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Aliens is a reimagining of Apocalypse Now

posted 9 years ago by WeAintFoundShin
4 replies | jump to latest

Troubled protagonist at beginning.

They are given mission by greedy corporate types.

They are joined by soldiers.

They encounter devotees of the primary antagonist.

They encounter a big, bald antagonist at the end, spend time with them, and then send them to their death.

They walk away with a young "innocent".

Facehuggers can be seen as Kurtz's words.

Chestbursters can be seen as Kurtz's born again warriors.

Bishop/Hicks is sort of like Chef/Jay HICKS.

Gorman is sort of like Chief/George.

Hudson is sort of like Clean/Tyrone.

Newt is sort of like Lance.

[–] admka 9 years ago

I like this

[–] fluffchop 9 years ago

Maybe if you said the queen alien was as fat as Marlon Brando, but I don't see any parallels whatsoever.

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Scientologists love Narnia, there's plenty of closet space.

[–] pmac7902 9 years ago

Yeah I don't think so. I mean that's pretty vague and reaching. Newt is sorta like Lance? Why because they're both blonde? Because Newt was a part of the crew at the beginning and was on drugs? You have to WANT to think it's a reimagining.

~~~"Who do you think you're dealing with? Guess again."~~~

[–] CovertThunder 9 years ago

Very good points, but Aliens wasn't necessarily a re-imagining of Apocalypse Now but really the Vietnam War in general.

According to James Cameron in an interview on my Aliens DVD, Cameron intended the failed struggle between the high-tech Colonial Marines and the insect-like Xenomorphs to represent the failed Vietnam War between the high-tech U.S. military and the low-tech NVA and Viet Cong. In Cameron's own words, he wanted to recreate the "Why are we losing?" aspect of Vietnam.

Of course, there's some psychological aspects at work in Aliens as well but that also has its roots in the Vietnam War. According to Cameron, he rationalized Ripley wanting to face the Xenomorphs again by looking at Americans who got drafted or whatever into Vietnam, survived one tour, and then ended up returning for a second or third tour because they psychologically needed to face their fears again.

Willard is a veteran of Vietnam but he states that when he was in Vietnam, he just wanted to go home and when he was home, he wanted to get back to Vietnam and face it again.

Even the Colonial Marines' shared hatred of the green lieutenant was something Cameron pulled from the Vietnam War. I forget where but I read once that Vietnam saw the highest numbers of U.S. soldiers who killed their own CO's in the field for being so inept.

So really, the similarities between Aliens and Apocalypse Now aren't because one movie was borrowing from the other, but because they were both using the same source material.

Just a bit of trivia, the actor who played Sgt. Apone in Aliens really served in Vietnam, and was even the first black soldier in the 1st Marine Division to be awarded the rank of sergeant. Supposedly got a bunch of combat awards too.

Can't be too careful with all those weirdos running around.