1986

Director: James Cameron

Genre: Sci-fi action

My reviews are entirely subjective. I look at a film from my own perspective and with my own emotions. Reviewing films from an objective standpoint is impossible, unless you're one of those god damn androids! 

Spoilers, but Aliens is getting three stars. A part of this is because of how much I like Alien. I'm going to try and breakdown why this movie doesn't work for me. You may disagree completely with me, and that's not because this is a bad film or you are wrong, it is purely because of personal preference. 

I will start this by establishing the main reason why I don't like Aliens more than Alien. 

Ellen Ripley from Aliens is a completely different character than Ripley from Alien. 

In Alien, Ripley is the lowest ranking officer on a crew of space truckers. She's one of the group, and acts as a sort of bridge between workers and the company. She's a PR person who's most familiar with space law. She's not a warrior or a hero or infected with "main character syndrome". Which for those of you who don't know is a condition that makes a character unable to die due to plot armor, and also forces them to be relatable to audiences by giving them specific motivations and goals. 

But this is the key different between Ripley 1 and Ripley 2. In the first movie, Ripley was not a mother. 

Now, this could just be conjecture on my part, but I think there is a visible difference between a character who has children and one who does not. Having a child changes a person, and alters the way she views the world. You become more compassionate, more sensitive, and maybe more determined. I think actors take this into account and play a character differently if that character has children. 

In one of the first scenes in Aliens, Ripley is told that her daughter has died on earth. And from then on, I saw that this was a very different Ripley, with different goals and mannerisms and emotions! She finds Newt and becomes a mother to this lost child. In the first movie, Sigourney Weaver plays the character as a single woman with no children. 

I could state more specific examples for why I think this, but in Alien she goes to sleep with a cat, and in Aliens she goes to sleep with a young girl. Is there any more clear distinction between a single woman and a mother?

Now, all this would be fine, if Aliens was a separate movie. Like in the Mad Max films, if Ripley was just the name of the main character, and each time there were variations of who she is. This film could have been about a group of Marines on a rescue mission, and Ripley was just one of the team. But Aliens claims to have the same Ripley as the main character. So, I can think of only two things that make sense. 

1: James Cameron altered Ripley's character to fit more in line with the themes of Aliens. 

2: Ripley from Aliens in an android! 

Option 2 is the only explanation for how she is able to withstand the pressure of atmosphere blowing into space, which was too strong for the queen alien. It also could explain her motherhood as implanted memories. Sure we see some blood on her forehead, but maybe that's just her perception, and her mind is making it appear red instead of white. 

It's probably option 1, but I did find the film enjoyable by thinking of Ripley as an android.

Moving away from Ripley, another reason why I prefer Alien is because it feels less like a movie. All the dialogue is very naturalistic. Dialogue overlaps, characters don't respond to yelling with shocked silence, and it feels more raw and gritty overall. I like the more realistic feel. Others don't. It's simply what your preference is. 

I also vastly enjoyed the xenomorph from the first film compared to the many xenomorphs from the second film.

Also in the first movie, the rules of the xenomorph seem vague and undefined. Maybe it could do more than attack and bleed acid. Maybe it had a different agenda. After all, why didn't it kill the cat? Why did it hide in the shuttle at the end? Was it trying to escape? To get somewhere else? We don't know. It is alien to us. We don't know anything about this species and the rules are not set. 

in Aliens, the rules are set in stone. These are animalistic creatures who bleed acid and live only to reproduce. And that's fine for the rules of the movie. It's all fine. Aliens is fine. Even if it's bogged down by many consistency issues. I don't get how acid blood is able to melt through multiple layers of metal, but if it touches human skin it just burns a little. 

Ever since the first film, the series has worked to explain everything that was left open. And every explanation has been stupid and boring. I don't think Ash would ever say he admires the purity of any of the xenomorphs from Aliens. 

The themes in the first film aren't as blatant or easily digestible. Alien is about parenting, rape, isolation, mystery, humanity, and the divide between workers and corporations. There are similar themes in Aliens, but all played much simpler. I mean, the film opens with the I in the title transforming into a vagina, and ends with a woman and her new daughter lying down in bed. It's mainly about motherhood. 

And really, I think all this is fine. Aliens is a good space action movie. It's fun to watch, well shot, and incredibly well acted. The same could be said of Alien, but there's just so many more interesting elements in the first one for me. 

Both films are worth watching. I think everyone should watch this series (at least the first two) and then decide which film you like better. 

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