Aliens: Special Edition
From AvP Online Encyclopedia
Aliens (1986) (Special Edition-2003)
Directed and Written by James Cameron
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd, Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill
Starring Starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton
Rated: R
Running Time 137 minutes (S.E.- 154 mintues)
Total Revenue $131,060,248
Plot (original):
Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in hypersleep. Interviewed before a panel of company executives, Ripley's testimony regarding the Alien is met with extreme skepticism, as no physical evidence of the creature survived the destruction of the Nostromo. Ripley learns that LV-426, the 'planetoid' where the Nostromo crew first encountered Alien eggs is now home to a terraforming colony, and loses her space-flight license as a result of her "questionable judgment" in destroying the Nostromo. Between shifts at her new job loading cargo, Ripley is visited by Weyland-Yutani employee Carter J. Burke, who informs her that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426; the company is dispatching Burke and a unit of US Colonial Marines to investigate, and offers Ripley a place as a consultant. Psychologically traumatized by her experience, Ripley initially refuses to join, but accepts when she realizes that the mission will allow her to face her demons, as well as possibly restoring her flight status. Arriving in orbit of LV-426 aboard the warship Sulaco, she is introduced to the Colonial Marines, including the novice Lieutenant Gorman, the veteran Sergeant Apone and the android Bishop. Ripley gives an emotional account of her original encounter with the Alien to the unit, but her warnings are dismissed by the cocky Marines.
The heavily-armed expedition descends to the planetoid's surface via dropship. They find the colony seemingly abandoned; the only living things are two of the Alien-implanting "facehuggers" on display in the colony's medical lab, and a severely traumatized young girl, nicknamed Newt, who has survived by hiding in the colony's sprawling ventilation system. The Marines eventually locate the other colonists, by tracking surgically-implanted transceivers, clustered together in the colony's nuclear-powered atmosphere-processing station. Traveling to the station, the Marines find a large Alien nest, filled with the cocooned corpses of the colonists. When the Marines destroy a newborn chestburster-Alien, a swarm of mature Alien drones awaken and ambush the unprepared unit. Most of the unit is killed or captured; Ripley crashes their APC into the nest, rescuing Corporal Hicks, Private Vasquez, and Private Hudson. Lt. Gorman is inadvertently knocked unconscious during the escape, so Hicks assumes command of the mission. He orders the dropship to recover the survivors, with the intent of returning to the Sulaco and destroying the colony from orbit, but a stowaway Alien kills the dropship pilots in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station (destroying the APC in the process). The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the main colony complex.
Ripley learns that Burke has ordered Bishop to preserve Alien specimens for return to the Company labs. She confronts Burke and declares that after investigation she has discovered it was he who sent the unprepared colonists to the original Alien-infested spaceship; she threatens to expose him. Bishop shows them that the damaged processing station has become unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. Having no other way to contact the second dropship still on board the Sulaco due to the earlier destruction of the APC and its transmitter, he volunteers to crawl down a service pipe to the colony transmitter array and bring the vessel down by remote control. A recovered Gorman rejoins the team, while Ripley and Newt get some rest in the Medical Laboratory. Ripley awakens to find herself weaponless and locked in the room with the two live facehuggers, mysteriously released from their tanks. She sets off a fire alarm which alerts Hicks, Hudson, and Vasquez, who arrive and destroy the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers with the intention of using her and Newt as hosts to smuggle the implanted Aliens past quarantine. She also surmises that this scheme would require disposing of the remaining Marines. Burke's impromptu sentencing is interrupted when the power to headquarters is cut off, possibly by the Aliens, who pour in through a gap in the ceiling and attack en masse. Hudson is swarmed and pulled down through the floor, while Burke's attempt to abandon the others is quickly cut short by an Alien. Newt leads the few remaining members into the air ducts. Gorman and an injured Vasquez, after being cut off and surrounded, detonate a grenade, killing themselves and several Aliens. The force of the blast pushes Newt down a shaft, where she is captured alive by an Alien.
Hicks is badly injured by the acidic blood of one of the Aliens while reaching Bishop and the second dropship. Ripley, unwilling to leave Newt, gears up to rescue the girl. She finds and frees a cocooned Newt in the bowels of the Alien hive, but while attempting to escape, they stumble into the nest's main breeding chamber, where they are confronted by the monstrous Alien queen. Ripley incinerates the chamber with her weapons--draining the last of her ammo and enraging the queen, who escapes the destruction by tearing free from her huge ovipositor. Closely pursued by the queen, Ripley and Newt rendezvous with the dropship and escape moments before the entire colony is consumed by the nuclear blast from the processing station. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley's and Bishop's relieved conversation is abruptly interrupted when the queen, stowed away on the dropship landing gear, impales the android from behind with her barbed tail and then tears him in half. Ripley distracts the queen long enough for Newt to jump into a hole in the ship's deck plating. Just as the queen is about to pull the girl from her hiding place, Ripley reappears manning one of the ship's exosuit "power-loaders". She battles the queen and succeeds in dropping the creature into a large airlock and expelling her into space. Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop enter hypersleep for the return back to Earth.
