Aliens
Jul 25, 2022 | Albany, NY
We had watched the first Alien movie back in (I believe) Roanoke. It was kind of a "good for its era" type of thing where the effects weren't phenomenal, but they did a respectable job obscuring enough of the weaknesses of it for it to still hold up well enough through the ages.
The sequel came out a surprising 7 years later, and appears to have benefited greatly from either an expanded budget, advances in movie technology, or likely both. There's not much more going on plot-wise than the original, with them reusing the "double crossing character" situation and swapping Jonesy the cat for an actual human girl this time as the object that needs rescuing. And I'd say it loses a bit compared to the first movie in terms of how interactions with the actual aliens take place. In the first movie they are all but invincible, and do a lot more slinking and stalking. In this movie there are several scenes of the whole crew going guns blazing against a mob of aliens and blowing them to smithereens. Kind of took away a bit of the fear of not knowing how or even if they can be confronted.