ALIENS - SPECIAL EDITION

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STARRING: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henrickson, Paul Reiser, Jeanette Goldstein

1995, 154 minutes, Directed by: James Cameron

Description: Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, who awakens on Earth only to discover that she has been hibernating in space so long that everyone she knows is dead. Then she is talked into traveling (along with a squad of Marines) to a planet under assault by the same aliens that nearly killed her. Once she gets there, she finds a lost little girl who triggers her maternal instincts--and she discovers that the company has once again double-crossed her, in hopes of capturing one of the aliens to study as a military weapon. — Amazon.com

This Special Edition is a version of Aliens, now considered to be an almost modern sci-fi classic, which has never been seen before its release on video and laser disc.

It contains about 17 minutes of extra footage restored to the original film by its director James (Terminator, Titanic) Cameron.

These scenes include:

• References about what happened to Ripley’s daughter
• Scenes in which the colonists on the planet are sent to investigate Ripley’s claims about the alien ship whose distress signal her crew had intercepted in the original Alien movie
• A minor subplot involving automated machine gun sentries employed by the space marines against the alien hordes

Even though 17 minutes may sound like a lot, the extra added scenes do not change much to the overall film and merely fleshes out a few characterisation points and redundantly colours in what audiences would have deduced anyway.

The machine gun sequence is cool however and so brief that one is left wondering why it wasn’t left in the film in the first place.

If you haven’t seen Aliens yet, then this is the version to seek out.

If you’ve been planning to see it again in any case, a rental wouldn’t hurt much. Otherwise, unless you’re a fanatical film completist, it isn’t worth losing sleepless nights over not having seen this particular version of the movie . . .
 

• Read the script.
• Download the trailer.