" THEM ! "

In 1954, a movie called THEM ! premiered and started scaring audiences all over USA, with giant monsters( A colony of ANTS ). This was Warner Bros.' highest grossing film of 1954.

In the New Mexico desert, Police Sgt. Ben Peterson and his partner find a child wandering in the desert , the little girl screams "Them!" they discover that giant ants are attacking the locals. 

They use guns, flame throwers and they find out that two queen ants have flown away to Los Angeles and they are starting a huge colony in the underground of the city, ....sounds familiar???

An 8 year old James Cameron saw that film and it set the basis for what we know now as ALIENS.

After seeing STAR WARS, Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry. A few years later as a second unit director ,he got his big break during the filming of "GALAXY OF TERROR". Being a screen writer of such movies as Rambo II and The Terminator he had another idea in the back of his head, a follow up to Ridley Scott´s ALIEN. He wanted to make a space movie with a subliminal VIETNAM feel to it.

Dark, futuristic and very ENTERTAINING, The 1986 film "ALIENS" debuted with a rare mix reviews, many thought Cameron was being presumptuous and ripping off Ridley Scott´s space masterpiece. While others considered it a STAND ALONE movie and one of the best sequels ever. CAMERON figured out a way to make the perfect COMBAT-MONSTER film, that stands to this day, the test of time. 

Legend says, Cameron didn´t liked the name "ALIEN 2" So he called for a meeting with the 20th Century executives, gathering them in a conference room where he only wrote one word in the black board 
(ALIEN) 

No one spoke, there was an uncomfortable silence. And then Cameron made the unthinkable...he wrote an (S) after the word ALIEN... 

So everyone in the room went "Its amazing!! wow!" 

Then Cameron put a line between the S ($) So it became apparent that a ALIEN$ would make a lot of money. The 18 million dollar budget was approoved.

One of my personal favorites, ALIENS will always be among my TOP TEN MOVIES. I think i was about 8 when i saw ALIEN, i couldn´t sleep for weeks after seeing an ALIEN chestbursting out of actor John Hurt. 

When i saw ALIENS i was not terrified, i was really excited!! Watching all this soldiers and Ripley fighting against them. In a time where Rambo and Commando were the movies i watched. Seeing ALIENS open up a whole new universe for me.

It earned 7 Academy Award Nominations, including  Sigourney Weaver as Best Actress for her reprisal of the role that made her a house hold name Ellen Ripley. Here are some trivia facts i found out:

• The Alien nest set was kept intact after filming. It was later used as the Axis Chemicals set for Tim Burton´s BATMAN (1989). When the Batman crew first entered the set, they found most of the Alien nest still intact.

• The ALIEN QUEEN was designed by James Cameron and Stan Winston.

The BUG STOMPER patch on the side of the aircraft PLANE that takes the soldiers from the SULACO to the base,  was designed as several references to Robert A. Heinlein's novel, "Starship Troopers": the prominent use of the military; during the orientation when Hudson asks if this is a "bug hunt."

• ALIENS was never shown to test audiences because editing was not completed until the week before its theatrical release.

• Nostromo  is a 1904 novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana", and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. 

• As the final credits fade, there is the sound of a facehugger scurrying across from left to right.

"We are doing a SEQUEL Not a Remake!!"

-James Cameron