“Smoking or non-smoking?” Is throwaway line by Hudson in “Aliens,” and one that is redundant in today’s homogenized society. Back in 1986, the future still reeked of fag butts and cancer. The smokers were cool, more sociable party animals. Non-smokers were neurotic killjoys busy planning their empire of political correctness that would infect the planet quicker than the Alien Queen’s evil eggs.
When asked that question, we want smoking, please, along with drinking, sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. “Aliens,” you see, has the works. This is a movie that swaggers like a boozed up 21-year-old at their coming of age party; it’s mouthy, brash, and overconfident. This was the perfect tonic for Spielberg fans that felt the beard had lost its dark streak after “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” It also remains the perfect metaphor for James Cameron himself, Spielberg’s bully of a brother.
Like any house party, the film takes a while to get going. Nervous, with only her cat for company, Ripley waits for her new guests to arrive. Her last bash didn’t work out so hot. A gatecrasher ruined the show. After an explosive night, she managed to boot out that troublemaker naked and screaming and finally get her head down for some much needed shut eye.
When Ripley’s guests finally show their faces, she feels a stranger at her own do. They’re younger, wear hip clothes and talk differently. They won’t listen to a word she says. What’s worse is that this bunch of gung-ho Marines wants to look up her previous gatecrasher’s family and sort them out. Ripley is petrified, but she goes anyway. How else does she make the nightmares go away?
Every good party has a moment when things begin to slip out of control, and that moment arrives sure enough.
Ripley’s new friends ain’t so tough. They’re completely out of their league. They shout, scream, argue, but mostly they die. This leaves sensible Ripley to clean up their mess.
Ripley is the one with the real balls, but, more importantly, she still has a clear head. She isn’t drunk on her own narcissism like the Marines. She doesn’t panic, or become defeatist; she takes charge. We’d seen Ripley’s prototype a couple of years earlier, working in an L.A. diner. Goodtime girl Sarah Connor learned how to make pipe bombs and dress wounds in “The Terminator.” She even crushed Arnie, though it wouldn’t be until “T2” that she lost the puppy fat and learned to handle automatic weapons.
Sarah’s so hard she chews metal instead of gum, but that doesn’t stop her ultimately failing to protect her son; she needs the reprogrammed Schwarzenegger to do that in “T2’s” climatic battle. What’s more, she’s seriously off her rocker. It’s understandable, being the mother of a techno messiah, but that doesn’t curry much favour with the WASP’s. No one likes an unfit mum.
Ripley starts off like that:
“A fake, a failed mother who in reality abandoned her young daughter to an orphan’s life. For this, she is punished with horrible nightmares of the Alien bursting through her chest.”
This is a harsh analysis from Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley, but one that rings true in the time of Reagan era narratives. It’s Ripley’s so-called reward for wanting a career.
As much as we enjoy watching Ripley getting her swerve on — “Get away from her you BITCH!” — she will always have to come home from this all-nighter at some stage.
Why?
Because Ripley’s redemption lies in keeping the status quo. As Alien Woman reminds us:
“There are more children out there, and men to be fathers. Thus, even while positing Ripley as the hard-bodied hero of the Rambo variety, “Aliens” effectively draws the New Woman back into the fold of the patriarchal structure where she will protect traditional WASP morality, the nuclear family, John Wayne masculinity, and, perhaps most importantly, the sacred cow of motherhood.”
As strong as Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor are, like a jealous husband, Cameron will only let them stray so far. It seems the reality of having a powerful woman in his life is not as appealing as the fantasy. Cameron’s marriages — to producer Gale Ann Hurd, director Kathryn Bigelow, and actress Linda Hamilton — all ended in divorce. We don’t know the ins and outs of each relationship, but the evidence of what went wrong is partially up there on the screen.
“Aliens” and the “Terminator” films will be remembered for a long time yet. Cameron as director simply owns the screen and bosses the audience. Yet since the billion dollar madness of “Titanic,” Cameron has been getting over the hangover for a while. He’s tried everything to shift it, getting married again, fooling around underwater and developing new toys. But nothing cures a hangover like the hair of the dog and for the self-styled “king of the world” that means making movies.
He’s been away longer than even Stanley Kubrick dared, and this time he’s coming back as the saviour of Hollywood, replacing John Connor with himself as the new techno messiah. Can his revolutionary new camera system win the audiences away from Blu-Ray players? One thing’s for sure, this old party animal has the arrogance and the talent to give it a shot, all in glorious 3D.
Let’s hope there’s still fire in Jim’s belly and great characters to match Ripley and Connor, despite all their faults. He’s never let the special effects swamp them before, so fingers crossed that “Avatar” continues this trend. With any luck, the megalomaniac will still be in the smoking section, blowing his narcotic fumes over us, making us, once again, swoon.