Aliens – 1986 (WINNER)
Aliens was such a great sequel to James Cameron’s science fiction/horror film Alien! It took the mythology and aesthetic of the successful first, and went in a completely different direction. The added the word action into the mix, and it was awesome! And nowhere was this more evident than in the incredible special effects! Everything was more! There was more creepy tension, more deaths, more face-huggers, and, of course, more aliens!
And speaking of those pesky face-huggers, they were even more threatening than in the first film. They were featured more prominently and were much more mobile than we had seen them before. This time, the movement of their spider-like legs made them even more frightening! The scene where two of them attack Ripley and Newt was really scary and really intense!
In an interview, Cameron talked about how the design of the alien suits worn by the actors was improved. One of the smartest things he did was to sacrifice some of the details of the costumes in favor of motion, giving the actors the ability to move in much more realistic ways. And despite there being hundreds of the creatures in the film, there were only six of the suits made. You never see more than six of them on the screen at once.
And one of the most memorable parts of the movie was the addition of the Alien Queen, which Ripley must battle. She was gigantic, with a marvelous head crest, and two sets of arms. We got to see her attached to a massive egg sac, which she was able to leave behind. The Queen was mostly controlled using mechanical animatronics and complex puppetry techniques. The result was that we got to see it do so much more than the drone aliens, which were just gymnasts and acrobats in suits.
In this action-packed movie, there were great gun battles, flame-throwers, massive explosions, a few flying ships, a miniature model of the colony, a tank, and a spectacularly crashing shuttle. But the best part of it all was that none of it was gratuitous. It all made sense to the story and turned a simple horror/action film into a fascinating story from beginning to end.
If I had any complaints about the film’s special effects, they would be minor. Some of the compositing of the flying shuttle as it descended through the clouds was a little shaky. Also, the scene where Bishop picks Ripley and Newt up from the platform, they didn’t seem like they belonged in front of the exploding background. They looked a little too separate. But I know I’m being picky, and those things were minor. Everything else was incredible!