In 1986, 20th Century Fox finally released a sequel to the 1979 blockbuster "Alien." Stuck in development hell for many years, the studio was undecided how a sequel to the original film should be made. They took a risk on a young filmmaker named James Cameron to come up with the story. This was a decision that the studio would never regret.
It's hard to imagine a sequel to the original film that wouldn't come off as a remake, so James Cameron decided to take the series in a whole new direction...war. With this decision Cameron crafted a sequel that I feel was superior to the original. The stakes were much higher in this film, as well as the number of Alien growing from one to what felt like a thousand.
This film took place on the planet where the crew from the Nostromo discovered the crashed space ship in the first film, however the planet had been terra formed and colonized in the 57 years between the two films. A community named Hadley's Hope now housed a whole host of families.
After losing contact with Hadley's Hope, the military enlisted Ellen Ripley, who had recently been discovered and awakened from her 57-year hypersleep, and a group of Marines to investigate. From then on out the film took a turn towards a balls-to-the-wall action film.
In many ways it's hard to compare this film to the original based solely on plot. The first one was more of a psychological horror film whereas this one was more of an intense action thriller. I do feel the horror aspect was lessened in this film. A lot of the horror in the first film was due to the unknown which had become known for this film so it was a logical choice, in my opinion, to not try and copy the first film.
I really appreciated the queen. I felt it answered the questions I had regarding the 'face huggers' and the eggs from the first film. It also laid grounds for one heck of an action sequence at the end of the film.
Ellen Ripley's character also got positive character development. Early in the film it had been revealed that she had a ten-year-old daughter at the time of the first movie, a daughter that had grown into her sixties and passed away in the time between "Alien" and "Aliens." Enter Newt, a colonist living in Hadley's Hope that had witnessed her whole family being killed by the Aliens. Ripley immediately grew fond of this child and developed a very maternal relationship and sense of protection for Newt. I felt a lot of this relationship was strengthened, if not formed, due to Ripley's guilt from the death of her daughter.
One point that really stood out to me was the sound effect for the queen Alien. I don't know what was used to create her snarl but she really sounded brassed off. This is probably one of the best sound effects I've ever heard for a fictitious creature.
All in all, "Aliens" is a spectacular film that has aged very well in the past 26 years. This film is easily added into the Essential Collection.
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