Revealing mistake: When Ripley enters the elevator to go down into the hive, her pulse rifle/flamethrower combo is a stunt prop. The giveaway is the pulse rifle's front is blank (literally just a flat surface with no detail and no holes for the barrel or the grenade launcher). It's particularly obvious in the newer HD versions.
Aliens (1986)
1 mistake since 28 Oct '24, 00:06
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Carrie Henn
[All ammunition has been confiscated.]
Marine: What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?.
Trivia: To make the Aliens' blood smoke and burn, the SFX department came up with an idea to put two separate chemicals side by side in bags inside the Alien puppets, on top of the explosives. When the two chemicals mixed together, it created a nasty, acidic burning affect.
Question: I know that the studio chose James Cameron to direct due to the strength of his script, but why wasn't Ridley Scott offered the chance to direct? And was the studio considering a sequel before Cameron joined?
Chosen answer: The studio was considering a sequel before Cameron was involved, but regarding directing it, Ridley Scott told "The Hollywood" in a 2008 interview, "They didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one." The studio liked Cameron's script and at that time he had enough clout to be able to insist on directing it.
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Answer: It really was all down to James Cameron having already written the script and proving himself capable of directing with 'The Terminator.' It was just a quicker, easier, and almost certainly cheaper decision to let him direct his own script rather than get someone else, even Ridley Scott. While the producers had wanted to make an 'Alien' sequel almost immediately, at the time the head of 20th Century Fox didn't want to pursue it fearing it would be seen as an obvious cash-in and flop. When a new executive at the studio came in a couple years later, the project was put back on track, and I believe Cameron was the first to be approached to write the script.
TonyPH