The Making of Aliens

Well worth every penny, this is a must-have for the true Aliens fan who wants to know the details of the movie from conception to premier. It includes original versions of the script as well as tons of photos.

Aliens is by far one of my favorite movies. The struggles James Cameron and crew had to deal with while making this epic sequel are as action-packed as the movie. I own several 'Making of' books about Aliens and this one trumps them all. This is the de facto book of Aliens detailing everything from the script changes to actor struggles all the way to crew infighting and world-building. The book has it all and is written in sizable chunks. Let's be clear: there are a lot of never-before-seen photos, but there is also an equable amount of research and crew interviews that will take days to read through. If you want to add any book of Aliens to your collection, forget the rest and pick this one up. You won't be sorry.

Bought both of them since they were both on sale. Came in quick and faster than expected time given, Great art and sized books!

Comprehensive, insightful… well designed…well written…. there’s more info in this than you’ve ever had on the film. A definite must for ALIENS fans.

A handsome, beautifully illustrated and exhaustive history of James Cameron’s film, “Aliens” is a massive coffee table book. The print quality is exceptional. The pictures provide plenty of behind-the-scenes footage. The text give us plenty of background, excerpts from various treatments of the film. If you’re curious about the background of the film, this is the ultimate book on the film.

If you're an ALIENS fan, you know you're going to get this book anyway. Yes, the many interviews and stories have been mentioned and talked about before in DVD, Bluray and other books - BUT - Rinzler does manage to elaborate on these stories just a little bit more to make you say, "Okay, I knew about that, but I didn't know that...". There's additional stories about the effects teams and what they went through - you actually tire of how much they complain about how awful it was, until you finally get it - it was awful! It's these little bits and the consolidation of all the other stuff into one resource that makes this book worth it. As usual with Rinzler's book formats - it's hell to hold and read on a toilet.

(My actual rating is closer to 3 3/4 stars) Although it's definitely the most marketable and crowd-pleasing entry in the "Alien" franchise, it's rather surprising that this is the first really substantial book ever published on the making of "Aliens." This follow-up to J.W. Rinzler's "The Making of Alien" (which I've previously reviewed) is a rather fascinating read and a fairly solid reference but falls short of the standard set by its predecessor. I'll get some of the negative stuff out of the way first. As "Aliens" is a bigger and more elaborate movie than "Alien," one might expect that this book would be a bigger and more elaborate affair. Oddly, that's not the case. Although it follows the same format to a T, it's not quite as detailed, or as interesting on a visual level. The production stills tend to be much darker and grainier this time, there aren't as many concept sketches, and once again, the movie screencaps are extremely small and look like they've been sourced from the laserdisc edition. Interestingly, it's actually 300 pages long as opposed to the 256 pages in the product description. A good chunk of those additional pages seems to be occupied by dark, grainy production stills which have been spread across two pages. Thankfully, Rinzler does a fine job following every aspect of the production from the earliest screenplay revisions all the way to post-production and initial critical and audience reactions. Much of it is derived from magazine articles published before and immediately after the film's release, as well as a number of interviews the author conducted in 2019. There's definitely a heavier emphasis on how models, miniatures, puppets, and practical effects were employed, although I still can't figure out how the powerloader operated! I suppose if you're an "Aliens" fanatic you won't find much new here, but it's still pretty cool seeing all of this material in one place. If there's one thing I've learned from reading this book and its predecessor, it's that "Prometheus" and "Covenant" probably would have been better movies if their principal photographies had been nightmarish 14-week long dumpster fires. It's good to remind ourselves that a lot of classic movies are the product of financial and technical limitations, and lots of backbreaking work carried out by people who generally don't really like each other. Although it could have been a bit better, I still recommend this book to fans of the "Alien" franchise.

I enjoyed the Making of Alien by the same author. As a fan of Aliens as well, I had to pick this one up and I’m glad I did. It has lot of pics from the movie and behind the scenes. I can’t wait to dig into it further and read it cover to cover.