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It was always going to be an impossible task. The ugly third child of the Alien franchise had the enormous task of trying to follow up from James Cameron’s cult classic Aliens. A film that had taken the series to incredible heights of action, terror, and effects. As a studio, Fox had the problem of trying to obtain more money from the franchise, but very little idea on how to do it. Returning to an oft-used well is problematic in a film sense, considering the Law of Diminishing Returns usually applied to most once-successful series. After a relatively bumpy start, in which various directors and concepts came and went, then-newcomer David Fincher was brought onto the project to meet the films scheduled release date. The fact that the release date couldn’t be moved didn’t help Fincher’s cause, but since this was to be his first foray into feature films, he wanted to make a good impression. With a script still being meddled with, and not locked down, Fincher had to not only try and bring a sense of cohesion to a project spiralling out of control (thanks mainly to a garrulous 20th Century Fox) but to stamp his own aesthetic on the finished product. It was a project fraught with difficulty and conflict, but were it to be achieved, success could reward all involved.

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This review is based on the extended Director’s Cut version of Aliens, long thought by fans to be the definitive version of the film. Key story elements removed for the theatrical version, such as setting up the LV426 colony at the opening of the film, additional character development for Ripley during the opening act and various other narrative enhancers throughout which add to the story.

If it was possible to exceed what Ridley Scott did with Alien, then James Cameron did so with Aliens. In what can only be described as a tour de force of science fiction, James Cameron cemented his place as a genuine A-list director, following his breakout mainstream debut with Terminator, with the follow-up to Alien. Set some time after the events in Alien, with Ellen Ripley being found drifting in the remains of the Nostromo’s escape pod, some 52 years after she blew the Alien Queen out the door, Aliens manages to return our heroine to the planet she never wanted to return to. Aliens is not your typical action-sci-fi fare, however, in that it takes its time setting up the scenario, the characters, and the plot. Avoiding Ridley Scott’s original noir-ish tone from film 1, Cameron eschews the more traditional scary movie feel for a gung-ho, testosterone injected thrill ride, balancing both character development and hard-core thrills in equal measure. To say Aliens is a masterpiece is an understatement of an order of magnitude. What Cameron achieved set the benchmark for science fiction (and the Alien franchise) film and, until he revised that benchmark again in Terminator 2, would never be bettered.

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If you were to count down the most influential science fictions films made over the last half century, somewhere towards the top of that list would be a couple of  Ridley Scott films, namely Blade Runner and Alien. Scott almost single-handedly revolutionised hard sci-fi during the period between 1979 and 85, kicking things off with the noirish, gritty space thriller, Alien. Little did he realise at the time just what he was unleashing upon cinema audiences, with the Alien saga ballooning into a major franchise for 20th Century Fox. The edgy, non-politically correct nature of Alien, with it’s realistic narrative and believable look into future tech, caused a minor sensation with audiences upon its release to audiences in 1979. Sparing use of the film’s main villain, coupled with a brooding, atmospheric tone, and believable characters, gave audiences a real jolt of adrenaline, effectively introducing one of cinema’s greatest screen villains. It also introduced one of cinema’s great female screen icons, Ellen Ripley; a character which would even have Sigourney Weaver nominated for an Oscar in the role in the mega-sequel, Aliens.

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