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This leads into the other prevalent themes of Aliens (and Cameron's work in whole): the lines between man and machine, between perfection and shortcomings, between hope for the future and despair. Each of the four Alien films is certainly a product of their time (Late ‘70s to mid ‘90s) and their respective directors (Ridley Scott, Cameron, David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet). Cameron's gung-ho, take-no-prisoners Marine squad is firmly set in the Reagan era mentality of big guns "Law and Order" but although that mantra worked well for Rambo in his second film - for which Cameron co-wrote the screenplay - here the Marines go down for the count early. Their state-of-the-art equipment is undercut by their cockiness and is no match for the relentless warriors.

And yet, Cameron doesn't dwell on any of their deaths overtly. Aliens is an action-filled film but not overly gory. (Indeed, I feel that Alien: Resurrection is by far the and most gruesome stomach-churning of the four.) The only "death" that receives explicit detail is Bishop's impalement and shredding by the Queen. It lasts for nearly a minute and is considerably upsetting. He may just be an artificial person but his bravery plays a key role in the latter half of Aliens and Cameron's emphasis on his pain and suffering at this moment, in the face of the humanity he has evidenced, foreshadows a lot of what transpires in learning for the T-800 in T2.

Thankfully, there is comic relief to round out the claustrophobia and Paxton grabs his part as the motormouth tough-talker and hyperventilates away with it. He comes on as all machismo and swagger, but once he's seen his platoon get chewed up and spat out, he's a mama's boy at heart. Coming just a year after his scene-stealing role as the bratty older brother who winds up turned into a gross creature in Weird Science, Paxton stepped into the upper tier of character actors with this performance. Hudson should be uber-annoying, and is, but not just. Paxton takes the cliche of the coward beneath the bravado and finds something fresh. Considering how relentless Aliens is in all other respects, it makes sense that the humor shouldn't be any different.

Next time: Chapter Two could not truly be a column about second films without this seminal work from the 1980s. Two words, folks: Lucinda Dickey.

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