Revealing mistake: When Ripley first burns the egg plants inside the nest, the Queen screams and moves her head. The steel rod used to hold the Queen's head to the rest of her body is easily visible.
Aliens (1986)
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Carrie Henn
Revealing mistake: When Newt is sliding across the grated floor, Bishop reaches out to save her and you can clearly see he's standing in a hole to make him look cut in half. (02:11:40)
Continuity mistake: When the Marines first enter the reactor room, the "Mission Time" readout on the shoulder mounted cameras jumps backwards and forwards in time with every cut. (00:54:10)
Trivia: Paul Reiser's character Carter Burke was so immediately hated that during the movie's premiere his sister hit him, and when Burke's death occurred, his mom's response was simply "good."
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.
Trivia: The name 'Sulaco' was taken from a novel by Joseph Conrad. The name of the novel? 'Nostromo' of course.
[All ammunition has been confiscated.]
Marine: What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?.
[The alien queen advances on Newt.]
Ripley: Get away from her you bitch!
Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Vasquez: No, have you?
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.
Question: What ever happens to the female doctor that evaluates Newt? She evaluates Newt, says one line or so, then disappears forever.
Chosen answer: Down in the tunnels, she is the soldier that says "Maybe they don't show up on infrared at all." and is then grabbed and hoisted to the ceiling by an Alien, discharging her flamethrower and killing the other Marine. Later, Hudson says "The Sarge and Deitrich (the female medic) aren't dead. Their signs are real low but they ain't dead." So she was cocooned and played host for new aliens.
Question: If the company knew about the Aliens from the start and coveted them as a bioweapon, why did it take 57 years and the reappearance of Ripley for someone from the company to make another effort to get one? In the intervening 57 years, wouldn't the company have sent someone out to the derelict spaceship wreckage?
Answer: The company doesn't wait 57 years, they built a colony on the planet over 20 years prior to finding Ripley. The company was apparently unaware of the exact location of the derelict spacecraft. After finding Ripley and obtaining information from her, Burke was able to send the Jorden family to the precise location of the derelict spacecraft.
Answer: For me anyway, the company doesn't seem to be as hostile as they do in Alien. Won't surprise me that in 57 years there has been a change in leadership and they are no longer interested in capturing the alien, Burke seems to operating on his own. Minor plot hole ultimately.
I think the original answer is right and they simply didn't know where the crashed ship was located on the planet since the beacon was deactivated and all information was on the Nostromo and with Ripley. They built a colony there to find it eventually, just takes a long time. Until they got lucky and found Ripley. Burke is definitely not working on his own though, they still knew about the aliens and the original idea still remained, capture aliens and bring them back to study.
Yes that's right, because when Ripley has a run in with Burke he says that this specimen is worth millions to the bio weapons division and if we bring it back we will be made for life.
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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