Likewise. I’d seen it back in the 80s but my wife never did. I showed it to her a few years ago and she really enjoyed it. She wasn’t going to love it because it’s not her preferred genre but then the fact that she thought it was a really good movie afterward says volumes.
Is this the Alien Vs Predator one, or something else?
There are two of these? Ignorance fought.
Yeah, there’s probably a better term that could be used.
“Typical 80s action romps” are some manly dude with an “infinite clip” M-16 in each hand mowing down fields of bad guys as he saves America. Aliens is pretty much the opposite – it’s more action-survival, I guess? But it’s not about the invincible hero, it’s about the frailty of the protagonists against a seemingly invincible enemy.
Dirty Dozen? Force 10?
The are behind enemy lines, so to speak.
Burke might be trying a Kelly’s Heroes scenario…
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It going through the food stores is mentioned in the movie by Dallas, IIRC. As far as how it grows really fast: I don’t know, the frigging thing has acid for blood. We don’t know how it works, in general. Nevermind learning how to raise the thing.
The other characters are more worried about Kane dying in quarantine. Dallas is the CO, Ripley is the exception for wanting to follow regulations against the rules of her commander and the wishes of the rest of her crew. I don’t see this as a fault to be explained away.
Yeah, that one doesn’t really work, but no other Magical Alien Locator (MAL) I can think of would use any more realistic tech. IIRC they use what appears to be the same device (it has a similar display, at least) in Aliens, but wisely don’t try to explain how it works.
Hmm, panicky people who aren’t trained to handle what they’re handling handle the situation poorly? I’ve certainly babbled incoherently when someone else was in imminent danger. I don’t really see this as a problem.
I think Ripley uses it while she’s searching for the cat. And as I said before, I don’t think they have any better explanation on how the MAL works in Aliens.
Well, they do at least try to explain that in the movie. It’s not the best strategy, but they had things to do and characters to kill off.
If you mean in the scene where Ripley tells him that she has her own access to “Mother” now, it’s implied that he already has access. If you mean after that, where he surprises Ripley – if I can believe that Bishop can be amazingly good with a knife, I can believe Ash can be amazingly stealthy.
As was mentioned before, he probably only knows the rudiments of killing.
I don’t see this as a problem. 
So, while I agree Aliens does avoid some of the pitfalls of the original movie, it often does them by hand-waving away the problems in the original movie.
I liked the Ash reveal. Added a layer to the horror of the situation for Ripley.
All things considered, I prefer the Vietnam metaphors to the 9/11 metaphors.
I’ve always though Paul Reiser turned in one of the finest villain performances in movie history, and one of the most chillingly believable.
Good point. Doesn’t Ripley make a I-can’t-believe-you’re-sending-a-face-hugger face at the queen when the egg starts to open?
You’d have a better argument if the movie didn’t get rave reviews when it was first released. Time magazine put it on its cover.
I saw Aliens at 27-ish and liked it plenty. I’m twice that now and like it even more since Cameron released his director’s cut with the extra footage that fleshes out and explains certain things better.
I liked it too because it is a big ole reminder that the movie is set in the future. Their techology is pretty unimpressive. Nothing about how they act or appear screams “futuristic”. An evil humanoid makes up for this.
Yep. It looks as though Ripley is going to back out from the nursery with Newt in a shaky ‘truce’ but then the egg pod opens, Ripley makes a “you’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me” face and it goes from there.
I saw Paul Reiser talking about going to the premier with his mom. When his character gets eaten by an alien, his own mom did a fist pump and went, “Yes!”
“Hand waving them away?” You must’ve seen a different movie than me. I found Aliens well-thought-out. Alien is the one that seemed confused and inconsistent, and didn’t even bother hand-waving away its problems.
Agreed. I liked his sit-com Mad About You but it took me a while to see Reiser and not immediately hate him.
I know a few Vietnam veterans who think we should have done just that.
I frequently had more sympathy for his Aliens character than for his Mad About You character.
Hey, it was the 80s. Big loud militaristic action movies were all the rage. Hell, even Rambo got two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. (Aliens only managed a split.)
Yeah, Cameron wasn’t around yet with robots that have “detailed files on human anatomy”.
Yes. I think I’ve described it as a “You really went there?” look in previous discussions. I doubt the queen did anything to trigger the hatching–the egg was probably responding to the presence of potential hosts–but she certainly wasn’t going to stop it, even if she could.