Ellen Ripley is rescued by a deep salvage team after being in hypersleep for 57 years. The moon that the Nostromo visited has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, colonial marines have impressive firepower, but will that be enough?
After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
After her last encounter, Ellen Ripley crash-lands on Fiorina 161, a maximum security prison. When a series of strange and deadly events occur shortly after her arrival, Ripley realizes that she has brought along an unwelcome visitor.
Director:
David Fincher
Stars:
Sigourney Weaver,
Charles S. Dutton,
Charles Dance
A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from a more advanced and powerful cyborg.
Director:
James Cameron
Stars:
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Linda Hamilton,
Edward Furlong
200 years after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone. Along with a crew of space pirates, she must again battle the deadly aliens and stop them from reaching Earth.
In 1984, a human soldier is tasked to stop an indestructible cyborg killing machine, both sent from 2029, from executing a young woman, whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation.
Director:
James Cameron
Stars:
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Linda Hamilton,
Michael Biehn
In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before Adolf Hitler's Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.
A pragmatic paleontologist visiting an almost complete theme park is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose.
In 1938, after his father Professor Henry Jones, Sr. goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. finds himself up against Adolf Hitler's Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.
After a daring mission to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, the Rebels dispatch to Endor to destroy the second Death Star. Meanwhile, Luke struggles to help Darth Vader back from the dark side without falling into the Emperor's trap.
An NYPD officer tries to save his wife and several others taken hostage by German terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
When his secret bride is executed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, William Wallace begins a revolt against King Edward I of England.
Director:
Mel Gibson
Stars:
Mel Gibson,
Sophie Marceau,
Patrick McGoohan
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Stars:
Jack Nicholson,
Shelley Duvall,
Danny Lloyd
57 years after Ellen Ripley had a close encounter with the reptilian alien creature from the first movie, she is called back, this time, to help a group of highly trained colonial marines fight off against the sinister extraterrestrials. But this time, the aliens have taken over a space colony on the moon LV-426. When the colonial marines are called upon to search the deserted space colony, they later find out that they are up against more than what they bargained for. Using specially modified machine guns and enough firepower, it's either fight or die as the space marines battle against the aliens. As the Marines do their best to defend themselves, Ripley must attempt to protect a young girl who is the sole survivor of the decimated space colony.Written by
blazesnakes9
Also in the Special Edition, when Commander Simpson is discussing claim rights for colony surveyors. In reference to Newt's dad, "if he finds anything, it's his". Well, he certainly brings something back to Hadley's Hope with him -- and that particular "piece of salvage" does not stay his, but becomes a major problem for the entire colony very fast. Also, Newt's dad was only concerned about his claim not being honored "because you sent them to that particular middle of nowhere on Company orders," indicating someone took Ripley's story seriously enough to have it investigated, kicking off the entire plot. See more »
Goofs
When Newt goes to bite Hicks' hand when he tries to grab her when she is first found, he clearly cries "Ow" before she can bite down. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Salvage Team Leader:
Bio-readouts are all in the green, looks like she's alive. Well, there goes our salvage, guys.
See more »
Crazy Credits
As the final credits fade, there is the sound of a facehugger scurrying across from left to right. See more »
Alternate Versions
A scene where the colonists receive company orders telling them to explore the derelict spacecraft. Newt's family drives to the site and during the trip Newt and her brother Timothy are arguing about a game of hide and seek that they play in the colony's air duct system. Timothy complains that Newt has the unfair advantage of being able to hide in the small places that the rest of the players can't get to. Following this, they arrive at the derelict ship and the mother and father go in; later the mother returns dragging the father who now has a facehugger clamped on his face. See more »
Series note: It is strongly advised that you watch this film only after seeing Alien (1979). This is a direct continuation of that story.
57 years after the events of the first film, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is found and awakened from hyper sleep to discover that a terraforming colony has been set up on LV-426, the planet wherein she and her fellow crew of the mining cargo spaceship Nostromo first encountered the titular aliens. When Earth-based communications loses contact with LV-426, a band of marines are sent to investigate, taking Ripley and a representative from the company that financed the colony, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) along for the ride.
For the difficult job of following up Ridley Scott's excellent Alien, director James Cameron decided to go a completely different route--to make a fast moving, slightly tongue-in-cheek, boisterous action extravaganza. Remarkably, he was able to do that while still maintaining a stylistic and literary continuity that melds Aliens seamlessly with the first film.
Ripley is much more fully developed in this film, although unfortunately, some of the most significant scenes were deleted from the theatrical release (if at all possible, watch the 2-hour and 37-minute director's cut instead). Cameron fashioned Aliens into a grand arc where Ripley's actions at the end of the film have much more meaning as she's not only fighting monsters, but also fighting to retain a semblance of something she lost due to her 57-year hyper sleep. As in the first film, she is still the most intelligent, courageous and resourceful member of the crew, but she has much more colorful company.
The marines accompanying Ripley back to LV-426 may be too cartoonish for some tastes (as for viewers of that opinion, most of the action and the film overall is likely to be too cartoonish), but for anyone more agreeable to that kind of caricatured exaggeration, it's a joy to watch. I'm a big fan of both Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen, and both turn in wonderfully over-the-top performances, at their diametrically opposed ends of the emotional spectrum--Paxton as the spastic surfer/redneck and Henriksen as the intense, moody sage, with a surprising reality and an even more surprising conscience to go along with it. We also get a cigar-chomping Sergeant, a crazy, butch Private, and a complex, pensive Corporal as main characters, and a mysterious, bright young girl (played in a terrific performance by Carrie Henn). Much of the center section of the film hinges on the interrelationships of these characters, despite the action trappings going on around them.
Cameron carries over the crypt/labyrinth motif of the first film, and adds a metaphorical descent into the bowels of hell in the climax. The action throughout is suspenseful. Aliens contains one of my favorite "cat fights" in any film. It's also worth noting the influence this film may have had on Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997)--although admittedly, we could say that Cameron was influenced a bit by the Robert A. Heinlein book, as well. Throughout all of the varied action sequences, as well as the important early scenes of colonists on LV-426, Cameron is able to clearly convey the logistics of very complex sets, so that viewers remain on the edges of their seats.
Part of what makes the monsters so effective is that we're not told too much about them. We only get glimpses into their physiology's, their behavioral patterns and their intelligence. Cameron gives us just enough to become wrapped up in the film, but not so much that we become overly familiar with the aliens, or start to question the logic behind the film. He also smartly carries over some devices from the first film that were abandoned to an extent, such as the acidic blood of the aliens, and he supplies answers to the few questions that the first film raised, such as why the blood doesn't corrode instruments and objects when a dead alien is examined.
Aliens is yet another example of a sequel that is just as good as an original film in a series. Just make sure you watch both in order, and try to watch the director's cuts.
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Series note: It is strongly advised that you watch this film only after seeing Alien (1979). This is a direct continuation of that story.
57 years after the events of the first film, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is found and awakened from hyper sleep to discover that a terraforming colony has been set up on LV-426, the planet wherein she and her fellow crew of the mining cargo spaceship Nostromo first encountered the titular aliens. When Earth-based communications loses contact with LV-426, a band of marines are sent to investigate, taking Ripley and a representative from the company that financed the colony, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) along for the ride.
For the difficult job of following up Ridley Scott's excellent Alien, director James Cameron decided to go a completely different route--to make a fast moving, slightly tongue-in-cheek, boisterous action extravaganza. Remarkably, he was able to do that while still maintaining a stylistic and literary continuity that melds Aliens seamlessly with the first film.
Ripley is much more fully developed in this film, although unfortunately, some of the most significant scenes were deleted from the theatrical release (if at all possible, watch the 2-hour and 37-minute director's cut instead). Cameron fashioned Aliens into a grand arc where Ripley's actions at the end of the film have much more meaning as she's not only fighting monsters, but also fighting to retain a semblance of something she lost due to her 57-year hyper sleep. As in the first film, she is still the most intelligent, courageous and resourceful member of the crew, but she has much more colorful company.
The marines accompanying Ripley back to LV-426 may be too cartoonish for some tastes (as for viewers of that opinion, most of the action and the film overall is likely to be too cartoonish), but for anyone more agreeable to that kind of caricatured exaggeration, it's a joy to watch. I'm a big fan of both Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen, and both turn in wonderfully over-the-top performances, at their diametrically opposed ends of the emotional spectrum--Paxton as the spastic surfer/redneck and Henriksen as the intense, moody sage, with a surprising reality and an even more surprising conscience to go along with it. We also get a cigar-chomping Sergeant, a crazy, butch Private, and a complex, pensive Corporal as main characters, and a mysterious, bright young girl (played in a terrific performance by Carrie Henn). Much of the center section of the film hinges on the interrelationships of these characters, despite the action trappings going on around them.
Cameron carries over the crypt/labyrinth motif of the first film, and adds a metaphorical descent into the bowels of hell in the climax. The action throughout is suspenseful. Aliens contains one of my favorite "cat fights" in any film. It's also worth noting the influence this film may have had on Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997)--although admittedly, we could say that Cameron was influenced a bit by the Robert A. Heinlein book, as well. Throughout all of the varied action sequences, as well as the important early scenes of colonists on LV-426, Cameron is able to clearly convey the logistics of very complex sets, so that viewers remain on the edges of their seats.
Part of what makes the monsters so effective is that we're not told too much about them. We only get glimpses into their physiology's, their behavioral patterns and their intelligence. Cameron gives us just enough to become wrapped up in the film, but not so much that we become overly familiar with the aliens, or start to question the logic behind the film. He also smartly carries over some devices from the first film that were abandoned to an extent, such as the acidic blood of the aliens, and he supplies answers to the few questions that the first film raised, such as why the blood doesn't corrode instruments and objects when a dead alien is examined.
Aliens is yet another example of a sequel that is just as good as an original film in a series. Just make sure you watch both in order, and try to watch the director's cuts.