestos. So, a team was sent in to clean up the plant, and atmosphere readings had to be taken constantly throughout filming in this location to make sure that the air was clear of contamination. Ironically, the Acton location turned out to have better atmospheric quality than Pinewood Studios.
The assault vehicle is a modified tow-truck that British Airways used for towing airplanes around at Heathrow. The only trouble was that the truck they purchased weighed 75 tons. By stripping out most of the lead used in its construction, they were able to remove about 30 tons.
Ripley’s miniature bathroom in her apartment is actually a British Airways toilet, purchased from the airline.
To bring the alien queen to life would take anything between 14 and 16 operators.
A complicated effect shot (the Marines entering the Alien nest) had already been filmed just before James Remar was replaced by Michael Biehn. A re-shoot would be too expensive, so the Corporal Hicks seen with his back towards camera is still played by James Remar.
Since production took place in England, the director and producers conveniently cast many American actors who were already living in England. This was particularly important for the actress playing Newt, who had to be a minor. Carrie Henn, who played Newt, was an American girl living with her family in England (actually, a bit of an English accent can be heard when she says, “Let’s go,” and, “There is a short-cut across the roof,” during the Alien attack at the end of the movie). Her movie brother Timmy (seen only in the extended version) is also her real-life brother Christopher Henn.
Although the first script draft turned in on 30 May 1985 was very close to the final film, some scenes in this version were dropped in the final film. Those include: – A shower scene with Ripley in a futuristic shower environment Ripley going into more detail about the facehuggers while briefing the Marines, calling the facehugger “a walking sex organ” to which Hudson replies, “Sounds like you, Hicks.” – There are thirty atmospheric processing units on the planet, as opposed to only one in the final film. – Newt formally offering Ripley to be her daughter – Bishop encountering an alien while crawling along the tunnel (this scene also appeared in the final script but neither in the theatrical release nor in the Special Edition) – The second drop ship refueling itself before leaving the Sulaco under Bishop’s remote control. – The first draft also included a scene with a cocooned Burke, which was shot but not included in any of the versions of the movie.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [feet] close-ups of the power-lifter’s feet.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [nice cut] a few minutes into the movie, we see Ripley lying in the cryo-tube, and then the scene fades to the picture of the earth; the earth directly fits into the silhouette of Ripley’s face.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [nuke]
James Cameron had the actors (the Marines) personalize their own costumes (battle armor and fatigues) for added realism (much like soldiers in Vietnam wrote and drew things on their own helmets). Actress Cynthia Dale Scott, who plays Cpl. Dietrich has the words “BLUE ANGEL” written on the back of her helmet. Marlene Dietrich was of course the star of The Blue Angel (1930) or Blue Angel. Bill Paxton has “Louise” written on his armor. This is a dedication to his real-life wife, Louise Newbury.
The mechanism used to make the face-huggers thrash about in the stasis tubes in the science lab came from one of the “flying piranhas” in one of James Cameron’s earlier movies Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981). It took nine people to make the face-hugger work: one person for each leg and one for the tail.
James Cameron had several designers come up with ideas for the drop ship that took the Marines from the Sulaco to the planet. Design after design, he finally gave up on them to come up with on he liked and constructed his own drop ship out of a model of an apache helicopter and other spare model pieces.
Like most films, the movie wasn’t shot in sequence. But for added realism, James Cameron filmed the scene where we first meet the Colonial Marines (one of the earliest scenes) last. This was so that the camaraderie of the Marines was realistic because the actors had spent months filming together.
There was talk of bringing H.R. Giger back for the second movie to do more design work, but James Cameron decided against it because there was only one major design to be done, that of the Alien Queen, which Cameron had already done some drawings of.
When filming the scene with Newt in the duct, Carrie Henn kept deliberately blowing her scene so she could slide down the vent, which she later called a slide three stories tall. James Cameron finally dissuaded her by saying that if she completed the shot, she could play on it as much as she wanted. She did, and he kept his promise.
A set design company offered to build James Cameron a complete and working APC vehicle from scratch, but the cost was far too high for the budget he had in mind.
While salary negotiations were going on with Sigourney Weaver to reprise her character in the second movie, the studio asked James Cameron to work on an alternative storyline excluding Ripley, but James Cameron indicated the series is all about Ripley and refused to do so.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [feet] When the soldiers arrive on LV426 and jump out of the armoured vehicle. See also The Abyss (1989).
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [feet] When Ripley drives the APC, she crushes an alien’s head under one of the wheels.
Except for a very small reference in Alien (1979), the special edition of this film is the first to reveal the name of ‘The Company’ as Weyland-Yutani. The name is clearly written on several pieces of equipment and walls in the colony during a pre-alien outbreak scene of the special edition.
Only six alien suits were used, and even then they were mostly just a handful of latex appliances on black leotards. The appearance of hundreds of aliens is simply clever editing and planning, and lighting plus slime helped make the “suits” more solid.
The body mounts for Vasquez’s and Drake’s smart guns are taken from Steadicam gear.
The pulse rifles that the Marines use are made from a Thompson M1A1 machine gun with a Franchi SPAS 12 shotgun underneath.
The M-56 smart guns and the sentry guns built for the movie were designed around German MG 42 machine guns (most recognizable on the smart guns where the MG 42′s characteristic recoil booster muzzle is clearly visible). The gun is mounted on a heavily modified steadicam harness – the MG 42 alone (without the additional cosmetic dressing and ammunition) weighs in at about 25 pounds.
The helmets the Marines wear are modified M-1 ballistic helmets.
There were two versions of the “Bug Stompers” logo designed for the movie, one wearing sneakers, and one wearing combat boots as seen on the drop ship.
A lightweight dummy model of Newt (Carrie Henn) was constructed for Sigourney Weaver to carry around during the scenes just before the Queen chase.
The armor for the film was built by English armorer Terry English, and painted using Humbrol paints.
The camo pattern worn by the Marines was custom made for the movie, but due to its similarity it is often confused for one called “frog and leaf,” which is no longer in production.
None of the models or the original designs of the Narcissus (the Nostromo’s shuttle) from Alien (1979) could be found, so set designers and model-makers had to reconstruct the model of the ship and the interior set from watching Alien (1979).
“Sulaco” is the name of the town in Joseph Conrad’s “Nostromo”. See also Alien (1979).
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [Biehn's hand] Michael Biehn’s character gets bitten on the hand by another character. See The Abyss (1989) and The Terminator (1984).
During the scene inside the APV preparing for battle, “El riesgo siempre vive!” can be seen scrawled in white across Vasquez’s armor. Literally translated from Spanish this is: “Risk always lives!”; a variant of Cicero’s famous quote “Luck favors the bold.”
Al Matthews, who plays a Marine sergeant in this film, was in real life the first black Marine to be promoted to the rank of sergeant in the field during service in Vietnam.
In both the standard and special edition versions, the fifteen minute countdown at the end of the film is indeed fifteen minutes.
In a deleted scene, Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) daughter was played by Elizabeth Inglis, Sigourney Weaver’s real-life mother.
When the set crews were looking around for floor grating to use on the Sulaco set design, they asked a local set design manufacturer/shop if they had anything of the sort. Indeed they did, an immense pile of old floor grating had been sitting out in the back of their shop for the last seven years. It was left there from when they tore down the set of Alien (1979).
Bishop states that “it is impossible for me to harm, or by omission of action allow to be harmed, a human being.” This is based upon the First Law of Robotics written by science fiction author Isaac Asimov.
In the scene in the air shaft where Vasquez shoots the alien with a handgun, Jenette Goldstein could not handle the recoil of the gun properly. As a result, producer Gale Anne Hurd doubled for Vasquez in shots where the gun is fired. She was the only woman available who had experience firing handguns. Goldstein’s flinching at the firing of a gun is also masked during the operations room fight immediately preceding the air shaft scene, when Vasquez is seen firing two grenades at the aliens – for the first one, there’s a barely visible cut (Goldstein’s head changes position suddenly) and for the second shot there is a smash-cut away from her face at the moment of firing.
Three different types of smoke were used in the film, one of which has since become illegal to be used on movie sets.
One of the alien eggs used in the film is now exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
The Alien Queen has transparent teeth, as opposed to the warrior aliens.
According to myth, the name for the company, “Weyland Yutani”, was taken from the names of Ridley Scott’s former neighbors – he hated them, so he decided to “dedicate” the name of the “evil company” to them. In reality the name was created by conceptual designer Ron Cobb (who created the Nostromo and the crew’s uniforms) to imply a corner on the spacecraft market by an English-Japanese corporation. According to himself, he would have liked to use “Leyland-Toyota” but obviously could not so he changed one letter in Leyland and added the Japanese name of his (not Scott’s) neighbor.
Sigourney Weaver threatened to not do any more “Alien” movies after seeing the movie’s final cut, so as a compromise, the 1987 Special Edition was released on Laser-Disc.
The colony on LV-426 is named Hadley’s Hope, with a population of 158. This is revealed in the special edition, and if you look carefully, the saying “Have A Nice Day” is painted on the sign.
In the scene where Burke and Ripley are discussing her psych evaluation results, a People magazine can be seen on a table.
Was voted the 42nd Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly. They describe it as the “greatest pure action movie ever.”
United States Colonial Marines personnel service numbers: – SFC Apone, A A19/TQ4.0.32751E8 – Pt Crowe, T A46/TQ1.0.98712E6 – Cpl Dietrich, C A41/TQ8.0.81120E2 – Pt Drake, M A23/TQ2.0.47619E7 – Cpl Ferro, C A71/TQ9.0.09428E1 – Pt Frost, R A17/TQ4.0.61247E5 – Lt Gorman, S A09/TQ4.0.56124E3 – Cpl Hicks, D A27/TQ4.0.48215E9 – Pt Hudson, W A08/TQ1.0.41776E3 – Pt Spunkmeyer, D A23/TQ6.0.92810E7 – Pt Vasquez, J A03/TQ7.0.15618E4 – Pt Wierzbowski, T A14/TQ8.0.20034E7
Many of the characters in the movie whose first names are never mentioned, actually share their first name of the actor/actress portraying them: e.g. Sgt. Al Apone (Al Matthews), Cpl. Collette Ferro (Colette Hiller), Pfc. Jenette Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), Pvt. Mark Drake (‘Mark Rolston (I)’), Pvt. Daniel Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash), Pvt. Ricco Frost (Ricco Ross), Pvt. Trevor Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman), and director Paul van Leuwen (Paul Maxwell).
The scene where the Sulaco’s crew is being revived from cryosleep, the monitor which lists each crew member’s names are their character’s name followed by the actors’ actual first initial except for “Hicks, D”, “Ripley, E.” and “Gorman, S.”
Producers David Giler and Walter Hill were keen to work with James Cameron after having read his script for The Terminator (1984). Cameron went in for a meeting with the two producers and pitched several ideas at them, none of which they were that receptive to. As he was leaving, however, they did mention that they were thinking of doing a sequel to Alien (1979), and immediately Cameron’s interest was piqued. Cameron submitted a 40-50 page treatment of what he would do for an “Alien” sequel which contained a lot of ideas for an existing treatment he had done for a script called “Mother”. Giler and Hill loved Cameron’s treatment and commissioned him to write a screenplay. Cameron got the good news the same day he landed screenwriting duties for Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985).
To most of the crew, the choice of James Cameron as director was mystifying as The Terminator (1984) hadn’t been released at that stage. The film’s assistant director continually questioned Cameron’s decisions and was openly antagonistic towards him. Ultimately producer ‘Gale Anne Hurd (I)’ had no choice but to fire him and he briefly instigated a mass walk-out from the rest of the crew. Fortunately this was quickly resolved but caused some doubt as to whether the film would make it to completion.
James Horner wasn’t particularly happy with the treatment of his score for the film despite receiving his first Oscar nomination. He delivered a finished score which didn’t sit well with the edited film. Because Horner was unavailable as he was working on another film at the time, James Cameron had to heavily chop up the score to fit his edit. (A Deluxe Edition soundtrack of the score has since been released by Varèse Sarabande.)
Michael Biehn got the call on a Friday night asking him to take over the role of Hicks and was in London to start filming on the following Monday.
James Horner’s schedule only allowed for him to work on the film for 6 weeks. He arrived in London to perform his duties, only to find that they were still shooting, much less editing. He sat around for 3 weeks before being able to get started.
During the scene when they have landed and deployed in the troop carrier, Apone tells the Marines they have 10 seconds until they arrive. If you count from here until the first Marine jumps out of the carrier and his boots hit the ground, it really is ten seconds.
The various screens and displays, seen mostly in the backgrounds, are actually TV screens with a video running. The film was shot in the UK where televisions run at 25 frames per second, however, film is normally shot and projected at 24 frames per second! Filming the TV monitors at that speed would cause the TV screens to run out of sync with the film, so they would have flickered terribly. Instead, the shots containing the monitors were taken at 25 frames per second to keep the monitors in sync, so when these are then projected at the standard rate of 24 fps, they now run a bit slower than real-life.
Some of the sound effects for this film were created with help from the Fairlight, an early Australian-made digital sampler. Though the machine sampled at a now-laughable 8 bit resolution, the Fairlight then cost an astounding 30 thousand dollars (USD) and was state-of-the-art. Musicians such as Jan Hammer, Kate Bush, and Prince have used it extensively throughout their respective careers.
Sentry guns featured in special edition are of UA 571 model as viewed on their laptop management console. Funny enough, Bill Paxton (pvt. Hudson) appeared as Lt. Cmdr. Mike Dahlgren in submarine movie U-571 (2000).
In the scene where the crew is getting dressed after waking up from hypersleep, Hudson says, “Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?” to which Vasquez answers, “No. Have you?” This is “borrowed” from Hollywood legend. Columnist Earl Wilson once asked Tallulah Bankhead, “Have you ever been mistaken for a man?” Bankhead responded, “No darling. Have you?”
The word “fuck” is used 25 times in the film, 18 of them are spoken by Hudson.
The pistol used by Colonial Marines is a Heckler and Koch VP70.
Footage from this movie was used in a DirecTV commercial.
There was a scene in the movie where Hicks has ordered to install barricades to keep the aliens from getting in and killing them. There was an extended scene where Hudson and Vasquez established sentry guns, and Hicks was constantly watching on how much ammunition there was in the guns.
According to Lance Henriksen, the adding of Hudson’s hand to the knife trick was discussed with almost everyone, except Bill Paxton.
The rhyme that Hudson mutters as he’s searching for the colonists is from the AC/DC song “Shake a Leg”: “Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen…”
At one time during filming, the APC had an actual roof. But, during the “Fire In the hole” scene, the actors were actually suffocating from the fire’s smoke. After a few tries, the roof of the APC was removed.
When Ripley confronts Burke about having the Jordens sent out to check the grid reference, she tells him she checked the company log reference 6.12.79. The theatrical release for Alien (1979) was 6th December, 1979 (6.12.79 in the English date format). It is believed that Aliens (1986) is set in the year 2179, with Alien (1979) set 57 years earlier in 2122.
Aliens (1986) was never shown to test audiences because editing was not completed until the week before its theatrical release.
Several references to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel, “Starship Troopers”: the prominent use of the military; during the orientation when Hudson asks if this is a “bug hunt.”
The space station above earth is called Gateway, a possible reference to Frederik Pohl’s “Gateway” novel, a sci-fi classic.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [vents] Chase scene through the vents.
Director Trademark: [
James Cameron] [strong women] Many of Cameron’s films (Piranha 2, Terminator, Abyss, Titanic, T2) champion strong women, both mentally and physically.
Most of the movie was filmed under very bluish light to give it a strange and “alien” feel. The colors of the Marines’ camouflage BDUs and the Humbrol “Brown Bess” used on the Pulse Rifles were all chosen specifically to work with the blue set lighting. As a result, both look very different under natural light than they did on screen.
Four actors from this movie appear in various Terminator movies: Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton in The Terminator (1984), and Jenette Goldstein in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
Stephen Lang auditioned for the role of Carter Burke.
Sergeant Apone’s full rank is listed as “SFC” on a computer monitor. That is the abbreviation for the current U.S. Army rank of Sergeant First Class, which is usually a platoon sergeant position. The equivalent current U.S. Marine Corps rank would be Gunnery Sergeant, abbreviated GySgt. Sgt. Apone also wears the current Army gold and green stripes of a Sergeant First Class.
The second of four Alien movies starring Sigourney Weaver.
According to Lance Henriksen, during the production of “Aliens”,a the film Full Metal Jacket (1987) was also being shot at a nearby location. Because of this the crews of each movie would often gather together for parties.
James Cameron was not impressed by the way that Ray Lovejoy was editing the film, and was seriously considering firing him and having the film re-edited from scratch by Mark Goldblatt, Cameron’s editor on The Terminator (1984), and Peter Boita, who had already been bought on-board to edit the more dialogue driven scenes. Upon hearing that his job was in danger, Lovejoy grabbed all the footage from the film’s final battle, locked himself in an editing suite over the weekend, and presented the fully edited version of the battle to Cameron the following week. Cameron was sufficiently impressed to let Lovejoy stay on-board and supervise what was intended to be the final edit.
