Description
Aliens is a 1986 American science-fiction action horror film written and directed by James Cameron, produced by his then-wife Gale Anne Hurd, and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton. It is the sequel to the 1979 film Alien and the second installment of the Alien franchise. The film follows Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley as she returns to the planet where her crew encountered the hostile Alien creature, this time accompanied by a unit of space marines.
Brandywine Productions was interested in a follow-up to Alien as soon as its 1979 release, but the new management at 20th Century Fox postponed those plans until 1983. That year Brandywine picked Cameron to write after reading his script for The Terminator, and once that film became a hit in 1984, Fox greenlit Aliens, that would also be directed by Cameron, with a budget of approximately $18 million. The script was written with a war film tone influenced by the Vietnam War to contrast the horror motifs of the original Alien. It was filmed in England at Pinewood Studios and at a decommissioned power plant in Acton, London.
Aliens was a critical and commercial success, with positive reviews that considered it an entertaining film that despite the tonal shift still served as a worthy sequel to Alien, and grossed $180 million worldwide. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, winning both Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. It won eight Saturn Awards, including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actress for Weaver and Best Direction and Best Writing for Cameron. Aliens is frequently considered one of the best action films ever released.
Cameron drew inspiration for the Aliens story from the Vietnam War, a situation in which a technologically superior force was mired in a hostile foreign environment: “Their training and technology are inappropriate for the specifics, and that can be seen as analogous to the inability of superior American firepower to conquer the unseen enemy in Vietnam: a lot of firepower and very little wisdom, and it didn’t work.” The attitude of the space marines was influenced by the Vietnam War; they are portrayed as cocky and confident of their inevitable victory, but when they find themselves facing a less technologically advanced but more determined enemy, the outcome is not what they expect. Cameron listed Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers as a major influence that lead to the incorporation of various themes and phrases, such as the terms “the drop” and “bug hunt”, as well as the cargo-loader exoskeleton.
Cameron opted to hire actors who had, or could imitate, American accents. After over 3,000 individuals in the United Kingdom were unsuccessfully auditioned, American actors were chosen instead, including three who had previously worked with Cameron on The Terminator: Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Michael Biehn. Actors who played Marines were asked to read Starship Troopers and undergo military training, which included running, lifting weights, learning salutes, marches, deployments, and maneuvers, for two weeks. Cameron wanted the Marines to train together so that they would form bonds that would show on-screen.
Bill Paxton as Private William Hudson: The Marine team’s technician. He received a Saturn Award for best supporting actor.
Hudson was outfitted with standard issue M3 Pattern Personal Armor and an M10 Pattern Ballistic Helmet for protection, with a TNR Shoulder Lamp attachment for illumination. He had notably customized his armor’s chest plate with an image of a dagger piercing a skull and crossbones, with the words “or Glory” painted beneath (i.e. “Death or Glory”). Hudson had also stencilled a love-knot and the name “Louise” over his heart (a reference to Bill Paxton’s real-life wife Louise Newbury), painted the phrase “Contents under pressure, dispose of properly” on his armor’s back plate, a pair of googly on the back of his right shoulder plate, painted a magic 8 ball on the back-left side of his helmet and humorously added a can opener to his crotch protection. As the covering element of First Squad’s gun team, Hudson carried the standard assault carbine of the Corps, the M41A Pulse Rifle as well as an M314 Motion Tracker.
Hudson’s famous “Game over, man! Game over!” line after the dropship crash was ad-libbed by Paxton. The line has been lampooned many times since, and was later used for the title of a trophy/achievement in the video game Aliens vs. Predator (humorously awarded to the player when they complete the game’s three campaigns, essentially marking the point at which the game is over). A trophy/achievement in Aliens: Colonial Marines also used the name.
As a combat technician, Hudson also carried a field technician kit containing various tools, lock picks and electronic devices, including a hacking computer allowing him to bypass sealed doors and systems.
William “Bill” Paxton (born May 17, 1955) is an American actor and film director. He gained popularity after starring in a number of films, including Apollo 13, Weird Science, Twister, Aliens, True Lies, and Titanic. Paxton starred in the HBO series Big Love (2006–2011) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys.
Some of Paxton’s earliest roles include a minor role as a punk thug in The Terminator (1984) and as a supporting role as a bully older brother in John Hughes’ Weird Science (1985). He would have a much more significant supporting role in the sci-fi blockbuster Aliens (1986). In addition to The Terminator and Aliens, Paxton has collaborated with director James Cameron on True Lies (1994) and Titanic (1997), which was the highest grossing film of all time at its release. Four years after appearing in Titanic, he joined James Cameron on an expedition to the actual Titanic. A film about this trip, Ghosts of the Abyss, was released in 2003.
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