Excellent Special Effects means NO CGI!

Rating: 10/10 (4 September 2006)

I really love James Cameron because he is truly a consummate artist, first and foremost. He is sensitive and perfection-seeking about all the right things and for all the right reasons as a director; to convincingly tell a good story and to create the human connection with the audience. He really wants the viewer to be transported by his films, which is exactly what a truly brilliant film does. Although this is a "Sci-Fi" film, he doesn't "blind us with science." Rather he chooses to give only important information at key points to move the story along. The viewer is never overwhelmed with too much information and the pacing never slows down trying to educate the audience about some heady scientific theory. I am so glad that he decided to make this film in the era that he did, B.C., (before computer generated special effects), because I think that is what really makes everything that much more visceral an experience when watching this film. The aliens are flesh and blood, (even if their blood is acidic!), and must be confronted on the material plane. I'm certain that these creatures would not be nearly as scary in CGI as they are in this film, dripping their goo everywhere. Well, case in point, Aliens 3. What a horrific flop and a total waste of everything, paper, film, time, money, talent,...ad infinitum. I actually walked out of the theater 20 minutes into that film and have since never watched it, even though it is included in the box set that I own. In my mind, it is so sub-par that I won't even acknowledge it as part of the franchise. But, then again, I don't like David Finchner's work in general. Enough said,... I have the "Quadrilogy" Collection of all the Alien films which includes excellent special features, such as behind-the-scenes peeks at how everything was crafted; sets, props, and aliens. It was really awesome to see how they built the sets and created the special effects! Any, no ALL film students should check out these special features on both this film and Ridley Scott's seminal Alien, which is the foundation work for Cameron's explosive sequel. You can see how Cameron identified the key elements and the core of Scott's film, ie., the physical and motivational qualities of the alien species, the overall condition of life for working-class humans, the corruption of "the company" that they work for, and the basic introduction of Ripley's character as sole survivor of the initial encounter with the alien. He then just found a viable continuation of this story within these established parameters. It was a very logical progression, both dramatically and thematically. And even though H.R.Giger was not an art design consultant for Aliens, Cameron already understood what Giger had set up in Alien and used it as a template to draw ideas from for the sequel for his creatures. He had his costume designers base their suits on the original. But Cameron himself was the designer of the queen. Yep! He drew a really creepy, but skillfully drawn, picture of her himself. The man is just oozing talent! I'm so glad he decided to have her constructed to be as terrifying and "believable" as possible. She was and is the Queen of All Monsters. "Real" monsters rule! It is really hard to believe that this movie was made for a mere 18 million dollars! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, George Lucas. This is definitely a "must see" for anyone who likes action, monsters, drama, war stories, and science fiction. You really can't get much better than this.