Aliens full, unedited watch-a-long REACTION: bit.ly/3U3hAlP We are up to episode 4 of Season 3 of The Last Kingdom over on Patreon... find all the full watch-a-long REACTIONS here: bit.ly/3TE2bJ8 The Stikker Podcast is back: bit.ly/3BglpxY If you want to keep up with us, the community, the schedule and everything we have going on, join our discord. It's fun and free: discord.com/invite/stikkerfam We stream LIVE on RUclips - LIVE movie reactions and the Stikker Podcast... give it a sub: ruclips.net/user/nikkistevenlive
If you watch Alien 3 make sure you watch the longer extended cut ( it explains the story better). The theatrical version has issues. If you do alien resurrection (aka alien 4) you must watch the extended cut to make more sense.
Sigourney Weaver is probably the most iconnic female heroine of all time. She set an impressively high bar for many future female leads to fall short of.The runners up will be Beatrix Kiddo, Trinity, and Sarah Connor.
On a lighter note, your reactions to the 'jumpy space hoohars' at 14:08 were hilarious. I'm pretty sure everyone saw what you did. :) Love your videos, thankyou for this one, and looking forward to the next.
@@jjjones8609 As an old fan myself. These are trash. Not because the movie in the case of Alien 3 was badly made, but because how much pissed over the second movie and the characters just to milk more money from the franchise. However the 4th one is just blatant insult, BS. Never had been as dissapointed with a movie in my life. Later came the terrible Terminator sequels after the passable but poorly casted Terminator 3 and the "nice try" of Bale's Terminator with its stupid android.
Bill Paxton was that rare actor who could inject every line he said with soo much energy and charisma. Decades later this film, his line reads are still super iconic.
@@spirittammyk He's also great in Near Dark which has close ties to Aliens. Near Dark was directed by Cameron's (sometime) wife and also has Lance Henriksen, Jeanette Goldstein as well as Paxton. There's even a little easter egg scene with Aliens showing in a cinema in Near Dark.
The actress's name is Jeanette Goldstein. She was also in Titanic along with Bill Paxton. She played the Irish mom with the two children who went back to their room and she told them a story, although she knew they were doomed.
Hudson is my favorite character in the movie. He's scared, realistically, but continuously shows his courage when he needs to and never wavers in his commitment to the heroes. He throws himself into danger to save Newt, he's morally afronted by Burke so badly he wants to straight execute him, and he stands tall to protect everyone's escape, giving his life. Yeah he's scared, he whines, he barely clings to hope, but he's loyal and brave and good.
Yeah, he's definitely my favorite, too. For the same reasons. I even like Gorman. He was thrown in at the deep end, but he sorts himself out too without needing an arc.
@@Dimetropteryx Agreed - Gorman gets a bad rap, he's way out of his depth because higher-ups probably thought it was a cake-walk mission so sent an young Lieutenant with little real combat experience. He's trying to maintain control - and to be entirely fair, he WAS in charge of the misson and any leader would get pissed if your civilian advisory tried to take over. Imagine trying to explain to your command why you let a civilian dock-loader make mission critical decisions while you were in charge. In the end he shows that - despite struggling with command - he was a trooper through and through, not a coward.
I always like how competent Ripley is portrayed, even when she's scared. She's realistically terrified because of her past experiences, but she is the most rational person in the room most of the time, and it's clear why she was the warrant officer in the first movie.
@@G1NZOU However: it doesn’t show her scouring the ship in the last scene for stowaways. After the encounter with the Alien Queen, this should have been prioritized! Ah well
Facts! She keeps a cool head under pressure even when she’s very clearly terrified and traumatized. And she is often thinking rationally when many of the others in the room aren’t. And she’s a stone cold bad ass particularly when Newt is threatened.
Nominated for 7 Oscars: Best Actress Sigourney Weaver Best Sound Editing Best Sound Mixing Best Film Editing, Ray Lovejoy Best Original Score, James Horner Best Visual Effects Stan Winston, Robert Skotak, and John Richardson Best Production Design, Peter Lamont It won Best Visual Effects and Sound Editing. It made $193 million dollars ($600 million dollars today) against an $18 million dollar budget. It's now considered to be one of the best Sci-fi Action movies ever made.
Yes, one of the best along with Blade Runner, Terminator 2, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, The Empire Strikes Back, Automata, Gattaca, Predestination 12 Monkeys, Children Of Men, Inception, Sunshine, Event Horizon, Akira and The Archive.
From a military perspective, the behavior of the Marines is incredibly accurate. The actor who plays Apone was a six year USMC veteran, served in Vietnam, and received two purple hearts. He coached and trained the other actors in how to move, act, etc. Until the shit is real, everyone is joking, fucking around, and giving each other shit. But once things get serious it's clinical. Apone was the inspiration for Sgt Johnson in HALO.
I always wondered about the briefing scene on the ship before they go down to the planet. The marines were acting incredibly unprofessional and rude...mouthing off to Ripley and the Lieutenant. How can that behavior be accurate? I can understand joking around and smack talk at other times... but during a briefing, srsly?! My father was a MSgt in the Air Force and that wouldn't have flown with him.
@@vesper180 Burke was manipulating the whole thing. He didn't want them to succeed, he wanted to bring back implanted aliens. They sent undisciplined bozos and a raw lieutenant.
@@vesper180 The company/military might have purposely sent a trashy unit with a rookie leader. Maybe considered expendable? At the very least more easily manipulated.
@@vesper180 In the Commentary track, Cameron said he didn't know much about the Marines when he wrote the script. Some years later his brother enlisted, and he learned better. "These are not Marines," he said, "these are regular army."
Yep. T2 is probably the only one the is better than the original, you can make a case for this being better than Alien, but personally...I prefer Alien to Aliens. Just.
In the extended edition, you find out Burke didn’t die there. He was taken back and cocooned. Ridley finds him after a face hugger has already got him and Ridley gives him a grenade to off himself
@@wemustdissent Actually it happened that way in both movies. Dallas was captured and cocooned in Alien and Burke was captured and cocooned in Aliens. The scenes were deleted from the theatrical cuts but you can see them in both Director’s cuts.
I always hated they cutted out the daughter scene for Ripley breaking down after finding out her daughter is already dead, and it helps build towards the fact she is a mother without a daughter and found Newt and comforting a child without a family and closure for herself for not being able to take care of her daughter. Her daughter scene is a much watch and very integral part of the story imo.
@@KabukiKid Yeah. I understand arguments in favor of the original's pacing, but the scene of Ripley finding out about her daughter has such a huge impact on the rest of the movie. Even though it's not directly mentioned again, it's there in the back of your mind whenever she interacts with Newt. In the original cut Newt calling her mommy is an "Aw, that's sweet" moment. But with the context of Ripley having lost her own daughter, that moment rips your heart right out.
6:44 Fun fact, the scene where all the marines are introduced was actually filmed last. This was because James Cameron wanted to intentionally establish the camaraderie of them with added realism. By the time they filmed these scenes, the cast had been working together and gotten to know each other for months. Spending a lot of time together made actual bonds with all of the actors.
@@heikira438 and even better, even though many of the Marines were 'expendable', and they had really short scenes, Cameron STILL gave them JUST enough development that, we still cared for them when they got killed.
Allegedly Weaver was kept away from the rest while they were going through training etc, so their relationships would be more real and she would feel more like an outsider.
I love what a chameleon Jennette Goldstein (Vasquez) is. She’s a bad ass in this, John Connors’ foster mom in Terminator ll, Diamondback in Near Dark and the Irish woman comforting her children as the ship sinks in Titanic.
I just posted the same type of comment. Cameron loved using the same core of actors whenever possible. Jeanette just blends in and people don’t realize it’s her. Some people forget that Paxton was in the first Terminator as one of the punk rockers at first. I still don’t know Biehn wasn’t in Titanic. My guess would be a schedule conflict? Or maybe because he was again character in the Abyss after this? But Jeanette is absolutely a chameleon. Great call out with that term
Hudson's joke about Vasquez and 'illegal aliens' was apparently based on Goldstein showing up on set and telling people she legitimately thought she was going to be playing an illegal alien.
Yes she was out there for 57 years. In the directors cut, Burke tells Ripley that her daughter died at the age of 66. Also, Drake didn't just miss. Hicks recognized it was a little girl and knocked drakes gun up, which is why Drake says "Fuck!" and why Hicks has Ripley move up with him.
If you have to have a "Strong female character"? If I was in trouble... And I had Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner at my right and left... I'd pull up a blanket. And take a knap. Could I be aye more safe than that?
@@lonnieeastin6401 I admire your optimism but it doesn't usually work out so well for the people in either Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley's life they tend to die before her so now I would not feel safe if I saw either one of them I know I'm f***** and I need to get the hell out of here immediately because I'm about to be a secondary character death I know the rules I'm a ginger I don't make it to the end of the story and if I do I immediately get killed in the sequel or I am recasted then I'm killed in the sequel
@@wellthen.......9384 Good point. Movie rules are pretty absolute. You know who I would run from? That lady from "Murder She Wrote", Jessica Fletcher. Every week another dead body drops around her. And no policeman goes "wait, she's was in close proximity to _how_ many murders? 264? And she writes about murders to make a living?" Number 1 suspect! I do like Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley... and Princess Lea... and the Tomb Raider chick, etc.
Jenette Goldstein, who plays Vasquez is so awesome in this movie. She did so much with such a small character. And she shows up in many Cameron movies, like a Chameleon. She is John Connor's foster mother in Terminator 2, she also has a small cameo in Titanic, where she plays a mother who tugs her children to sleep as the water rises around them and they are about to drown.
I think the funniest part is that when Goldstein auditioned for _Aliens_ she thought the film was about immigration, hence the line about "when she heard alien, she thought illegal aliens and signed up" was an inside joke about her audition.
Wow! I didn’t know those characters were played by her. I remember seeing that scene in Titanic and it hit me in such a visceral way. She doesn’t look the same in ANY of those roles! Vasquez is my favorite character in Aliens. I’m going to re-watch the others and look for her. Thanks!
Bill Paxton was from Ft. Worth, Texas so he’s my my homeboy! I hated that he passed. I loved him in “Twister”! Sigourney is the first person to be nominated for an Oscar for a role in a science fiction film.
If you get the chance, watch the directors cut edition of this movie some day. One of the things you learn is that Ripley had a Daughter that was about Newt's age when she left and who had died when she returned. Helps explain Ripley's mother insticts towards Newt.
Yeah, I was hoping, since they saw the extended cut of Alien, they'd do the same with Aliens. Really wish the Daughter part hadn't been cut from the theatrical version...it just adds so much.
When a movie can be watched and rewatched countless times over 36 years and never lose an ounce of its suspense, intensity, and entertainment value… can only be called a masterpiece… I’ve seen this movie I don’t know how many times since I was a kid and when Ripley comes out in that loader and “ Get away from her you bitch”, I STILL get goosebumps and fist pump the air 😂
@@GK-yi4xv is that common in American theatres? Cheering etc? Ive seen lots of footage of it, but being British it's alien (no pun intended) to me. It would actually be considered very rude here lol
The cargo loader exoskeleton robot was actually so dope, that several construction companies thought they were real and asked where they can get them too.
Also, the final battle with the queen was set up in the script way back at the inquest, where the company cancels Ripley's flight officer license, which forces her to take a job at the loading docks. Which Burke points out in her apartment. As a flight officer, she would never know how to use the power loader. That's why Apone and Hicks are surprised she does, not because she's a woman.
There's a group that built one real life. Hacksmith Indistries on RUclips, for anyone interested. Caterpillar actually donated a machine to be the base of the build, since CAT was the manufacturer chosen in the movie
One interesting thing is that this movie was directed by James Cameron who also directed Avatar and one similarity with the two movies is the exoskeleton robot, quite cool that he took that from Aliens, changed it a bit with some updated cgi and then put it into another movie with most people not noticing
@@largol33t1 Because forklifts are way simpler, and do the job better, and it's easier and cheaper to design the task to be easy to do with a forklift than develop a complicated new technology. Moving stuff around is largely a solved problem and reliability and near 100% uptime is far more important to the economics than being able to marginally do a better job in circumstances you've built your warehouse not to have.
Ripely is the ultimate female Badass. Her character growth is all encompassing. It’s like someone maxed out every stat by completing all the side quest before the games final chapter.
Yup! Ripley is friggin' awesome. Decades before all the selfabsorbed hamfisted people pat themselves on their shoulders for inventing strong female lead characters singlehandedly.
Facts! She’s impressive without being too OP. She just works well under pressure and is super creative and cunning. That final fight with the queen was awesome!
Thrilled you got to Aliens this soon! This is the only feature film Carrie Henn (Rebecca, "Newt") ever acted in. She had no acting experience but was invited to audition when the casting director visited her grade school. Afterward she chose not to pursue acting and became a teacher. She has often said she has fond memories from filming Aliens, became close friends with Sigourney Weaver and sees the actors playing the marines as older siblings. She has been to reunions with the other actors and attended at least one Comic Con (possibly more) in my home town, Kansas City. In group interviews the other actors have teased her about purposely 'messing up' one particular shot repeatedly, just so she'd get another chance to go down the slide. They still get a laugh out of that.
That whole acid-for-blood defense mechanism was a great idea in the original movie, but it wasn't truly put into play until this movie, and sure enough, it works pretty darn well.
Sigourney Weaver was an absolute boss in this role. She got nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars for this film. Fun facts: she got paid $35K in the first Alien movie. This one paid her one million. This was because James Cameron and his wife strongly wanted Sigourney for the lead role and wouldn't do this movie without her.
But he had to threaten to do the movie without her to get her agent to agree to the deal. The behind the scenes stories about making movies can be as wild as the movies themselves.
I was so pissed when she didn't win. I remember as a kid, they used the elevator scene as she prepares to rescue Newt. She was so fkn awesome. She was ME too before the movement One of my most respected actresses of all time
Just want to add that when the elevator door opens, it's just one of the best badass moments in cinema history, the determination and courage you can read on Ripley 's face. Gives me goosebumps every time
Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed onscreen by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. Lance Henrikson also got killed by them all, but his Terminator death is offscreen.
Bill Paxton wasn't killed on screen by the Terminator either, he was just thrown up against a wall, he wasnt the guy that got his heart ripped out, did he face all 3 yes, we know for sure he got killed by a Predator and a Alien, but not a Terminator. Lance Hendrickson also got ripped in half by the queen in Aliens but it didn't kill him, but lead to Ripley shutting him down in Alien 3
No. In The Terminator he's just pushed against a gate. In Predator there's no scene in which he actually dies. In this movie he's not killed by the aliens........ he's killed when the reactor detonates. So... not killed by any.
@@RandomStuff-he7lu i love your take as well. Cant go wrong with it. You and I concur that he wasnt killed by The Terminator, that is fan thought, but as you said wasnt confirmed. Also we don't know what happened to "Hudson" the guy was shooting a Alien while getting pulled under, was he burned from acid, dragged to the hive or just killed? (Vasquez) wasnt going to be dragged to the hive, the Alien was going for a death move with its mouth before her and Gorman blew themselves up I'm Predator 2 Bill Paxton name in the movie was Jerry. We don't see him die( even though he stood his ground like Hudson) but the body was carried away. We so see Danny Glover recognize his body when the Predator was ripping his spine and skull out.
I’ve always loved Apone. I’ve used the ‘asses and elbows’ line on my employees from time to time. Lt Gorman wasn’t incompetent or a coward; just a officer just out of OCS. Apone ran the platoon and Gorman was there mostly to learn and gain experience.
If you read the novel of Aliens 3. You find out that Gorman conspired with Burke to smuggle the aliens past customs and quarantine.Burke also sabotaged the ship to get away with it. That’s why the ship crashed and how Ridley got impregnated, she rebooted and questioned the android about it and he confessed.It’s been years since I’ve seen Aliens 3, so I can’t remember whether or not that part is still in the movie. I absolutely loved Aliens,so I absolutely hated Aliens 3.For some strange reason, just about every movie that came out at that time,was a complete and total depression fest. Where the bad guy always won, and the good guys always lost.I don’t know about you, but, I want to get away from depressing things when I go see a movie and forget about my troubles for a little while.Not get even more depressed.👻👻👻👻👻👻
That's just how it really works in the Military, the Noncoms do the heavy lifting and the smart officers back them up and learn the craft from their example.
That 'Mommy' line. It gets me everytime. After nearly 2 hours of non stop action, we get Newt grabbing Ripley calling her 'Mommy'. It's perfect, all the tension and all the anxiety the movie makes you feel is released by 1 word from an 11 year old...
Hudson *was* whiny, but he went out like a hero. I love that guy because a) he's Bill Paxton, and b) he was the audience - we all know it, even if we won't admit it; we'd be terrified if we only had a limited amount of time on our very dangerous job, and this last job proved to be really, REALLY dangerous. Nobody wants to be Hudson, but most of us are. (Plus, I've loved Bill Paxton since he starred in the "Fish Heads" video.)
"Get away from her, you bitch!" Aliens changed the genre, Sci-Fi would never quite be the same again. This film will have you gripped, glued and on the edge of your seat, truly an adrenaline fuelled thrill ride, with amazing visuals, wonderful acting and terrific music. Also, Aliens is one the finest action films of all time as well, yet, believe it or not, it's not the action in the film itself that makes this be the case, with multiple huge explosions, with thousands of bullets fired and scores from James Horner of stuntmen used.
Burke is a great character in this, that person everyone loves to hate. He is a setup for so much great dialogue. "You know I don't know which species is worse, you don't see them f*cking each other over for a go-damn percentage!" "That's it we waste him" classic.
Ok I've got to pause at around the 15 min mark to not only stop laughing but to congratulate Nikki because in the 30 years and the 30+ times I've seen this movie I've never made that visual connection that she made...and now I can't unsee it 🤣👊 Bravo Nikki, bravo.
In my opinion practical effects are always going to be better. If it looks good to the human eye now it's going to look good to the human eye in 50 years, but CGI is evolving too quickly, so if you make a movie today relying on CGI it's going to look obviously dated in just 5 or 10 years.
Hicks (Michael Biehn) and Hudson (Bill Paxton) were both in Terminator. (Bill had a short role at the beginning). They were also both in Tombstone along with a lot of great actors. Another amazing movie.
I like the fact that this Marine armored vehicle, that comes out of the landing ship, was actually an airport vehicle that brings planes in their final parking positions. Back then movie makers needed to come up with stuff rather than creating it via CGI.
Cameron brought us two of the best cinema female heroes with Ripley and Sarah Connor, YEARS before having women be real action protagonists became at all commonplace, and he still managed to do it better than most films do it now. You truly feel that these characters earned their skills in blood and tears, and come out of it as battered, bruised and triumphant as any male protagonist gets treated, not as a piece of trophy eye-candy in a catsuit cart-wheeling through the action with a decorous smudge of dirt under one eye. They don't just have the skills, they have GRIT.
"Somebody wake up Hicks" "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure" "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen" "I don't know who is worse. You don't see them screwing each other over for a buck" So many great lines.
And the irony is that Ripley wasn't originally designed to be a female character. Dan O'Bannon written all of the crew as male, but he made a note at the start of the script that any of the crew member could be anyone, regardless of their gender, skin color or nationality. There's a good chance we could have gotten a male Ripley and a female Dallas (for example). The actors selected were based on their acting abilities. The producers saw a couple of her previous performances when considering her for Ripley, as well as a couple of screentests that were done with her, and she ended up getting it because of her abilities.
@@DanielS2001 True. Ripley being a hard-ass about the quarantine rules in the beginning, even when challenged by the captain does come across as more stereotypically male, whilst going back for the cat screams female. Her caring, nurturing and maternal side was further developed in the sequel and Aliens makes Ripley truly a strong female character (even if her being more competent and capable than a group of marines does come across as being a little farfetched.) Ripley and Sarah Connor, two of the best strong female characters, making the duologies they come from true classics (I don't really think Alien3 or Terminator3 and beyond add much, entertaining as some of them were at times)
That whole loader suit reveal/"get away from her you BITCH" bit is just one of those film moments that is so good it actually gets a tear running down my cheek almost every time. (Treebeard getting angry for the first time in The Lord of the Rings does it to me too).
What I love about pre-CGI era films is that you know you're looking at something that's actually in front of a camera, whether it's an actor in a suit or a very detailed miniature of something.
@@trumpofhazzard9176meaning what people of color and different sexualities because that’s EXACTLY what you meant. People like you using the term ‘woke’ to disguise your bigotry are beyond pathetic.
Alien/Aliens showed how you can write strong female leads. You don't have to make them Mary Sues or make others look bad so they can look better. It's just the character is forced into impossible odds and prevails with smarts and determination. The same can be said with the Terminator series. Alien is more of a space thriller, while Aliens is sci-fi action. They work really well together, but I appreciate both. I'm glad y'all got to watch and enjoy these films that lots of movies today copy for ideas.
What's interesting is that there's a deleted scene when Ripley is looking for Newt where we see Burke's final fate: He got facehugged and was begging Ripley to kill him. She gave him a grenade and told him how to detonate it. There's a banging sound right before she finds the tracker that supposedly indicates that it detonated. The behind the scenes stuff is just as cool as the movie.
Such an intense movie and the perfect ending to the series. The extended version gives even more background. Before she shipped out on the Nostromo, Ripley told her 11 year old daughter that she'd be back in time for her birthday. In the extended scene in the hospital Burke shows Ripley a picture of her daughter as an older woman (actually a picture of Sigorney Weaver's mother) and informs her that her daughter was 66. . . when she died of old age two years before. Really added to the meaning of Ripley having to save Newt. Cameron likes rehiring actors he had good experiences working with. Private Vasquez was nearly unrecognizable as John Connor's foster mother in Terminator: Judgement Day. The difference having hair can make. 😀And having those killer guns hidden under sleeves, since she wasn't in a tank top in T2. Ripley beats out Sarah Connor in my most badass women rankings, but it's damn close. Alien3 was cursed from the start and should never have been made, especially as horrible as it was. I walked out of the theater soon after the opening credits ended. They had already ruined it for me. Just stop with this one and enjoy the happy(ish?) ending. I like the idea of Dwayne (Hicks' first name, revealed in the extended version I believe) and Ellen and Newt being a happy family together. ❤
My all-time favourite film. I’ve seen it hundreds of times and I never grow tired. The extended cut is my preferred cut, I remember getting the VHS of that back in 1991 and wore the tape out. Ripley is BADASS! Everything about this movie is perfection.
The single greatest film ever created. I've seen this literally hundreds of times and it never fails to disappoint. It changed the dynamic for action/horror movies and too many films to count have borrowed from it over the years...also, Ripley is the epitome of the "strong female lead" without the BS tropes that come with it today. Epic AF Don't bother with any of the other films as a progression of the franchise, consider them outliers.
fun tact. when the system says "you have 15 minutes to reach safe distance". The movie switches to real time. From that moment until the explosion is exactly 15 minutes.
Kyle Reese and there's another one from Terminator. Vasquez was John Connor's foster mom. She was also the Irish mom putting her kids to bed while the Titanic was sinking.
Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson were in the first Terminators as well. And Michael Beihn and Bill Paxton would go on to do other movies together. They were kind of the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon of their day.
37:32 Actually yes, Carrie Henn was living in England at the time when she was found and casted for this movie. So some parts of her British accent made it into some lines of this movie.
People can tell you are parents of daughters just from the flashes in your eyes whenever Newt is in danger/being on top of things/being a badass. So wonderful!
Have you guys seen Legend from 1985? I think it was Ridley Scott’s first film and it’s completely magical and terrifying at once. Literally nothing else like it. Tom Cruises first movie and the entire set is real! They spent years growing trees and plants, real birds living there. I saw it when I was maybe 7 or 8 and it’s still my favorite film of all time. A big issue is you have to make sure you see the American version with the Tangerine Dream music score not the other one.
I didn't realize that. I always assumed he was first choice because he has been in a number of James Cameron's movies, although thinking about it now this would have been his first.
@@DoktorStrangelove was it James Remar? I just remember Biehn was cast like a month or so before filming started. Either way, he came off as someone who was hired the day after Sigourney even though he was the last. Such a good and memorable performance. IMO at least.
@@daveb947 Yep, it was Remar. He talks about it in the Netflix "The Movies That Made Us" episode on Aliens. And yes--Biehn was a solid choice to replace him, and probably fit the character better.
The director's cut adds additional scenes including that Ripley had a daughter who died at 67 (?) years old while she was in hypersleep. This makes her bonding with Newt even more meaningful as she is missing her own daughter, especially when Newt calls her "Mommy" at the end.
@@strangerthings88 Ironically for some of us, some of the movie looks TOO good now. I saw it in the 80s but on tv/vcr and let's just say it didn't handle some things well. Specifically, when the power is cut, the sets are cast in a lot of reds. The TVs were horrible with this and it came out a murky mess. However, it suited these scenes (especially the ducts) perfectly. They can't see much neither can we. So, it was startling to see it all so clear and defined, it literally looked fake to me until I got used to it.
@@strangerthings88 No, I hear it all time on GenZ reaction videos, they do know that practical fx are usually superior. The thing is, most CGI fx CAN look very real. Look at The Abyss, the water tentacle. It looks extremely real to my eye. It's entirely possible for most CGI fx to look very real. But the studios generally aren't willing to spend the time/money to do so. Also, way too often they insist on cramming way too much into CGI scenes and make things move at a way too frantic pace. As if any of this is still spectacular.
There was a deleted scene where Ripley found Burke inside the hive. He was already impregnated with the chestburster and begged her to help him. She gave him a grenade and moved on to rescue Newt.
I LOVE your watch-a-longs/reactions. Actually most are my favs. A little factoid: Ripley, at the end of Alien (the 1st movie) puts her and Jonsey (the cat) in suspended animation or frozen sleep, in the the capsule. So when she is found 57 years later, that’s the reason neither she nor Jonsey have aged. Also, in the director’s cut of Aliens (which is even better), we discover Ripley had a daughter when she left 57 years ago, who had died at age 66 just before Ripley was found😢 and brought home.
James Cameron was the first director I know to actually account for time dilation. In other words, when several million miles from the earth, a few days is equal to several months on earth so it makes sense that Ripley outlived her daughter.
@@largol33t1 That's not what happens in the movie though. It's not like in Interstellar where a couple hours pass on a planet close to a black hole while decades go by on Earth. Ripley did spend 57 years floating around before being found. It's just that she was in suspended animation so she didn't experience that time and she didn't age. Meanwhile her daughter lived out the rest of her life during that same 57 years back on Earth.
I think I went to see Aliens about 10 times in the theater back in 86. That includes when it was rereleased as a double feature with The Fly (1986) that same year for Halloween. I was 17 and loved it every time I saw it. You had to see it on the biggest screens possible. So great when the audience is screaming, cheering and clapping to the action and scary moments. Much like the reaction to Alien a few years earlier. Great reaction guys! ❤️❤️ Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you for leaving in one my favorite lines-Ripley's "They can *bill* me." There's a reason that Signourney Weaver was nominated for (and should have won) a Best Actress Oscar for this movie.
@ 37:33 Newt's accent is weird because her actress Carrie Henn was American-born but went to an elementary school in the UK, where Aliens was filmed, and got discovered by James Cameron thru location scouting. So I can see at a young age the accent will go in and out.
James Cameron has made two of the best sequels of all time between this and Terminator 2. Fingers crossed for December. Also, when you said "Is she British now?", I laughed knowing that they filmed in England and she must've picked up an accent by accident.
The 1986 film still looks gorgeous. Animatronics, acting, music. Everything about it is a masterpiece. I watched it when I was 7 with my older brother. Apparently he wanted to scare me, but lm addicted to good bio-horror now. Thk hin for that)
Bill Paxton was in a ton of movies. Weird Science, Terminator, Titanic, True Lies, Tombstone, Twister, and Apollo 13. All great movies, and I strongly recommend Tombstone, if you haven't seen it yet.
An all-time favorite. I cannot even count how many times I’ve seen this. James Cameron made some of the best films in the 80s and 90s plus Avatar😊 I loved Michael Biehn in the Terminator and was so excited to see him here. I fangirled when he was on TWD!
"Vasquez" is the same actress as the step mom in "Terminator two", and the Irish Mother who drowns with her two children in "Titanic", "Diamondback" in "Near Dark". It wasn't until I saw a "Behind the Scenes clip when I realized she was all these different characters. A real chameleon.
Bill Paxton is an incredible actor with a great career or characters in Hollywood. You should watch Frailty. It was his directorial debut, and stars himself and Matthew McConaughey. It is incredible.
Bill Paxton got the fun role with some great lines for sure. This movie really put Paxton on the map, his career took off after this film. So sad about his passing. The actor playing Newt really killed every scene she did, she was so convincing, terrified but still spunky. Also no one gives credit to what a great job the actor who played Gorman did as well. Such a fun film!
This was my favorite film for about 15 yrs. When James Cameron pitched this movie, he wrote Aliens on the whiteboard and then made the S into a dollar sign. This is probably one of the best sequels ever made. This and T2, both from Cameron.
3 fun facts: 1: The man that plays Apone was a real Marine sergeant so the way he acts is not acting it's him being a Marine NCO. 2: The line about illegal aliens is a dig at Vasquez's actress thinking the movie was legit about illegal aliens which made it in the script. 3: The great late Bill Paxton is the only man to have been killed by an Alien, Predator, and Terminator.
Hicks was always my favorite. I met Michael Biehn in 2017, and he was a super nice guy. I was even allowed to sit down next to him at his table and talk. It was great to just talk to him like he was an old friend. Later that day, I found out that I was staying at the same hotel with him, when he got on the elevator with me and another fan. Even then he was a great guy.
@@djsugarbear6715 respectfully disagree, Aliens fleshed out Ripley as a character better than Alien did and the music and visuals were all of higher quality
@@uli_612fair enough. The music for Alien was exactly what it needed to be in order to convey the sense of suspense and atmosphere. The bombastic sound of Aliens enhanced the action in the same fashion. Secondly, Ripley emerged as the last survivor of the crew of the Nostromo....which was an ensemble. It wasn't "her" movie till the end.... It is only natural the second movie flesh out her character. Respectfully.
@@djsugarbear6715 all fair points. I love Alien, it’s a true benchmark on how to do a movie with suspense and horror along with a great story and cast. To me, Aliens just does all of that and amplifies it especially Ripley and her character, but I get your point of the ensemble of Alien. Both are great movies, I guess it’s all a matter of preference but you can’t go wrong with either
I’m always stunned when I find out someone’s never seen ALIENS. Hah 😄 Seriously one of the best movies ever! I saw it in the theater when I was a teenager and it blew my mind. For real, the audience in that theater was cheering and roaring, it was amazing… I’m looking forward to your reaction to Alien3. Another great one, though VERY different… This series is crazy.
There are some crazy production story about that movie...one of them is that the actor who play Apon ( Al Matthews) was a former marine and while fiming one time, a piece of pyrothecnic equiment in the tank caught on fire...Apaprently he automatically went into safeguarding mode and save the crew stuck inside ! Even years later, you can't take away that training and experience...he probably saved a lot in possible lawsuit to James Cameron that day !!
One thing i didn't realize is that the actor Jeanette Goldstein for Vazquez isn't actually Mexican and she painted herself brown because she thought this movie was going to be about illegal aliens.
Aliens full, unedited watch-a-long REACTION: bit.ly/3U3hAlP
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If you watch Alien 3 make sure you watch the longer extended cut ( it explains the story better). The theatrical version has issues. If you do alien resurrection (aka alien 4) you must watch the extended cut to make more sense.
Sigourney Weaver is probably the most iconnic female heroine of all time. She set an impressively high bar for many future female leads to fall short of.The runners up will be Beatrix Kiddo, Trinity, and Sarah Connor.
On a lighter note, your reactions to the 'jumpy space hoohars' at 14:08 were hilarious.
I'm pretty sure everyone saw what you did. :)
Love your videos, thankyou for this one, and looking forward to the next.
@@jjjones8609 As an old fan myself. These are trash. Not because the movie in the case of Alien 3 was badly made, but because how much pissed over the second movie and the characters just to milk more money from the franchise. However the 4th one is just blatant insult, BS. Never had been as dissapointed with a movie in my life. Later came the terrible Terminator sequels after the passable but poorly casted Terminator 3 and the "nice try" of Bale's Terminator with its stupid android.
Stan Winston was the genius behind everything in this movie
Bill Paxton was that rare actor who could inject every line he said with soo much energy and charisma. Decades later this film, his line reads are still super iconic.
This was the movie that made me a fan of Bill Paxton. Critics trashed him for his woody performances, but he always delivered for me.
I have a zippo with GAME OVER written on it. Frequently his line "Game over man, game over." pops into my head when I look at it.
RIP the GOAT of characters actors
@@spirittammyk He's also great in Near Dark which has close ties to Aliens. Near Dark was directed by Cameron's (sometime) wife and also has Lance Henriksen, Jeanette Goldstein as well as Paxton. There's even a little easter egg scene with Aliens showing in a cinema in Near Dark.
Yea, was he acted and killed in 3 epic movies Predator, Terminator, and Aliens.
"Have you ever been mistaken for a man, Vasquez?"
"No. Have you?"
Vasquez was so badass!
Love this line! I always get bummed when it gets cut by reactors but I still say it in my head 😉
Yes Vasquez is my favorite in this movie.
She was also the foster mom in T2
@@mattmullett9521 and the Cop in Lethal Weapon 2 (died on the diving board).
The actress's name is Jeanette Goldstein. She was also in Titanic along with Bill Paxton. She played the Irish mom with the two children who went back to their room and she told them a story, although she knew they were doomed.
Hudson is my favorite character in the movie. He's scared, realistically, but continuously shows his courage when he needs to and never wavers in his commitment to the heroes. He throws himself into danger to save Newt, he's morally afronted by Burke so badly he wants to straight execute him, and he stands tall to protect everyone's escape, giving his life. Yeah he's scared, he whines, he barely clings to hope, but he's loyal and brave and good.
And also the comic relief. Seems like everyone hates him but I think he's great.
Super well said.
Yeah, he's definitely my favorite, too. For the same reasons.
I even like Gorman. He was thrown in at the deep end, but he sorts himself out too without needing an arc.
Everyone pretends they'd be Ripley, but everyone knows they'd actually be Hudson lol
@@Dimetropteryx Agreed - Gorman gets a bad rap, he's way out of his depth because higher-ups probably thought it was a cake-walk mission so sent an young Lieutenant with little real combat experience. He's trying to maintain control - and to be entirely fair, he WAS in charge of the misson and any leader would get pissed if your civilian advisory tried to take over. Imagine trying to explain to your command why you let a civilian dock-loader make mission critical decisions while you were in charge. In the end he shows that - despite struggling with command - he was a trooper through and through, not a coward.
I always like how competent Ripley is portrayed, even when she's scared.
She's realistically terrified because of her past experiences, but she is the most rational person in the room most of the time, and it's clear why she was the warrant officer in the first movie.
@@G1NZOU However: it doesn’t show her scouring the ship in the last scene for stowaways. After the encounter with the Alien Queen, this should have been prioritized!
Ah well
You can only be brave when you’re scared, “fear is always constant, but learning to accept it, makes you stronger”
Facts! She keeps a cool head under pressure even when she’s very clearly terrified and traumatized. And she is often thinking rationally when many of the others in the room aren’t. And she’s a stone cold bad ass particularly when Newt is threatened.
Hudson: "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Vasquez: "No, have you?"
One of my favourite lines.
Same! 😁
i LOL'ed so hard at that line, perfect delivery
Mine was "LETS ROCK!!!!"
GAME OVER! MIC DROPS😂😂😂
Her character was written for a male actor, but her screen test so completely blew the director away, so she got the role!
Nominated for 7 Oscars:
Best Actress Sigourney Weaver
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Film Editing, Ray Lovejoy
Best Original Score, James Horner
Best Visual Effects Stan Winston, Robert Skotak, and John Richardson
Best Production Design, Peter Lamont
It won Best Visual Effects and Sound Editing.
It made $193 million dollars ($600 million dollars today) against an $18 million dollar budget.
It's now considered to be one of the best Sci-fi Action movies ever made.
Absolutely. One of the best _movies_ ever made.
Yes, one of the best along with Blade Runner, Terminator 2, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, The Empire Strikes Back, Automata, Gattaca, Predestination 12 Monkeys, Children Of Men, Inception, Sunshine, Event Horizon, Akira and The Archive.
Also in the top sequels ever made
You didn't mention...Nominated for BEST SEQUEL EVER...Nominated by EVERYONE!!!
Sigourney totally deserved Best Actress for this. One of the most iconic characters in modern cinema.
From a military perspective, the behavior of the Marines is incredibly accurate. The actor who plays Apone was a six year USMC veteran, served in Vietnam, and received two purple hearts. He coached and trained the other actors in how to move, act, etc. Until the shit is real, everyone is joking, fucking around, and giving each other shit. But once things get serious it's clinical.
Apone was the inspiration for Sgt Johnson in HALO.
I always wondered about the briefing scene on the ship before they go down to the planet. The marines were acting incredibly unprofessional and rude...mouthing off to Ripley and the Lieutenant. How can that behavior be accurate? I can understand joking around and smack talk at other times... but during a briefing, srsly?! My father was a MSgt in the Air Force and that wouldn't have flown with him.
@@vesper180 Burke was manipulating the whole thing. He didn't want them to succeed, he wanted to bring back implanted aliens. They sent undisciplined bozos and a raw lieutenant.
@@vesper180 The company/military might have purposely sent a trashy unit with a rookie leader. Maybe considered expendable? At the very least more easily manipulated.
@@vesper180 In the Commentary track, Cameron said he didn't know much about the Marines when he wrote the script. Some years later his brother enlisted, and he learned better. "These are not Marines," he said, "these are regular army."
From all I’ve heard about the military and the marines both online and from friends who serve, can confirm.
Without a doubt one of the best sequels of all time! 💚
Ditto
If there's one thing you can say about James Cameron, it's that he knows how to make a hell of a sequel.
It's so cool that this and Terminator 2 are considered 2 of the greatest sequels and are both directed by James Cameron
This and T2 100%
Yep. T2 is probably the only one the is better than the original, you can make a case for this being better than Alien, but personally...I prefer Alien to Aliens. Just.
The story goes that Paul Reiser went to see this movie in the theater with his mom and when Burke died she cheered.
😂😂😂
In the extended edition, you find out Burke didn’t die there. He was taken back and cocooned. Ridley finds him after a face hugger has already got him and Ridley gives him a grenade to off himself
@@Bill-v6f You are thinking of Alien 1 and Dallas
I mean I did too. Got what he deserved.
@@wemustdissent Actually it happened that way in both movies. Dallas was captured and cocooned in Alien and Burke was captured and cocooned in Aliens. The scenes were deleted from the theatrical cuts but you can see them in both Director’s cuts.
I always hated they cutted out the daughter scene for Ripley breaking down after finding out her daughter is already dead, and it helps build towards the fact she is a mother without a daughter and found Newt and comforting a child without a family and closure for herself for not being able to take care of her daughter. Her daughter scene is a much watch and very integral part of the story imo.
Here's a fun fact: The picture of Ripley's daughter is actually a picture of Sigouney Weaver's real life mother, Elizabeth Inglish.
@@timolinwilliams9404 Yea, I always found that sweet her daughter was included that way, but sucks it was cut out.
I agree... the Special Edition of this movie is the superior version, if just for that scene, alone.
@@KabukiKid Yeah. I understand arguments in favor of the original's pacing, but the scene of Ripley finding out about her daughter has such a huge impact on the rest of the movie. Even though it's not directly mentioned again, it's there in the back of your mind whenever she interacts with Newt. In the original cut Newt calling her mommy is an "Aw, that's sweet" moment. But with the context of Ripley having lost her own daughter, that moment rips your heart right out.
Sigourney Weaver FOUGHT for that scene to be in the directors cut, why it was never in the original is beyond me, it adds so much to her character.
6:44 Fun fact, the scene where all the marines are introduced was actually filmed last. This was because James Cameron wanted to intentionally establish the camaraderie of them with added realism. By the time they filmed these scenes, the cast had been working together and gotten to know each other for months. Spending a lot of time together made actual bonds with all of the actors.
That makes soooo much sense. Good stuff.
No wonder I felt the bond right off the bat.
Probably a good move considering most of these actors were “no names” who had to prove their worth on set. It just makes sense, logistically.
@@heikira438 and even better, even though many of the Marines were 'expendable', and they had really short scenes, Cameron STILL gave them
JUST enough development that, we still cared for them when they got killed.
Didn’t Ridley Scott do the same with the first Alien too?
Allegedly Weaver was kept away from the rest while they were going through training etc, so their relationships would be more real and she would feel more like an outsider.
I love what a chameleon Jennette Goldstein (Vasquez) is. She’s a bad ass in this, John Connors’ foster mom in Terminator ll, Diamondback in Near Dark and the Irish woman comforting her children as the ship sinks in Titanic.
I just posted the same type of comment. Cameron loved using the same core of actors whenever possible. Jeanette just blends in and people don’t realize it’s her. Some people forget that Paxton was in the first Terminator as one of the punk rockers at first. I still don’t know Biehn wasn’t in Titanic. My guess would be a schedule conflict? Or maybe because he was again character in the Abyss after this? But Jeanette is absolutely a chameleon. Great call out with that term
Also people might not recognize her, but was in Leathal Weapon 2, was the cop going for a swim and the diving board blows up
Hudson's joke about Vasquez and 'illegal aliens' was apparently based on Goldstein showing up on set and telling people she legitimately thought she was going to be playing an illegal alien.
@@GK-yi4xv HAHAHA! Really?
@@michaelberry1382 Don't forget that Weaver was in Avatar.
Yes she was out there for 57 years. In the directors cut, Burke tells Ripley that her daughter died at the age of 66. Also, Drake didn't just miss. Hicks recognized it was a little girl and knocked drakes gun up, which is why Drake says "Fuck!" and why Hicks has Ripley move up with him.
THIS is how you write a strong female character. I love this movie. I played it so many times when I had it on VHS that I wore it out. 😂
If you have to have a "Strong female character"? If I was in trouble... And I had Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner at my right and left... I'd pull up a blanket. And take a knap. Could I be aye more safe than that?
@@lonnieeastin6401 I admire your optimism but it doesn't usually work out so well for the people in either Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley's life they tend to die before her so now I would not feel safe if I saw either one of them I know I'm f***** and I need to get the hell out of here immediately because I'm about to be a secondary character death I know the rules I'm a ginger I don't make it to the end of the story and if I do I immediately get killed in the sequel or I am recasted then I'm killed in the sequel
@@wellthen.......9384 Good point. Movie rules are pretty absolute. You know who I would run from? That lady from "Murder She Wrote", Jessica Fletcher. Every week another dead body drops around her. And no policeman goes "wait, she's was in close proximity to _how_ many murders? 264? And she writes about murders to make a living?" Number 1 suspect! I do like Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley... and Princess Lea... and the Tomb Raider chick, etc.
Jenette Goldstein, who plays Vasquez is so awesome in this movie. She did so much with such a small character. And she shows up in many Cameron movies, like a Chameleon.
She is John Connor's foster mother in Terminator 2, she also has a small cameo in Titanic, where she plays a mother who tugs her children to sleep as the water rises around them and they are about to drown.
I think the funniest part is that when Goldstein auditioned for _Aliens_ she thought the film was about immigration, hence the line about "when she heard alien, she thought illegal aliens and signed up" was an inside joke about her audition.
Wow! I didn’t know those characters were played by her. I remember seeing that scene in Titanic and it hit me in such a visceral way.
She doesn’t look the same in ANY of those roles! Vasquez is my favorite character in Aliens. I’m going to re-watch the others and look for her. Thanks!
Bill Paxton was from Ft. Worth, Texas so he’s my my homeboy! I hated that he passed. I loved him in “Twister”!
Sigourney is the first person to be nominated for an Oscar for a role in a science fiction film.
@@eddietucker7005 watch ""Near dark " where she plays a vampire along Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton
@@panntasatan1706 - Yes, she is awesome in Near Dark, with few lines. She has an aura that makes you pay attention to her, in every scene she’s in.
The xenomorphs are the coolest alien designs I’ve ever seen. They are just so unique and memorable
thank HR Giger for that one....
Predator
Agree
Being familiar with his works, knowing they are giant dick monsters really gives the more intimate scenes with Ripley a added layer of creepiness.
Definitely one of the better alien designs in media
If you get the chance, watch the directors cut edition of this movie some day. One of the things you learn is that Ripley had a Daughter that was about Newt's age when she left and who had died when she returned. Helps explain Ripley's mother insticts towards Newt.
Somebody really should 'a told them which version to watch first.
Yeah, I was hoping, since they saw the extended cut of Alien, they'd do the same with Aliens. Really wish the Daughter part hadn't been cut from the theatrical version...it just adds so much.
I can't believe they left that out of the theatrical cut.
@@OmegaSoypreme Yeah I agree... gives the mother daughter bonding a lot more context.... leave that in and sentry guns, of course 😎
@@ernestclark21 Doesn't matter if they don't read the comments.
When a movie can be watched and rewatched countless times over 36 years and never lose an ounce of its suspense, intensity, and entertainment value… can only be called a masterpiece…
I’ve seen this movie I don’t know how many times since I was a kid and when Ripley comes out in that loader and “ Get away from her you bitch”, I STILL get goosebumps and fist pump the air 😂
Me tooooo!!
They don't make movies like this anymore. It's sad really. Maybe 2 or 3 good movies a year and even those are mostly unknown.
I only *read* that quote in your comment, and I got goosebumps! 😅
That line caused a big cheer in the theatre in 1986.
@@GK-yi4xv is that common in American theatres? Cheering etc? Ive seen lots of footage of it, but being British it's alien (no pun intended) to me. It would actually be considered very rude here lol
"I don't wanna know how the sausage is made!" That line killed me 😂
The cargo loader exoskeleton robot was actually so dope, that several construction companies thought they were real and asked where they can get them too.
Also, the final battle with the queen was set up in the script way back at the inquest, where the company cancels Ripley's flight officer license, which forces her to take a job at the loading docks. Which Burke points out in her apartment. As a flight officer, she would never know how to use the power loader. That's why Apone and Hicks are surprised she does, not because she's a woman.
There's a group that built one real life. Hacksmith Indistries on RUclips, for anyone interested. Caterpillar actually donated a machine to be the base of the build, since CAT was the manufacturer chosen in the movie
One interesting thing is that this movie was directed by James Cameron who also directed Avatar and one similarity with the two movies is the exoskeleton robot, quite cool that he took that from Aliens, changed it a bit with some updated cgi and then put it into another movie with most people not noticing
I wonder why they still aren't cost effective today. The technology certainly exists to make one.
@@largol33t1 Because forklifts are way simpler, and do the job better, and it's easier and cheaper to design the task to be easy to do with a forklift than develop a complicated new technology. Moving stuff around is largely a solved problem and reliability and near 100% uptime is far more important to the economics than being able to marginally do a better job in circumstances you've built your warehouse not to have.
Ripely is the ultimate female Badass. Her character growth is all encompassing. It’s like someone maxed out every stat by completing all the side quest before the games final chapter.
Yep Ripley and Sarah Connor two of the OG female badasses.
Yup! Ripley is friggin' awesome. Decades before all the selfabsorbed hamfisted people pat themselves on their shoulders for inventing strong female lead characters singlehandedly.
And still looks like a woman and not a gender neutral freak show 😂
Facts! She’s impressive without being too OP. She just works well under pressure and is super creative and cunning. That final fight with the queen was awesome!
I always laugh when the soldier says "what we suppose to use harsh language?"
Of course Vasquez and Drake keep theirs held back.
LET'S ROCK!!
Frost, also has the "guess she don't like the cornbread either" line which is one of my favorites.
"I say we grease this rat-fuck son of a bitch right now.......no offense". So many great lines.
Thrilled you got to Aliens this soon! This is the only feature film Carrie Henn (Rebecca, "Newt") ever acted in. She had no acting experience but was invited to audition when the casting director visited her grade school. Afterward she chose not to pursue acting and became a teacher. She has often said she has fond memories from filming Aliens, became close friends with Sigourney Weaver and sees the actors playing the marines as older siblings. She has been to reunions with the other actors and attended at least one Comic Con (possibly more) in my home town, Kansas City. In group interviews the other actors have teased her about purposely 'messing up' one particular shot repeatedly, just so she'd get another chance to go down the slide. They still get a laugh out of that.
The knife seen at the beginning was pure raw. The actor had no idea they was gonna do that to him so his screams was genuine
That whole acid-for-blood defense mechanism was a great idea in the original movie, but it wasn't truly put into play until this movie, and sure enough, it works pretty darn well.
Sigourney Weaver was an absolute boss in this role. She got nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars for this film.
Fun facts: she got paid $35K in the first Alien movie. This one paid her one million.
This was because James Cameron and his wife strongly wanted Sigourney for the lead role and wouldn't do this movie without her.
But he had to threaten to do the movie without her to get her agent to agree to the deal. The behind the scenes stories about making movies can be as wild as the movies themselves.
Pretty sure they had to pay her 1 million because they announced she would be starring before they asked her.
I was so pissed when she didn't win. I remember as a kid, they used the elevator scene as she prepares to rescue Newt. She was so fkn awesome. She was ME too before the movement One of my most respected actresses of all time
Just want to add that when the elevator door opens, it's just one of the best badass moments in cinema history, the determination and courage you can read on Ripley 's face. Gives me goosebumps every time
Well that and obviously the "get aways from her you b"
Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed onscreen by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. Lance Henrikson also got killed by them all, but his Terminator death is offscreen.
Bill Paxton wasn't killed on screen by the Terminator either, he was just thrown up against a wall, he wasnt the guy that got his heart ripped out, did he face all 3 yes, we know for sure he got killed by a Predator and a Alien, but not a Terminator. Lance Hendrickson also got ripped in half by the queen in Aliens but it didn't kill him, but lead to Ripley shutting him down in Alien 3
No.
In The Terminator he's just pushed against a gate.
In Predator there's no scene in which he actually dies.
In this movie he's not killed by the aliens........ he's killed when the reactor detonates.
So... not killed by any.
Both Stan Winston creations.
@@RandomStuff-he7lu i love your take as well. Cant go wrong with it.
You and I concur that he wasnt killed by The Terminator, that is fan thought, but as you said wasnt confirmed.
Also we don't know what happened to "Hudson" the guy was shooting a Alien while getting pulled under, was he burned from acid, dragged to the hive or just killed? (Vasquez) wasnt going to be dragged to the hive, the Alien was going for a death move with its mouth before her and Gorman blew themselves up
I'm Predator 2 Bill Paxton name in the movie was Jerry. We don't see him die( even though he stood his ground like Hudson) but the body was carried away. We so see Danny Glover recognize his body when the Predator was ripping his spine and skull out.
Vasquez was killed by a terminator... in 2 she was John's foster mom
I’ve always loved Apone. I’ve used the ‘asses and elbows’ line on my employees from time to time. Lt Gorman wasn’t incompetent or a coward; just a officer just out of OCS. Apone ran the platoon and Gorman was there mostly to learn and gain experience.
If you read the novel of Aliens 3. You find out that Gorman conspired with Burke to smuggle the aliens past customs and quarantine.Burke also sabotaged the ship to get away with it. That’s why the ship crashed and how Ridley got impregnated, she rebooted and questioned the android about it and he confessed.It’s been years since I’ve seen Aliens 3, so I can’t remember whether or not that part is still in the movie. I absolutely loved Aliens,so I absolutely hated Aliens 3.For some strange reason, just about every movie that came out at that time,was a complete and total depression fest. Where the bad guy always won, and the good guys always lost.I don’t know about you, but, I want to get away from depressing things when I go see a movie and forget about my troubles for a little while.Not get even more depressed.👻👻👻👻👻👻
That's just how it really works in the Military, the Noncoms do the heavy lifting and the smart officers back them up and learn the craft from their example.
That 'Mommy' line. It gets me everytime. After nearly 2 hours of non stop action, we get Newt grabbing Ripley calling her 'Mommy'. It's perfect, all the tension and all the anxiety the movie makes you feel is released by 1 word from an 11 year old...
"Stop fucking touching shit you're not supposed to!"
Words to live by.🤣
Hudson *was* whiny, but he went out like a hero. I love that guy because a) he's Bill Paxton, and b) he was the audience - we all know it, even if we won't admit it; we'd be terrified if we only had a limited amount of time on our very dangerous job, and this last job proved to be really, REALLY dangerous. Nobody wants to be Hudson, but most of us are. (Plus, I've loved Bill Paxton since he starred in the "Fish Heads" video.)
He gets most of the iconic lines from the movie too "How do I get out of this chickehshit outfit" and "GAME OVER, GAME OVER MAN!"
Damn, you're old (like me) if you remember the "Fish Heads" video. Bill Paxton was awesome! RIP!
Let's not forget the line "Man, I'm short, and now I'm gonna buy it on this rock!"
Oh totally! He was all of us. But he had a strong moral compass and was courageous and honorable when it mattered most. Went out like a true soldier.
@@Judymoe whats funny is he was the one boasting about how good they are to Ripley on the way down to the planet.
"Get away from her, you bitch!"
Aliens changed the genre, Sci-Fi would never quite be the same again. This film will have you gripped, glued and on the edge of your seat, truly an adrenaline fuelled thrill ride, with amazing visuals, wonderful acting and terrific music.
Also, Aliens is one the finest action films of all time as well, yet, believe it or not, it's not the action in the film itself that makes this be the case, with multiple huge explosions, with thousands of bullets fired and scores from James Horner of stuntmen used.
This and "You're Terminated, fucker!" are two of the BEST lines ever uttered in cinema :)
That scene was amazing in the theater. The audience erupted when Ripley said that line. So cool!
Burke is a great character in this, that person everyone loves to hate. He is a setup for so much great dialogue. "You know I don't know which species is worse, you don't see them f*cking each other over for a go-damn percentage!" "That's it we waste him" classic.
He's all about getting that big office and the promotion. It doesn't matter how many people die to make that happen. 🤮
Ok I've got to pause at around the 15 min mark to not only stop laughing but to congratulate Nikki because in the 30 years and the 30+ times I've seen this movie I've never made that visual connection that she made...and now I can't unsee it 🤣👊 Bravo Nikki, bravo.
Considering this movie is 36 years old it held up really well! Thanks for the reaction guys.
It holds amazingly well.
The future it depicts is both Scyfy AND believable, and the designs are just *chef's kiss*
No CGI, no green screen, and lighting.
Goes to show good practical effects beat CGI 90% of the time
In my opinion practical effects are always going to be better.
If it looks good to the human eye now it's going to look good to the human eye in 50 years, but CGI is evolving too quickly, so if you make a movie today relying on CGI it's going to look obviously dated in just 5 or 10 years.
One of the greatest movie sequels ever.
No. The greatest sequel was Human Centipede 2
Hicks (Michael Biehn) and Hudson (Bill Paxton) were both in Terminator. (Bill had a short role at the beginning). They were also both in Tombstone along with a lot of great actors. Another amazing movie.
Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) was also in Terminator 2. She played John Conner's step mom.
@@realitycheck5376 I forgot about that :) I also just remembered Bishop (Lance Henriksen) was also a detective in Terminator.
@@Lothian55 Yeah, I didn't think to mention him as well. :)
There are great lines in Tombstone, but it's a shit movie otherwise.
@@roshi98 It’s a great movie gtfoh with that nonsense.
I like the fact that this Marine armored vehicle, that comes out of the landing ship, was actually an airport vehicle that brings planes in their final parking positions. Back then movie makers needed to come up with stuff rather than creating it via CGI.
Cameron brought us two of the best cinema female heroes with Ripley and Sarah Connor, YEARS before having women be real action protagonists became at all commonplace, and he still managed to do it better than most films do it now. You truly feel that these characters earned their skills in blood and tears, and come out of it as battered, bruised and triumphant as any male protagonist gets treated, not as a piece of trophy eye-candy in a catsuit cart-wheeling through the action with a decorous smudge of dirt under one eye. They don't just have the skills, they have GRIT.
Hudson came back at the end. So did Gorman. Great arches. Both went out like badasses
"We're on an express elevator to hell...goin' down!" one of the best lines ever
"Somebody wake up Hicks"
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure"
"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen"
"I don't know who is worse. You don't see them screwing each other over for a buck"
So many great lines.
@@congoliab enthusiastically agreed
Sigourney as Ripley is such an iconic role. She was the first female lead action hero in a film ❤
What about Pam Grier in Foxy Brown (1974)?
... and one of better ones to. this. day.
And the irony is that Ripley wasn't originally designed to be a female character. Dan O'Bannon written all of the crew as male, but he made a note at the start of the script that any of the crew member could be anyone, regardless of their gender, skin color or nationality. There's a good chance we could have gotten a male Ripley and a female Dallas (for example). The actors selected were based on their acting abilities. The producers saw a couple of her previous performances when considering her for Ripley, as well as a couple of screentests that were done with her, and she ended up getting it because of her abilities.
@@DanielS2001 True. Ripley being a hard-ass about the quarantine rules in the beginning, even when challenged by the captain does come across as more stereotypically male, whilst going back for the cat screams female. Her caring, nurturing and maternal side was further developed in the sequel and Aliens makes Ripley truly a strong female character (even if her being more competent and capable than a group of marines does come across as being a little farfetched.)
Ripley and Sarah Connor, two of the best strong female characters, making the duologies they come from true classics (I don't really think Alien3 or Terminator3 and beyond add much, entertaining as some of them were at times)
@@DanielS2001 Thanks for that background!
That whole loader suit reveal/"get away from her you BITCH" bit is just one of those film moments that is so good it actually gets a tear running down my cheek almost every time. (Treebeard getting angry for the first time in The Lord of the Rings does it to me too).
And the absolute VENOM in Weaver's delivery of the line too, so good.
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Ripley is a Mother of Memes.
Well, in fairness to the Queen, Ripley had just nuked all of 𝘩𝘦𝘳 kids, so…
@@UWalvern0810 You make an unfairly reasonable argument, are you sure The Internet is the right place for you?
@@Ylyrra Thank you (?) 😂
I absolutely *love* that quiet shot with Ripley slowly turning around to behold some horror she'd rather not behold.
What I love about pre-CGI era films is that you know you're looking at something that's actually in front of a camera, whether it's an actor in a suit or a very detailed miniature of something.
And not woke 😂
@@trumpofhazzard9176meaning what people of color and different sexualities because that’s EXACTLY what you meant. People like you using the term ‘woke’ to disguise your bigotry are beyond pathetic.
Alien/Aliens showed how you can write strong female leads. You don't have to make them Mary Sues or make others look bad so they can look better. It's just the character is forced into impossible odds and prevails with smarts and determination. The same can be said with the Terminator series. Alien is more of a space thriller, while Aliens is sci-fi action. They work really well together, but I appreciate both. I'm glad y'all got to watch and enjoy these films that lots of movies today copy for ideas.
Thank you for not stopping on the OG Alien. Aliens is one my favorite movies of all time and a HIGHLY QUOTABLE gem.
“Game over, man! GAME OVER!”
@@GeezieMac I don't know if youve been keeping up with current events, but we just got our ass kicked, pal!
@@SathReacts YES!!
What's interesting is that there's a deleted scene when Ripley is looking for Newt where we see Burke's final fate: He got facehugged and was begging Ripley to kill him. She gave him a grenade and told him how to detonate it. There's a banging sound right before she finds the tracker that supposedly indicates that it detonated.
The behind the scenes stuff is just as cool as the movie.
Such an intense movie and the perfect ending to the series.
The extended version gives even more background. Before she shipped out on the Nostromo, Ripley told her 11 year old daughter that she'd be back in time for her birthday. In the extended scene in the hospital Burke shows Ripley a picture of her daughter as an older woman (actually a picture of Sigorney Weaver's mother) and informs her that her daughter was 66. . . when she died of old age two years before. Really added to the meaning of Ripley having to save Newt.
Cameron likes rehiring actors he had good experiences working with. Private Vasquez was nearly unrecognizable as John Connor's foster mother in Terminator: Judgement Day. The difference having hair can make. 😀And having those killer guns hidden under sleeves, since she wasn't in a tank top in T2.
Ripley beats out Sarah Connor in my most badass women rankings, but it's damn close.
Alien3 was cursed from the start and should never have been made, especially as horrible as it was. I walked out of the theater soon after the opening credits ended. They had already ruined it for me. Just stop with this one and enjoy the happy(ish?) ending. I like the idea of Dwayne (Hicks' first name, revealed in the extended version I believe) and Ellen and Newt being a happy family together. ❤
an all time classic movie, i've seen it hundreds of times over the past 30 years and it's never failed to entertain.
It hits home that Ripley is a mother that never got to see her daughter grow up. If you play Alien Isolation you get to play as her daughter.
One of the best games EVER!!! SO well done!!!
If you play Alien Isolation (especially in VR) you get to play "hide in the locker for 45 minutes" :P
And in the extended cut of Aliens we see a photo of her daughter as an elderly woman.
@@splashyreacts which means she survives her Alien interaction. I always kept that in mind when playing and dying again and again.
@@amandarose4469 I haven't finished the game yet. I forgot which level I'm on
My all-time favourite film. I’ve seen it hundreds of times and I never grow tired. The extended cut is my preferred cut, I remember getting the VHS of that back in 1991 and wore the tape out. Ripley is BADASS! Everything about this movie is perfection.
The single greatest film ever created. I've seen this literally hundreds of times and it never fails to disappoint. It changed the dynamic for action/horror movies and too many films to count have borrowed from it over the years...also, Ripley is the epitome of the "strong female lead" without the BS tropes that come with it today.
Epic AF
Don't bother with any of the other films as a progression of the franchise, consider them outliers.
fun tact. when the system says "you have 15 minutes to reach safe distance". The movie switches to real time. From that moment until the explosion is exactly 15 minutes.
Bill Paxton has some of the best quotes in the movie of all time
Most don’t remember that, Sigorney Weaver, got an Oscar nomination for best actress for this role. Just fantastic.
One of my best theater experiences was Aliens- when I was a teenager. One of the best action films ever made.
Paul Riser, who plays Burke, said his mom cheered in the theater when he got killed.🤣. He said, that's when you know you did the role right.
"game over man, game over" legendary quote 🤣
Kyle Reese and there's another one from Terminator. Vasquez was John Connor's foster mom. She was also the Irish mom putting her kids to bed while the Titanic was sinking.
Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson were in the first Terminators as well. And Michael Beihn and Bill Paxton would go on to do other movies together. They were kind of the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon of their day.
37:32 Actually yes, Carrie Henn was living in England at the time when she was found and casted for this movie.
So some parts of her British accent made it into some lines of this movie.
People can tell you are parents of daughters just from the flashes in your eyes whenever Newt is in danger/being on top of things/being a badass. So wonderful!
Bill Paxton was gold in every movie he was in. So underrated, I miss him. RIP
Have you guys seen Legend from 1985? I think it was Ridley Scott’s first film and it’s completely magical and terrifying at once. Literally nothing else like it. Tom Cruises first movie and the entire set is real! They spent years growing trees and plants, real birds living there. I saw it when I was maybe 7 or 8 and it’s still my favorite film of all time. A big issue is you have to make sure you see the American version with the Tangerine Dream music score not the other one.
I love how Michael Biehn quickly bonded with the cast. He was basically a last minute casting because the original Hicks actor dropped out.
I didn't realize that. I always assumed he was first choice because he has been in a number of James Cameron's movies, although thinking about it now this would have been his first.
@@burrichgrrl57 Terminator would be his first working with Cameron before this I believe
James Remar was fired about a month into production because he liked heroin more than he liked working.
@@DoktorStrangelove was it James Remar? I just remember Biehn was cast like a month or so before filming started. Either way, he came off as someone who was hired the day after Sigourney even though he was the last. Such a good and memorable performance. IMO at least.
@@daveb947 Yep, it was Remar. He talks about it in the Netflix "The Movies That Made Us" episode on Aliens. And yes--Biehn was a solid choice to replace him, and probably fit the character better.
Aliens is one of the best sci-fi action movies ever!
Bishop, Vasquez and Hudson actors are in a vampire movie from the 80's called "Near Dark" Definitely worth watching.
The director's cut adds additional scenes including that Ripley had a daughter who died at 67 (?) years old while she was in hypersleep. This makes her bonding with Newt even more meaningful as she is missing her own daughter, especially when Newt calls her "Mommy" at the end.
The effects for this movie are so good for its time.
The effects are so good for our time. Practical effects still work better than cgi a great majority of the time.
@@silikon2yup
@@strangerthings88 Ironically for some of us, some of the movie looks TOO good now. I saw it in the 80s but on tv/vcr and let's just say it didn't handle some things well.
Specifically, when the power is cut, the sets are cast in a lot of reds. The TVs were horrible with this and it came out a murky mess.
However, it suited these scenes (especially the ducts) perfectly. They can't see much neither can we. So, it was startling to see it all so clear and defined, it literally looked fake to me until I got used to it.
@@silikon2 I saw it as a kid and all the other movies with practical effects. I cringe when CGI is obvious and kids today know only that it seems.
@@strangerthings88 No, I hear it all time on GenZ reaction videos, they do know that practical fx are usually superior.
The thing is, most CGI fx CAN look very real. Look at The Abyss, the water tentacle. It looks extremely real to my eye.
It's entirely possible for most CGI fx to look very real. But the studios generally aren't willing to spend the time/money to do so. Also, way too often they insist on cramming way too much into CGI scenes and make things move at a way too frantic pace. As if any of this is still spectacular.
There was a deleted scene where Ripley found Burke inside the hive. He was already impregnated with the chestburster and begged her to help him. She gave him a grenade and moved on to rescue Newt.
I LOVE your watch-a-longs/reactions. Actually most are my favs. A little factoid: Ripley, at the end of Alien (the 1st movie) puts her and Jonsey (the cat) in suspended animation or frozen sleep, in the the capsule. So when she is found 57 years later, that’s the reason neither she nor Jonsey have aged. Also, in the director’s cut of Aliens (which is even better), we discover Ripley had a daughter when she left 57 years ago, who had died at age 66 just before Ripley was found😢 and brought home.
My orange tabby & tortie/tabby cat siblings are Jonsey & Newt! He's loudly fearless (a little dumb), & she's careful & quiet.
OMG! That’s so amazing! Love it! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Ripley's daughter is the main character of the Alien: Isolation video game, which is pretty good too.
James Cameron was the first director I know to actually account for time dilation. In other words, when several million miles from the earth, a few days is equal to several months on earth so it makes sense that Ripley outlived her daughter.
@@largol33t1 That's not what happens in the movie though. It's not like in Interstellar where a couple hours pass on a planet close to a black hole while decades go by on Earth. Ripley did spend 57 years floating around before being found. It's just that she was in suspended animation so she didn't experience that time and she didn't age. Meanwhile her daughter lived out the rest of her life during that same 57 years back on Earth.
I think I went to see Aliens about 10 times in the theater back in 86. That includes when it was rereleased as a double feature with The Fly (1986) that same year for Halloween. I was 17 and loved it every time I saw it. You had to see it on the biggest screens possible. So great when the audience is screaming, cheering and clapping to the action and scary moments. Much like the reaction to Alien a few years earlier.
Great reaction guys! ❤️❤️ Happy Thanksgiving!
That's a great double feature. Alamo Drafthouse needs to do this.
Yep! And also watched The Hitcher that same year…
Thank you for leaving in one my favorite lines-Ripley's "They can *bill* me." There's a reason that Signourney Weaver was nominated for (and should have won) a Best Actress Oscar for this movie.
@ 37:33 Newt's accent is weird because her actress Carrie Henn was American-born but went to an elementary school in the UK, where Aliens was filmed, and got discovered by James Cameron thru location scouting. So I can see at a young age the accent will go in and out.
James Cameron has made two of the best sequels of all time between this and Terminator 2. Fingers crossed for December.
Also, when you said "Is she British now?", I laughed knowing that they filmed in England and she must've picked up an accent by accident.
I thought they were talking about Carrie Henn, who was born in the U.S. actually grew up in England so no surprise about her accent.
The 1986 film still looks gorgeous. Animatronics, acting, music. Everything about it is a masterpiece.
I watched it when I was 7 with my older brother. Apparently he wanted to scare me, but lm addicted to good bio-horror now. Thk hin for that)
Bill Paxton was in a ton of movies. Weird Science, Terminator, Titanic, True Lies, Tombstone, Twister, and Apollo 13. All great movies, and I strongly recommend Tombstone, if you haven't seen it yet.
Wait, he was in Titanic?
Oh right I'm in idiot, now I remember.
Don't know if you noticed that Hicks was John Connors dad in terminator 1 and Vasquez was his foster mum in terminator 2.
Whenever anyone asks me what my favourite film of all time is, this one always comes to mind.
The alternate title for this movie was "No One Listens to Ripley and Everyone Dies 2".
I’m expecting Nikki to say “omg” and cover her eyes a lot for this franchise🤣🤣
An all-time favorite. I cannot even count how many times I’ve seen this. James Cameron made some of the best films in the 80s and 90s plus Avatar😊 I loved Michael Biehn in the Terminator and was so excited to see him here. I fangirled when he was on TWD!
"Vasquez" is the same actress as the step mom in "Terminator two", and the Irish Mother who drowns with her two children in "Titanic", "Diamondback" in "Near Dark". It wasn't until I saw a "Behind the Scenes clip when I realized she was all these different characters. A real chameleon.
There was also a movie "Leviathan" about drillers and an infected Soviet submarine. Peter Weller (Robocop) starred there.
This is a movie I stop and watch anytime I run across it on tv by far one of my favorites
Bill Paxton is an incredible actor with a great career or characters in Hollywood. You should watch Frailty. It was his directorial debut, and stars himself and Matthew McConaughey. It is incredible.
Was an incredible actor, RIP Bill Paxton
My favorite sci-fi films since I was a kid and it came out. Even had the full door size poster of the Xenomorph back in the day.
Bill Paxton got the fun role with some great lines for sure. This movie really put Paxton on the map, his career took off after this film. So sad about his passing.
The actor playing Newt really killed every scene she did, she was so convincing, terrified but still spunky.
Also no one gives credit to what a great job the actor who played Gorman did as well. Such a fun film!
I'm so glad you two finally watched this absolute stone cold classic! I love reaction videos of people seeing ALIENS for the first time.
This was my favorite film for about 15 yrs. When James Cameron pitched this movie, he wrote Aliens on the whiteboard and then made the S into a dollar sign. This is probably one of the best sequels ever made. This and T2, both from Cameron.
Sequel names? How about "Aliens: Making the Sausage". Lol. Loved the reactions!
I love watching reactors watch this movie. It's still amazing no matter how many times I watch it,it's a masterpiece.
I've read that Paul Reiser who played Burke took his mother to the premiere. She said even she wanted to see his character die! :D
3 fun facts:
1: The man that plays Apone was a real Marine sergeant so the way he acts is not acting it's him being a Marine NCO.
2: The line about illegal aliens is a dig at Vasquez's actress thinking the movie was legit about illegal aliens which made it in the script.
3: The great late Bill Paxton is the only man to have been killed by an Alien, Predator, and Terminator.
Hicks was always my favorite. I met Michael Biehn in 2017, and he was a super nice guy. I was even allowed to sit down next to him at his table and talk. It was great to just talk to him like he was an old friend. Later that day, I found out that I was staying at the same hotel with him, when he got on the elevator with me and another fan. Even then he was a great guy.
As great as Alien was, this was a rare instance of the sequel being superior, great reaction as always guys!!
In no way is Aliens superior to Alien. ....different sub genre of sci-fi horror and Sci-fi action. Both leading examples just different.
@@djsugarbear6715 respectfully disagree, Aliens fleshed out Ripley as a character better than Alien did and the music and visuals were all of higher quality
@@uli_612fair enough. The music for Alien was exactly what it needed to be in order to convey the sense of suspense and atmosphere. The bombastic sound of Aliens enhanced the action in the same fashion. Secondly, Ripley emerged as the last survivor of the crew of the Nostromo....which was an ensemble. It wasn't "her" movie till the end.... It is only natural the second movie flesh out her character. Respectfully.
@@djsugarbear6715 all fair points. I love Alien, it’s a true benchmark on how to do a movie with suspense and horror along with a great story and cast. To me, Aliens just does all of that and amplifies it especially Ripley and her character, but I get your point of the ensemble of Alien. Both are great movies, I guess it’s all a matter of preference but you can’t go wrong with either
@@uli_612 .....word
I’m always stunned when I find out someone’s never seen ALIENS. Hah 😄 Seriously one of the best movies ever! I saw it in the theater when I was a teenager and it blew my mind. For real, the audience in that theater was cheering and roaring, it was amazing… I’m looking forward to your reaction to Alien3. Another great one, though VERY different… This series is crazy.
There are some crazy production story about that movie...one of them is that the actor who play Apon ( Al Matthews) was a former marine and while fiming one time, a piece of pyrothecnic equiment in the tank caught on fire...Apaprently he automatically went into safeguarding mode and save the crew stuck inside ! Even years later, you can't take away that training and experience...he probably saved a lot in possible lawsuit to James Cameron that day !!
One thing i didn't realize is that the actor Jeanette Goldstein for Vazquez isn't actually Mexican and she painted herself brown because she thought this movie was going to be about illegal aliens.