ALIENS
(contains spoilers)
I recently saw Aliens for the second time in my life. The first was when I was four, and watched parts of it with my Auld Yin. To his parental credit, he had assumed I was asleep at the time, the flat in Allison St being a kids bedroom/living room 2 in 1. In fact, the moment where a toddler loudly announced, at a pivotal moment, “I don’t like these dragons, dad!” might have made him jump more than the film.
But then, this tells me how weird memory and experience is. When I saw Alien for the first time, it was also with Dad but I was in my late teens, so while it was thrilling, it didn’t linger as a particular terrifying film. (I really like the film Alien, for the record, great cast and cinematography, but I saw it too late…) Whereas the incidental music and some of the dialogue from Aliens is seeped into my subconscious from the age of 4. This is my excuse for the fact that while Aliens is in every single way an inferior film to the original, I found watching it more of a tense experience than the Ridley Scott film.
Mind you, the parental aspect does play on one more now there is a Sarah about. If the first film tells that if anyone listened to Ripley, they’d still be alive, then the second tells us that all of these crack troops should have listened to the wee girl with actual experience of the colony siege. Carrie Henn has no previous (or further) acting experience, but her portrayal of Newt is at the heart of this film. In fact, she takes a brief veterans can struggle with – cold but sympathetic – and pretty much knocks it out of the park. The relationship between her and Ripley blossoms on screen with no small credit to their chemistry, to the point that when a terrified Newt, surrounded by xenomorphs, calls out “Mummy!” to Ripley, what might have looked trite in lesser hands comes across as a natural progression of events. Ripley has lost a child through the Weyland Corporation’s nefarious schemes and a nightmarish creature (and that nightmare scene in the hospital is quite unsettling for how out of the blue it appears) but through standing up to the Corporation, and facing her own nightmare, she’s gained another. (Let’s just gloss over Alien 3 here…)
Really, she’s the mirror image of the Alien Queen, the big bad who seems to be more fussed with how her young are doing, rather than fight Ripley, until Ripley goes mental on them right in front of her. She’s like the alien version of the mum from Malcolm in the Middle, really. Seemingly, after the Queen shows mercy, it’s Ripley’s actions that spur on the climax, as who else taught the Alien Queen the concept of vengeance? Also, note, the terror brought upon the survivors is caused by… Ripley herself, in a fury of panicked button smashing, giving the Queen a route to freedom. Everyone makes mistakes in this film.
Elsewhere, Bill Paxton’s mood swinging Private is a quote-a-meme standout, and it’d have been nice to see Vasquez live. James Cameron’s direction is good at keeping a verve and pace to a film when there’s action scenes to be had, so the Alien scenes are dealt with quite well. He’s less good with the nuts and bolts, however, and that’s where Aliens starts to drag. As does the fact that nearly every character seems to have a sort of idiot ball attached to them. Really, there are times when it seems the only thinking characters in the film are the Aliens themselves, and that point, you are almost tempted to root for them. Those dragons, eh, whit they like?
(contains spoilers)
I recently saw Aliens for the second time in my life. The first was when I was four, and watched parts of it with my Auld Yin. To his parental credit, he had assumed I was asleep at the time, the flat in Allison St being a kids bedroom/living room 2 in 1. In fact, the moment where a toddler loudly announced, at a pivotal moment, “I don’t like these dragons, dad!” might have made him jump more than the film.
But then, this tells me how weird memory and experience is. When I saw Alien for the first time, it was also with Dad but I was in my late teens, so while it was thrilling, it didn’t linger as a particular terrifying film. (I really like the film Alien, for the record, great cast and cinematography, but I saw it too late…) Whereas the incidental music and some of the dialogue from Aliens is seeped into my subconscious from the age of 4. This is my excuse for the fact that while Aliens is in every single way an inferior film to the original, I found watching it more of a tense experience than the Ridley Scott film.
Mind you, the parental aspect does play on one more now there is a Sarah about. If the first film tells that if anyone listened to Ripley, they’d still be alive, then the second tells us that all of these crack troops should have listened to the wee girl with actual experience of the colony siege. Carrie Henn has no previous (or further) acting experience, but her portrayal of Newt is at the heart of this film. In fact, she takes a brief veterans can struggle with – cold but sympathetic – and pretty much knocks it out of the park. The relationship between her and Ripley blossoms on screen with no small credit to their chemistry, to the point that when a terrified Newt, surrounded by xenomorphs, calls out “Mummy!” to Ripley, what might have looked trite in lesser hands comes across as a natural progression of events. Ripley has lost a child through the Weyland Corporation’s nefarious schemes and a nightmarish creature (and that nightmare scene in the hospital is quite unsettling for how out of the blue it appears) but through standing up to the Corporation, and facing her own nightmare, she’s gained another. (Let’s just gloss over Alien 3 here…)
Really, she’s the mirror image of the Alien Queen, the big bad who seems to be more fussed with how her young are doing, rather than fight Ripley, until Ripley goes mental on them right in front of her. She’s like the alien version of the mum from Malcolm in the Middle, really. Seemingly, after the Queen shows mercy, it’s Ripley’s actions that spur on the climax, as who else taught the Alien Queen the concept of vengeance? Also, note, the terror brought upon the survivors is caused by… Ripley herself, in a fury of panicked button smashing, giving the Queen a route to freedom. Everyone makes mistakes in this film.
Elsewhere, Bill Paxton’s mood swinging Private is a quote-a-meme standout, and it’d have been nice to see Vasquez live. James Cameron’s direction is good at keeping a verve and pace to a film when there’s action scenes to be had, so the Alien scenes are dealt with quite well. He’s less good with the nuts and bolts, however, and that’s where Aliens starts to drag. As does the fact that nearly every character seems to have a sort of idiot ball attached to them. Really, there are times when it seems the only thinking characters in the film are the Aliens themselves, and that point, you are almost tempted to root for them. Those dragons, eh, whit they like?
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