Queen of the xenomorphs. Stranger

The commercial titan Disney bought most of Fox for $ 52.5 billion. The Walt Disney Company now owns half of today's geek culture, if not more. "Star Wars", the entire Marvel universe, "Predator", "Aliens" - this list can go on for a very long time. But now I would like to focus on “Aliens”.

As you know, there is a separate phenomenon - the Disney princess. Moreover, if you trace their evolution, you can understand that the cultural and aesthetic criteria for the inclusion of various female characters in this pantheon are constantly changing. And the first bell, oddly enough, was the rather “ancient” Ariel.

The cartoon "The Little Mermaid" was filmed in the dense 1989 year: we suspect that some of our readers then existed only in the project. We remind them especially for them: in those distant times there was no ultramodern feminism, and rather strict criteria of female beauty were determined once and for all. Simply put, there was no opportunity to travel on one “force” and “independence”. Make-up, silicone, good figure and showy clothes were welcome.

However, despite the cold, nasty, slippery fishtail, Ariel managed to get into the pantheon of princesses! Then why, one wonders, is an exoskeleton with a moderate amount of not very nasty mucus worse? Apparently, the next Disney princess will be the Alien Queen.

Here is a semi-official list of criteria for becoming a young August special from the Disney Wiki:

1. The character must be human or humanoid

2. The character must star in one of the Disney / Pixar products

3. The character should appear in the first part, and not in the sequel

4. The character must be of royal blood either by birth or by marriage. In extreme cases, an act of heroism is permissible to become a princess.

I must say that this list is encouraging. The Alien Queen goes well on all four points, and here is the detailed reasoning:

1. Thanks to Ariel - the first “humanoid creature” to blaze a trail in the Disney princess pantheon. In this regard, the Alien Queen is no worse than a cute little mermaid. Four main limbs and even a head (so what, a little hammer-like) are available, upright walking can also be observed in several scenes - no one can blame a strong and independent xenomorph for the complete lack of humanity.

2. Under the terms of the $ 50+ billion deal, the entire Fox back catalog also becomes the property of Walt Disney. So now “Aliens”, including the old cult parts, is a real “Disney product”, no worse than Mickey Mouse. And probably no one will deny that in addition to Ripley herself, the Alien Queen plays the main role in those films.

3. Honestly, this is the hardest point. However, having a sufficient share of resourcefulness, one can argue. Yes, unfortunately, the Alien Queen only appears in the sequel. However, someone laid eggs in the very first, original Alien. And who, if not her? So it can be argued that the Alien Queen is invisibly present in the motion picture, with which it all began.

4. Here, on the contrary, everything is more than obvious. Royal blood by birth? Indeed, it follows from her name alone, and there is no need to look for any stupid prince. In addition, the heroic deed that guarantees a warm place in the pantheon of princesses has been accomplished: the Queen protects her little children from brutalized homo sapiens with pulse rifles, flamethrowers and automatic machine-gun turrets. Isn't that cute?

Now let's return to the modern criteria for the selection of female characters for the role of the Disney princess, and consider them using the example of two fairly new individuals - Merida and Mulan. Both are no longer the personification of hopelessly outdated concepts of female beauty: the cute Cinderella and Belle are left in the distant retrograde past.

But the princesses of our day can deliver a well-aimed headshot from a bow or chop an opponent with a katana. So the retractable second jaw, which easily pierces carbon armor, is not some unnatural abomination, but just a necessary weapon for self-defense of a strong and independent woman in our unworthy world of dirty and uncouth dorks.

In Disney World amusement parks, the Alien Queen will look more than organic: she will hiss to little girls about happiness, while happy parents will take pictures of them. With such a princess, every girl, regardless of her appearance, will feel “included”. In the sense of included, and not as an electrical appliance. And let at least someone just try to judge the new princess on the basis of her appearance alone - today it will not work out!

To summarize. Protector of children, explorer of new worlds, a person of royal blood, an inspiring personality from a distant magical country (from other planets), who is able to stand up for herself, despite the presence of royal guards (soldiers-aliens). If this is not a perfect example of the modern Disney princess, then it is already unclear who else could claim this responsible role.

Xenomorph (lat. Xenomórph from Greek. Ξένος - "alien" and μορφή - "form": "alien life form" or "alien life form") is a fantastic alien species from the movie "Alien" and its sequels. The history of the creation of the image

Name

The 1979 film Alien was originally written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shucett.

The title of the film was adopted at the end of the script. O'Bannon immediately rejected the original title of the film - "Star Beast" - but he could not think of another title to replace it. “I went through the options for names, and they were all disgusting,” O'Bannon said in an interview, “when suddenly, this word 'Alien' suddenly came out of the typewriter. "Alien" is both a noun and an adjective. " The word "Alien" later became the name of the film and, accordingly, the name of the creation itself.

The term Xenomorph (from the Greek ξενος - "alien" and μορφη - "form") was first used in the film "Aliens", later - in the director's version of "Alien 3". Widely used in gigs and video games in the expanded Alien universe.

On the DVD edition of all four Alien series, the Latin name Internecivus raptus was indicated. In the comic book series, another Latin name was given - Linguafoeda acheronsis - in honor of the planetoid LV-426 Acheron, a satellite of the gas giant in the Zeta Grid system, where these creatures were discovered for the first time according to the legend of the Alien films.

Characters also call the Alien a "beetle", "creature", "monster", "beast", "dragon", etc.

Image

Initially, the image of the Alien, as well as the interiors of alien ships found by human astronauts, was created by the Swiss artist Hans Rudolf Giger, specializing in "dark" themes. He also designed the appearance of the alien creature for the sci-fi movie Species, which is very similar to the Alien in many ways.

The Alien Queen was painted by the director of the second film - James Cameron - together with the artist Stan Winston. Winston's studio created a fully hydraulically controlled foam model specifically for the film. It was this model that was filmed in almost all scenes of the film that required the presence of the queen in the frame. For this work, the film won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It was only in the 2004 film Alien vs. Predator that computer simulations of the queen's running and fighting were applied. In the film Aliens, Aliens were portrayed as acrobats and stuntmen in disguise, copying the gait of lizards.

Life cycle Egg

The royal facehugger is slightly larger, and can lay two embryos: the first is a queen, and the second is a simple alien, and then he dies.

Embryo

During development, the embryo receives from the carrier genetic information that affects the further development of the xenomorph. The embryo itself has only two chromosomes, and the missing ones are taken from the owner. this allows you to adapt to the environment. Cases of infection by Aliens of people, terrestrial animals, Predators and Space jockeys are shown. Since Aliens feel their own kind, they do not touch the carriers. The development of an ordinary embryo lasts about one and a half days, the queen embryo - about a week. Removal of the embryo is not possible. Even surgically. The fact is that once inside the host, the embryo creates something like a placenta, which connects to the host's organs. When the embryo is removed, there is a slow loss of organ function, and as a result, the death of the carrier.

Breastbreaker A ripe embryo is called a "breastbone", since it gets out of the host's body by gnawing its chest (in humans and other vertebrates), as a result of which the host dies. The breastbreaker is small in size, has no limbs, but in the film "Alien 3" the breastbreaker differed from the adult stage only in size. Covered with fair skin. The queen's breastbreaker has rudiments of a collar. Interestingly, the design of the creature proposed by Giger was considered unsuccessful in this case, and the final image of the chestbreaker was created by Ridley Scott and Roger Dicken. The main activity during this period of development is finding shelter, eating food for rapid growth and development into an adult. An adult Grudolom, who has consumed a sufficient amount of food, begins to develop rapidly, as it grows, it sheds its “milk skin” several times and reaches 2-3 meters in a few hours. At the end of growth, an adult can be attributed to one of the varieties. The carapace is usually dark in color. In the movies, adults, other than the "hybrid" species, are always black. In the future, already much more slowly, the growth of the creature and the formation of its appearance continues.

Varieties

Soldiers and drones

They are responsible for protecting and hunting, expanding living space, building a beehive, collecting food, feeding the queen, and looking after the eggs. Under normal conditions, these individuals are not capable of reproduction, however, in the absence of the queen, they can lay from one to three eggs. Also, in the event of the death of the uterus, an ordinary Alien can become a new queen and start laying eggs like a full-fledged uterus.

Outwardly, the drone and the soldier differ in size and head coverage. Drones appear in the films Alien, Alien: Resurrection, Alien vs. Predator, soldiers - in the films Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. In comics and computer games, several castes stand out among them, differing in appearance and behavior.

Queen

The Queen or Queen is the main and largest individual in the colony. The rest obey her unquestioningly, even if it costs them their lives. Moves only on two large limbs. Its exoskeleton is so durable that a standard 10mm kinetic weapon cannot penetrate it. Unlike the constantly changing soldiers, from the moment of growing up, the appearance of the queen remains practically unchanged: the head is adorned with a huge comb-shaped "crown" passing into the head cover, the presence of additional limbs on the chest, the presence on the back of huge spikes instead of small tubes for breathing, but her main feature - the presence of the umbilical cord of the ovipositor. This translucent biopolymer bag filled with eggs is so huge that because of it the queen cannot move independently and therefore is in a “cradle” - a kind of hammock made of salivary filaments and strips of biopolymer resin, supporting the queen and her ovipositor in limbo. Nevertheless, in case of danger, the queen is able to cut the umbilical cord of the ovipositor and move independently, after which, after a while, she can grow a new ovipositor and fulfill her destiny.

Also known is the fact, mentioned in the books of Ridley Scott, that the adult queen, when she fully completes her development, has an intellect that surpasses that of an ordinary human. Also, a sign of intelligence is seen in the movie "Aliens". When Ellen Ripley first demonstrated the effect of the flamethrower, and then pointed the barrel at the eggs laid by the queen, the queen understood her intentions and, in order to save them, ordered the two soldiers who were about to attack Ripley to retreat. Another time, the queen understood the transport purpose of the elevator, and then used it.

Runner

The Runner is the four-legged form of the Alien, the result of the development of the embryo in the animal's body. It is smaller and slightly faster than ordinary individuals, spits acid, breathing tubes are not noticeable on the back. First shown in the movie "Alien 3", where a dog acts as a carrier. In the hive, due to their agility and speed, runners play the role of scouts and food getters.

Ripley's clones

From the remains of the deceased Ellen Ripley, infected by the Alien, in the movie Alien: Resurrection, she was cloned 8 times. The clones, to varying degrees, combined the properties of an Alien and a human, and also possessed Ripley's memory and Alien instincts. The first 6 clones were found to be unviable or soon died. Clone # 7 was destroyed at its own request by clone # 8, who was completely humanoid and outwardly indistinguishable from the real Ripley, was able to survive.

Newborn The newborn is a hybrid of a human and an Alien from the movie Alien: Resurrection.

As a result of human genetic intervention when creating a clone of a dead Ripley, infected with the Alien queen, the cloned queen at some point stops laying eggs and gives birth to a new creature. However, the newborn does not feel kinship with the queen and kills her, and considers Ripley's clone No. 8 to be his mother.

A newborn is very different from ordinary individuals - it is larger, covered with translucent skin, and has no tail. Its short skull resembles a human. The eyes, nose, teeth and tongue are also rather human. He is quite intelligent and capable of expressing emotions with facial expressions.

Predalien

Outlander (from Predator - "Predator" and Alien - "Alien") - a special kind of Alien, a product of the development of an embryo in the body of a Predator. They have both the features of ordinary Aliens, and some signs of a Predator, for example, mandibles and dreadloids. It was first illustrated in 1992 by artist Dave Dorman. Then he became a character in books, comics and computer games. Later, in 2003, he appeared at the end of the film "Alien vs. Predator", in the form of a breastbreaker, and in the sequel "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" became an adult. In the film, it has the ability to directly implant an embryo into the human body, and in an amount of up to 4-5 pieces. The Outlander is a kind of "shame" for the Predator family, because it is a sign of the Aliens victory over the Predators, and therefore for the Predator who killed the Spawn it is a great honor.

Praetorian

The Praetorian is an elite hive soldier. The Praetorian is many times larger and stronger than the Alien Drone and the Alien Soldier, but smaller than the Queen. When the population of the hive grows to a significant size, the queen chooses from among her subjects Aliens, who will become her personal guards - praetorians. Having received "permission" for further development, future praetorians must leave the hive as soon as possible, otherwise they will be torn apart by their own, since their bodies in the process of development begin to produce pheromones that annoy the rest of the Aliens. During molting, praetorians live separately from the community, foraging for themselves and avoiding encounters with other xenomorphs. Most Praetorian candidates die, but this is how the best are selected. At the end of the molt, the praetorian returns to the hive, becoming the queen's inseparable guard. The Praetorian no longer participates in the main life of the hive. Praetorians are either in or around the hive. Praetorians evolve only from soldiers, drones, and sometimes runners. Predators can also become praetorians, an example of this is the outlaw in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Physiology: Outwardly, the Praetorian resembles a soldier who has grown 2 times. Such a monster has tremendous strength, powerful horns and higher intelligence. However, due to their heavy armor, they cannot move along walls and ceilings. Praetorians have the right to command the rest of the Aliens, setting up ambushes and traps for opponents.

Queen mother

The various Queen Mothers are the supreme leaders of all kinds of xenomorphs, the other Queens and Empresses are subordinate to them. Each Queen Mother rules her own kind of Alien, such as black or red. Possess telepathy and empathy. They are distinguished by five spines at the edge of the ridge instead of three, as in ordinary queens.

The empress

The Empress appears in Aliens Online and Aliens vs. Predator 2 ". An especially large and ancient queen. Even stronger and more tenacious. Perhaps the queens in Aliens versus Predator (2010) and Aliens: Infestation are also Empresses.

Crusher

This Alien is an advanced form of a runner. He has a huge head, with which he rams everything in his path. It is difficult to kill him, since the head of this Alien also plays the role of a shield. Appears in "Aliens Colonial Marines"

Alien mutant

Alien warriors mutated as a result of a nuclear explosion on LV-246. Completely blind. They are guided by noise. The attack is self-detonation. Appears in "Aliens Colonial Marines"

Spit

Another type of mutated Aliens. Their heads glow in the dark. They spit acid from a decent distance. Very fast. Appears in "Aliens Colonial Marines"

Underdeveloped Praetorian In fact, the same Praetorian is only not fully developed. A distinctive feature is a head like a warrior. There is only one individual. Only large-caliber weapons are suitable against him. Also, serious damage can be caused by a blow of the hand - the manipulator of the forklift truck. Appears in "Aliens Colonial Marines"

Hive

To create a hive, it may be enough to have one face-hijacker trapped in a populated space. After the xenomorph reaches adulthood in the absence of a queen, it will transform first into a praetorian, then into a queen. Having found a suitable isolated area, usually in the warmest place, and having eaten, she will grow the ovipositor and lay the first eggs. The first face-hijackers either attack the approaching ones, or leave the hive and find the carriers on their own. The hatched xenomorphs, having reached the adult stage at large, will return to the hive, where they will feed the queen and take care of the eggs as soldiers and drones. From this moment, the face-hijackers will not have to leave the hive, since the adults themselves will deliver the future carriers there. Alien Anatomy

The elongated head, covered with the shell of a bone helmet, is cut off by a blunt shield of the forehead, turning into a toothy mouth, inside which an internal jaw is hidden, which extends by about 30-40 centimeters. The chest is protected by the outer ribs, which converge on the back, forming a segmental carapace, from which four corrugated tubes of curved trachea - the respiratory organs - emerge. In the absence of a favorable environment, respiration and other important vital functions are transferred to a different position. All the necessary substances are obtained as a result of complex biochemical processes right in the body of an individual. Shoulders, forearms, thighs and lower legs are covered with protective ribbed plates. A long vertebral tail with a spear-shaped tip serves as a counterweight, helping to coordinate the accuracy of movement and rapidly changing directions of running, while simultaneously serving as a weapon used to inject a paralyzing neurotoxin into the victim's body. Also in the movies, you can see how Aliens very often use their tails as "whips" with a pointed tip, which is very effective in combat at close range.

In terms of internal structure, Aliens are similar to insects. These creatures belong to facultative anaerobes. Energy supply is of two types: in the absence of oxygen, amino acids, sugar and fatty acids are fermented; in the presence of oxygen, oxidation proceeds according to the usual scheme, through the trachea. Metabolic products are excreted into the intestines, where water is absorbed, and dehydrated excretion products are excreted. Diet: Most of the protein compounds of animal origin that can be swallowed. The accelerated metabolism contributes to the rapid regeneration of the whole organism.

Aliens lack a single center for the entire nervous system - their nervous system is of a nodular type. There is only a complex of sense organs, from which nerve trunks extend, which converge into a series of large nerve nodes under the most protected silicon-metal shields of the body, therefore, even if one of the nerve nodes is damaged, the Alien is still combat-ready. The bulk of neurons are concentrated in these nodes, which are interconnected; the largest node located in the head is an analogue of the brain. Connections in the nodal nervous system are rigidly fixed, instead of synapses - direct innervation, this gives an advantage in the speed and accuracy of responses. Unlike the queen, who has a more developed intellect, the intelligence of an ordinary Alien, although superior to that of an animal, is inferior to that of a human (it is approximately at the level of monkeys), but an amazing ability to adapt, highly developed instincts and the ability to mimic give him an undeniable advantage in battle. Physiology

The circulatory system is open: the heart with holes sucks in the blood between the organs and pushes it through the vessels to various parts of the body, where it is pushed into the gaps between the organs. Lytic enzymes in the blood convert it into an organic high-molecular sulphonic acid - a real antifreeze, which allows the xenomorph not to be afraid of low temperatures. This substance is a unique absorbent, it is very toxic and even at low concentration kills any infection. After the death of the creature, acidic blood fills the space between the cells, reacting with the intercellular fluid and neutralizing, partially oxidizing some tissues.

The metabolic activity of Aliens is not inhibited under almost any environmental conditions. Interstitial fluid is capable of absorbing oxygen and nitrogen necessary for cell metabolism from the atmosphere, separating the necessary components from any gas mixtures and delivering them to tissues, and the ability to control internal pressure in a wide range helps to withstand even a cosmic vacuum for a long time. Accordingly, it can survive in space. It does not radiate heat, since the internal temperature of the body is equal to the ambient temperature, as a result of which the Alien is not visible in the infrared spectrum.

The glands of internal and external secretion produce high-molecular blood acid, neurotoxic paralytic poison, biopolymer resin and pheromones. The toxin introduced by the Alien into the victim's body selectively paralyzes some of the functions of the cortex and brain stem, completely immobilizing the victim. However, the poison does not affect the functioning of the lungs, heart and glands, but only dramatically inhibits it. The poison is only used in some games. In the films, a hint of the presence of poison was only in one scene in the movie "Aliens", when the queen tried to hit Ripley with her tail while she was in a working robot.

Sense organs They are guided by smells using a pheromone locator. They sense electromagnetic radiation and use low frequency ultrasound for navigation. It is not known what kind of vestibular apparatus the Aliens have, but they are able to sharply change their position in all three planes, without losing their orientation in space. Aliens easily distinguish androids from humans and usually do not touch them.

Life span

Life expectancy is unknown, but some queens were many thousands of years old, for example, the age of the Queen Matriarch in the game "Aliens versus Predator (2010)" - about 100,000 years. The age of a soldier can also be measured in millennia. Old Aliens are light gray in color and less power and speed. Relationship with other species

With Predators

In the movie Alien: Resurrection and the eponymous game and comic, Aliens were cloned by the military aboard the spaceship Auriga. In the game "Aliens versus Predator", the Weiland-Yutani corporation used Aliens to create guard cyborgs, the so-called Xenoborgs, and created hybrids of Aliens and Predators. In the game "Aliens versus Predator 2" Weyland-Yutani took the Aliens out using defenseless colonists and investigated them. In the comic "Aliens: Sacrifice" (Russian Aliens: Sacrifice) people once in two days left a cloned child to the Alien, and for this he did not touch them. In the comic "Aliens: Alchemy" (Aliens: Alchemy) Aliens were the subject of a cult. In the comic "Green Lantern Versus Aliens" (Green Lantern vs. Aliens) Hal Jordan did not kill the Aliens, but, considering just animals, transferred them to the planet Mogo, which brought obvious troubles for the crew of the ship that made an emergency landing there.

Planets where we met Aliens Earth

Alien vs. Predator, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, Batman: Dead End

Many thousands of years ago, Predators bred Aliens in a temple located in Antarctica, and hunted them. When the situation got out of control, the temple was destroyed.

Researchers accidentally woke up Aliens in Antarctica in October 2004. The Predators found out about this, and three of them arrived at the scene. The Queen managed to free herself, and she mortally wounded the last of the Predators, but managed to drown her in the ocean. The rest of the Aliens were killed earlier.

The remains of the Predator were taken to the ship by his relatives. On the ship, a breastbreaker hatched out of it. The ship crashes near a small town and is overrun by Aliens. To stop them, the city is destroyed by an atomic bomb.

Analogies of Aliens and real-life animals

Outwardly, Aliens do not look like insects - this is a figment of the artist's imagination. But their habits and social structure are borrowed from terrestrial colonial animals.

Arthropods shed their hard outer covers as they grow.

Termites are practically blind and prefer darkness. The dwelling is built from their own secretions and auxiliary material. Foragers leave the nest at night in species that do not build tunnels to move around. Termites are corrosive to metals. Their queen is unable to move independently and is fed by workers.

Ants are similar to termites, but they are faster, stronger and have a strong chitinous cover. Their body produces formic acid, which causes muscle paralysis in the enemy.

In bees, an unfertilized queen is characterized by parthenogenesis, however, in this case, only drones appear from the eggs. The jaws of the uterus are serrated, while those of workers are even. The female workers have a retractable tongue.

But the idea of ​​an internal retractable jaw was actually borrowed from naiads - dragonfly larvae - which have a strongly elongated lower "lip" that forms a grasping organ - a mask. When capturing prey, it is thrown forward, while at rest it covers its head from below and / or from the sides. "Retractable" jaws, a little reminiscent of the jaws of an Alien, also has a brownie shark. The jaws of moray eels work in a similar way.

The wasp-sphex paralyzes the nerve centers of its victim and leaves an egg nearby. The hatched larva begins to eat the immobile insect. Riders lay an egg in the body of a living insect, and the larva eats it from the inside. The eggs of some insects are able to wait for favorable conditions for a long time.

Many spiders wrap their prey in a cocoon.

The eusocial warehouse of colonies, immunity to acids, poikilothermia, the ability to survive in a lack of oxygen, insensitivity to pain, as well as an acute sense of smell and touch are characteristic of naked mole rats.

The rotifers Bdelloidea, thanks to horizontal gene transfer, receive genetic information from the organisms they feed on. This process allows them to do without sexual fertilization.

During the hunt, scorpions use a poisonous sting at the end of the "tail" if the victim is too strong to cope with "hand-to-hand".

The mole can dig under the prey on the surface and drag it underground.

Unlike science fiction, there are no predators in nature whose adults would eat prey of the same species that serves as a host for the larvae of these predators.

At the end of the last century, it seemed impossible to develop the Alien theme without the participation of Hans Rudy Giger. However, James Cameron and Stan Winston succeeded: for the sequel to "Alien" they created someone more terrible than a toothy alien - his oversized mommy. In the new millennium, it seemed impossible to give collectors a scaled-down version of the Alien Queen that matched the original in design and proportions. However, the Californian company Sideshow succeeded. In general, everyone is happy - it's time to open champagne.

Queen Alien Polystone Diorama is a tasty morsel for those who are willing to spend a lot of money on dust collectors. The enormous size of the box suggests that a real Alien was rammed there. Fortunately (and for some - unfortunately), most of the interior space is occupied by foam packaging.

Let meticulous fans of xenomorphs easily find a dozen inconsistencies with the queen's on-screen prototype in the queen, this does not in the least affect the impression of the statuette. Yes, when working over the head and legs of the toothy Madame, the sculptors fantasized, but their creation can be perceived not as an attempt to reproduce a specific character from "Aliens". Still, the design of the queen changed from film to film, and different artists endowed her with the most bizarre features. The statuette is perfectly detailed and will easily pacify the wrath of critics with a meticulously reproduced pattern of chitinous armor.

The quality of the painting makes you completely and irrevocably fall in love with the creation of Sideshow. The color of the miniature queen, though not 100 percent consistent with the original, is so well-toned that it casts doubt on the artificial origin of the figurine. Having admired enough, it is difficult to suppress the desire to shell out any money for an alien mother. Alas, everything is not so simple: the statuette was released in a limited edition of 1000 copies, of which not even a dozen were delivered to Russia, and even those were instantly sold out. Fans can only scour online auctions and hope that the repurchase price will not triple.

Outcome: one torn android and a perforated Predator are examples of what happens to those who plot to go against the Alien queen. So we decided not to ask for trouble - out of harm's way. In addition, any criticism of the Sideshow statuette is very conditional. This is the best miniature replica of the most impressive monster in the history of cinema. And don't argue! Otherwise, Her Highness will already deign to grin.

The Condor managed to find out all the weak and good sides of the young queen in a few days. It was not so difficult to accustom her, the main thing is not to accept physical strength, that is, violence. The leader was pleased with himself, but still there was a boring worm in him, who still did not trust the stupid Kainda Amedha. While the old queen was laying eggs, the young one enjoyed studying behavior and its teachings through the spider. The Condor was surprised by her curiosity and quick learning.
The leader stroked the young queen's comb, and she chirped in response.
- We need to name you, but we do not give the names of kainde amedha ... - the predator pondered.
The queen stared curiously at the predator and at the same time opened her mouth from which a long tongue, forked at the end, fell out.
- So. I will call you Mandereya, which means the top.
Mandereya nodded in response and licked the hunter with her viscous te`dka. The Condor noticed that the Queen Kainde Amedha loomed over him and twirled her tail around his body. She was still grinning contentedly at him. The uterus released the Condor from her slippery embrace when she heard someone's footsteps. Yout stroked the queen's comb goodbye and left her cage.

A few more days passed and Nira began to lay eggs, but that predator did not appear again. Instead, mechanical beetles came and carried her eggs into the unknown.
Nira heard the old queen being freed and dragged by predators on chains from the womb of Mandas' spaceship. The old uterus managed to cripple one yaut, and kill three. But the most important thing was that her familiar Yutzha managed the entire operation. Several hours passed before the Leader of the Predators came for her. They tried to bind Manderaya with chains. The ringing of the floor of the chains and the screams of the scorched hunters could be heard all over Mandas. The queen exhaled a stream of flame from her throat for the first time. The young uterus flew out of the cage, dragging predators along with it. Suddenly, someone sat astride Mandereya and it was the Condor. With chains, he managed to bind her mouth and dodged the king's dangerous tail. The chief shouted a command to the predators, and they tied Nira's hind legs with chains. They pulled the chains and the queen fell to the floor, bared her teeth and chirped with indignation and loud displeasure. The condor stroked the queen's comb and got off her, grabbed it from one chain and with all pulled her to the exit from Mandas.

Nira sat in a new cramped, stinking cage. The straw was rotten and smelled awful. There was a noise, a howl, heartbreaking screams and screams of unknown creatures. A faint light entered the dark chamber from the hatch and fell into the middle of the chamber. Despite the terrible heat outside, it was pretty cool in the queen's cell. Neither ropes nor chains held Manderaya. She lay quietly on the rotten bedding and whined softly. Mandereya could not contact and find her guard. She was overwhelmed by a sense of fear and despair that she would stay here forever. The smell of acidic and Yautian blood came from only one small window.
She heard, saw death.
“The xenomorph was crawling towards the predator. Death awaited the alien, as his hind legs were cut off by a disc - the weapon of the hunters. Yelling and whining, he reached the goal. With his weakening paws, he grabbed the predator's leg. The spear stabbed into the back of the stranger. Breaking the ridge, the spear reached other organs. The victim was defeated. The predator raised his defeated enemy on a spear and howled loudly, showing the others that he had won.
The gate was raised and the Praetorian entered the arena. A life-and-death battle ensued. The hunter won. After that, a whole flock of xenomorphs entered the arena. There were 12 aliens counted, but each individual was different from the other. Two were warriors, five were runners, three were drones, two were praetorians.
The predator killed three runners with the disc, while two stayed away from the enemy and tried to avoid close combat. Runners preferred to spit acid from a distance. The Praetorians followed the runners and relied on the number of warriors and drones. The queen's guards attacked the predator when it opened the rear. The guards acted like this: hit and run away.
Kicking the defeated last drone on the hot sand, the hunter threw a spear at the warrior. The weapon entered the xenomorph like butter and nailed it to the ground. "
The screams of strangers echoed in Nira's head. She was overtaken by anger, pain and again despair that she could not do anything. The rumble spread throughout the arena - it was the joyful exclamations of the caretakers behind the bloody spectacle. Soon everything was quiet, except for the animals left in the arena to die under the scorching rays of two suns.

June 16, 2017. Also, the queen thanked the rescuers and firefighters Photo: twitter.com/. who risked their lives to save strangers.

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January 29, 2015. This is our Mom. Aliens mom is special. She is the nicest Mother in the world! She takes care of her children. Plays with them. Loves to ...

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Reebok dedicated the sneaker to the battle of Lieutenant Ripley and the Queen.

27 Apr 2017. Reebok dedicated the sneaker to the battle of Lieutenant Ripley and the Alien Queen. Go to "Mine. Photo: Reebok. 1/3. In the spring of 2016 ...

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How "strangers" were filmed. (information about the film).

“Ridley Scott filmed“ alien ”in 79 to surprise the world, to amaze people to the core, and he succeeded. He amazed me too. When I later became a director myself, the thought of filming the continuation of this story did not leave me. I wanted to make a film like this, I was so impressed with the environment, the design, the characters that Scott created. It was a breakthrough film that literally set a new standard for science fiction cinema. He raised the bar very high ”. These are the words of James Cameron. A director, in whose career there have not been and there are no "passing" projects. Every film he makes comes from his soul. He works on each with inspiration. And each turns out to be a real milestone in the history of world cinema.

This was also the epoch-making film "Aliens". In this article we will tell you how "strangers" were filmed. The story about alien monsters developed in part due to the forced delay in filming the first "Terminator" Schwarzenegger finished filming in "Conan the Destroyer", which is why the film crew waited nine months. It was during this hiatus that Cameron began working on the script for the sequel to Ridley Scott's brilliant sci-fi film "Alien", which he and his wife Gail Ann Heard (who served as producer) decided to make after finishing work on the "Terminator." ... When filming began for The Terminator, the Alien script was still incomplete - James wrote about 90 pages. In such an unfinished form, this script came to the people from the film company "20th Century Fox", and they liked it so much that an unprecedented thing happened: they not only gave potential consent to the shooting, but also agreed to wait until the cameron will finish the "terminator" and will not complete work on the script for the new film. Moreover, the bosses of the film studio did not hide the fact that they viewed the “terminator” as a kind of “test” of the cameron as a director (no one seriously considered the “piranhas”), and the fate of the “strangers” depended entirely on the success of the “terminator” among the general audience. He failed at the box office - and "strangers" would never see the light of day. But the "terminator" did not fail. It was a huge success, and James Cameron got the go-ahead immediately for shooting, and three times the budget. It was a new step and a new breakthrough.

In the theme of "alien" cameron from the very beginning was attracted by the possibility of creating unearthly creatures. Even when he worked at Roger Corman's studio as a production designer, in particular, he created special effects for the "galaxy of horror" teeming with alien monsters (1981), he was most interested in the idea of ​​creating a new world, completely unusual and having nothing to do with the real world. This is what attracted and inspired the cameron when he filmed "strangers". This idea will then flourish in a magnificent color in the "avatar", many years later .... “I was not going to shoot a remake, or a semblance of the first film about someone else's. Ridley Scott filled his painting with a very special atmosphere, which I did not intend to recreate. I decided to make a film of a completely different kind: a dynamic action movie, ”Cameron recalls. The central character, as in the "terminator", was supposed to be a "strong woman" type, which was always interesting for James, and under which the main character named Ripley perfectly suited. The actress Sigourney Weaver, who played Ripley in Scott's film, was at first rather skeptical about the intention to make a sequel, because she had a very high opinion of Ridley Scott and doubted that the second part would be worthy of the original (it came out even better). In addition, Weaver was already a real superstar by that time, unlike all the other actors.

But after reading the cameron's script, and then talking to him personally, she realized that the scale of the personality of James is not inferior to Scott, and that he is really an outstanding person and a talented director.

R. how to create a url for a picture ... She very quickly agreed to shoot, and it was a great success. But the management of the film studio was not easy to agree with sigourney - she asked as a fee, neither more nor less than a million dollars. And she firmly stood her ground. At that time, the amount was colossal, so the leadership of the "20th Century Fox" even called a Cameron and tried to convince him "to somehow do without the Weaver." To which the Cameron, quite expectedly, replied that there would be no film without the Weaver. By that time, preparations for filming had already gone far enough that the curtailment of work on the project brought a loss of well over a million. The bosses could only dial the phone of the sigurni agent, and gritting their teeth say that her terms have been accepted. But if everything was clear with Weaver, then the selection of supporting actors became a real test - they had to play the American military, so the cameron needed an American accent, and the general charisma of brave warriors to fully match the types.

The matter was complicated by the fact that, for reasons of economy, it was necessary to employ British actors (the shooting was carried out in the old world, and the living expenses of Americans in Britain were rapidly devastating the budget), so it was necessary to recruit several artists living in England who looked and spoke as much as possible. American ". Cameron and Gail Anne Heard reviewed approximately three thousand people. So, for example, Mark Rolston was selected for the role of Drake - an American by birth, he has lived in England since the age of eighteen. The hardest part was finding the right girl for the role of Newt. She was searched everywhere: assistants visited dozens of schools, photographing thousands of children in search of the right type. This is exactly how they found Kerry Henn (she was captured at lunch in the school cafeteria) - a girl who did not have the slightest experience of acting, and who coped with her task superbly. When the producers auditioned children with "acting experience", they found that the children's experience was solely in filming for TV commercials, and therefore they strove to end each phrase with a big smile. Which was completely unacceptable for a girl who suffers from severe stress alone, surrounded by monsters. Undeterred by the ad-hoc behavioral clichés, Carrie performed the most compelling performance a ten-year-old has ever seen an adult. It is noteworthy that later she did not become an actress, although she had many offers. Cameron's old acquaintances, with whom he worked during the filming of a film about a cyborg from the future, came to the rescue when Britain could not find actors to play central roles.

The role of the robot bishop was played by Lance Henriksen, who starred in the first "Terminator" in the role of detective Vukovich. Bill Paxton, who played Hudson, also came straight from the Terminator, where he played a small part of a frostbitten punk. And of course, Michael Bien, who played Kyle Reese in the legendary film, got a rather serious role of Corporal Hicks, who, along with Ripley and Newt, escaped at the end - to die before the beginning of the third part .... Since the actors played elite soldiers, they were trained for several weeks by the real military of the American army to achieve a complete imitation of the marines - including the skills of teamwork, weapon handling and symbolism. As a result, the actors worked together, and began to feel like a real team for special operations. In the frame, they looked very natural. Actor El Matthews, who played the brutal black sergeant aipon, was of great help in this matter - he served in the US Army for several years, and unlike other actors, he knew firsthand about the army atmosphere, and could reliably recreate it. To make it even more natural, Cameron allowed the actors to customize the look of their characters by themselves - he simply laid out a bunch of different things on a large table, and left the actors in full uniforms for four or five hours to "give themselves individuality." Mark Rolston wrote on his weapon "my bitch" and hung a bunch of bones on his chest, Bill Paxton painted his armor, drawing there a skull with a dagger and the name of his girlfriend Louis. Various inscriptions also appeared on the uniforms of other characters. And the actors "brought to mind" the lockers of their characters on their own, hanging them with posters with beauties, in the best traditions of real barracks.

The effect was brilliant - absolutely believable "space marines", with no facelessness, each had individuality.

For the first time, Cameron received almost twenty million for his project. This gave him ample opportunities to create his plans, without being distracted by annoying questions of economy. Together with the artists Seed Mead and Ron Cobb, the director began drawing hundreds and hundreds of sketches, which depicted all the elements that we eventually saw in the film to the smallest detail. The spaceship "Sulako", flying and ground vehicles, and even the entire human colony on the surface of the ominous alien planet ... the layout of the settlement, the appearance of industrial enterprises, and even entertainment establishments were thought out to the smallest detail! Much of what was invented did not get into the film, and if the authors had squeezed all their developments into the picture, it would have lengthened at least twice .... As conceived by the director, the action on the planet was to take place in large rooms with numerous levels-floors. Such constructions were very difficult to create inside the pavilion, and besides, they would have turned out to be too expensive, so it was decided to find some abandoned photo, I adore you in a factory, and shoot inside the workshops. It took an incredible amount of work for the executive producers to find a suitable object, and after three months of strenuous search, they found the idle power plant in London, on which most of the scenes were filmed. The premises fit perfectly: lattice platforms with deep spans, which we saw in the film, are the real elements of a power plant. Cameron was delighted - all the handrails, all the steps, everything around was old, rusted, that is, exactly what he intended to look like.

At the same time, we saved a lot of money on decorations. But there were problems, and not insignificant ones. Thus, the producers were forced to spend large sums of money on cleaning the premises from asbestos, an extremely hazardous material for health, which literally covered every square centimeter of an abandoned room with a thin layer. It took three weeks to get rid of the dust, and two hundred and fifty people worked on the cleaning. Later, during the filming, air samples were taken daily to make sure that the health of the participants in the filming process was not in danger. Along the way, it turned out that after cleaning, the air on the impromptu set became even cleaner than in the pavilions of the pinewood studios! Finally, the decorators got down to business. Led by Peter Lamont, they managed to create unusually believable and practical interiors that were completely futuristic. I had to go to many tricks. So, the toilet in Ripley's apartment was simply removed on board ... a Boeing 707 by British Airways. Without changes.

Decorators have modified only the corridor from which the heroine enters. The hypersleep capsules were also not easy: they had to open all at the same time, but it was too expensive to install electric motors on everything, so the creators simply installed a system of mirrors to simulate a long row of capsules, while only one had electric drives. Interior details and unsynchronized movement were inserted using combined shots, in the end it turned out great. The same lockers were used in different rooms, decommissioned industrial ovens were inserted into the wall in the dining room, and decorators installed nothing more than… helicopter engines at the head of the same hypersleep capsules. Which, after filming, were safely returned to where they were taken - to the warehouse of the British Air Force. Thanks to all these tricks, the budget managed not to overspend. The futuristic weapon was assembled by decorators from a cameron's sketch from a Thompson assault rifle with a sawed-off butt (in a light version), a trimmed pump-action shotgun and a decorative casing. Huge infantry machine guns attached to the belt were assembled from old German MG42 7.92x57 caliber machine guns, a steadycam hinge for attaching a TV camera to the operator's belt and handlebars from a motorcycle steering wheel. All the weapons looked just amazingly authentic, as if they were a real weapon - although, in fact, they were. For example, the German pistol heckler & koch vp-17 got into the film without any changes at all thanks to its sleek futuristic forms. And what was the real cost of the real flamethrower "m240 flamethrower", which was used to burn down the lair of the alien queen!

A team of firefighters was constantly on the alert, and it's just amazing that everything went without serious accidents - inside the pavilion, with each take, a real fire was set up, creating a bonfire

tens of square meters in size. ... At times there was a real madness on the set. Inside a closed pavilion with insufficient ventilation, the actors poured the scenery with fire from real flamethrowers, they began to burn over the entire surface, the plastic exuded poisonous smoke, because of which people began to suffocate right in the frame. Bill Paxton recalls: “During the filming of the take, when we were running into the transporter and strangers were chasing us, Jenette (playing Vasquez) fell and grabbed her throat with a wheeze:“ I can't breathe! "I also thought:" good improvisation! ”, And only then it dawned on me that she was really suffocating because of the acrid smoke that was soaked in everything around. I realized this when my eyes began to darken from lack of oxygen - I literally could not breathe, my lungs were bursting. When the firefighters put out the plastic, I almost passed out from the smoke. " The scene was amazing, and none of the actors ever complained….

Cameron is known as a director who completely subordinates the entire filming process to the last detail, because he knows exactly what picture should turn out. Sometimes for the sake of the film, he is ready to sacrifice a lot. While filming in Britain, he additionally faced difficulties in working with English specialists - they treated Ridley Scott with great respect, and the cameron was sometimes considered just a "Canadian upstart" (and did not even watch the "terminator"), sincerely believing that James only spoils great franchise. Then the name of the cameron did not thunder all over the world. It was not easy with the British in general: the cameron was used to subordinating everything on the set to the process of making a film, while the British were from a completely different test. And when James first saw a woman enter the studio right in the middle of the filming process with a trolley on which there were trays of cups of tea, and everyone around them interrupted work and took a break, he was shocked. He could not understand in any way how much tradition means in England, and that there "Fifoklok" is sacred. It literally pissed him off! James often had to fire people who believed they were entitled to their own views of things. For example, Cameron fired cameraman Dick Bush, a Briton who worked with Ridley Scott on the creation of commercials and had never shot a big movie before. Bush flatly refused to shoot scenes with poor lighting, in which almost nothing could be seen on the screen.

According to the Cameron's idea, this was supposed to create an eerie atmosphere, but Bush considered it amateurishness, which he publicly announced to the director. Needless to say, he was fired immediately. In his place came Adrian Biddle, who prudently kept his thoughts to himself - and safely shot the film to the end. Although "safely" is not quite the correct word, considering that as soon as the beaddle got down to work, he ... almost died in an accident! It was one of the most dangerous moments during the filming of "aliens". The transporter, on which the infantrymen were moving, had to go, approaching the camera that stood in its path, and brake at the end of the take. But the car's brakes failed, and it continued moving, crashing into the camera and hitting it against the wall. Adrian managed to jump out of the way of the huge car, since its speed did not exceed 15 kilometers per hour, but if he hesitated for just a second and ended up between the transporter and the wall, he would not have a chance to survive…. Michael Bien also got into the project due to the dismissal of another actor - initially Cameron did not take him for the role of Corporal Hicks, but James Rimar, which became almost a tragedy for Bien. He really liked the script, and he was offended by the Cameron for choosing a different candidate - after all, Bien starred in the "Terminator" and worked well with the oppressive director.

Michael could not understand what was the matter ... but one fine day the cameron refused the services of the rimar - for the fact that the actor dared to object to the director in a conversation about how a capra should look and behave

l hicks. ... By the way, the dismissal of Rimard entailed an unscheduled reshooting of already completely finished and very expensive scenes ... On the same day, producer Gail Ann heard called Bien and asked him to "urgently fly to England." It was Friday night. On Monday morning, the happy bien was already rehearsing in full swing in a hicks outfit…. "Strangers", no doubt, will be remembered by the viewer for their stunning special effects - nothing surprising, because the head of the team of specialists was again the friend of the cameraman Stan Winston, the one who created the unforgettable "terminator" with him, and the one who really unfolds in work on "doomsday" a few years later. His independent studio coordinated the work of many artists who were tasked with creating something extraordinary, something that no one has ever done before. However, for Stan, this is more the rule than the exception. Scott's "alien" amazed everyone with the images of monsters, Winston had to take the creation of monsters to a new level. And he did it, calling for help with all his skill and talent.

First of all, they made an embryo of a stranger, which escapes from the human breast. In the film, Scott was like that, but they decided to change him slightly, considering him "too smoothed", unlike the creature he would later become. Cameron wanted the fetus to have "hands" (there was only a subtle hint of them in Scott's film). So two little strangers were made, and they filmed the scene with the boy discovered by the soldiers inside the building. One model (without internal mechanisms) was used to "break" through the fake body (the boy's real body was hidden far behind, inside the wall). Another small alien, complex and animated, has been used for close-ups, and here he looks even more "evil" than in the original film. The embryo had to help itself with "hands" in attempts to get out - the director spent two weeks on this requirement of the director, but in the end the doll behaved as naturally as possible, and exactly as the cameron wanted. Cut! Then "spiders" were made that sucked to faces.

The most difficult thing was to remove the "spider" inside the vessel filled with water - after all, all the control cables had to be somehow brought out, and at the same time hidden so that they were not visible. We did it! A special task is to make a "spider", which is dissected by Bishop. To achieve a realistic effect, the authors simply used ... real chicken and cow entrails! Outside the refrigerator, they deteriorated rapidly, so they tried to shoot as quickly as possible. Naturalism is complete. By the way, the dissected "spider" from the first film was actually a sea crab. So there was naturalness too…. The scene in which two "spiders" slipped in by a treacherous berk demanded a lot of stress and attack the ripples and newt in a locked room. For filming, half a dozen spiders, identical in appearance, but completely different inside, of varying degrees of technical advancement, were made, and after editing they created an amazing feeling of living and merciless creatures.

The most difficult was the model of the monster, which wiggled all ten legs and tail - it was controlled by six or seven puppeteers at the same time, and it was he who was in the close-ups, trying to get to the face

ripley. ... The control cables are clearly visible, stretching to the legs. A separate problem was the scene with the running "spider". It was incredibly difficult to make it, and for this purpose a special "running spider" was created, which, other than that, could not do anything. It was specially designed to simulate running. The whole scene was a brilliant "mix" of filming different types of mockups and reverse filming. The realism is amazing. In battle scenes, aliens were portrayed by stuntmen in rubber suits. They crawled along the walls and ceiling, ran and fell, there were about a dozen of them in total. A lot of work had to be done on the costumes, because in addition to their believable appearance, they also had to be removed and put on quickly enough to save filming time, and not deteriorate when performing tricks, that is, be sufficiently wear-resistant. They are made of rubber and latex.

Several dozen alien dummies were made, which were crushed by cars, shot, and blown up with squibs - each dummy was destroyed in one take, but not a single scene had to be re-shot - everything was done with such high quality. To create poisonous smoke, they used know-how: in separate fragile containers inside the dummy, there were two types of chemicals, which, when mixed, gave smoke. They would mix when the squib fired, and voila! Blood instead of acid. But all these were still flowers compared to the absolutely stunning alien queen, with whom Ripley fights so spectacularly at the end of the film. This duel was to become a real "highlight of the program", so there is nothing surprising in the fact that the creators of special effects on this one queen spent more time and money than on all other strangers combined. It was a monster, equal to which the world cinema has not yet seen, in terms of scale only dinosaurs from Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" can be compared with it, but this will happen only a few years later. Stan Winston: “When James first came to me and told me that he wanted to make a huge monster three meters high, which had to walk and fight with a robot, my first thought was - yes, he went nuts. But after just a second, I remembered that this is James Cameron, with whom I worked before, and that since he offers to do this, it means that he knows exactly how it should all look.

And I answered: of course, no problem, we will do it. " To begin with, the Swiss artist Giger, who invented the appearance of the stranger from the original film, did not come up with what the queen, the brainchild of a cameron, would look like, and there was no way to turn to him for help. So the artists had to invent it, based on the already known design, and bring something new. Experts puzzled over how to make such a monster, how to place people inside so that they could move its limbs - many options were tried - two people back to back, two people on each other's shoulders, and so on, until finally they stopped in this version: two people one after the other, the front man controls the small "arms" growing from the chest of the monster, the second - the large "hands". The whole structure is suspended from a crane, from above there is a large head with complex hydraulic control. In America, a trial "layout" dummy was made of foam rubber, polypropylene, wooden sticks and garbage bags, which moved with four hands and swayed on its feet, suspended from a crane. The footage with this dummy was shown to the Cameron, and he "gave the go-ahead" to create a full-size monster on this basis. The craftsmen with their concept flew to england to the pinewood studio, and the work began to boil. First, a full-size, detailed sculpture with all the relief was made from plaster. Then the outer skin of the scarecrow's skeleton, limbs, skull (about fifty component parts) were cast from an elastic composition and hard plastic, and all this was painted.

The internal skeleton consisted of many hundreds of parts and was of enormous size - until now, craftsmen had not yet done anything like this.

The problem was also in the extraordinary complexity of controlling the mass of hydraulic drives, which turned the creature's head, moved its lips and jaws, pushed an additional jaw out of its mouth - dozens of multidirectional movements that had to be controlled simultaneously! Add to this the work of the crane operator, on which the whole structure hung…. Several dozen hoses stretched from the dummy, for well-coordinated control they came up with a design with car steering wheels installed in a row on a special ramp - one steering wheel controlled the turn of the head left and right, the other tilted it up and down, and so on. Thanks to this invention, the movements of the head turned out to be very harmonious, as if it were a really living organism ... the doll was controlled by 14-15, sometimes 16 people at the same time. It took a month to make the queen's prototype. And when she was on the set, many joked that this is the only actress who can afford to snap at the cameron ... it was really a terrible monster that made a tremendous impression on everyone who saw him alive. Stan winston: “the queen was hanging from the crane. Her legs were controlled by a separate group of operators, her neck by a separate one, the largest number of operators were involved in controlling the head - turning her front part and facial expressions. I have never done anything more complicated than this in my entire life.

At the same time, on the set, being next to this creature was simply scary. We all really hoped that the viewer would also be damn uncomfortable. " The scene aboard the Sulako, in which the queen pierces the bishop with her tail, was filmed using an artificial torso that was attached to Lance Henriksen's chest so that there was a gap of about ten centimeters between his real body and torso. In this cavity, the queen's tail was placed, made of latex and bent. This tail was pulled out with the help of a thin wire fixed at its tip, so that the viewer had the complete illusion that this tail was hard as a bone, and really pierced the bishop through. In fact, it is soft and elastic. Then the bishop rises, suspended on cables, with a queen's tail attached to his back…. ... and then a mannequin appears in the frame, which is an exact copy of the lance from head to toe, and has an interesting feature: its upper and lower halves are connected by a special knot, which undocks when the halves of the body rotate 90 degrees relative to each other. The halves were pulled to the sides by cables, they turned - and the poor bishop was torn in two, sprinkling around a mixture of milk and yogurt, depicting the whitish "blood" of a biorobot.

In the frame where the upper part of the bishop falls to the floor and slides, another mannequin was removed, which also looked incredibly similar to Lance. He was thrown to the floor about forty times, until finally he fell as naturally as possible. Before each take, they poured milk on it, pouring it over the entire set - so that when it fell, there would be splashes in the frame. The same mannequin was then moved across the floor when the bishop was dragged, according to the scenario, to the hatch into open space. Cameron initially wanted to do this with time-lapse animation, but Lance convinced him to film it all with a puppet being pulled with cables tied to his wrists. Lance himself "brought to mind" the mannequin so as to achieve maximum resemblance. Then he said that it was the most eerie moment in his life - imagine that you see yourself lying on the floor and torn in half! The similarity was such that everyone around him involuntarily became creepy. The epic scene of the battle between the alien queen and Ripley driving a loader robot was one of Cameron's most important ideas for the film.

The task he put before the masters of special effects was daunting, but he insisted that everything looked exactly like in his sketches.

And, as usual, he did not agree to any compromises. The loader was built for more than three months. The question was how to get him to move in the right way. Making manipulators in the style of industrial robotics was not a problem, but for the whole structure to walk on the set ... how to do it, if even in scientific laboratories they have not yet made a robot that can walk like a person? And then they decided to hide it inside a person! It was thanks to him that the huge forklift could walk and move the way the Cameron intended. The structure was made of thin plastic, disguised on the outside as thick iron, but the electrically operated manipulator arms and robot legs were made of metal, and because of them the weight of the loader exceeded 200 kilograms. The stuntman had to sweat, considering that he also had a sigourney on him, and he had to move the strength of his muscles in addition to the whole structure, and its 55 kilograms. As a result, this big man set in motion a contraption with a total weight of about a quarter of a ton - an almost impossible task…. The legs of a man (the guy's name was John, he is a weightlifter) are clearly visible, moving the robot.

At the same time, sigourni did not participate in the movements in any way, and was only forced to repeat them. Sigourney and John spent many hours rehearsing the movements, trying to make them more coherent, almost identical, repeating them faster and faster. Sigourney recalled that these were the most interesting moments in her entire career. Of course, without additional support, this crap would just fall, so it had to be supported with cables attached to the crane. At the same time, these cables partially compensated for the weight to make it easier for John to move. And still, the film crew constantly took long breaks so that John could rest, and gain strength for another grueling take .... But even though life-size mockups of the queen and loader could do so much, filmmakers were forced to resort to miniatures! So both the monster and the yellow robot were copied to the millimeter in the same 1: 5 scale, and they were used in a number of scenes. In the general plans, which show loaders moving loads, we actually see small models with electric drives. When the loader lifts the queen off the ground and they fall into the opened hatch, these are miniatures. But they are made so carefully that it is not easy to guess about it. During one of the takes - it was a scene in which a loader falls out of the hatch and flies into outer space - the model was accidentally broken.

He was supposed to fall onto the safety net stretched below, but due to someone's negligence, the net was not there. The precious robot fell to the concrete floor from a height of ten meters and smashed to smithereens. It seems incredible, but no new building was required! The craftsmen repaired the robot, reassembled it, painted it - and the shooting continued as if nothing had happened. The photo shows the legs of a miniature double of Ripley - he was almost unharmed, protected by a powerful "safety cage". Now this loader adorns the office of James Cameron - as a keepsake. When Cameron was a production designer and worked at Corman's studio, he met the Cattle brothers, Robert and Dennis, who were brilliant special effects masters. He called them right after the Aliens project had been approved and offered to work together on his new film. The brothers gladly agreed, because they always had an excellent understanding with James.

The animals have created scaled-down landscapes of the alien planet, including a human settlement on its surface.

The miniatures came out not at all miniature - they occupied several tens of square meters. Buildings were shot with small lenses at 3x acceleration. The rain was simulated using spray guns, so that the settling water particles in slow motion were perceived as drops. Misty haze was created using smoke. Not all miniatures were captured in the frame, but they were made with the same care as the others…. The ship "Sulako", on which the rescue mission arrived, was a little more than two meters long - a cardboard base, parts molded from plastic on top. The body was worked out only from one side - from the one that was facing the viewer. From the “shadow” side, the model was completely smooth. The same craftsmen made wonderful models of the Cheyenne descent ship and the apc (armored personnel carrier) armored transporter, in exact accordance with the artist's sketches based on the concepts of Ron Cobb.

Moreover, both the ship and the transporter were made both in full size - for filming close-ups with people, and in the form of scale models to simulate flight and movement. Models repeated large models down to the smallest detail - right down to the drawings on the case. Everything has been reduced five times - including hangars! For filming the crash of the landing ship, another model was built, made especially for this. They were far from immediately able to remove a plausible catastrophe. Special effects masters with the help of a "training" model (in the photo, of the same mass and size, but stronger and without details) tried on different angles of incidence, worked out the relief and density of the surface that the apparatus had to collide with, selected the speed and degree of slowing down of shooting for the most naturalistic - this ship was forced to crash into the ground at least one and a half dozen times before settling on the optimal option. Then another model, designed for destruction and stuffed with explosive squibs, was sent into the ground at exactly the speed and angle that were chosen during the tests. Four models were smashed and blown up, the best take was included in the film. The crash footage, shot at acceleration and then slowed down, was projected onto a screen in the background, while actors in the foreground threw themselves for cover. The rear-projection, familiar from the scenes in the "terminator", worked just great here! The apc transporter, in which the space marines moved across the surface of an inhospitable planet, was converted from the douglas dc14 airfield tractor.

This is how the tractor looked before the rework. It was a very serious vehicle: intended for towing Boeing 747 airliners weighing 180 tons, it was equipped with a 380-horsepower cummins diesel engine, and together with ballast weighed an unimaginable 75 tons, which did not allow it to move at a speed faster than 15 kilometers per hour. The first thing that the specialists did in the workshop with this monster was to extract 35 tons of lead ingots from it, at the same time making room for the Marines. Then the tractor received a completely new body based on the sketches of the same Ron Cobb. Even after lightening the structure, it weighed so much that in the studio, before filming with this machine, it was necessary to strengthen the entrance ramps, since they broke under his weight. The extreme slowness of the car made it necessary to accelerate the shooting with its movement where it was needed. In fact, apc moved almost all the time at the speed of a pedestrian. But for filming the transporter, which travels inside the corridors of the base, it was necessary to build a scale model. A 1: 5 scale model is filmed in all indoor motion scenes, with the exception of the one in which the ripley crushes someone else. There was also another radio-controlled model, 20 centimeters long, and it was she who was removed at the moment of leaving the landing craft (and entering it too). It is also visible in the footage of movement around the city. And all these models were made so carefully that when watching a movie, you will invariably have a feeling of complete realism of what is happening!

There is no computer graphics or retouching here - everything that we see has been done for real….

Even in the scene where Ripples, Newt, and Bishop are flying over the clouds seconds before the explosion, these clouds are not graphics at all. They are actually made of cotton wool! The special effects experts modeled several types of clouds, including picturesque cumulus clouds, between which the ship flies, and then held the camera over them, filming at an accelerated pace. With slow motion playback, we got a flight over the clouds, which is indistinguishable from reality. Even the "mushroom" of the explosion was nothing more than an illuminated ring of cotton wool, moving upward by means of an electric drive! "Strangers" became another success in the career of the cameron, confirming his title of a talented director, the film is unconditionally recognized as the standard in the genre of fantastic action. But there is no doubt that the success of the picture is predetermined not only by the director, but also by the magnificent masters of their craft, who know how to amaze the imagination of even the most sophisticated viewer. It is a pity that with the advent of computer graphics, special effects masters no longer have to show so much ingenuity. That realism, whatever one may say, will be gone! Press the buttons! Save the world from boredom.