If you are a science fiction fan, or even if you are not and you just happen to be old enough to have been around to enjoy it when it was reasonably fresh, there is a really good chance that you enjoyed or even love the film Aliens from 1986.
For me, I was too young to be allowed to watch such a film when it first was released and I had to wait a number of years before I got to see it. But when I did, wow! I mean just wow! To me, this is one of the greatest cinematic experiences of all time and there is very little to call a flaw that was in the entire production. The story is great, the casting is great, the soundtrack is great, just everything about that film is fantastic.
I've seen a lot of documentaries about various things and in particular about the making of certain films. I normally always enjoy getting to get a peak at what it would be like to be involved in a film, especially when that film is one of the favorites from my childhood.
I think one of the only things that might turn off some casuals from watching this, is that the documentary is so exhaustive that it is nearly 3 times as long as the actual film is. It's going to be a bit much for a lot of people, that much is for certain.
It was released as a special to go alongside the 40th anniversary of the film's release and if you weren't feeling bad about your age yet, you will now if you were alive when this film was sent out to cinemas.
A great deal of time is spent talking to James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver, as you would expect, but they also spend a lot of time talking to rather "minor actors" such as the pilot Corporal Ferro that became a bit of a legend in the sci-fi world despite the fact that she only has a handful of lines and a couple of scenes in the entire movie. The same can be said for other actors such as the one that finds a bit of "goo" on the ship lander when he is getting back on it and this was foreshadowing of the fact that an Alien was already on board. This actor, and my apologies for remembering neither the actor nor the character, was so minor in the film that he couldn't even be bothered to turn up for a day of refining his audio and therefore a voice-over actor was used to dub over his spoken lines.
This is something that he deeply regrets today of course because nobody could possibly foresee Aliens becoming the absolutely massive hit that it became.
Which brings us to some really cool other aspects that this documentary points out including the fact that the overall budget for this film, including the salaries of all the actors and the director, was a mere $16 million. Each episode of many big-budget TV shows cost more than this these days.
Something that I believe will interest most people, and is consequently why this film stands out from so many others including other Alien films, is because they didn't use any CGI and everything is practical effects and models painstakingly created over long periods of time using puppetry, models, and people wearing heavy suits to simulate the Xenomorphs.
Most fans are probably already aware of this process to some degree, but to see exactly how painstakingly time-consuming all of this was just makes the film an even greater accomplishment than you might already think it is.
The actors regale us over and over again about how much time was spent putting on prosthesis or how they had to shoot a particular scene many times over despite the extreme difficulty that was involved in filming it just once.
In just one scene that it is pointed out to the audience that Alien blood is in fact a very powerful acid that melts human skin (as well as steel) Private Drake gets his face melted off in one of the best death scene's in the film. Actor Mark Rolston tells us a great deal about how he had to be on set at 2am in order to have this all "installed" in time for shooting when the rest of the crew would turn up hours later.
He also tells us how while he was there he noticed someone in the corner working by flashlight and it was James Carmeron, who truly burned the candle at both ends during the entire production of this film.
If you decide to watch this, I doubt that you will make it through the entire thing in one sitting because at 4 and a half hours, one could say that it is "a bit long." I suppose they could have made it shorter but the nerd in me is kind of happy that they made a completely exhaustive documentary about the film and honestly, I wish they would do something like this for other legendary films as well. I will admit though, that I am already on my 3rd "pause" as far as watching it is concerned and I still have at least an hour to go.
Should I watch it?
Well, this is where I have to be honest: Unless this film holds a very special place in your heart the way it does for me then no, you should not watch this, it will not hold your interest. However, if you are one of the millions of people out there that really hold this film in extremely high regard and consider it to be one of the greatest cinematic achievements of all time the way that I do, then the answer should be pretty clear. I somehow managed to not know it existed until a fellow local nerd pointed it out to me.
It is VERY long and while I am personally very interested in all of the information that they provide, I can totally understand why a majority of people would not be. I am still going to put a "recommended stamp" on this even though I realize that for most people, this is an easy pass.
If you don't love Aliens or even better if you haven't seen it, I would recommend that you go back and watch that film instead because it is such a great film for a lot of reasons and one of the things that they broach the topic of is "would this film be better if it was made with today's tech" and the answer that most people come to is that some scenes could have been improved, but for the most part, it is just perfect in exactly the way that they did film it. Future Alien film releases that DID have the power of CGI on their side are terrible in comparison specifically because they skipped practical effects and instead opted for more expensive, but faster CGI.
James Cameron does say one thing in the film that makes me happy when he said that "if I have anything to say about it, Aliens will never be allowed to have a remake"
it needs no remake
this documentary can be legally streamed as part of a subscription on AMC+, Shudder, or Apple TV+. As if often the case, it can be rented from all the other big streaming services as well. It is not available on Netflix