Aliens is a 1986 horror film directed and written by James Cameron. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, and Carrie Henn. The film was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for violence and bad language.
The movie is considered as having cemented the series as a major American horror film phenomenon. It was followed by two movie sequels, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, and five spin-offs: Alien vs. Predator, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Romulus. Two canonical games take place before and after the film, following the events of Ripley's daughter (Alien: Isolation) and another taking place between the events of Aliens and Alien3 (Aliens: Colonial Marines).
Plot[]
It is 57 years after the events of the first film (specifically, it starts on June 12th, 2179 AD), and Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the USCSS Nostromo, has just been rescued from her escape pod. When Ripley tells a panel of executives about the alien she encountered on the Nostromo, who killed her entire crew, they refuse to believe her story. They believe that she is crazy, and revoke her space-flight license, and makes her work as a cargo loader. However, Ripley learns that the planet where they first encountered the alien egg, is called Acheron LV-426, and is the home to a terraforming colony.
Sometime later, Ripley is approached by Weyland-Yutani representative, Carter Burke, and Lieutenant William Gorman. They inform her that contact has been lost with LV-426, and they intend to send a bunch of representatives to go to the planet to investigate. They tell Ripley that they will restore her space-flight license if she agrees to go on this mission. Ripley at first refuses, as she is still traumatized by her previous encounter with the alien. However, when they promise to destroy any alien, whose species is revealed to be a xenomorph, Ripley agrees to go.
Ripley boards the warship, called, the USS Sulaco, and meets the other members of her team, Sergeant Al Apone, Corporals Dwayne Hicks and Cynthia Dietrich, Privates Jenette Vasquez and Bill Hudson, and android Bishop. Ripley feels uncomfortable working with an android, after the last android she worked with, Ash, tried to kill her.
The Sulaco lands on LV-426, where they find the seemingly abandoned, and damaged colony. The crew members exit the ship heavily armed to investigate the colony. They don't find any people there, until Ripley notices a little girl, named "Newt". She tells them that everyone else is dead.
The Marines come to the conclusion that the colonists are clustered in the nuclear-powered atmosphere processing station. They go there, and find a large Xenomorph nest, and the bodies of the colonists, who have been cocooned to the wall for chestbursters to be born in. When Apone kills a chestburster with a flamethrower, the xenomorphs attack, and kill Dietrich and seemingly Apone as well. Ripley is able to rescue Hicks, Vasquez, and Hudson. Gorman is knocked unconscious, and Hicks takes control. He decides they should return to the Sulaco and destroy the planet from orbit. He requests that a dropship takes them to the warship, but an alien kills the dropship pilot in the air, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station. The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the colony complex.
Ripley discovers that Burke did not really send them to this planet to investigate the civilization. His true motives were to return Alien specimens to the company laboratories where he can profit from their use as biological weapons. Ripley is angry at him, but Bishop warns them that the damaged atmosphere processor has become unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to crawl several hundred meters of piping conduits to reach and use the colony's transmitter to pilot the Sulaco's remaining dropship to the surface by remote control so that the group can escape.
Newt gets tired, and Ripley takes her into the medical laboratory, where they both fall asleep. When they wake up, they find two facehuggers have entered the room. Ripley triggers the fire alarm to alert the marines, and they manage to rescue Ripley and Newt. Ripley accused Burke of putting the facehuggers in her room, to kill her, because she knows his true intentions. Burke soon admits that this was his true intentions, and that he also planned on killing the entire crew so that the secret would die with them. The marines decide to execute Burke, but before they can, numerous Xenomorphs come out of the ceiling, and attack. They manage to kill Hudson, Burke, Vasquez, and Gorman, and seriously injure Hicks. They also capture Newt.
Bishop comes with the Sulaco to rescue Ripley and Hicks. However, Ripley refuses to leave the planet without Newt. She goes back to the Xenomorph nest to rescue Newt. Ripley manages to save Newt, and as they head back to their ship, Ripley notices the biggest Xenomorph, who is laying eggs, and realizes, this must be the Queen Xenomorph. Ripley destroys most of the eggs, enraging the Queen, who sheds her enormous ovipositor and chases them. Ripley and Newt manage to get back onto the Sulaco, and take off, right before the colony is destroyed by a nuclear blast.
On the Sulaco, Ripley and Newt are relieved to have escaped from the Queen Xenomorph. Unfortunately, there relief is interrupted, when they discover the Queen stowed away on their ship. The Xenomorph impales Bishop and tears him in half. The Queen is about to kill Newt, when Ripley comes in an exosuit cargo-loader, and battles the Queen. The two fall onto a large airlock, and Ripley opens the airlock, causing the alien to fall into space. Despite the airlock being opened, and trying to pull her out, Ripley manages to climb out, and close the airlock. Then she, Newt, Hicks, and a still functioning Bishop, enter hypersleep, waiting for their return to Earth.
External links[]
- Aliens on the Internet Movie Database.
- Aliens on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Aliens on AllMovie.
- Xenomorph on Alien Species Wiki