James H. Cameron's Aliens: Special Edition

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2019)

It is rare for a sequel to eclipse the original, but that's what happened when Aliens hit theatres in 1986. Six years later, Cameron released James H. Cameron's Aliens: Special Edition, which he introduced as follows:
'What you're about to watch is the special edition of Aliens. I actually prefer this version to the released version, because, as it's been best described by one of my friends, it's 40 miles of bad road. I think it's a longer, more intense and more suspenseful version of the film. The conventional wisdom then was: don't make the film too long. But at two hours and 37 minutes, this is the ride that we intended you to take. So, enjoy it.'
The Special Edition of Aliens holds the unique distinction of being the only alternate edition in the Alien franchise considered canonical by 20th Century Fox. It also contains all the smoking scenes, where we discover that everyone is still using regular 20th century tobacco products in the year 2179.
For example:
* Ellen Ripley (cigarettes)
* Carter J. Burke (cigarettes)
* Members of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation review board (cigarettes)
* Gunnery Sergeant Al Apone (cigar)
There is also a suggestion that Ripley's cat (Smokey Black) chews tobacco leaves; this is audible during one of the early scenes after Ripley leaves the Holodeck.
While Cameron had very little creative control over Alien, the sequel was a very different matter. Here he was responsible not just for direction, but also the screenplay and story. Cameron's Xenomorph design remained true to the original Geiger-inspired vision from which later sequels would radically depart. For visual effects, he hired the brilliant Skotak brothers.
Aliens was produced at the height of the so-called 'homosexual panic' of the 1980s, when it was feared that gay people would flood North America with their deviant ways, and eventually reduce heterosexuals to a persecuted minority. Cameron took note of this, and shaped his subtext accordingly.
The Xenomorphs are predominantly male, and aggressively phallic. They represent an ideological and existential threat to the explicitly heterosexual colonists of Acheron LV-426. Their means of reproduction (oral rape) reflects a longstanding myth that homosexuality is contagious.
The Acheron Queen is a symbol of the feminised masculinity that was widely believed to comprise an essential aspect of the homosexual psyche. It does not represent lesbianism, as many commentators have suggested.
Ripley, Hicks, and Noot represent the traditional, all-American nuclear family, offering the best defence against homosexual invasion and conquest. By contrast, single males (e.g. Hudson) and masculinised females (e.g. Vasquez) are quickly overwhelmed.
Despite being a Hispanic character, Vasquez was played by Jenette Goldstein, a freckled, pale-skinned Jew with blonde hair and blue eyes. This required Goldstein to perform in 'Latintoface' (brown contact lenses, and full face/body makeup) which was acceptable in the 80s, but considered 'problematic' today.
It is noteworthy that most Hispanic and Latino people praise Goldstein's portrayal of Vasquez, while those who are outraged by it tend to be middle class whites of a certain ideological persuasion. At any rate, Goldstein received a Saturn award for Best Supporting Actress Pretending to be a Hispanic Person, and Vasquez is still one of the most popular characters of the entire Alien franchise. I personally rate her as equal with Ripley for sheer awesomeness.
The dialogue in this movie is superb: gritty, sparse, and intense. The one-liners and comebacks are some of the best you'll ever seen in the popular and well established sci-fi/action/family adventure/thriller/socio-political/post-capitalist/drama genre. The tension and action ebb and flow in exactly the right way. The colour pallette is flatter than you'd expect, but this works surprisingly well.
The visuals are highly evocative, and deliberately so. The M41A Pulse Rifle was inspired by elements of the M1A1 Thompson, Remington Model 870, and Franchi SPAS-12. The UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship was inspired by the the Apache AH-64 attack helicopter. The Kushan Assault Frigate of Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm was subsequently inspired by the U.S.S. Sulaco.
I rate James H. Cameron's Aliens: Special Edition at 29.97 on the Haglee Scale, which works out as a cracking 9/10 on IMDB.