Karnick, Kristine Brunovska, and Henry Jenkins,
eds.Classical Hollywood Comedy. New York: Rout-
ledge, 1995.
Rickman, Gregg, ed.The Film Comedy Reader. New
York: Limelight Editions, 2001.
P. Andrew Miller
See also Comedians; Film in the United States.
Aliens
Identification Science-fiction film sequel
Director James Cameron (1954- )
Date Released July 18, 1986
Alienscapitalized on the success of the 1979 filmAlien,ce-
menting James Cameron’s reputation as a reliable director
of science-fiction films and beginning his interest in using
women as action heroes in his movies.
The originalAlien, directed by Ridley Scott, was a sur-
prise hit in 1979. With no well-known stars and a
clichéd premise—space travelers menaced by an
alien monstrosity—the movie impressed audiences
with its realistic depiction of the life cycle of an extra-
terrestrial species and surprising plot twists. Charac-
ters who usually functioned as the heroes of such sto-
ries—the stalwart captain, the no-nonsense science
officer—died early in the film, and a character tan-
gential to the early scenes, the protocol-conscious
second-in-command Ellen Ripley, emerged as the
film’s heroine. This skillful inverting of science-
fiction tropes by screenwriter Dan O’Bannon de-
lighted viewers, and Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of
Lieutenant Ripley immediately established her as a
star.
When the decision was made to make a sequel, di-
rector James Cameron and his scenarists, David
Giler and Walter Hill, were faced with a difficult task:
to fashion a worthy successor to a science-fiction film
that had succeeded by confounding its viewers’ ex-
pectations. They audaciously decided not to repli-
cate the genre-bending tendencies of the original
but to do the reverse: make a conventional science-
fiction action picture in which Ripley would return
to the lair of the alien with a squad of Marines to
fight the monsters with a staggering array of futuris-
tic weapons. However, Cameron wisely maintained
two striking elements of the original film: the dual
themes of female empowerment and parenting.
Weaver’s Ripley inAliensis even bolder and more
resourceful than she was in the original. She is wiser
and more realistic in her outlook, having internal-
ized the lessons of her first alien encounter. She is
joined by other strong women among the Marines,
especially Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein). In
the originalAlien, Ripley was portrayed as a positive
maternal figure, while the ship’s computer, called
“Mother” by the crew, failed its “children,” particu-
larly Ripley herself, at key moments. In contrast,
Ripley risked her life to save the ship’s cat and in the
final scene was depicted in a Madonna-and-child
pose with the feline. Similarly, inAliens, Ripley fights
for the safety of the child Newt against a “queen-
mother” alien intent on spawning an ever-increasing
number of predatory offspring.
A perennial problem for scriptwriters of science-
fiction and horror sequels is motivating the protago-
nists to return to a situation in which they previously
suffered incredible dangers. Why would an astro-The Eighties in America Aliens 51
The cover of the July 28, 1986, issue ofTimemagazine featured
Sigourney Weaver and the alien queen, fromAliens.(Hulton
Archive/Getty Images)