When I was a kid and I saw Aliens for the first time, during roughly the first half hour of the film I wanted to be a marine so badly. It just seemed so cool to be such a bad ass, and boy did it look like they were having fun. Of course I had no concept of what it truly meant to be a marine or in the military in general, I was seven years old and thought perhaps killing xenomorphs with giant guns was a solid career path to take. Other kids aspired to be police officers or fire fighters or astronauts, and when they expressed these dream futures I smirked in the back of class and shook my head at their simplistic goals. Way to be cowards with your run of the mill jobs, classmates. Not everyone can be destined for LV-426.
You know what I love most about this James Cameron helmed sequel? The fact that it didn't take bloodshed and chaos for me to change my mind and start my realistic journey towards the middling accounting position I hold today. The moment the team lands on the ominous landscapes of the planet to begin their rescue operation I knew something real bad was going to happen, and the patience of building up the tension before any actual threat even presents itself is a wise storytelling choice. Aliens is an action film, for sure, but I look at it more as an action/horror, and its during this period of time that it is clear something awful occurred on this planet yet the creatures are seemingly long gone that Cameron wisely reminds the audience that this is a sequel to Alien. I experienced some pretty intense nightmares after seeing both Alien and Aliens, and it is the moments of quiet build up that earn such disruptive slumber rather than the predictable arrival of death.
"Game over, man! Game over!"
You're god damn right Hudson. I officially revoke my erroneously filed job application. It's probably best I leave the xeno-slaying to someone far braver than I.
5/5
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