Picture this ... Its 1986 and you are on the panel of judges that determine the oscar winners, and your faced with a tough choice, continue to see things the same old way or pull your head out of your ass and see things the way most of America does....

And the Oscar goes to Platoon... another war movie about the atrocities of Viet Nam, frankly I liked it better when it was called Apocalypse now...

I saw it, I think it had some merit, but I can't remember one fucking line of dialogue from this "Incredible"  movie.

Also out in 1986 "Aliens"....yeah buddy! Or as Newt would have said A-firmative!! 

The amazingness of this movie is recognized more today than when it came out. The sheer number of memorable moments and best of all quotable lines in this glorious sequel are flooding my brain now as we speak. The off screen tid bits are so tantalizing that they almost scream "make a movie out of me too!!!!"

Sure I know what your saying, "Rob, Platoon was a piece of American Film Art" 

Yup it sure was, it was moving and it did paint a picture, a picture seen the very next year in Full Metal Jacket (a far superior film imho) and 7 years prior in Apocalypse Now which starred a Sheen that could actually act!!

Now, I am not saying that Sgt. Elias and Sgt. Barnes were not cool, but Cpl. Hicks and Pvt. Hudson kicked their asses!! A win for Aliens wouldn't you say Hicks?

"Hudson sir... He's Hicks" 

Lt. Gorman and  Lt. Wolfe were pretty much the same guy, until Gorman showed some and and went suicide bomber on the creatures... again another win for Aliens.

"we are in the pipe, 5 By 5"

Sgt. O'Neill, who was played by a great comic actor John McGinley doesn't even come close to the level of Sgt. Apone played superbly by Al Matthews.  

"Look into My eye" your right, Sarge, Aliens again.

Kevin Dillon as Bunny or Paul Riser as Burke... this may be the toughest call of all. Bunny did do the sweet beer can trick and he stabbed himself in the leg. Burke was just a cheesy company man looking to cash in....I give a very slight win to Kevin and Bunny

"all right, we waste hin, no offense"

Lance Fucking Henrickson vs. the rest of the cast of Platoon... L F H for the win!!!

"I didn't know there was a synthetic on board" 

"I guess she didn't like the corn bread either".

Now part of the back story to Aliens, Carrie Henn, who played Newt, this was her one and only acting role. 

Thats right, she never acted before or after this film! "well then maybe we should put her in charge"!

She is the daughter of an american military couple stationed in England during the filming. She was chosen right out of her classroom at the bases school. She did no screen test, and was fed her lines by an acting coach. She never even acted in a school play!!!

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit"

I know, I know, the cinematic brilliance depicted by Stone in Platoon was there. It was a solid 7.5/10. The torrent of war and the struggle for redemption were so moving that it caused many who lived that life to have flashbacks and recurring nightmares. I don't mean to make light of those issues, and I hope that I have not offended a member of our military with my comments.

Having said that, Aliens should have won!!! If for no other reason than here we are 26 years later and if I was to say to you.... Game Over... You know god damn well the image of Hudson surrounded by a crashed drop ship, helmet off, screaming "Game over! Game over man, now what the fuck are we supposed to do"? Leaps directly into your head

So yes ,Platoon great movie and Oscar winner, Aliens Better movie: our genre robbed once again!

"we'd better get back, cause it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night,.... mostly"

Tags: Apone, Bishop, Giger, Hicks, horror genre, Lance Henrickson, Newt, oscars, Paul Reiser, Platoon, Ripley, Aliens

It is said in certain circles that so much testosterone was fused into the very film used to shoot James’ Cameron’s Aliens that if you play the movie backwards it will give you an abortion. That being said, Cameron’s Aliens is a “what if” scenario film that takes big and makes it even bigger. Bigger guns, bigger ships and bigger Aliens. It does so in such a fashion that it literally date rapes the original’s stifling sense of isolation and confinement and gives us a whole new world to play with. And that is the name of the game with the sequel to Scott’s classic scifi shocker, EXPANSION.

Aliens is not so much the sequel to Alien as it is the sequel to the late night diner conversations about Alien. It gives us the coolness and the novelty of the original by taking those ideas and questions and expanding them. What is the world of Alien like and how does it differ from the world now? What kinds of weapons do they have in this world? What if instead of bluecollar workers the alien(s) was up against a band of gun-toting, foulmouthed, trigger happy space marines?!?!?

Our story opens with sole survivor of the first film Ripley, still in a heavy cryosleep as a salvage team finds her and her cat 57 years after the events of the original. After recounting the events that left her crew dead she is held accountable for her actions of self preservation which, coincidentally, resulted in the destruction of corporation property totaling in the tens of millions. The Weyland Yutani corporation quickly revokes our heroine’s flight license telling her that the planet whose distress signal they responded to has been colonized for the last twenty years therefore throwing her testimony out in an act of true douchebaggery. Fastforward to Ripley taking the only job she can on the loading docks when out-of-the-blue… Weyland Yutani loses contact with their colony. Asking for Ripley’s help the corporation leverages the reinstatement of her flight license and Ripley, along with company rep Paul Reiser and a group of surly, firepower packing marines is on her way to LV-426.

The rest of the film follows a core group of the soldiers, along with Ripley and Reiser’s character Burke, as they attempt to escape the legions of aliens on LV-426 with their lives. Although we are treated to a “who survives and what will be left of them” formula, Cameron’s approach almost singlehandedly redefined the sub-genre of sc-fi action. There is a giddy love and reverence for Scott’s universe that makes Cameron’s film approachable and, in some terms a more mainstream and digestible approach to the franchise.

Cameron’s soldiers are stereotypes,sure but are still likable and we genuinely want to see them live to fight another day. Ripley is stronger and somehow her wisdom in the face of Weyland yutani’s greedy naievete makes her ever more the hero. Henricksen’s take on the human-loving android Bishop AGAIN brings our audience to sympathise with yet another character, this one almost incapable of complete destruction, yet somehow we still fear for his safety. AGAIN, we are dealing with EXPANSION, this time of the classic character archetype.

SO it might all seem like glitz and spent shells but Aliens introduces an interesting social narrative into the film that continues throughout the rest of the series. The aliens, as vicious as they are, represent an investment and corporation’s like to earn a return on their investments. As Ripley and the colonial marines fight for their lives, reiser’s Burke fights for a sinister corporate agenda and the real monster finally makes it appearance. It is Weyland Yutani’s deception and ultimately inhuman lust for profit shares that makes our character’s struggle that much more personal.

It has often been said that to compare Scott’s Alien to Cameron’s Aliens is like comparing apples to oranges. I disagree. I think the inability to compare the two should be a hallmark of any great episodic story. Not only did Aliens set a benchmark for genre sequels, it also set a benchmark for Cameron’s career as he went on to direct the current top two worldwide grossing films of all time.

My only criticsm of Aliens is not a fault of its own, but in that its iconic action movie portrayl of the marines has been so over-used and copied over the last 26 years that in retrospect it is almost a parody of itself. Well, that and the director’s choice not to use Queen’s Killer Queen when we first see the queen alien, which would have been balls-out awesome. 

Tags: HR Giger, James Cameron, Prometheus, Ridley Scott, Sigourney Weaver, xenomorph, Aliens