Would've work better as its own film instead of a sequel

Rating: 4/10 (2 September 2010)

Sequel to one of the greatest sci-fi/horror films ever made—a genre so difficult to execute so wonderfully—comes along and sucks out any horror aspect that made "Alien" so fantastic. Instead, James Cameron replaces Ridley Scott in the director's seat and inserts sci-fi clichés and predictable thriller aspects, resulting in this overlong and unnecessary picture.
Cameron seems to spend a good length developing characters that are either unlikable and just there for the sake of dying, with a total disregard for driving the story forward. Even in comparing character development to "Alien", the sequel proves weaker. "Alien" was able to develop deeper and realistic characters in a much shorter timeframe, and didn't need more characters than the story required.
Anything new to Cameron's picture is nothing more than convenient plot-devices, thus lacking any shred of cleverness. Aside from Weaver's presence, the film hardly reminds us of the original. The film leaps too forward without any respect for its roots, totally lacking gratefulness.
At no point in the film is it easy to actually point out how "Aliens" is a necessary/needed follow up. The film may very well have worked better as it's own with all new characters and no continuity to "Alien", but it simply just doesn't work as a follow up; which is actually disappointing because if you want to look at what a "good" sequel is, Cameron accomplished it with "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". Everything on which the story stands relies on "The Terminator", however it doesn't need the "remember when"s to move forward. With "Aliens", the story itself is not heavily relied on by "Alien", and again, pretty much Weaver is our only feeling of continuation. And again, given the fact that it's just a small and irrelevant reminder, the movie simply doesn't work as a sequel but rather a film of it's own. The fact of the matter is, it's not a film of its own; "Aliens" is a sequel, and it simply wasn't done right.
Was it entertaining? Sure, whatever. But upon examining filmmaking basics, however, the film fails at the follow up aspect story-wise and goes way off in a direction of its own. That's not a bad thing if it's an original movie. It's not even a bad thing for a sequel of the film shows heavy purpose in the decision to ranch off.
After watching "Aliens", if the question rose: "Why does this particular story need to be a follow up to 'Alien'? What is it about 'Alien' that this film needs to be in the same continuity?" The answer is that it doesn't. "Alien" was a successful film, therefore the studio can have a head-start at making another film by throwing in meaningless nods and references to the successful film preceding it in hopes that this film ("Aliens") will be just as successful. Cameron probably wouldn't even be able to give a solidly confident contradiction to this claim.
** (out of four)