Wilson
M. Tai
Professor
Leicester
LIT
80T
May
30th, 2001
Final
Paper
Fear of Aliens
In James Cameron’s Aliens (1986
Twentieth Century Fox), camera movement is used to create space and place for
the viewer. The frame is used to create a landscape for the viewer; intense and
fast cutting is used for surprise and horror. The camera is turned upside down,
sideways, and in circles, to create a confined, claustrophobic, and more
importantly, alien-like, feel to the world of the film. In addition, turning
the camera and sets upside down give the Aliens an inhuman type of motion much
like a lizard. The Aliens are matched to blurred motion within the frame to
help establish the Aliens supernatural speed and strength. The Aliens have
inhuman silhouette and geometry completing the alien-like feel to the film.
There were only half a dozen aliens on the
screen at one time. However, with editorial and cinematic effects, the viewer
gets tricked into thinking that there are hundreds. Again, the very quick cuts
make it very believable. The viewer is bombarded with so much imagery within
the frame that the viewer has to give up any doubts and believe that there are
in fact, hundreds of aliens in the environment. The technical aspect of
cinematic methods and techniques were effective for me but I was more
interested in the relationship between Newt/Ripley and the Queen/Aliens. Though
they are binary oppositions, they share similar traits when looked at as
mothers. The mother instinct is the common thread that link Ripley and the
Queen together.
Newt and Ripley are both sole survivors who
have seen and escaped the Aliens. They are both female gendered and share the
same instinctive qualities. They are constantly aware of their surroundings and
ironically, although they don’t have the training or qualification of the
marines, they outlive them. Newt and Ripley share the same nightmare. Ripley
has “nightmares” that require psychiatric attention and Newt has “bad dreams.”
Both have problems sleeping – there dream landscape is the same, which makes
them one. Further, Ripley lost her real daughter, failing on her promise of
seeing her 11th birthday, so she uses the opportunity to “adopt”
Newt as her daughter and promises to protect Newt. In fact, when the surviving
group could have left to orbit without harm, Ripley stays dedicated to her
promise and to Newt, and in an act of self-sacrifice and motherly instinct,
goes back to the Aliens colony to find Newt.
When Ripley goes back to the Aliens colony
she is the outsider, the colony has already been established and transformed
into the Aliens home. In Ripley’s case, she is the intruder and is unwelcome.
However, Ripley is the “mother” and Newt is the “daughter” so she is just doing
what she has to do as a mother protecting her daughter. Likewise, the Queen is
doing what she has to do and that is creating babies and feeding them. The
babies are the Aliens and feeding them is done with the human colonists,
marines, and in this situation, Newt. When Ripley stumbles into the lair of the
Queen, hundreds of eggs surround the Queen. There is a shot-reverse-shot
between the Queen and Ripley. In fact, I see a duel between the two “mothers”
in the scene. A close up shows their emotions and shows their communication
with eye contact and actions. Both are angry: Ripley is angry because her
“daughter” was taken away, and the Queen is angry because her eggs and
offspring are in danger from Ripley, the unwelcome guest. Ripley uses her gun
and threatens to torch the eggs if the protecting Alien warriors come any
closer to her and Newt. The Queen obliges and calls the warriors off.
A deal has been made between the two mothers.
Through the business transaction, the Queen Alien is shown to possess
human-like thought and emotion. This makes the relationship between “mother”
and “daughter” even more viable. Though Ripley is committed to her own
daughter, she is not committed to the deal she has made to the Queen, torches
all the eggs, the surrounding protection, and the lair itself. Her sole purpose
in the first place was to annihilate the dreadful monsters. In this sense, she
has violated the Aliens as a collective unit and the Queen has every right to
retaliate, for her “daughter” has been attacked and destroyed.
Though the Queen is definitely female, her
offspring cannot be defined – the gender of the offspring is blurred, as the
film does not ever show emotion in them. They are warriors that defend the eggs
and lair. They seem to always find ways inside the colony complex and attack
the marines. The character Hudson made an allegory that the Aliens are like a
bee colony. It makes sense because they gather goods (humans) and bring them
back to the colony to create and feed offspring. There isn’t any reference to
gender except to the sole Queen – all life centers on the female Queen.
It’s interesting to ask why Ripley would
choose to go back to the planet of Aliens when she has been through so much
life-threatening drama. Why would she go back and be placed needlessly into
jeopardy? If anyone in the right mind would have a choice, they would not face
the Aliens. The company offers Ripley a job in hopes of giving her an incentive
but that is not a good enough reason. They then offer to protect her – this
helps because she feels secure surrounded with a group of marines. However, the
real reason for her to accept the offer is psychological. Ripley wakes up in a
cold sweat clutching her chest from a nightmare of the alien “chest-burster.”
She calls Burke immediately and with her inner motivation, faces the Aliens in
order to kill them off. She believes it’s the only way to bring closure to her
inner struggle and monstrous nightmares.
In the end, I related to the film and was
drained by the constant horror that the film maintained. There are a lot of
references in the film to stereotypical human fears. They are common and
universal among people; even if the viewer is skeptical about aliens or in the
mise-en-scene of the film, the viewer will still be affected by primal fears
such as: tight claustrophobic places, darkness, lack of clear vision, water,
fire, nightmares, and the anxiety of an unknown environment.