The best of the ALIEN films

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2001)

This is the best of the four ALIEN movies. What most people don't seem to realize is that it borrows liberally from Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel STARSHIP TROOPERS (the book, not the much later film, but that's another story). The idea of the "bug hunt," the tunnels of eggs, the very inhumanity of the alien foe. Actually, a lot of movies and books borrowed from that novel. If only James Cameron had blown off TITANIC and done STARSHIP TROOPERS (and if they'd managed to create believable battle armor), and let Paul Verhoeven make a movie about some boat and a chunk of ice, I'd have been a lot happier. But I digress. ALIENS features Sigourney Weaver at her asskicking best, especially when she wields that rifle on the planet, and when she uses the loading suit to fight the Alien on the ship. As for Paul Reiser, I only wish he showed a tenth of the cojones during that miserable angstfest known as MAD ABOUT YOU. The whole cast was perfect, and whoever said that Hicks was Bill Paxton's best role is correct. The SFX were and still are top notch, and I only wish that I had a DVD player so that I could see it digitally. In my opinion, you can skip the other three ALIEN movies (especially ALIEN RESURRECTION, of which I watched about five minutes and turned it off), and just watch ALIENS, over and over again. One other little tidbit...When he was working on creating STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, Gene Roddenberry watched a number of SF films, including ALIENS. He was impressed by the tough Vasquez so much, that he created the role of the ENTERPRISE'S Security Chief as a woman--LT Macha Hernandez. Marina Sirtis originally read for this role, and Denise Crosby originally read for Counselor Deanna Troi. However, Crosby was much more believable as the security officer, so the character was renamed Tasha Yar to capitalize on her blonde hair. Sirtis was, of course, given the role of Counselor Troi.