This Time It's War.
Sigourney most famous role stays the role of Ripley, state-of-the-art kickass lady in 4 different movies! And today I'm presenting a sci-fi film, considered as the best sci-fi film ever by several professionals, to which I totally agree:
Aliens (1986) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/
After colonist, Ellen Ripley survived her disastrous ordeal. Nobody believed her story about the "Aliens" being on the planet LV-426. However, approximately 50 years later, the colony on LV-426 was completely destroyed. The government has decided to send Ripley out of cryostasis and to aid a team of tough, rugged space marines into the desolate planet to find out if there are aliens, or survivors. But, what Ripley will begin to realize that her worst nightmare is about to come true.
1987•
Won, Oscar
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Won, Oscar
Robert Skotak, Stan Winston, John Richardson, Suzanne M. Benson
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Nominated, Oscar
Graham V. Hartstone, Nicolas Le Messurier, Michael A. Carter, Roy Charman
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Nominated, Oscar
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Nominated, Oscar
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Nominated, Oscar
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Nominated, Oscar
Fun Facts:
All of the cast who were to play the Marines (with the exception of Michael Biehn, who replaced an actor one week into filming) were trained by the S.A.S. (Special Air Service, Britain's elite anti-terrorist force) for two weeks before filming. They were also instructed to read Robert A. Heinlein's novel "Starship Troopers". A reference to this appears in one of the Marines being addressed as "Rico" by the sergeant. Juan Rico was the lead character in "Starship Troopers." Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, and William Hope didn't participate/attend the training because director James Cameron felt it would help the actors create a sense of detachment between the three and the Marines - the characters these three actors played were all outsiders to the squad; Ripley being an advisor to the Marines while on the trip to LV-426, Burke being there just for financial reasons and Gorman being a newly-promoted Lieutenant with less experience than most of the Marines.
Armorer Terry English made three sets of Armour for each member of the cast who needed to wear Armour. He was only given two weeks to complete the job and upon arriving back at his workshop a few hours drive away from the film set, he realized he had forgotten the scrap of cloth James Cameron had given him so that the camouflage on the Armour could be matched correctly to the uniforms the marines would be wearing. Instead of going all the way back, Terry painted the completed sets of Armour from memory. The result was a pattern and color combination not too dissimilar to the British Army DPM pattern. Fortunately, Cameron likes the contrast between the Armour and the BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms) the marines wore beneath it, saying it make the Armour more obvious to the eye. The graffiti you see on some of the Armour was done by the actors themselves, with a little help from Terry for a few details like Hick's clasp and padlock on his chest Armour. The Armour was had made form Aluminium and all in one size, with on set adjustments made by Terry English to make them fit each actor.
During the sequence in which Newt and Ripley are locked in MedLab, Ripley is attacked by one of the two facehuggers after setting off the sprinklers, resulting in the facehugger wrapping its tail around her neck after jumping off of a table leg. To film this, director James Cameron had the Special Effects crew design a facehugger fully capable of walking towards Ripley on its own, but to make it appear as if it jumps off of the table, and Cameron then used backwards-filming. He set up the facehugger on the table leg, then dragged it off and later edited the piece of film to play backward to make it appear to be moving forward towards Ripley. Crew thought that the fact that water was falling down during this whole scene would affect the sequence that was filmed backward (it would show the water moving up instead of down). In the end, the water was not visible enough to see the direction in which it was falling.
During Hudson's ( Bill Paxton) boasting monologue aboard the drop ship (special edition only) he talks about some of the weaponry of the Colonial Marines, mentioning a "phased plasma pulse rifle" - the pulse rifles the marines carry are ballistic, not "phased plasma", but the line references The Terminator (also directed by James Cameron, and featuring Paxton in a minor role) in which the terminator asks a gun store clerk for a "phased plasma rifle".
Budget constraints meant that they could only afford to have six hypersleep capsules for the scenes set on board the Sulaco. Clever placement of mirrors and camera angles make it look like there's about 12. Each hypersleep chamber cost over $4,300 to build.
Ripley's miniature bathroom in her apartment is actually a British Airways toilet, purchased from the airline.
And here is the scene, problem is Aliens has an huge amount of great scenes, but I chose the "knife trick scene". Enjoy!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vZqTWOgAJ3g