10 Things You Didn’t Know About Aliens
This is a tough one. Aliens is such a classic film that covers multiple genres and generations and there aren’t too many new tidbits of information coming out about the flick. So for some of you, this list may be less about things you didn’t know and more about things you probably heard once or twice, but then forgot about. Either way, let’s call this “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Aliens.“
1- The Original: Jim Cameron’s original treatment for Alien 2 was adapted from one he had written a few months earlier titled “Mother”. A few of the things that are super recognizable about Aliens today were in that original script, the power loader being one of those. One big thing that had to be added was the Colonial Marines.
2- Get to work: Cameron wrote scripts for Aliens, The Terminator and Rambo 2 all within the span of 3 months.
3- Gettin’ Paid: Sigourney Weaver had a pretty good idea of her worth for this sequel. She was paid $1 million to do the film and it’s a pretty good thing they did. Her character was crucial to the story and there was no ‘Plan B’ if she had decided not to do it.
4- Colony stuff: Weyland-Yutani was supposed to be a futuristic version of the Dutch-India Company. A mega business that “colonized” and took advantage of far away places to the detriment of the indigenous peoples. The film also had undertones of the idea that many believed the Vietnam War was just a war to protect American business interests in East Asia.
5- The Cryo-chamber scene: The only had 4 or 5 of the chambers that we see in the waking up scene so they used mirrors in the back of the room so it would look like they had closer to 10 of the chambers in the room. If you look closely, you can see where the mirror sits in the scene and even that there are doubles of each of the characters in the foreground.
6- The Power Loader: Ripley and the others that used the power loader had to deal with some pretty uncomfortable conditions. The way they used the machine in the film was to have a big, strong bodybuilder in the thing walking around carrying the actors.
7- My Newt: Carrie Henn, who plays Newt, had never acted before. Her father was an Air Force soldier working in England and she did something in her audition that set herself apart from the rest; she didn’t smile. Most of the other girls who were going for the role had done commercials and they kept smiling after they said their lines.
8- Deleted Scene: At one point, Ripley was going to run into Paul Reiser’s character on her way to rescue Newt from the Alien Queen. She would hand him a grenade as he lay cocooned against the wall, and we would hear the explosion from that grenade a minute later.
9- Carrying the load: Sigourney Weaver had a really bad back throughout filming, especially at the end, and had to have a special doll built so she could run around carrying Newt.
10- Boom: The nuclear explosion effect on the colony at the end of the film was done with simple use of a light bulb and some cotton. Movie magic!
