ALIENS (film)
ALIENS. James Cameron, dir., screenplay. USA: Brandywine (prod.) / Twentieth Century Fox (dist.), 1986. Gale Anne Hurd, prod. James Cameron et al., story. Sigourney Weaver, star.
Sequel to ALIEN. Important film for several relevant motifs: threatening and protective containment, a highly positive superimposition of the mechanical upon the human, merging of the mechanical and the insectoid/organic in the Aliens and their on-planet habitat, a good and heroic android in the structural position of the evil android in ALIEN, and a yuppie bureaucrat from "the Company" as villain. Warner Book novelization by A. D. Foster (see under Fiction). ALIENS 3 (1992) onward are less relevant, but cf. J. Cameron and G. A. Hurd's TERMINATOR.
Note especially climactic battle between the Alien Queen and Ellen Ripley in the P-5000 Powered Work Loader:[1] this is a positive imposition of the mechanical upon human Ripley because she chooses it; the device allows her to defeat the Alien Queen; and it is a huge and powerful device she can put on and, when finished, take off — unlike the exoskeleton of the Aliens. (The image of a human inside such a device is nicely parodied on Universal Basic Guys: "Jaws of Life", which see.)
RDE, Initial; finishing 19Jan25