Aliens (1986) Revisit ft. Kristin Battestella

Original Episode: #56 Aliens (1986) ft. Robb Conlon (released March 17, 2021)

New Episode: #319 Aliens (1986) Revisit ft. Kristin Battestella (released July 8, 2026)

Guest:

• Kristin Battestella - A Film Critic for In Session Film, Search Magazine, and Keith Loves Movies

  • @kbatzkrafts on IG, @thereforereview on Twitter, Letterboxd, @kbatzreviews on YouTube

  • Previously on Ben-Hur (1959), The Searchers (1956)

  • CLP Contributor

Cast:

• James Cameron, Director/Writer

• Adrian Biddle, Cinematography

• James Horner, Music

• Ray Lovejoy, Edited (GMOAT HoF)

• Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley

• Michael Biehn as Dwayne Hicks

• Paul Reiser as Carter J. Burke

• Lance Henriksen as Bishop

• Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jorden

• Bill Paxton as Hudson

• William Hope as Gorman

• Ricco Ross as Frost

• Al Matthews as Apone

• Jenette Goldstein as Vasquez

• Mark Rolston as Drake

• Daniel Kash as Spunkmeyer

• Tip Tipping as Crowe

• Trevor Steedman as Wierzbowski

• Cynthia Dale Scott as Dietrich

• Colette Hiller as Ferro

Background:

• Aliens was released on July 18, 1986.

• On a budget of $18.5 million, Aliens made roughly $85.2 million worldwide to finish at #7 for 1986.

• The film received generally positive reviews from critics at the time with some claiming it was better than the original even if that was not the prevailing opinion.

• Aliens was nominated for 6 Oscars including Best Actress (Weaver), Original Score (Horner), Art Direction, Editing (Lovejoy), and Sound while winning for Visual Effects and Sound Effects Editing.

• Aliens is now considered among the greatest films of the 1980s, and among the best science fiction, action, and sequel films ever made, often deemed equal to or better than Alien.

• The British Film Institute called Aliens one of the 10 greatest action films.

• In 2009, Den of Geek called it the best blockbuster sequel ever made, and remarkable even as a standalone film.

• In 2011, Empire called it the greatest movie sequel ever. Empire also listed Aliens as the 30th-best film ever made on the magazine's "500 Greatest Movies Of All Time" list; its readers ranked it the 17th-best.

• In 2017, the website ranked it the second-best film in the series (behind Alien).

• The American Film Institute recognized Aliens on the following list(s):

  • 2003: 100 Years ... 100 Heroes and Villains - Ellen Ripley - #9 Hero

• The film is listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

• The franchise has endured additional sequels including Alien 3 (1992), Alien vs. Predator (2004), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Prometheus (2012) (a prequel to Alien) and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), Alien: Romulus (2024), and a TV series, Alien: Earth (2025).

• Aliens currently holds a 93% among critics on RT, an 84 score on Metacritic, and a 4.1/5 on Letterboxd.

Plot Summary: Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), awakens after 57 years in hypersleep to learn that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426 — the same moon where her crew first encountered the alien. Against every reasonable instinct, she goes back — this time accompanied by a squad of Colonial Marines who are cocky, heavily armed, and almost immediately in over their heads.

Did You Know?:

• When filming the scene with Newt in the duct, Carrie Henn kept deliberately blowing her scene so she could slide down the vent, which she later called a slide three stories tall. James Cameron finally dissuaded her by saying that if she completed the shot, she could play on it as much as she wanted. She did, and he kept his promise.

• Bill Paxton continuously apologized to Carrie Henn throughout filming every time Hudson had to swear in front of her. Henn later admitted that she didn't mind, mainly because she really didn't know what any of the words meant. Years later, during cast reunions, Henn had grown up so much that Paxton didn't recognize her at first.

• Sigourney Weaver had several notes for James Cameron after having read his script, which were mostly about how she felt Ripley should respond to her situations, which he was happy to accommodate. Cameron praised her for never taking issue with the direction he wanted to take with the story, even with the points they couldn't agree on. One of them was the amount of gun violence; Weaver had initially focused on the script's dialogue rather than stage directions, so when she arrived on set, she told Cameron that as an advocate for gun control, she was uncomfortable with all the shooting. Cameron felt that this was perfect for Ripley, who is equally reluctant to use a gun unless forced to, and told Weaver to bring that attitude to her performance. He also took her to a gun range to try and fire an automatic gun, which she had to admit was pretty cool.

• When Fox execs saw an early cut of the film, they complained to producer Gale Anne Hurd that it looked like the money had all been spent on sets rather than special effects. Hurd took great delight in telling the execs that a majority of the sets that they were seeing in the film were indeed miniatures or optical effects (eg, special effects). The artists behind these images were very pleased that their work had fooled the money men.

• Al Matthews, who plays a Marine sergeant in this film, was in real life the first Black Marine to be promoted to the rank of sergeant in the field during service in Vietnam. Also Lance Henriksen is a US Navy veteran.

• The Alien nest set was kept intact after filming. It was later used as the Axis Chemicals set for Batman (1989). When the Batman crew first entered the set, they found most of the Alien nest still intact.

The Stanley Rubric:

Original Legacy Score: 9.33

New Legacy Score: 9.5

Original Impact/Significance Score: 8.5

New Impact/Significance Score: 9

Original Novelty Score: 8.33

New Novelty Score: 7.5

Original Classicness Score: 8.83

New Classicness Score: 9.5

Original Rewatchability Score: 6

New Rewatchability Score: 7.33

Original Audience Score: 9.25 (91% Google, 94% RT)

New Audience Score: 8.9 (8.4 IMDB, 94% RT)

Original Total Score: 50.24 (#69 currently)

New Total Score: 51.73

In Memorium:

• Tom Ligon, 85, American actor (Paint Your Wagon, The Young and the Restless, Bang the Drum Slowly)

• David Clayton-Thomas, 84, British-Canadian Hall of Fame singer (Blood, Sweat & Tears) and songwriter ("Spinning Wheel"), Grammy winner (1970)

• Clive Davis, 94, American Hall of Fame music executive (Columbia Records) and record producer, founder of Arista Records and J Records, four-time Grammy winner.

• Des Nealon, 90, Irish actor (Educating Rita, Reflections).