Continuing a few weeks of featuring music from the films of James Cameron, who just turned 70 last month, we have a selection from a score I don’t like all that much for a movie I don’t all that much care for. It’s Aliens, his mega-hit from 1986 that was a thrill-packed sequel to the Ridley Scott original horror film. I know that my reaction to these movies is deeply contrary to the geek culture in which I grew up, but hey, we all diverge from the norm sometime. For me, the original Alien is effective once, and after that it’s basically like riding Space Mountain with the lights on, when you know the gross-out stuff is coming and you can anticipate the jump-scares. It also didn’t help that I never found myself caring about the characters.
Cameron did get me caring about the people in Aliens, so that’s props to him. This film, though, is for me something else; when you give me all flow and no ebb, I eventually check out. My feelings for this movie turn out to mirror Roger Ebert’s almost perfectly, so I’ll just quote his original review of the film:
It’s here that my nerves started to fail. “Aliens” is absolutely, painfully and unremittingly intense for at least its last hour. Weaver goes into battle to save her colleagues, herself and the little girl, and the aliens drop from the ceiling, pop up out of the floor and crawl out of the ventilation shafts. (In one of the movie’s less plausible moments, one alien even seems to know how to work the elevator buttons.) I have never seen a movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long; it’s like being on some kind of hair-raising carnival ride that never stops.
I don’t know how else to describe this: The movie made me feel bad. It filled me with feelings of unease and disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was drained. I’m not sure “Aliens” is what we mean by entertainment. Yet I have to be accurate about this movie: It is a superb example of filmmaking craft.
As for James Horner’s score, it’s not marked by memorable themes much at all; there’s some moody stuff that mostly mirrors the Khachaturian ballet music used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and then there’s a lot of very intense action music that’s mostly rhythm and not a whole lot of build. The best cue is probably the one titled “Bishop’s Countdown”, so here it is. Sorry for my lack of enthusiasm, but I don’t think any artist has ever hit ’em all out of the park for me; after all, George Lucas did make More American Graffiti.
