Twenty-five years ago, it was time for war. On July 18, 1986 James Cameron‘s film Aliens exploded into theaters and immediately became one of the few examples of a standout sequel in movie history. Picking up where Ridley Scott‘s Alien left off — with Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley drifting asleep in the sci-fi version of a lifeboat — Aliens emulated its predecessor with character-centric thrills and expanded upon it by visualizing the killer aliens as a bee-like hive society.
The movie celebrates industrial and military design, as in the marine ship Sulacco, which lances through space like an ingenious fusion of rifle and projectile, or the smart guns which transform cinematic equipment (the Steadicam) into weapons. At the same time, it mocks big business (see Paul Reiser‘s sleazy company man Carter Burke) and presumptuous military might.
In a popular film culture dominated by buffed-up male action heroes (Schwarzenegger, Stallone, et al) Aliens dared not only to scorn false machismo, but to weave a gory, violently thrilling story about motherhood. Critics and audiences responded with rapture. Sigourney Weaver earned one of the film’s seven Oscar nominations (it won for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects) and the film owned the box office for four weeks. Aliens is one of the most-emulated films in action and/or science fiction, and arguably James Cameron’s best work. We’ll revisit some key memories of the film after the break.
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When a full platoon of Colonial Marines gets wiped out of existence, someone tends to notice. That’s what happened in James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens and while the subsequent sequels followed Ellen Ripley’s story, we never found out what happened outside of her limited point of view. One would assume the military was pretty pissed to lose all that manpower and equipment without a trace.
That’s where the 2012 video game Aliens: Colonial Marines picks up. It follows a team of Marines who are sent back to LV-426, back to the abandoned U.S.S. Sulaco, to investigate what happened to our beloved Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Apone and more. Gearbox, the team behind Borderlands and Duke Nukem Forever, has been developing this game for five years and – in anticipation of next week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo – has finally released a trailer for the Spring 2012 release. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 by Angie Han
We post a fair amount of montages here on /Film, but this one’s extra special. Back in 1993, well before the days of Final Cut Pro, a 19-year-old Edgar Wright holed himself up in an editing suite for several weekends to put together this montage, “Gun Fetish.” The clips are pulled from VHS tapes, which explains the low quality. Even so, it’s apparent that Wright has an excellent sense of rhythm and timing, as well as real affection for the films he’d go on to reference and parody in work like Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Watch it after the jump. Be forewarned — the video is, as Wright puts it, “a little NSFW and spoiler heavy.”
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What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 28 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might’ve missed that you think should go in /Film’s Page 2 – email us!
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What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 31 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might’ve missed that you think should go in /Film’s Page 2 – email us!
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Running around as Ellen Ripley, flamethrower/grenade launcher in hand, blowing away aliens. It seems like such a natural transition to a video game. And though the first two films in the Alien franchise did have games come to home computer, Commodore 64, and even the stand-up arcade platform, the first time Nintendo or Sega users got to play in the universe was Alien 3. That wasn’t the plan though. Twenty-four years ago, a little company called Square, who later made a name for themselves making a tiny series called Final Fantasy, made an 8-bit version of James Cameron’s Aliens. It was never released in the United States and was basically forgotten. Until now. Read More »
IO9 has created a handy chart which shows which space movies feature the most common scientific mistakes. It might come as a surprise that Michael Bay’s Armageddon actually fares better than the Star Wars of Alien films. And it comes as no surprise that Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff have been graded a clean bill of accuracy. Hit the jump to see the entire chart.
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ThinkGeek is selling an awesome t-shirt featuring various weapons from 10 famous science fiction films of the last 74 years. Can you name all the movies?
Museum Acquires Rare Arms Collection: To your right you’ll see our display of 20th and early 21st century science-fiction armaments. You can compare the variety of size and lethality over the years. Everyone “oohs” over the pulse rifle. Don’t get too close, though. The gun cabinet glass is coated with self-arming nanites. We don’t want to have to mop up another tourgroup.And ahead on your left, you’ll see models of some early time travel vehicles, including H.G. Wells’s time machine…. This shirt contains images of 10 famous science fiction arms and the year of their screen debut on a black 100% cotton shirt.
But apparently ThinkGeek messed up and the art has the wrong date for Logan’s Run (it says 1967, it should be 1976) so they are selling the shirt at 50% off. Grab one for only $7.99 to $9.99 plus shipping depending on size. So if you don’t mind the small error on an otherwise really cool tee, grab one now. Hit the jump to see a bigger image of the artwork.
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