AliensEven when you think you've escaped the past, it has a way of grabbing hold of you in ways you never expected. So it is for Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), returned to Earth after a long time away--fifty-seven years to be precise--the prolonged deep sleep having kept her unchanged, except for the lasting trauma of her dire encounter with the alien aboard the Nostromo. Ripley's homecoming is hardly a warm one--now a woman out of time--as the ominous "Company" disavows any knowledge of the attempt to procure the alien, content to close the file on it, and stripping Ripley of her status as a flight officer.
|
|
Even home holds no warmth for Ripley; she is awoken often by night terrors, the horrible dreams of an alien bursting from her chest like her comrade before her, Kane. She may have been ignored--even vaguely threatened--by the company into quiet submission, stuck scraping by, living in a crummy apartment, but she has her life, although it is not a pleasant one. The alien may not have killed her, but it destroyed her in an entirely unique way. When one of the company's corporate agents named Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) comes to her with an offer to get her contract with the company renewed, her job back, and other banal offers of money, Ripley still refuses him cold; she may be broke and miserable, but has no delusions about the dangers of the alien, and she understands too well that he (and, by proxy, the company) wouldn't make the offer if it wasn't in their interests. But it is when she hears that a colony of terraformers--"shake and bake" colonies, a venal exec tells her--has been established on LV-426, the planet where the Nostromo first made contact with the monstrous "xenomorph"--she reconsiders. Ripley probably reconsiders in part at Burke's suggestion that her assistance may bring her some closure, but the truth is that Ripley can't stand the thought of this thing wreaking havoc on innocent, unsuspecting families, caught in the middle of a desperate struggle to make some money as colonial adventurers, fighting to survive against such an inscrutable threat. It's funny how the detachment of colonial marines aboard the Sulaco she accompanies to LV-426 is comprised of a bunch of rough and tough leathernecks, arrogant, cocksure, even flippant in their dismissal of the idea of some kind of a "bug hunt". Like the original crew of the Nostromo, they are skeptical and more interested in the bottom line than anything else, although they have a more adventurous streak. The world of Aliens--and Alien for that matter--is still a dark future, where greed is a mantra, and corporations the institution, effectively replacing governments. Although it is acknowledged that the Sulaco's mission is a military one, Burke still represents the interests of his corporate sponsors, with increasing sliminess. Ripley's comment about the aliens at least not screwing over someone for a percentage illuminates that the threat of the xenomorph is more than just a physical one--it underscores the ideological flaw in human society in this not too distant future. It also resonates with a classic sci-fi trope of the pursuit of science without morality--with the company again attempting to capture the alien as an enhancement to their bioweapons division--is always evil.
As opposed to Alien and its lurking terror in the dark, Aliens is--as represented by the very name of the movie--about a multitude of dangerous predators. They lurk, but they also assault full force as an opposing force, with the fearsome marines the only apparent means of holding the line against their skirmishers. Aliens has some earmarks of a "war movie", with an assembly of characters forced to fight or die against the enemy, using a decidedly heavier output of military ordinance than in the preceding film. Ripley--originally not intending to fight alongside the marines, merely act as an adviser--finds she needs to learn how to fight when the marines begin to get whittled down in the face of a foe they do not have the experience to deal with. Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) arms her--literally and figuratively--by teaching her what she needs to know to fire a pulse rifle, flame thrower, grenades, everything they have. The fact that Ripley not only listens to Hicks and others, but actively assists them--even in mundane things like helping move cargo with the power loader--shows that she wants to feel like she belongs to the human race again, but more so, is also a decent human being. She cares about people, and her humanity gives her an edge in tough situations, even over highly trained officers who freeze in the worst possible moments, like Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope). She remains highly cautious around Bishop (Lance Henriksen), however--a synthetic, although he prefers "artificial person"--after her previous dealings with Ash, but she eventually warms to him after he makes great strides to help the team when no one else can. When Ripley encounters and welcomes Rebecca "Newt" Jorden (Carrie Henn), a young girl and sole survivor of the colony, she cares for her in a way the other marines simply cannot, fostering a mother-daughter relationship between them. (The extended edition of the film talks about Ripley's own child, lost to her now due to the extremely long duration adrift in space, which also enhances the relationship between these two survivors.) Ripley also identifies with Newt, since they both understand what it's like to be left all alone with the monsters no one else believes in. As the pulse-pounding conclusion sets in--the action rarely halting for long--the film builds to an explosive showdown. The final countdown at the end of fifteen minutes is--interestingly--actually fifteen minutes in length in the film; but more than being just a technical gimmick, this race against time to escape is also a bold awakening for Ripley, bringing out the lioness in her, and face to face with the heretofore unseen "queen" of the aliens, which plays a metaphorical opposite to Ripley. They represent two driven women, warriors who will not let their children suffer; only, it is Ripley's devotion to Newt born of love which empowers her with the will to overcome the queen's relentless pursuit, while also getting to deliver one of cinema's greatest "mother defending her young" lines of dialogue.
Recommended for: Fans of a science fiction movie crammed full of action like an overstuffed magazine of pulse rifle rounds. The marines may be overly stylized, but they make for a set of characters we can see going in guns blazing against a sea of evil monsters with acid for blood. Ripley once again emerges as the empowered action female, and becomes a more complex and engaging character than before.
As opposed to Alien and its lurking terror in the dark, Aliens is--as represented by the very name of the movie--about a multitude of dangerous predators. They lurk, but they also assault full force as an opposing force, with the fearsome marines the only apparent means of holding the line against their skirmishers. Aliens has some earmarks of a "war movie", with an assembly of characters forced to fight or die against the enemy, using a decidedly heavier output of military ordinance than in the preceding film. Ripley--originally not intending to fight alongside the marines, merely act as an adviser--finds she needs to learn how to fight when the marines begin to get whittled down in the face of a foe they do not have the experience to deal with. Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) arms her--literally and figuratively--by teaching her what she needs to know to fire a pulse rifle, flame thrower, grenades, everything they have. The fact that Ripley not only listens to Hicks and others, but actively assists them--even in mundane things like helping move cargo with the power loader--shows that she wants to feel like she belongs to the human race again, but more so, is also a decent human being. She cares about people, and her humanity gives her an edge in tough situations, even over highly trained officers who freeze in the worst possible moments, like Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope). She remains highly cautious around Bishop (Lance Henriksen), however--a synthetic, although he prefers "artificial person"--after her previous dealings with Ash, but she eventually warms to him after he makes great strides to help the team when no one else can. When Ripley encounters and welcomes Rebecca "Newt" Jorden (Carrie Henn), a young girl and sole survivor of the colony, she cares for her in a way the other marines simply cannot, fostering a mother-daughter relationship between them. (The extended edition of the film talks about Ripley's own child, lost to her now due to the extremely long duration adrift in space, which also enhances the relationship between these two survivors.) Ripley also identifies with Newt, since they both understand what it's like to be left all alone with the monsters no one else believes in. As the pulse-pounding conclusion sets in--the action rarely halting for long--the film builds to an explosive showdown. The final countdown at the end of fifteen minutes is--interestingly--actually fifteen minutes in length in the film; but more than being just a technical gimmick, this race against time to escape is also a bold awakening for Ripley, bringing out the lioness in her, and face to face with the heretofore unseen "queen" of the aliens, which plays a metaphorical opposite to Ripley. They represent two driven women, warriors who will not let their children suffer; only, it is Ripley's devotion to Newt born of love which empowers her with the will to overcome the queen's relentless pursuit, while also getting to deliver one of cinema's greatest "mother defending her young" lines of dialogue.
Recommended for: Fans of a science fiction movie crammed full of action like an overstuffed magazine of pulse rifle rounds. The marines may be overly stylized, but they make for a set of characters we can see going in guns blazing against a sea of evil monsters with acid for blood. Ripley once again emerges as the empowered action female, and becomes a more complex and engaging character than before.