Aliens

Production

The success of Alien led to immediate sequel discussions, but Brandywine Productions struggled to convince 20th Century Fox. Studio president Alan Ladd Jr. supported the project but left Fox, and his replacement Norman Levy feared a sequel would be a disaster. Fox executives considered Alien a fluke and doubted it had generated enough profit or audience interest. Box-office returns for horror films were declining.

Progress slowed when Brandywine sued Fox for unpaid profits from Alien; Fox had declared the film a financial loss despite earnings over $100 million against a $9–$11 million budget. The lawsuit was settled by early 1983, with Fox financing development of Alien II but not required to distribute it. Levy's replacement Joe Wizan was receptive, and development executive Larry Wilson began seeking a scriptwriter by mid-1983. Wilson found James Cameron's script for The Terminator and, after Cameron's collaborative work on Rambo: First Blood Part II, showed it to Brandywine co-founders.

In November 1983, Cameron submitted a 42-page treatment based on the suggestion of Ripley and soldiers. The studio had mixed reactions, and negotiations to sell sequel rights to Rambo developers failed, stalling the project again.

Special effects and design

Special effects work on Aliens kicked off in May 1985, with John Richardson heading up a forty-person crew at Stan Winston Studio, while L.A. Effects Group handled miniatures and opticals. Cameron skipped the bigger, established effects houses because he figured they wouldn’t go for his hands-on style, and he also chose not to bring back many people from the first Alien film, worried their old loyalties would cramp his approach. Those who did return, like Crispian Sallis, who moved from focus puller on Alien to set decorator here, got bumped up in rank.

Cameron liked what returning artist Ron Cobb had done on the original, and he brought in Syd Mead—whose work on 2010: The Year We Make Contact he admired—to design the Sulaco. Mead originally sketched it as a big sphere with antennae, but Cameron wanted something flatter so the whole ship could fit in frame; the final design was a commercial freighter hauling a military unit, with loading doors, a crane, and big guns. Mirrors were used to fake extra sleeping pods and a power loader.

Cobb designed the dropship, the APC, and the colony exteriors and vehicles. The dropship was built full-scale for the Sulaco set, though a smaller model was used for certain shots. The APC was just a Boeing 747 pushback tug in disguise. And the derelict alien ship from the first movie? It had been sitting in historian Bob Burns III’s driveway ever since.

Reception

When Aliens hit theaters, critics were largely on board. It landed on the cover of Time magazine, which dubbed it the scariest movie of the summer, and audience polls gave it a solid A grade. Most reviewers felt it lived up to its predecessor. Some, like Variety and Walter Goodman, pointed out it couldn't match the first film's originality, but made up for it with flashy effects and nonstop thrills.

Sheila Benson thought it was clever and darkly funny, though it lacked the pure horror of Alien—blaming the glut of creature features that had come out since, especially The Thing. Rick Kogan noted it proved sci-fi horror could still work after a string of weak imitations. Dave Kehr and Richard Schickel called it a rare sequel that actually beat the original, with Kehr praising how the action fleshed out the characters. Jay Scott said Cameron had reinvented the war movie, mashing up Rambo and Star Wars.

Roger Ebert found the final hour painfully intense, leaving him drained and unsure if it qualified as entertainment. Dennis Fischer argued the relentless tension worked just as it had in The Terminator. Gene Siskel called it a violent, prolonged assault on the senses, while Jay Boyar dubbed it the Jaws of the 1980s—the most shockingly intense film in years.

Post-release

The first home video release of Aliens was on VHS in February 1987. Two years later, in 1989, CBS aired a modified version that included scenes cut from the theatrical release. A longer extended edition, adding more deleted material such as the opening scene with Newt’s family discovering the derelict spacecraft, came out on LaserDisc in 1991. This extended cut runs 157 minutes, which is 20 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and director James Cameron has said it is his preferred cut.

In 1999, the extended edition appeared on VHS and DVD as part of the Alien Legacy box set, which also included the other three Alien films available at the time: Alien, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. The DVD was also sold on its own, and both versions contained extra behind-the-scenes footage. The 2003 Alien Quadrilogy nine-DVD set included all four movies, each with a bonus disc of behind-the-scenes material and featurettes, including the three-hour documentary Superior Firepower: The Making of Aliens, plus both the theatrical and extended cuts.

The Aliens disc featured commentary from cast and crew, though Sigourney Weaver did not take part. Each film was sold individually with its bonus disc in 2004. A Blu-ray release came in 2010 as part of the Alien Anthology box set, with remastered footage and both versions, and a standalone Blu-ray followed in 2011. For the film’s 30th anniversary in 2016, a Blu-ray and digital download included a new interview with Cameron, a limited-edition lithograph of Ripley fighting the alien queen, an art book focused on Dark Horse Comics’ Aliens comics, and collectible cards with Cameron’s concept art.

A limited run of 75 vinyl soundtrack copies also came out that year. A 4K Ultra HD remastered Collector’s Edition was released digitally in December 2023 and on Blu-ray in March 2024, drawing some criticism for using artificial intelligence to enhance image quality, which resulted in overly smooth and uncanny visuals.