Aliens Art Book
Deandra Uleman
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. Set in the far future, it stars Sigourney Weaver 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 encountered 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 are featured 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 management changes. 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 $18.5 million budget, Aliens began principal photography in September 1985 and concluded in January 1986. 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.
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 the rest of the crew.[i] 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,[ii] 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, because the android aboard the Nostromo 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.
The Colonial Marine cast includes privates Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), Drake (Mark Rolston), Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash),[6] Crowe (Tip Tipping), and Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman),[1] 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.[1][11] Carl Toop and Eddie Powell portray alien warriors.[1][12]
Some scenes removed from Aliens's theatrical version were restored in subsequent releases.[13] Additional credits for these scenes include Newt's father, Russ Jorden (Jay Benedict),[14][15] and her mother Anne (Holly de Jong).[16][17] Henn's brother, Christopher, plays her brother Timmy,[18][19] Mac McDonald portrays colony administrator Al Simpson,[20][21] and Weaver's mother, Elizabeth Inglis, makes a cameo appearance as Ripley's elderly daughter Amanda.[22]
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 Alien II treatment; he said he was surprised that no one had pursued it.[25] 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.[24][29] He drew ideas from "Mother", one of his story concepts about an alien on a space station involving a power-loader suit.[31] 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 Alien II.[28][29]
This script was better received by Fox executives and Gordon, but Cameron also wanted to direct the project.[24][29][32] 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.[25][29][32] 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.[33] Scott said he was never offered the chance to direct the sequel, possibly because he was difficult to work with on the original.[34] The title Aliens reportedly came from Cameron writing "Alien" on a whiteboard during a pitch meeting and adding a "$" suffix.[35][36] 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.[31][32] Hurd had several industry associates contact Fox executives to convince them she was a legitimate producer.[32]
Cameron turned in the finished script in February 1985, hours before a Hollywood writer's strike.[25] 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.[29] 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.[32] He referred to The Terminator, and how he removed the normal protective forces from Sarah Connor so she had to fend for herself.[28] Cameron had also always wanted to make a film about space infantry.[29]
The final script was well received, but Fox executives (including chairman Barry Diller) were concerned about the budget. Fox estimated the cost as close to $35 million, but Hurd said it would be closer to $15.5 million. Diller offered $12 million, prompting Cameron and Hurd to quit. Gordon negotiated with Diller until he relented, and Cameron and Hurd returned.[25] In April 1985, conflict turned to the cast; Fox did not want Weaver to return because they expected her to demand a high salary.[25][32] Cameron and Hurd were insistent Weaver return as the solo star; Fox refused, saying they would damage the studio's negotiating power with Weaver's agent. Cameron and Hurd again left the project, marrying and going on a honeymoon. When they returned, the Aliens project was ready to move forward. Cameron credited Gordon with Aliens' being greenlit.[25]
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