Never Ask an Alien Queen Her Age: Aliens 27 Years Later

Then: Weaver's rip-roaring return as Ripley is the main reason for Aliens' eternal awesomeness. Blankenship reminded us that Weaver's performance earned her an Oscar nomination, a rarity for an action film. Why? Because, he says, while Aliens is indeed a "fantastic action movie," it begins with "Ripley's struggle to cope with her past and with her own fear." Weaver has the audience in the palm of her hand from beginning to end, shifting seamlessly between emotional heft and serious ass-kicking. Watch as she silently saves little Newt from a roomful of alien eggs. Not many actresses can make you feel something and burn the place to the ground in the same scene.

Although she returned to the franchise two more times after Aliens, Weaver has taken on roles quite different from Ripley, in films ranging from dramas like The Ice Storm (1997) to comedies like Baby Mama (2008). Blankenship says that she avoided being "typecast as a Ripley-style butt-kicker" because "there just aren't that many female-driven action movies." It also helps that she's, well, talented, bringing "something distinct to each one of her wry and often world-weary characters. She always seems cool, but she never seems cool in the exactly the same way." Plus she's a class act all the way: Here she is praising Ridley Scott, the director of Alien, the flick that started it all.

Then: As we pointed out in our Sci-Fi Kids feature, Carrie Henn had no acting experience before taking on the role of 9-year-old Newt, the ultimate survivor. (You try living in an air duct while avoiding being eaten by aliens.) Henn's performance is up there with the best of the child actors, and her scream is almost as good as Drew Barrymore's in E.T.

Maybe the creatures scared her off, but Henn decided not to pursue performing after Aliens wrapped. She has graciously participated in various "making of" featurettes over the years, including this one, in which she and Sigourney Weaver discuss how close they became while shooting; watch the whole video, it's worth it (and under four minutes). Henn is currently a schoolteacher in California, and she and Ms. Weaver still keep in touch.

Then: Paxton was 31 in 1986, but he looks at least 10 years younger than that in Aliens, playing perpetual pessimist Private Hudson, who offers his fellow Marines such encouraging words as "We're doomed here!" and "We're all gonna die, man." Thanks for the vote of confidence, dude!

Prior to his Golden Globe-nominated role as polygamist Bill Henrickson on HBO's Big Love (2006-2011), Paxton appeared in over 50 films, many of them directed by James Cameron, such as The Terminator (1984), Titanic (1997), and True Lies, as the superbly sleazy car salesman Simon (1994). Mr. Cameron must like him. There are worse things for an actor.

Then: Henriksen's Bishop is a cool customer—he should be, since he's not, um, human. Still, he's a bit of a paranoid android—when Bishop offers to go outside and hopefully save the day for everyone, he adds, "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." Henriksen's deadpan delivery helped make lines like that one and "I prefer the term 'artificial person'" instant classics.

Henriksen's IMDB entry lists a whopping 176 titles, including re-creating Bishop or some version of him in Alien³ (1992) and AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004). Henriksen is best known for playing creepily cool psychic Frank Black on the Fox series Millennium.

Then: Which of these things is not like the others? Reiser had already appeared in Diner (1982), but playing Carter Burke in Aliens was still a big role for him. He only kind of played against type—Burke wasn't a Marine, just a stooge for "The Company"; other than the Alien Queen, he's really the villain of the piece. One could easily argue that Burke is worse, since the Queen is only trying to protect her spawn. Burke just wants more money.

Reiser broke into sitcoms with My Two Dads (1987-1990) and is best known for creating and starring in NBC's long-running hit Mad About You (1992-1999). He returned to the peacock network this year with The Paul Reiser Show, which was quickly canceled. But Paul should be all right—he has a new book out, Familyhood, a follow-up to Couplehood (1995) and Babyhood (1997).

James Cameron has a thing for putting people in pods. Aliens has the hypersleep chambers; Ripley has been asleep in one for 57 years when the movie begins, and she reenters one at the end. One of the most important pieces of technology in Avatar are the "link units" that allow humans to psionically control their Na'vi avatars.

Action movies must close with a climactic battle sequence, and Aliens does not disappoint. Who could forget Ripley's use of the most badass forklift ever to dispose of the Alien Queen? Audiences who remembered that scene would be forgiven for feeling a little tengfya (that's Na'vi for "similar action", as everyone knows) when they saw Avatar, which has a similar ending—Stephen Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch hops into an AMP suit to do battle with Jake Sully's big blue avatar. One major difference between the two battles is that Aliens did it without CGI. In this "making of" video, special effects supervisor John Richardson surprisingly describes the power loader as "the most challenging thing" they created for the movie.