Re: Aliens (Spoilers)

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010, Karl wrote:
> By the way, exactly what makes the storytelling near perfect?

Well, Thom already pointed to the way even the *minor* characters are 
given distinctive characteristics within moments of meeting them.

And I would argue that the change in our sympathies with regards to the 
Paul Reiser character is an important element here, too.

Reiser really *does* come across as friendly, at first: it is he who tries 
to help Ripley when she goes ballistic at the board meeting ("That could 
have gone... better"), it is he who sides with Ripley when the marines get 
their asses kicked and Lt. Gorman tries to prevent Ripley from dealing 
with the problem ("You had your chance, Gorman"), etc.  Thanks to this 
friendly introduction, the moment when we discover that it was *Reiser* 
who set the facehuggers loose in that locked room with Ripley and Newt is 
a real "oh *shit*..." kind of moment, as we realize what the character is 
really like, or really capable of.  But in Avatar?  There's no "oh 
shit..." moment whatsoever.  Ribisi and the belligerent ex-military guy 
who eggs him on are both pricks, plain and simple.  No surprises.

I've seen Aliens countless times and I always find it soothing, 
comforting, reassuring -- the sort of thing I can play while feeding the 
babies at 3 in the morning, to keep me both relaxed and alert -- not 
because it's a sci-fi horror action movie, although at least two of those 
genres *are* in my general wheelhouse, but because it's just such a 
well-made film and it's rare to find films that actually *seem* excellent 
even after you have become as familiar with them as I am with this one.

I had the pleasure of introducing the film to my sister a few months ago, 
and I was glad to see that she liked it quite a bit, too.  And I was glad 
to see that I still feel as positively about the film now as I have in the 
past.  It's got the technical chops big-time, of course, but it's also 
quite character-driven, and it creates this little community of people 
whose quirks and motivations you can "get" quite easily.

And the whole battle between mothers fighting to avenge or protect their 
actual or adopted offspring just works on a really primal level.

Seriously, this film is quite possibly Cameron at his best.  I may even 
like it more than the original Terminator.  Certainly most of his 
subsequent films have tended to rip it off (Gorman's self-detonation is 
echoed in Dyson's self-detonation in T2; ditto the warrior hanging out 
with the child; the story structure whereby an accident strands 
blue-collar types in an alien-infested environment, with mere hours until 
they die, was repeated in The Abyss; many of the designs were kind of 
repeated in Avatar; etc.).  And I get a kick out of the fact that Every. 
Single. One. of James Cameron's films features at least one actor who 
co-starred in Aliens.  It is the hub of his entire career.

Re: overlapping casts:

    -- Piranha II: The Spawning -- Lance Henriksen (Bishop)
    -- The Terminator -- Henriksen, Michael Biehn (Hicks), Bill Paxton 
(Hudson)
    -- The Abyss -- Biehn
    -- Terminator 2: Judgment Day -- Biehn, Jenette Goldstein (Vasquez)
    -- True Lies -- Paxton
    -- Titanic -- Paxton, Goldstein
    -- Avatar -- Sigourney Weaver (Ripley)

There may be other overlaps, but those suffice to make the point.  :)

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