James Cameron loves tough female characters. That seems like a given now, after three Avatar films and Linda Hamilton's muscular turn in Terminator 2. Even the lushly romantic Titanic centers on a supportive boyfriend lending his love the strength to live an iconoclastic life. But in Cameron's 1984 feature debut The Terminator, Hamilton's Sarah Connor is stalked by Arnold Schwarzenegger's killer robot. She gets pumped up for the 1991 sequel. By then, Cameron had practice: he had already written and directed Aliens, maybe the best pumped-up sequel ever made, which turns 40 this week.
Ripley's Return: From Survivor to Protector
Ellen Ripley, introduced as warrant officer on the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien, is already a great character. But while the anecdote about Cameron pitching a sequel by appending a dollar sign to Alien's title has become lore, Ripley is really the first subject of his plussing. Without betraying her simplicity and resilience, Cameron reintroduces Ripley as a survivor, landing on Earth almost 60 years after the events of the first film. In a deleted scene restored in the special edition, Ripley learns her daughter has died in the interim—as an adult, given she was in cryosleep for decades.
This is the only movie where we see Ripley living safely on Earth, at least briefly. The Weyland-Yutani corporation presses her back into service to visit the moon where the Nostromo first encountered the creature. She reluctantly agrees, in part because she faces disbelief over her account. She also wants to destroy the creatures. Cameron's dollar sign comes in: the colonized moon has been overrun with HR Giger's xenomorphs, and Ripley, aligned with tough-talking space marines, must fight her way out on a larger scale, all while protecting an orphaned girl nicknamed Newt (Carrie Henn).
Cameron's Urtext: Bigger, Brawnier, and Still Fresh
Somehow, Cameron managed to make an urtext of sorts out of a sequel to someone else's movie. Ripley protects a child, like the T-800 would in Terminator 2. The grunts speak in a colorful pulp style, like soldiers in the Avatar movies. The deaths and disasters are awesome in the truest sense, just as in Titanic. Bill Paxton is there, as in most Cameron movies. And like Terminator 2 and Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron makes a sequel bigger and brawnier than the original.
Is it better? Hard to say. The original unnerves with elegance; you could accuse Cameron of replacing that with brute force. Roger Ebert alluded to that in his 1986 review, leading with: 'Do I praise its craftsmanship, or do I tell you it left me feeling wrung out and unhappy?' He landed on a positive notice. For many fans, it's a high point, followed by a rollercoaster-like zoom through multiple loops.
Sigourney Weaver's Bravura Performance
What keeps the movie from feeling like a theme-park ride—unlike Alien: Romulus, entertaining as it is—is Sigourney Weaver's performance. Cameron's craft is undeniable, his ensemble lovable, and the action sequences impressive. But Weaver gives a bravura turn as Ripley, not just as the action heroine intoning 'get away from her, you bitch' at the xenomorph queen—a succinct bit of applause-mongering. Weaver plays the take-charge action hero, the Cassandra figure, the fish out of water, the final girl on steroids, and the surrogate mother. She conveys a shocking emotional range without Big Acting. Neither authority nor vulnerability ever disappear. It's no wonder she earned a best actress Oscar nomination—rare for a sci-fi/action movie.
Legacy: Misinterpretation and Enduring Impact
Because Ripley feels fully realized, her fierce protector side never registers as condescending. The movie never feels like Ripley is redeeming herself by doing motherhood to the extreme, perhaps because she arrives with a clear objective before meeting Newt, or because Cameron forgoes the cliche of the gruff loner brushing off a kid sidekick.
Despite its continued freshness, Aliens may have done harm via misinterpretation. For years, Ripley has been held up by misogynists as proof that they love strong female characters—Ripley, Sarah Connor, certain video game incarnations of Lara Croft—but that later characters like Supergirl, Captain Marvel, or Furiosa aren't doing it right. Aliens has woke touches by contemporary standards: Ripley is the unequivocal lead and hero (not sexualized), and supporting character Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) has an ambiguous approach to gender and sexuality ahead of 1986 mores. Yet it's still a cudgel for traditionalists.
It's an easy mistake because Aliens has become part of the sci-fi/action/horror firmament. It's so good that some fans pretend subsequent entries don't exist. Aliens was the last time virtually everyone agreed a movie in this series was unimpeachable. But its most valuable legacy isn't the traditionalism it accidentally inspired. It's in the less beloved female action heroes, the less cherished creature-feature sequels, and the less shockingly great Cameron movies that followed. When someone makes a sequel this good, it opens up entire worlds. Cameron, despite all the doom, saw a bigger, more muscular future.
