Aliens

As is apparent from my post on Alien, the film had quite a resounding impact on my interaction with the cinematic art form. The horrors and imaginative beauty of the feature fueled my mind in new and wonderful ways. To bare witness to such a staggering piece of cinematic beauty at such an infant age had much of an influence on my love toward cinema in its entirety. Yet Alien was not alone in influencing my understanding of story telling and the cinematic medium. Interestingly enough, it was the sequel which had the biggest impact upon me as a child.

A year had gone by since I discovered Alien. In my mind, the story ended when Ripley sailed off into the stars with her pet cat Jones. I never knew at the time that there was a sequel, but once again, my dad was going to surprise me with some rather exciting news. Alien didn’t end in 1979, as in 1986, James Cameron was the director of its sequel; Aliens.

What captured my imagination the most about this sequel was that it was a complete reinvention of the original. Not in the sense of it being a remake or reboot, but a sequel which decided to take the original concept of Ridley Scott’s 1979 feature and flip it on its head. No longer was it a horror film with one nasty monster on the loose, but was instead an all out action movie which centred around marines battling a whole army of extra-terrestrial beasts. 

Like with the original, my father was not keen on letting me watch the sequel at such a young age. The film may not have been as gruesome as the previous, but it was still an 18 rated certificate with yet another dreaded chestbuster sequence which could quite easily terrify a young sprog. Despite my pleading nature, he was adamant to not let me witness this action packed sequel until I was much older. 

But as always, I was not going to go down without a fight. Much as was the case with Alien, my father’s words had ignited an explosion of curiosity in my mind. On top of this, he also had a copy of the damn thing in his video cupboard. Quite frankly he only had himself to blame for my adamant attitude to watch this flick.

So on one Saturday morning, during the summer of 1996, me and my younger brother crept downstairs to find our father’s VHS copy of the James Cameron sequel. My dad was nursing a hangover whilst my mum was indulging in her ritualistic Saturday lie in. It was 7am and it was quite clear that neither of them would stir until around at least the 10am mark. This meant I had a healthy three hour slot to watch and devour the film that had pretty much become the centre of my existence during that time period.

Two hours later and my desires had been met without even a shred of disappointment. The film was perfect. Too perfect for mere words to even express (though I am going to try to at the very least). It was nothing like its predecessor. We were in new territory here. Gone were the horror aspects of the first film. Thrilling though it may have been, this was an all out action movie; hell bent on taking its audience on a nail biting roller coaster ride to hell and back.

I can still remember the feeling that Aliens stirred within me to this very day. It’s one of those distinct feelings which you yearn to experience again, but know that you never will recapture. After watching the feature for the first time, I would continue to watch it year after year; hoping that I could stir up those emotions once again. I tried and I tried and I tried, but never once could I conjure them back into existence. That was the curse of such a perfect film. The staggering material that plays out before your very eyes captivates every corner of your imagination. Not once do you dare to look away from the screen. You devour every ounce of the material whole. Every strand of dialogue, every twist in the plot, every beat of the soundtrack as it downloads into your mind; destined to remain there for the rest of your days. It’s euphoric, exciting and intense, yet it’s a feeling that the film can only create once and once only. After that, you are trapped with the memory of that feeling; forever striving to pull it back into the present for one last joy ride.

As I mentioned above, Aliens is a sequel which was not directed by the man behind the film’s preceding story. Whilst Ridley Scott would inevitably return for a prequel to this franchise in 2012, here he removed himself from any involvement in such a project. Instead, the mantel of director is taken up by The Terminator director James Cameron. Now for anyone who has met me in real life will know, I'm an unashamed James Cameron lover. I adore his films a little bit too much. People are often baffled by how much I have managed to delude myself into thinking he's the greatest filmmaker of all time. They scratch their head in confusion when I call Titanic the Romeo and Juliet of the 20^th Century; Avatar the greatest intergalactic love story of the previous decade and Terminator 2 the most poetic cyborg story to ever make its way into our universe. My perception of James Cameron as a filmmaker is obsessive, inaccurate and incredibly warped and it’s all thanks to this film. This is where it all began for me. My fixation with Cameron was born in the summer of 1996 and it was all thanks to a worn out VHS tape which was tucked away at the back of my parent’s video cupboard.

So what’s so great about Aliens? Well in all honesty, if I was to make a list of what elements in this film work so well for me, we’d be here till next Christmas. So instead I’m just going to hand pick a few delicious beauties to waffled on about for the next thousand words or so.

One of the most exciting aspects to his 1986 sequel is its use of reinventing the story. One of the biggest issues which stems from a lot of sequels is their tendency to be a direct rehash of their predecessors. Often a sequel is born out of the success of the original film; meaning that producers, writers and directors are keen to extract the elements from the original which made them work the first time round. The problem with this is that no one has even been able to identify what makes a film a triumph. A film either chimes with the mass audiences or it doesn’t. The reasons are far too spontaneous and complex for any producer to ever fully understand. As a result of this, creative and financial forces behind a particular feature will often copy and paste the original screenplay for a follow up. To try and mask up the fact that producers/writers/directors have lifted a story from the original, they will lazily replace some of the names, locations, characters and dialogue (honestly, just watch the revolting Hangover Part II and tell me this isn't true). This is the equivalent of someone taking a famous quote and trying to make it appear to be their own by using a thesaurus to come up with as many synonyms to replace the original words as is possible (e.g. "One possesses a strand of nothingness to advocate except one's intellect"). Nothing is new and nothing is creative; it is nothing more than an idle clone. Aliens, on the other hand, decides to take the film in a completely different direction; acknowledging and continuing on from the original feature whilst simultaneously creating an entirely new world for its characters to exist within.

The film respectfully nods back and uses Ridley Scott’s original as a way to help tell the story, but never once relies on it in order to generate or recreate popularity. The original is mostly addressed in the early moments of the narrative; where Ellen Ripley is seen suffering from post traumatic stress as a result of her previous encounter with the monstrous beast. Not only does she endure endless bouts of night terrors surrounding the viscous beast which killed her ex-colleagues, but is also made to justify her actions of blowing up a Wayland Yutani space craft. When Ripley discovers that the planet where her crew found the alien beast has been colonised, her fears are amplified. Over seventy families supposedly occupy his world; a fact which serves to intensify her dread. When the company finally lose contact with the colony, Ripley knows exactly why. She’s asked to join a group of space marines as they carry out a search and rescue mission in order to be their potential advisor; an offer she feels she must accept if she is to ever get over these continuous bouts of trauma. 

From here on out, the film branches away from the original, instead choosing to take on a life of its own. This is where Aliens becomes a separate movie in its own right. As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to witness the first film in order to understand what is going on here. Ripley is quite clearly a survivor of an alien attack, yet one does not need to have seen this attack in order to know what is going on or why she has made the decision to throw herself back into such a hostile territory. This allows the film to stand on its own two feet. This is not a direct continuation in the classic sense of the word. We are not witnessing a second chapter in an on going story arc. Instead, Aliens is a completely separate film which happens to exist within the same universe as Alien. Both films may share the same protagonist, however each one is completely self contained from one another. Oh yeah, plus both films are also set 57 years apart from one another.

Self contained sequels have always been my favourite type of follow-up stories. The idea of a film that relies too heavily on the original always feels weak and half baked to me. Such stories become frail, flimsy and unable to stand on their own two feet. Any feature should be able to work entirely on its own. Anything otherwise comes across as a shoddy attempt at telling a story; unable to occupy its own space amongst the body of the cinematic art form.

The only other time when Aliens decides to address Alien is during the pre-climactic scenes. When Ripley throws herself into the center of the alien nest, the countdown to the colony base's destruction resembles the countdown sequence which took place during the climax of the original. The voice and sound effects are near identical to one another. As Ripley rescues Newt from the almost inescapable cocoons of the alien hive, a final reference to the original is made as the queen alien creeps into view. The tense and terrifying soundtrack from the semi-climax of the original movie leaps back into existence; throwing its audiences right the way back to that final pre-destruction moment which took place near the end of Alien. 

What’s interesting here is that the references to the original are not executed through the film’s visuals, but instead through its use of sound. The voice of the inevitable countdown, the wailing sirens and the nightmarish soundtrack are Cameron’s way of paying homage to the original. In terms of visuals, things are very different from that of Alien. We have a huge colonial complex crumbling to pieces; Ellen Ripley wielding a machine gun as well as a terrified child in her arms; an almost indestructible queen alien who’s hunting down the life form who has destroyed her hive and a heroic android who rescues our protagonist with the use of a drop ship. Audibly it’s a homage, visually it’s something else entirely.

Yet despite this pre-climactic audio nod to Alien, Aliens is far from a rehash. In fact, it the film goes to great lengths in order to branch itself away from that which came before it. This is most certainly the case in terms of how the film makes heavy use of universe expansion.

Cameron, who also wrote the screenplay, has decided to design a structured reproductive cycle for the alien species (now identified by the name Xenomorph). In the preceding film, viewers were given a glimpse at how the creatures were born, however things didn’t go any further than that (except for in the director's cut, but I'll discuss that in a future post). We were left in the dark as to how the alien functioned as a species, who laid the eggs of such creatures and how they maintained the growth of their own race. In Aliens, such mysteries are brought to light. We do not know where such a species came from, but we are invited to see how they function and exist as a larger community. 

The standard looking aliens (known as drones) play the role of a soldier in this film. Each one of them exists solely to find hosts for their eggs. The humans are such hosts and the warrior drones work in their numbers to disarm and take all living humans back to their lair; where they are to become the doomed incubators for the Xenomorph’s offspring. Sitting at the top of this chain is the queen alien. 

The queen is the egg layer of this species and possesses a very different physical, biological and aesthetic appearance to the ‘children’ of her hive. She is at least six times the size of her offspring (a completely random guess on my part there); sports a large, crown like shell on the top of her head; is the owner of six arms which vary in size and appears to be far more intelligent than the other breeds of her species. Whilst the drone aliens appear to inherit slight physical traits from their hosts, the queen alien does not appear to do so in the slightest. Whilst her children are slightly humanoid in design, she is more akin to that of a dragon. Despite her gargantuan size and extreme strength, it would appear that her existence amongst this species is solely there to serve as an egg layer. Her role is to expand the size of her race as best she can; using her own children as a means of physical force. It would seem that her incredible strength is only there as a tool for whenever she is separated from her children and in need of dependent physical assistance (as is the case in the film’s climax).

The expansion of the alien life cycle is one of the most exciting installments to Aliens and the presence of the queen alien adds a whole new dynamic to the creature that was last seen running around the Nostromo in 1979 (plus it also makes way for one of the most exciting climactic scenes in cinema history). The extension of the alien race is not the only way that Aliens enlarges the overall frame of this series, however. Cameron has also decided to build upon the concept of the ‘company’ which was established in the Ridley Scott original. In 1979, the company was nothing more than a name uttered by the protagonists of that story. We knew that they were the builders of the Nostromo, the employers of our heroes and the orchestrator of Ripley’s crew landing on that strange alien world (which is also given a name in this film), yet they were nothing more than a nonvisible entity that existed in the background for the feature’s entirety. 

Here, Cameron has decided to pull that concept right to the foreground; turning the company into a living, breathing reality that surrounds the entire plot. First of all, the company is not just the company anymore, but is given the name Wayland Yutani. Wayland Yutani are an intergalactic monopoly who seem to be the sole owners of humanity's future. They own the marines, the colony and the ships that surround Ripley. There isn’t a single scene in the entire movie which is not set in a Wayland Yutani owned environment. Every corridor, every craft and every weapon is owned by that very company. The company has expanded into a monster of its own; wrapping itself around every character and set that exists within this narrative. 

Wayland Yutani is to Aliens what Pandora is to Avatar. In fact, I can’t help but feel that the first half of Aliens is an almost mirror image of the first half of Avatar. Aliens spends most of that first fifty minutes void of action; instead dedicating large majorities of its screen time toward exploring the abandoned colony of LV426 (the name that the company…ahem… I mean Wayland Yutani have given to the planet). The camera explores everything; from the abandoned bunk rooms to the desolate control bays. The sets are rich in detail, giving off the impression that this is more than just a backdrop for the film’s action, but is in fact a world of its own. Alien was a film about a monster in a spaceship, whereas Aliens is a film about a species occupying a self contained world. As is the case with Avatar, Cameron is unashamedly fetishizing the world which he has helped to create. The camera takes great pleasure in following these marines around this abandoned setting and gives off the impression that it could quite happily do so for the rest of the film.

In many ways, the expansion of this universe could also be seen as the ultimate death in this franchise. Before Aliens, it is highly unlikely that the creative force behind the original had any intentions to turn this idea into an ever expanding franchise. It’s hard to believe that in 1979, Dan O’Brien and Ridley Scott could have ever envisioned their out of space horror movie becoming a never ending marketing tool which would assist in generating features such as Alien Resurrection and Alien Versus Predator Requiem. It was an intelligent, stand alone horror movie which happened to do very well. In many ways, the existence of Aliens and its use of expanding the world that Alien played out within showed audiences how far such a story could be pushed. Cameron turned it into a fluid and expansive universe which could change its shape with every passing film. The director’s execution may have made it possible for the film to successfully move forward with a sequel, but it could also be seen as the film that gave future producers/writers/directors the opportunities they needed to tarnish the very memory of such a series.

But whether or not this film sowed the seeds of the franchise’s own destruction is an idea that is open to debate. Plus the expansion of this universe serves to assist the quality of the plot in two ways. 

Firstly, the exploration of the colony during the fist fifty minutes of the film (thanks to the vast expansion of Wayland Yutani) gives the plot an opportunity to create suspense within its viewers. Before the release of the film, audiences knew full well that the sequel would contain not just one, but a shit load of aliens in it. We knew that this was going to be an all out war and such a promise was hopelessly enticing. We knew how much damage one of these monsters could cause, so just imagine what hundreds of them could do! Well this film promised to turn such a concept into a visual reality by giving us the tag line “this time, it’s war”. But instead of throwing a whole army of aliens into the mix early on, the film holds back on its promise for a large portion of the plot. Audiences are made to hold their breath for almost an entire hour before any alien makes an on screen appearance. The gap in revelation not only makes the viewing experience incredibly intense for its audience, but it also keeps them glued hopelessly to their seats. We know that we are going to see an all out alien battle at some point, but we haven’t a clue when such an event is set to take place. The exploration of the expanded universe helps to make this prolonged wait possible for Cameron to execute; filling out any potential vacuums that would otherwise exist amongst this fifty minute gap. 

Then there is the expansion’s finest gift of all; the queen alien. The greatest pleasure that was derived from that first ever viewing experience of this film (for me at least) would have to be the moment when the mother alien was first revealed to my eyes. I remember the moment as clear as day. Ripley slowly turns her head amongst a sea of silence; a heat swept wind blows past her face; in front of her, an egg slides out of an organic tube; both Ripley and the camera follow the tube toward its origin; at the end of the organic monstrosity sits a curled up beast that wheezes at a volume which resonates through one's existence; finally the beast tilts its head up, revealing itself to be the mother of all aliens. The following thirty minutes or so were the most jaw dropping moments of my childhood life. Right from the destruction of the mother nest, to the tearing in half of Bishop and finally to the moment where the queen is sucked from an airlock are the most exciting and memorable moments from those early days of my existence. I have yet to experience something as intoxicating as those final thirty minutes again and it’s all thanks to that marvellous mother alien.

Yet the film’s excellence doesn’t even end there. What also helps to yank the viewer right into this terrifying yet exciting world is the depth of the film’s characters. Because not only does the first fifty minutes spend its entire time ogling over Cameron’s ever expanding universe, but it also focuses large quantities of its energy on the characters of this story. The viewers are given the chance to spend great portions of time with Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Drake, Bishop, Gorman, Burke, Frost and Apone; only to then watch them all crash and burn in the final half of the movie. The time spent with the characters at the start force us to care about whether they live or die. This is where the film pulls us in as an audience and is why the film works so darn well. It doesn’t matter how many explosions or monsters there are on screen, because the key to any film like this one is the characters (I hope you're taking notes Mr Bay). It’s the same reason why the first feature worked so well upon release. We actually cared for those poor buggers who were under attack. 

And speaking of characters, what about the film’s protagonist? How does she hold up in this film? Well, let me just say right now that Ellen Ripley is, in my opinion, the greatest fictional character who ever lived. Women have rarely been treated fairly in the chauvinistic world of Hollywood, but here is a character who’s going to challenge all previous portrayals of women and the male gaze which came before her. At the start of the movie, Ripley is a woman in a mans' world. She's surrounded by loud egos and exaggerated masculinity. The men are convinced that they are the ones who wield the power in these parts, but they will soon be proved horrible wrong when they face the brutal nature of the Xenomorphs. Suddenly, the marines are well and truly helpless and it is up to Ripley to take down this impossible race. She grabs the narrative by both horns and steers it in her direction. She's the one who makes all the decisions, she's the one who rescues Newt, she's the one who makes Hicks and Bishop wait for her return and she's the one who brings an end to the virtually indestructible queen alien. Not only is Ellen Ripley stronger than the men who think they own this story, but she is stronger than the alien hive who annihilate her army of marines. She is an unstoppable force who rides this narrative out from start to finish. 

My reasons for why Aliens is such a masterpiece is forever growing and is a list which has been expanding for the past seventeen years. Yet it’s the self contained reinvention of the story, expanded universe, extraordinary climax, fully developed characters and indestructible protagonist which makes the entire experience of this film more sensational than anything else in existence. In my eyes, James Cameron is the greatest filmmaker who ever walked this earth and it is this very film which planted such an unmovable seed within my head.