Aliens was released in the summer of 1986. Unlike so many movies in the sci-fi, action, and horror genres, this one stands the test of time really well. Why? Let me count 30 reasons (with input from fellow Shrink Tank contributors):
- James Cameron’s pitch-perfect direction that balances action, tension, drama, and a dash of humor
- Excruciatingly slow build-up of suspense (from Melissa Miller)
- Marines’ colony incursion
- Pulsing motion detectors
- Eerie, Oscar-nominated score by James Horner
- Lance Henricksen as Bishop, the mysterious android who comes through in the clutch
- “Bishop’s thing with the knife” (from Jonathan Hetterly)
- Michael Biehn as the macho but sensitive Corporal Hicks (key line- “Eat this!”)
- M56 Smart Guns
- Jeanette Goldstein as the ass-kicking Private Vasquez (key line- “Let’s rock!”)
- Best surrogate mother-daughter on-screen relationship ever (from Ryan Kelly) and great example of tenacious maternal instinct
- Fighting off facehuggers
- Oscar-winning, real visual effects, not a torrent of CGI (they really blew stuff up for this movie)
- Aliens in the ceiling
- M41A Pulse Rifles (“10mm with over and under 30mm pump action grenade launcher”)
- Marines vs. aliens in operations
- Bill Paxton’s scene-stealing performance as Hudson, the loud-mouthed private (key lines- “Game over, man! Game over!” and “You want some of this!”)
- Vietnam war metaphor
- Slamming corporate greed
- Paul Reiser as slime ball Burke (key line- “It was a bad call, Ripley. It was a bad call.”
- Incredible sound effects (Oscar-nominated) and sound editing (Oscar-winning)
- Drop ships (“express elevator to hell”)
- Chase scene through the air ducts
- Marines’ armored personnel carrier
- Alien hive with cocooned colonists
- Flame throwers
- Newt, the lone survivor of the colony (key line- “It won’t make any difference.” and, from Frank Gaskill, “They’re dead. All right? Can I go now?”)
- Sigourney Weaver’s Oscar nominated performance as Ellen Ripley (best movie heroine ever?!)
- Ripley in an exo-skeleton going mama-a-mama with the alien queen
- “Get away from her, you BITCH!”
