Where to watch Aliens (1986)
Aliens is available to stream in ES on Disney+. It can also be rented or bought from AppleTV and Amazon.
After years adrift in hypersleep, a traumatized survivor returns to Earth and finds her warnings about a deadly extraterrestrial encounter dismissed. She agrees to join a heavily armed team investigating a remote colony that has suddenly gone silent, confronting a threat far larger than anyone expected.
Cast: Carrie Henn, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, William Hope, Jenette Goldstein, Al Matthews, Mark Rolston, Ricco Ross, Colette Hiller
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Trivia & production notes
- Sigourney Weaver negotiated so aggressively for Aliens that James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd threatened to write her character out of the script entirely, knowing her agent would hear about it and push for better terms.
- Carrie Henn was discovered by agents while at school in England and cast as Newt despite having no prior acting experience, which Cameron attributed to her distinctive facial features.
- James Remar was fired from the role of Hicks after being arrested for drug possession midway through filming, and was replaced by Michael Biehn on short notice.
- Bill Paxton got his role as Hudson after mentioning to Cameron at an airport that he was interested in joining the film, and Fox green-lit his casting based on his recent performance in Weird Science.
- Jenette Goldstein gained 10 pounds of muscle at Cameron's request for the role of Vasquez and underwent an hour of makeup daily, including wearing contact lenses and covering her freckles to portray the character.
- Cameron clashed with the British Pinewood crew over unfamiliar traditions like daily tea breaks that could consume up to an hour of filming time, and his hands-on approach to modifying lighting frustrated the unionized crew.
- The production briefly collapsed when Cameron fired first assistant director Derek Cracknell and the Pinewood crew walked out, forcing Cameron and Hurd to negotiate a compromise about working hours before filming could resume.
- The alien hive set was filmed at a decommissioned power station in London and left standing until Tim Burton repurposed it for Batman as the Axis Chemicals factory.
- A rope holding up a dropship set collapsed and crashed down onto the cast and crew during filming, striking Cameron in the head, though most of the actors escaped injury.
- Paxton was unaware he would perform in the knife-trick scene with Henriksen until cameras were rolling, and Henriksen accidentally cut Paxton's finger during a reshoot of the moment.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Aliens (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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