"This time it's war"
Plot
57 years after the events of Alien Ripley's escape pod containing her in hypersleep is found. She is first treated with skepticism until the company loses contact with a colony on the planet that the alien was found on. Reluctantly Ripley agrees to return with a group of colonial marines. Once on planet they realize that they are in over there heads. A mission to establish control quickly becomes a fight to get out alive.
Story
After the break out success of The Terminator, James Cameron was the hottest new director in Hollywood. He was contracted to write and direct a sequel to Ridley Scott's sci-fi/horror classic. Instead of just going the Rocky way and making deja-vous all over again they decided to concentrate more on the action aspect of the story. Even though producers David Giler & Walter Hill receive story credit there only real instructions to Cameron were "more than one alien and have the military involved".
With sequels being kind of a hit or miss thing Cameron had his work cut out for him. One of his first, and best, ideas was to not use the obvious way of resurrecting the aliens. The first time I saw Alien when the cat disappeared and was found again I began screaming "it's in the cat, it's in the cat, the cat's been implanted!" Cameron uses the cat idea for a short dream sequence designed to shock the viewer and than moves onto his story.
One of the best things about this movie is that the characters are three dimensional and far removed from some of the usual tough guys and cowards who usually inhabit these kind of movies. Lance Henriksen, who lost out on playing The Terminator, plays a very diferent, and more complex, robot here. After a dispute with James Remar, the original actor who was to play Corporal Hicks. Cameron brought in his Terminator star Michael Biehn. Another actor who appeared in Terminator, Bill Paxton, plays Hudson, a wining marine who is somewhere on the boarder between cowardice and cockiness.
In order to create the proper mood he set it on a dank, dark little terraforming outpost on LV 426, the planet where they found the first alien. This time they show up in a military ship called the Sulaco. There landing is accomplished by way of a drop ship. The drop ship's design was based on an Apache helicopter. The marines pulse rifles are actually a machine-gun and a shot gun now serving as a grenade launcher. Two of the marines carry around a much larger type of gun, a gun so large in fact that they actually
wear it on a harness around there waist and torso. The harness is actually a stedicam rig with a large gun on the front. All of the TVs that they use were ordinary 1986 TVs inside of a frame that covered part of the screen and made them appear wide screen.
For creature effects Cameron brought in another Terminator alumni Stan Winston. Winston, along with Allic Gills and Tom Woodruf Jr., created the effects for not just many diferent aliens but many types of aliens; face huggers, new borns, warriors, and of course the menacing queen alien. The queen was articulated by Gills and Woodruff from inside of the giant puppet.
When it came out it received nearly universal acclaim from both critics and audiences. It shot right to the top of the box office charts, received several academy award nominations. The most surprising one was Sigourney Weaver for best actress. No one ever gets awards for acting in sci-fi films, not only that but this was not some avant-guard 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is straight forward action/sci-fi, with people fighting monsters that have huge claws, sharp teeth, and drip slime.
Trivia
The APC was modeled after an airplane tug.
In Alien there ship is called "Nostromo", in Aliens there ship is called "Sulaco". "Sulaco" is the name of a town in Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo".
Hudson says that Vasques heard someone say alien, thought they meant illegal alien, and signed up. When Jenette Goldstein, the actress who played Vasquez, came to the audition for Aliens she thought it was a movie about illegal aliens. Everyone else was wearing combat boots and Camouflage, she had long hair and ripped jeans.
Bishop was build by Hyperdyne, any relation to Cyberdyne. (the company that built the terminators) An early draft of the script did say Cyberdyne.
In Alien they received a distress call from a moon orbiting a green planet with rings around it. The moon is never referred to by name in Alien. In Aliens they say that the ship was found on LV 426. When they arrive we never see the green ringed planet that it is orbiting. Easily explained that since the planet can only be on one side of LV 426 all of the action in Aliens takes place on the far side. Some people
regard this as a goof.
Cut Scenes
Before her hearing Ripley asks Burke about her daughter. Burke tells her that her daughter died 2 years ago at the age of 67, after all Ripley has been missing for 57 years. He shows her a picture of her as an old lady. The woman in the picture was actually Sigourney Weaver's mother.
After Ripley's outburst during the hearing the council deems her unfit to serve as a flight officer. Instead of cutting to the next scene you see them render judgment.
The colonists receive orders from Burke to explore the derelict ship Ripley told them about. Newt's parents go into it. Her father is brought out with a face hugger attached.
There's a scene of the colony, before contact with the aliens, in this scene we see a sign outside the colony reading: "Hadleys Hope - pop. 158"
Burke trying to convince Ripley to go with them it investigate the colony is longer.
The scene on the Sulaco where everyone is brought out of hypersleep is longer and more drawn out.
During the drop-ship sequence Hudson boasts about there weapons, his courage, and says he'll protect Ripley. Making him seem like even more of a coward later in the film.
When the marines first search the colony Hudson picks up some motion, on investigation it turns out to be mice in a cage.
More hesitation on Ripley's part before entering the colony.
When going over the salvaged equipment from the APC Hicks describes 4 automatic sentry guns which "really kick ass".
When going over the blueprints to set up barricades they also talk about where to place the sentry guns
They arm and test one of the sentry guns.
Before Ripley carries Newt into the infirmary a single shot of the sentry guns is inserted.
When Ripley is putting Newt to bed Newt asks if human babies are born like aliens. Than asks Ripley if she has a daughter; to which Ripley replies her that her daughter is dead.
More dialogue when they speculate about alien life cycle and social structure.
After Ripley's confrontation with Burke, the aliens try to go past the sentry guns.
Ripley puts on her sneakers after she finds out that the facehuggers broke free in medlab.
After Vasquez and Ripley seal Bishop in the pipe, the aliens confront two sentry guns. At the end of the sequence, when Hicks dispatches Hudson and Vasquez (to walk perimeter), some of the shots have been rearranged from the theatrical edition and Hicks' dialogue slightly altered.
Before Ripley leaves the drop-ship to rescue Newt, there is some additional dialogue, she turns to Hicks to say good-bye, they call each other by there first names. (Ellen and Dwayne)
While searching for Newt Ripley finds Burke, who has been cocooned and is complaining of stomach pain. He begs her to shoot him and she hands him a grenade and leaves. This was shot but is not on the special edition, some magazines printed a few shots taken from it.
The laserdisc includes the sound of a face-hugger moving around as the final credits fade.