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Suspension of Disbelief: Aliens

James Cameron is especially good at creating stories that stretch believability to the breaking point. His take on the Alien franchise, Aliens, uses the environment a lot like Ridley Scott did in the first movie. It is set in a claustrophobic space that feels more like a prison and heightens the sense of danger. Cameron’s cast of characters feel better, including the treacherous Burke.

The alien queen: the mother of all scary villains

The alien creature

The creature itself remains a classic monster of modern pop culture. A brilliant design by H.R. Giger, it is a nightmarish figure with a double mouth sporting sharp teeth, the smaller one strong enough to pierce body armor or a human skull.

The success of its design in the first movie makes it believable in this installment, so no need to dwell too much on these characters, except to say that the alien queen’s walk looks a little like floating on wires when she is shown full frame. By comparison, the more recent Alien Vs. Predator with state of the art computer effects succeeds in showing a giant slightly humanoid creature that feels realistic in any angle.

Vehicles and equipment

They did a great job on the armored personnel carrier. Seems like Syd Mead designed that vehicle. Great job. It feels like a tank we could encounter in a military campaign in a near future. We can readily accept it as being concrete.

But the drop ship on the other hand might look good on the ground or in a still picture, but as soon as that thing takes off, it leaves an odd feel. It does not appear like a vehicle that should fly. It looks better with the landing gear up but that is not enough.

Maybe budget constraints got in the way. The drop ship reminds me of the vehicles of the old TV series Space 1999. It may have appeared that way because of the way they animated it. Limited special effects capabilities might contribute to the lack of convincing appeal.

In his new movie Avatar, Cameron makes up for that failure: the flying vehicles look and feel incredibly solid. These, on the other hand, are more heavily based on current technology. The job may have been easier.

Aliens’ weapon concepts on the other hand are truly great successes. For example, the rifle and the heavier minigun stand out as genuine piece of military equipment. We do not even mind the antiquated monitors they use. In the first movie, the monochrome monitors just make you smile. The good ol’ days of green monochrome characters on text-only screens.

Constant danger

The group’s first incursion inside the LV-426 colony installations results in a very suspenseful and never-ending sequence. We go from open air into an enclosed space, a cage, gradually increasing the sense of threat as the venture farther inward. How vast it actually is does not matter. James Cameron make it stick with extensive use of close shots, even for the action scenes. The result: you can’t see where the next danger is coming from until the camera shows or suggests it. A good monster-in-the-house situation heightened by the fact that, since we’ve seen the first movie, we know what could be coming next. 

Realistic and diverse characters

A typical characteristic of James Cameron’s movies: strong characters. Especially the women. Even the little girl Newt. She successfully survived weeks all alone in a building infested with aliens. Newt is intelligent and resourceful. She becomes the group’s guide inside the complex.

Now a good case of greed is Burke, the human villain. He is so consumed with the potential financial gain of this mission that he will try to sacrifice some (actually all) of the members of his crew to smuggle some aliens specimens back.  As a villain, Burke makes a lot more sense, over the first movie’s mad android. Greed is a much better motivation than bad programming?  

A good cowardly character: Private First Class Hudson. This soldier stays consistent through out the story. He is not very courageous. He starts with his “bad feeling about this drop” line. He loses it when the drop ship crashes. But in the end he still manages to redeem himself and die fighting in a way that is not out of character. Good job there.

Lieutenant Gorman rounds the crew with his naive, inexperienced muzzle. Strong and crazy female private Vasquez is my favorite. She might look a tad stereotypical as a rugged female soldier now, but at that time there weren’t that many tough women in movies so we can forgive that.

HUDSON
Vasquez… you ever been mistaken for a man?

VASQUEZ
No. Have you?

James Cameron has created a band of brave, courageous, generous characters: Gorman compensates his inexperience and tactical mistakes by sacrificing himself (joining Vasquez) using a grenade. They take a few aliens with them. Ripley stops everything to go back looking for Newt, all alone, after one of the alien workers/soldiers grabs the little girl.

Claustrophobic scene

Ripley and Newt, betrayed by Burke of course, end up locked up in their sleep in the surgery room of the med lab, with a couple of facehuggers, no weapon and no way out. A sweaty Burke kills the security camera showing the room. Ripley’s ingenuity is the only thing that saves them: she activates the sprinklers and the alarm draws the others to the rescue.

The big picture

Aliens is a well crafted story, a long story with constant twists and turns that manages to convincingly let us believe that we’re being transported to a different time where realistic people try to fight a nearly invincible predatory species hell bent on killing or using them to grow their offspring.

They keep getting pushed into smaller and smaller quarters, in smaller and smaller numbers. Typical scene: the med lab where Hudson dies and the escape into the narrow ventilation conduit where Vasquez and Gorman sacrifice themselves.

Even the third act’s ticking clock (the installation set to explode), although typical, does not hurt the story. A repeat of the first movie, by the way. It helps put an deadline to Ripley’s rescue: she must hurry to find the little one alive; then hurry back to escape before the station blows up, while trying to avoid being killed by the angry alien queen and her numerous children. This escape puts the protagonist against truly incredible odds (maybe a little too much) but the ending remains believable nonetheless.

A nice touch: the audio narrows into absolute silence when Ripley and Newt discovers the eggs and the queen in the nest. A really good if creepy apotheosis.

In our next posts, I will try to review a couple of classic oldies. Talk back and let me know what you think.

*****

Aliens

Story by James Cameron, David Giler and Walter Hill
Screenplay by James Cameron
Characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett
Directed by James Cameron

About the Author

Rono has been telling and writing stories since high school. His passion have always been graphic novels and movies. He currently reviews the narrative side of movies and comics on his blog www.absolutefiction.com.

`December Shadows – five.

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