Word: ripley
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...possibly it lives also as Sigourney Weaver's debut movie, for she was wonderfully effective as Ripley, the junior officer who must finally face down the monster in single combat. Cool, intelligent, yet vulnerable (and, of course, striking in appearance), she brings all these qualities to the sequel, which, seven years later, should make her a major star. For this movie stands to be something its predecessor was not, a megahit. And it deserves to be, for it is a remarkable accomplishment: a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving Weaver new emotional dimensions...
...premise is a straightforward one. As Ripley was drifting through space after her previous close encounter of the unspeakable kind -- a flight that used up the equivalent of 57 earth years -- the alien planet was colonized. But now, suddenly, it has fallen silent. Is it possible that this wild tale of rampaging monsters she keeps telling is true? A party of Marines is sent out to investigate, and Ripley reluctantly accompanies them as a sort of Cassandra-cum-consultant...
Arriving at their destination, they find the colonists' space station deserted, except for Newt (Carrie Henn), a traumatized child who is the only survivor. The first film had merely mobilized Ripley's basic fight-or-flight instincts. The presence of Newt allows her to discover stronger, higher impulses, gives her positive rather than negative emotions to act upon. The audience too has a much stronger rooting interest in Ripley, and that gives the picture resonances unusual in a popcorn epic...
...supposed to swoon or retreat to a safe corner (or, at best, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition) while the male lead protects them and defends Western civilization as we know it. In Aliens, it is the guys who are all out of action at the climax and Ripley who is in a death duel with evil. As Director Cameron says, the endless "remulching" of ( the masculine hero by the "male-dominated industry" is, if nothing else, commercially shortsighted. "They choose to ignore that 50% of the audience is female. And I've been told that it has been...
...members of the party carry a heavier symbolic weight. Bishop (Lance Henriksen), an android who proves himself a distinct improvement over the traitor robot of the first film. Bishop offers a prejudice Ripley has to overcome and, in the end, some surprising heroics for the audience to cheer. The other outsider is a different case. Burke (Paul Reiser) is a junior executive in "the company," the monopoly that has all of space to profit from. He has absorbed its corporate culture all too well. In Alien, of course, company leaders, without warning employees of the danger, callously ordered them...