Great Scene: “Aliens” (1986)

Two “mama bears” going at it in the movie’s climactic battle.

As legend has it, when James Cameron entered the offices at 20th Century Fox to pitch this sequel, he strode up to the white board and wrote this:

ALIEN$

He was right. The story Cameron came up with resulted in a sequel which not only transformed a horror movie into an action thriller, it also created a powerful emotional dynamic at its core: Motherhood.

Plot summary: Fifty-seven years after surviving an apocalyptic attack aboard her space vessel by merciless space creatures, Officer Ripley awakens from hyper-sleep and tries to warn anyone who will listen about the predators.

The key missing element in that summary: Ripley awakes only to discover that the eleven year-old daughter she left to go on her original space mission has died in the interim. It is a guilt Ripley carries with her when she agrees to go on the return mission with the understanding her space crew is going to wipe out the aliens.

That is where Newt comes in.

A surrogate daughter for a surrogate mother. It’s a deft bit of story construction because it provides Ripley an opportunity for redemption.

But then, there’s another mother in the story.

And it — or she — is royally pissed because the Queen Mother has watched her entire brood get incinerated by Ripley. This leads the alien mother to seek revenge by going after Newt. It all leads to this scene:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

The Queen is huge, powerful… and very pissed off. Ha! I love Cameron’s writing style as it’s both visual and filled with emotional commentary on the characters. You may read the screenplay for Aliens here.

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