Aliens, 35 years later, still ACTION PACKED!

Even though today is #MovieMonday, I did the big review for Dick Tracy this past weekend, but wanted to pop a quickie for this sci-fi/action classic that just had it's 35th Anniversary less than a week ago.

Hands down, my favorite of the Alien franchise, Aliens is (as I said) far more sci-fi/action than the horror/sci-fi film in the original installment, which felt more industrial than space ship to me.  The original film literally scared the hell out of people in the theater, and did so with such impact, most of us who saw it originally in theaters still can't help but jump at certain scenes, it left the lasting impression that a horror film is supposed to leave, this time in space as Jaws once did for the water.  With Titanic, Terminator, The Abyss, True Lies, and Avatar director, James Cameron at the helm. 

Here Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has been found after 57 years in stasis, she's accused of destroying the Nostromo for "untold reasons" in a kangaroo board room court, only to find out that LV426 now has a colony of teraformers on it, but in 20 years, haven't encountered anything...

Of course the colony suddenly goes quiet and Ripley is recruited to accompany a group of Galactic Marines to investigate why they lost contact.  Here we encounter the only predictably down side of the plot, a "commanding officer" who obviously got promoted by kissing @$$ rather than battlefield experience and Ripley has to rev-up the tank to save the Marines.  

During all this, they find a survivor, a young girl nicknamed Newt, who's got quite the confidence/attitude and, as kids sometimes do, kinda steals the show, but the script keeps Ripley and Hicks (Michael Biehn) at the forefront of the story.

In one battle Newt is taken by the Aliens and Ripley must rescue her, but not only from a station full of deadly aliens but from a queen mother of the hive, who eventually comes after Ripley herself. 

This film isn't the scarefest that the original was, and is much more a straight up action film, lots of gun fire, explosives, acid dripping and spraying, but still lots of humans getting bumped off.

As a pair, this one and the first are great together, they seem the films together nicely and this one goes along with most of the first, but I can't recommend the 3rd installment as part of movie night, just stick with the Double Feature. 🎥🎬

This one gets 🌟🌟🌟 stars out of five, it's fun and exciting but can be a bit predicable ... and Weaver's wardrobe isn't as good as the first 😉... okay, it gets Four Stars...

 

Completely lost in space!

Mars rover, Mars rover, send irrational projects right over!

I'm not the fan of NASA that I once was.

NASA used to mean so much more, today it seems to be more like the geeky science kid in class that nobody wants to hang with, ever.

NASA once stood for great men & women who risked their lives to explore, they were/are true American heroes, in all the classic sense.  But in the last 15+ years, NASA has been watered down and become incredibly boring.  After the disaster of 2003, their spaceballs fell off.

We spend hundreds of millions on Mars rovers to run around a dead planet when we haven't even explored our entire world yet, that doesn't seem to make any sense.

Yes, space exploration is cool, sounds cool and can look cool but we've still got over 85% of our oceans to explore.

Pressure, we still do have the problem of pressure, the deeper we go, the more we have of it, but in space, we don't worry so much about it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be putting a lot more effort into it.

Bottom line, we've got the $$$ to do BOTH, easily!
Look at the money we WASTE sending to nations that hate us, or a "united" nations that does nothing but tell others how bad we are.  STOP sending that money and use if for exploration.

"For beneath the surface, lies the future..."
-- SeaQuest DSV (television show)