Aliens: The Director's Cut Structure Breakdown
Not content with just breaking down the first Alien movie, Daniel and Donavon from 241 Studios and I decided to keep going and breakdown Aliens, James Cameron’s almost perfect sequel to the original. So check out the podcast and my breakdown below.
As always, these breakdowns contain SPOILERS, and are only recommended if you've already seen the movie. You can check my introduction to these breakdowns, to get an overview of my process and philosophy.
Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below!
The Basics
Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron (story by) and David Giler (story by) & Walter Hill (story by), Dan O'Bannon (based on characters created by) and Ronald Shusett (based on characters created by), James Cameron (screenplay by)
Release Date: 1986
Runtime: 154 Minutes (Director’s Cut)
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/reference/
Movie Level Goals
Protagonist: Ellen Ripley
External: Survive and Kill Aliens
SUCCESS | FAILURE | MIXED
Internal Goal: Rescue Newt (the daughter she lost)
SUCCESS | FAILURE | MIXED
Goal Relationship: External Goal Leads to Internal Goal
Three Observations
Observation #1: The Director’s Cut
Right off the bat, I want to admit to a mistake we made in this analysis—we decided to analyze the Director’s Cut (154 minutes) rather than the Theatrical Release (137 minutes). I almost always prefer the original release, no matter the Director’s views, since this is the movie that the majority of people have seen. Cameron, on the other hand, does prefer the Director’s Cut (as he expressed in the Alien Quadrilogy release):
"This is James Cameron. What you're about to watch is the Special Edition of Aliens. I actually prefer this version to the released version, because, as it's been best described by one of my friends, it's 40 miles of bad road. I think it's a longer, more intense and more suspenseful version of the film. The conventional wisdom then was: don't make the film too long. But at 2 hours and [34] minutes, this is the ride that we intended you to take. So, enjoy it."
Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/765205/the-aliens-cut-james-cameron-prefers-over-all-others/
I have to respectfully disagree. Much of the added running time of the Special Edition/Director’s Cut, introduces us to Newt, her family, and the reappearance of the Face Hugger which launches the whole cycle again. Personally, I find getting to know Newt’s circumstances and the reasons for the station’s lack of contact unnecessary (there are hints that Newt’s father was paid extra to investigate a certain part of the colony). In my mind, the aliens are inevitable—if they’re on the planet, they’ll eventually begin to take over—no explanation needed.
The longer cut also specificies that Ripley left behind a 10-year old daughter who of course has long since passed given Ripley’s epic floating journey through space. And a strong argument can be made that this motivates her protective nature of Newt and gives her a stronger backstory. I am more on board with this argument, though again, I think Ripley simply finding a purpose to love and care when she discovers Newt is enough.
Observation #2: Is the internal goal internal?
This leads to the internal goal of rescuing Newt. If the external goal is to survive and exterminate the newest round of aliens, Newt’s survival seems pretty enmeshed into that goal, making it feel pretty external as well. Of course Ripley could have chosen to exterminate the aliens and survive at all costs, including sacrificing Newt, thus separating Newt’s survival from her own. By placing added emphasis on rescuing Newt, the movie does develop an additional level of emotional meaning (the function of internal goals in the first place), which in turn makes a stronger argument for including Newt and Ripley’s backstory in the longer cut. However, I would argue that the additional meaning is conveyed quite forcefully through Sigourney Weaver’s performance and the context of the movie. She is surrounded by representative of a soulless, evil corporation, and a military that serves the whims of the corporation (even if individual members are good people). The result is that Ripley needs to find deeper meaning in stopping the aliens, and Newt provides that whether we know Ripley was a mother herself or not. So even though rescuing Newt is closely aligned with Ripley’s own survival, there is a strong argument that saving Newt is a separate goal that indeed adds an extra level of emotional meaning (both in the Special Edition and the Theatrical Release)
Observation #3: Final Act Alien vs Aliens
One of the clever aspects of Aliens is all the ways it echoes and pays with the ideas from the original Alien, from the android Bishop, to a character secretly working against the group, to Ripley having once again to prove her worth to others. But many of the parallels come in the final act, which I was slightly critical of in my analysis of Alien. Specifically, the two MacGuffins of Parker and Lambert having to get the coolant tanks and the starting, then stopping, of the self-destruct sequence. This second MacGuffin is echoed by Ripley losing and then having to back for Newt. As in the first movie, Ripley does an extraordinary amount of work to accomplish a goal, then must in essence repeat her actions. But in Alien, Ripley must go back and undo all the work of setting the self-destruct sequence. In Aliens, however, Ripley must go back to save Newt. The structures are similar but the stakes and plot mechanics feel much stronger in the sequel. Turning off the self-destruct sequence just feels like a plot device. Going back to rescue Newt is at the heart of the emotional core of the film. Additionally, when she does so Ripley makes a vitally important, but very human, mistake. She destroys all of the mother’s eggs, which motivates the Mother Alien to pursue her, setting up the final climax (in essence it gives the Alien a clear motivation for boarding the ship)
Additionally, the final sequence is echoed in both movies as Ripley kills the menacing alien by launching it out the air lock. The first movie builds this primarily through suspense, with Ripley discovering the alien hidden in the bowels of the ship, and slowly sneaking into a space suit and then opening the air lock. Clever and suspenseful yes, but not an especially strong showcase of Ripley’s traits as a strong female character. In Aliens, conversely, Ripley boards the mech robot and basically engages in hand-to hand combat with the alien. Additionally, rather than just protecting herself and Jones the cat, Ripley is also protecting Newt and Bishop. The stakes are higher, the action stronger, and Ripley’s strength and determination are more forcefully executed.
Overall in this final act, Aliens does a great job of paying homage and paralleling the events of the original finale of Alien, but improves upon the small flaws of the original, making it one of the best sequel endings of any film.