James Cameron's Aliens was a mistake.

The actual "story" of Aliens would've been fine had someone like RS directed it, with his visuals, and reliance on Giger for co-art direction. Cameron's treatise of the concept just is so dumbed down, it really insults the "Alien" audience's intelligence. Much like "Prometheus" over-estimated it...

How is it insulting?

@S.M. By thinking all of us just wanted to see pure action without proper characterization, dialogue, suspense, and visuals, instead going for the "full Monty" approach just trying to reveal it all and blow up lots of stuff. The "All American" way of movie making.

That's extremely broad.  I don't see any lack of characterization, dialogue, suspense and visuals.  What specifically about those aspects was lacking?

JCs movies have always been hit or miss with me. I like a lot of them but I can't say I love any. Couldn't stand Avatar. I can't say whether or not Aliens would have been better off in someone else's hands. Besides RS, I'm not sure there was anyone else in that decade that could have pulled off a solid sequel. I can say Aliens is my favorite JC movie... but it wasn't a slam dunk.

Neomorph

Yes, (SM correction)Apone was played by a real former marine NCO- similar how Lee was in Full Metal Jacket. Real deal. Cameron did not seek detailed military/combat protocols, but that level of detail may have been lost on many viewers back then. For those with military experience, (SM correction)Apone can be really appreciated considering Cameron's focus on other things.

*Apone.

Thank you, SM.

DK's Spelling of Apone Was a Mistake!

Fixed, sur:)

I owe a lot to Aliens. I was six, my mom made me sit on the floor much of the time and then let me watch the end battle scene because she knew how much I loved voltron and transformers. It was fantastic, even formative. But I digress...James Cameron is a pornographer. He makes action porn. Good action porn. T1, Aliens, T2. True Lies. Everything a growing pubescent who likes gi joe would want. Alien had substance; Something that was so underlying visceral that you were uncomfortable and felt unsafe and violating. I'd be happy if Scott turned in a Jurassic park like story with Covenant. That's my guess so far with just more gore to it. But I agree that Aliens was exhilarating and accomplished what it intended although it lost that true sense of violation and haunting horror.

I don't think porn is the right word, but your last sentence is pretty accurate.

Aliens works as an action movie but it isn’t scary, that is how I look at it. This is not to say that it is bad but it is just another genre. It was my favorite among the Alien movies when I was younger but it has dropped on the list as I have gotten older. Nowadays my favorite is Alien 3 followed by Alien, with Aliens as number three or four. One thing that I really like about Aliens is that it gave us Vasques, one of my favorite characters in any Alien movie, yay!

- Hey Vasques, have you ever been taken for a man? (Hudson)

- No have you? (Vasques)

This scene still makes me laugh even though I have watched the movie many times. Aliens probably has the most memorable lines among all Alien related movies.

I agree that they could have made the Xenos a bit more mysterious instead of a simple insect, so to speak. To have it being rooted in nature, being inspired by that is one thing but it should have been more of an unknown creature in Aliens (for example the queen). Yes, it is not lousy (the Cameron version) but it could have been better still I think that it is aright that they were trying something new. Art is interesting in the way that people can have different interpretations of it so this is where the idea of the queen comes in but that is not to say that the way that it is executed in the movie is the way that I think that they should have done it.

Bull Alien: I thought that the Engineers came off as kind of lame in Prometheus but that is me but the idea was interesting. This could have been fixed if they would have had sub-titles when Weyland and the Engineer spoke (translated by David) because it would have made the motives by the Engineers clearer but now it got kind of confused. Perhaps they can have them in another Prometheus movie but they go to make them more of a threat and also, they need to have subtitles if they will have some dialogue so it won’t be as lame as they appeared in Prometheus.

Bull Alien: At page one of this discussion you wrote: “I do love the Engineers though, I thought that was awesome we get that cleared up about who they are.” http://www.alien-covenant.com/topic/43257&page=1 ------

Connors: I agree about Alien 3, it is my favorite Alien movie this far (including Prometheus). Maybe AC will be better than Alien 3 but I doubt it even though I try to keep an open mind. Alien (1979), Aliens (1986) and Alien 3 (1992) are those that I think are most interesting among the Alien related movies. (http://www.alien-covenant.com/topic/43257&page=1)

@Thoughts_Dreams     Yeah Alien 3 is good stuff! I understand that some people hate that Hicks and Newt were killed off but that's also why it's so good. Poor Ripley always loses people she gets close to, she's such a tragic character but that's also why you care about her. And not everything has a happy ending, I love happy endings don't get me wrong but some of the best movies end on kind of a downer, The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien 3 just to name a few. And that's in my opinion how Ripley's story should have ended but I also don't have a problem if they do Alien 5, right now that sounds like it could be a big if.

The original alien was iconic. It fundamentally changed the way I looked at the science fiction genre and actually made it real to me, believable. The Nostromo was a commercial vehicle but alien was not a commercial movie. Cameron took the originality and gigerish themes of alien and turned into a commercial Hollywood popcorn flick like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica etc. Alien was not filled with one and two dimensional beautiful people who were perfect, cute robots, and a screenplay that you basically already knew the recipe to. Ripley was a warrant officer who spent decades in space, Parker and Brett were working-class engineers who bitched and complained like real people.

And most importantly the alien was utterly that, alien. Did it eat, did it sleep, where were it's freaking eyes? What were those tubes sticking out of its back used for? Did it Need to breathe? Didn't inject you with something that turns you into an egg?

Then Here Comes James Cameron and turns Ripley from a chief warrant officer who would not have any reason to be attached to kids or daughter is because the time she spent in deep space into a mommy figure for newt who all of a sudden they had a little baby girl at home which made no sense because her daughter would have been in her sixties.

And all of a sudden the mystery of the alien is taken away and they're a bunch of damn termites or ants.

Like a smart man once said the best car ever built was the first car ever built, and I'm kind of looking at alien the same way its original.

Ripley was 30 years old in Alien, so she wouldn't have been in space for decades nor had a daughter in her sixties. Not sure what you're getting at with that.

The Nostromo was traveling at faster than light speed and the crew would be away from Earth for at least 40 years Towing the refinery with their tug, when they were woken from hypersleep they weren't even in our system. and if Ripley had a daughter on earth when she left she would have been an elderly woman or already passed away.  Ripley was a career military warrant officer, not a mommy in the original alien. James Cameron made her into a mommy in Aliens  and changed her character to fit in with that of a mother because now we have newt in the picture and it was done for commercial Hollywood reasons. Just like all the explosions big bangs and thousands of bugs being killed, that's the way Hollywood works dependent upon the director.

Dr. Curt Connors: Yeah the Alien movies have never been about happy endings. The deaths of Newt and Hicks followed that tradition so that fits the franchise. Sometimes things just end up in a bad way. Empire is my favorite Star Wars movie because it is different compared to 4 and 6 (ROTS was also tragic but it didn’t feel the same, too much CGI, ESB had better lines, acting, and so on). Alien should have ended with Alien 3, it has a good/fitting ending to the whole franchise if you ask me.

You mention Alien 5, maybe the Cameron fans will like it, those that would have preferred a happy family ending to the Ripley-Hicks-Newt-story but I have never looked at this as being a happy family kind of thing so I probably won’t care to watch Alien 5.

Empire is definitely the best Star Wars movie ever and then followed by Return of the Jedi in my opinion. I don't mind if they make an Alien 5, the more Alien movies the better.

"The Nostromo was traveling at faster than light speed and the crew would be away from Earth for at least 40 years Towing the refinery with their tug, when they were woken from hypersleep they weren't even in our system. and if Ripley had a daughter on earth when she left she would have been an elderly woman or already passed away. "

That's not how it works in the Alien universe. There's no appreciable time dilation connected to faster than light travel.

"Ripley was a career military warrant officer, not a mommy in the original alien."

She's not military. None of them are in Alien.  They're truck drivers.

I remember the trailer for Aliens before the movie 'Malcolm' back in 1986, with sub 'this time its war' and knew this was going to be a action/horror. 

I reckon it was a good action movie, but it was good to see that it was left at that and Alien3 took up a different direction.

Its like Terminator2 and 3, everyone poo-pooed 3 because they were expecting a repeat of T2.

@Karstenphd WELL articulated, my friend. Absolutely all are major reasons why I've come to nearly despise "Aliens". 

so for those who arnt big fans of aliens, what would u have preffered to have seen Cameron do? what path should he have taken alien down?

I would prefer an alien movie with the size and scope of Alien Out Of The Shadows. It was not over the top and it did not make the aliens look useless. Plus it was scary ( to me anyway) to think of what Ash is capable of. It still had the blue collar feel plus it it had some good survival fights. Also the things that come up with to fight the aliens is smart IMO.

@Bull Agree on Alien: OOtS. Just finished that book, and it was fantastic. Really made Ash THE evil entity and the ultimate manipulator, even though "he" didn't have a body anymore, having had that destroyed back on the Nostromo.

@ali81 It would've been better if Cameron had not been given the keys to the kingdom. He did it "his" way: full blast, full Hollywood, overdone acting, overdone action, near comedic/slapstick approach, "action figure" Aliens, 80's cinematography. I don't think he could've done it any differently.

I would've loved to see what RS would've done with the opportunity. I think I recall him saying that Fox never even tried to contact him about it.

Doing it differently and not simply copying the original was the intention. It's part of the reason it was such a massive success.

Double post.

I loved the ash virus concept. was the best part of the book and the whole book was non stop action. the idea that the alien ship had been grown and there were different types of queens in the queens hatchery, excellent book from cover to cover. I would love to see someone go back and do that. no real reason why they cant. I am though a fan of aliens. for me one of the greatest action movies of all time. I think Cameron did the right thing imo, hindsight is a wonderful thing which unfortunately only comes around after the fact. and yes I heard ridley was never even contacted about the sequel but tbh from what he said about that time in his life he wanted to step away from scifi anyway so would he have done it if asked?? who knows. out of the shadows, if available to Cameron at the time may well have influenced his direction and I would love to see it given the full alien treatment

 @Starlogger and ali81 - I wonder if ASH really did communicate with the alien, when ripley asks him and ash replies,'please let my grave hold some secrets'.

It is in Alan Dean Fosters novelisation, wondering if it mentions it in Alien OOts.

Listen to THIS GUY whine about us "Aliens" "dislikers" (not gonna say I HATE it...but, it could've been done much better).

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOF-fnElW4U

@airshaft_ that is certainly an interesting question. We see David trying to communicate with virtually everything he sees, so why wouldn't Ash?

although both movies have great moments, there is truly only one Alien (1979) and no other. I love Cameron for Terminator, True Lies and Aliens but on the other hand i hate him for Aliens :-) All in all even if its great to have so many movies, they should of left Alien and Blade Runner as solo movies with no more sequels to keep up the mystique and lore of the tale. everything after that is just ruining the unknown factor. and i must give both sides credit, the fans of Aliens on this post and those of Alien. Its pretty difficult to come on common grounds with these two totally different movies but at least it holds open the discussions :-) i enjoyed except the AVP movies, every single one that came out but if someone would ask me what was the best and why it would be Alien and the reason would be a truck load of information.

It's not hard to come to common ground.  Most fans love both films. It's not some either/  or competition.

i dont think that is true S.M and even if i admire your answer and notice that you clearly do like both movies either the same or even aliens a bit more, which is totally legit but for my case i just never really got the feeling of Aliens that much, even as a kid i knew it was different and now as a grown up i could pin point every instance like others posted before me about what Alien is better in opinion :-) thats why its open for discussion just like people are ranting on about terminator 1 and 2, i like terminator 1 way better than 2, i am just an original guy. Star Wars Ep 4 is better than any other and Jurassic Park 1 too. i barely like sequels cause they never truly get close to first movies. I used to like Aliens a lot more when i was a child, even if i never truly liked it. And now i understand why Alien is so appealing to me, its a taste thing. I never liked action based sci fis that much, i like theoretical suspense a lot more , more of a Hitchcockian:-) 

and i am bit pissed of at sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and killing off originality at its roots to stay with authenticity.

The innovation and creativity kinda dies on the operation table. so its not really Aliens but general aspects of repeating a told story to find new paths something i never enjoyed as a story writer myself. 

and not only taste is something that differs fans, age too :-) i am born 86 (30 years old) and everyone i know from 86 upwards who are older than me love the original movies better than sequels. Nearly everyone who is younger doesn´t really matter or notice cause its part of what we grew up with :-) I rather like to watch a classical Lawrence of Arabia than a remake and thats with any movie i put my hands on, i think alot have that inside them.  

I agree, and will state that all ALIENS really was, was a Starship Troopers kinda deal, and I think Cameron referenced that novel in an interview about ALIENS when it first came out.

ALIENS is just NOT 'ALIEN', and I am SO happy Sir Ridley Scott has taken the reins up again with this franchise :)

"i dont think that is true S.M and even if i admire your answer and notice that you clearly do like both movies either the same or even aliens a bit more"

I like Alien more. And the fact that the first two films are the most popular would illustrate that many people like both.

"and i am bit pissed of at sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and killing off originality at its roots to stay with authenticity."

Alien might've been original in terms of the creature, but O'Bannon openly admitted that he'd ripped off a bunch of different films for the script. 

S.M touche, actually Alien is nothing more than his student movie Dark Star with the horror element and as you mentioned ideas and references of other movies, novels and his whole lives influences are involved. Thinking about it, every writer does it, including me. Does´nt matter if it were Alien, Star Wars or my own story i am writing, we all take from other stories and mythologies that we are influence in our lives or those particular moments when writing them.

Especially looking at the works of HP Lovecraft, Ancient Aliens, HG Wells, John Miltons Lost Paradise and so forth. I have read them all and see most movies that O Bannon did, it´s clear where it all comes from.

And as Godard once said, There ain´t no real originality anymore only authenticity that could become originality, which is quite true. 

I have to say I feel you're completely wrong about Aliens. Alien is a great film that holds up pretty well, but the same can be said about Aliens.

While Giger did not work on Aliens, he has been quoted in interviews saying he absolutely loved the Alien Queen, the design and how it was animated, and he felt that the team that created it paid great attention to his concepts and did a great job honoring his vision.

But there's nothing simple about Aliens.  Every scene and every character moment is rich with symbolism and meaning, just like the original Alien did with sexuality/rape symbolism with the xenomorph life cycle.

Aliens Ripley tells people of her story and is not only ignored, she is reduced in status, stripped of her flight job and reduced to a working class laborer (this speaks a lot for how some rape survivors feel with victim blaming, society seeing it as taboo, etc etc, and also plays on corporatism treating people poorly)

Now, striped of her status and ignored by the company she used to work for, she begins her reduced status life by working a blue collar job, basically manual labor, working loaders, to scrape by.

She goes to Hadley's Hope to face her fears at the request of the company, but she's not a soldier.  She's really a mother, a woman, working class person and because of the events on the Nostromo, a victim. The movie makes it seem like the Military is super bad ass, with awesome tech and weapons and would be able to smash xenomorphs to dust.

But through the film, it focuses on Ripley becoming a mother figure for the orphaned newt.  The marines get their asses beat and it comes to light that the marines are nothing more than pawns for the corporation, to be used and discarded like trash, just like they did to Ripley in Alien and at the beginning of Aliens and it's all very analogous to how Soldiers serving in Vietnam felt.

They try flee in terror and Ripley grows huge lady-balls and refuses to leave Newt to the same fate as her original crew.

In the end, Ripley saves Newt and has the showdown against the queen.

The Queen represents the ultimate prize for the corporation and while the Xenomorph from Alien and all the Xenomorphs/Queen are the "monsters" in Aliens, the real antagonist, in both fucking films, is actually the Wayland-Yutani Corporation, who instigated both situations in both films. 

So, in the end, the queen is not just a xenomorph. It's the ultimate prize/goal for the real antagonist, a xenomorph that could produce unlimited bioweapons for the corporation.

But it's not defeated with military might, by soldiers, by a bad ass rambo type character.  The now working class woman, the mother, the victim, uses her blue-collar skills operating a blue-collar work tool (the power loader) to defy the corporation what they desire most.

Aliens is a genius movie.  The practical effects honor Giger's art and hold up really well, even today in the era of CGI. The story has tons of depth and symbolism.  And best of all the hero of the story isn't a soldier tough guy.  It's a woman, a mother and an average working class person. A victim taking charge and overcoming impossible odds. 

Say what you want, but as far as I'm concerned Aliens was the perfect sequel to Alien.  If it had simply been Alien2, another horror movie, following basically the same beats, it would have been an uninspired mess.

Aliens built on top of what we got from Alien, in it's own way, without being just a cash grab clone of the original, while adding a ton of depth in a great story.

Just my opinion I guess.

I love Alien and Aliens for different reasons. 

Alien as a movie is iconic for a number of reasons, the giger creativity used on the creature, the unanswered mysteries presented, the gothic tone and feel, terror lurking in every shadow and the level of tension created with a ship and characters that feel in a world that is very lived in. The Alien's life cycle and the idea of cosmic horror out there that resulted in this walking nightmare to even exist, then the conspiracy element that was hinted at with the "company" rerouting them and labeling the entire crew expendable in the name of profit

Aliens is an amazing movie, and one of the best action movies ever made as well it is one of the, at least for me most  rewatchable movies there is. I liked the queen, it was cool on screen, fierce and something new. But ultimately after i have aged and thought about it, the queen does change the alien species into a bunch of insects and just canon fodder. Which is far less interesting than some cosmic horror out there and also the more you see a creature or the more of them there are they become less and less terrifying. The queen concept makes it an understandable species because it is similar to insect species on earth...and by definition if something is understood it is automatically less terrifying. Alien is by far the better movie but let me compare Aliens to Avengers Age of Ultron....there was no gravitas to Age of Ultron as the robots just came in droves to overtake our heroes, over and over, yawn...extended yawn. 

The queen on screen is the equivalent of a big boss in a video game. I like it, she looks mean, is tough, its neat to watch a big giant creature battle our heroes...but it is not as deep as leaving the alien be something else, something more alien. I know Ridley said that he liked Cameron's queen but that does not make it the best thing for this film universe. Having a big bad, like the queen, makes the stories predictable and there is less imaginative ways to go with the stories....i prefer the gothic ancient cosmic terror feel of Alien and the unnerving tone of that one better.

The queen is all surface level and limits story telling and having the xeno's as insects backs them into a corner from an imagination storyline.

I prefer egg morphing as i feel it keeps the Alien as more true perfect organism as it can reproduce with out a queen or anything a single organism can take over a population all it needs are victims, i feel this helps keep the xeno as a true perfect organism.

I really love Alien

I Love Aliens

but i do feel that the queen does limit the avenues the movies take and hinders creativity...if you are the sort that just likes big explosions and monsters on screens then its fine for you , but while those things are cool, in the alien film universe i prefer a bit more depth to this world

Also its a nitpicky thing but in Aliens Ripley never brings up the fact that the "company" rerouted them to LV426 in the first place and installed a sleeper android on the ship to acquire this alien specimen and that they had labeled all aboard as expendable....this was a great aspect of Alien and Cameron just kind of wrote it out of the entire story....as Burk was acting alone because of his own greed and not some hidden agenda from the company, combined with Ripley never bring it up in the board room while she is being interviewed about the Nostromos destruction, nor does she bring it up in the entire movie....and against her initial mindset changes her mind and decides to go back to LV426 at the request of a guy who works the company who basically signed her death papers previously by labeling her and her crew as expendable....another thing that bothers me besides the queen/insect issue...but i still love Aliens i am just aware of its failings and missteps

Grinning, I never thought of it that way.  I think the story of Aliens makes more sense than you're seeing.

She knows the company sent them there, it is mentioned in the board room scene, but I don't think it's very smart to, in front of your employers who are evaluating if you owe the company millions of dollars in damages, scream: "You guys did it on purpose and programmed Ash to kill us all to get your hands on Aliens!"

She was playing it smart, aside from the fact that it would just be her word, as she has no physical proof of the company collusion and Ash's secret mission.

Also, she was in hypersleep for 57 years.  Any upper level management adult that worked in the company has long been dead or retired.

Also, I think it's implied that Burt is specifically working on a plan from the company.  He's executing a plan they offered to pay a lot for him to execute.  He didn't come up with that shit on the fly.  The company sent him there to bring back specimens and offered to compensate him if he did.