James Cameron’s Mother Launched ‘Avatar’ Director’s Career By Helping Him Write ‘Aliens’ Script
James Cameron directed 1986’s Aliens starring Sigourney Weaver who plays the character of Ellen Ripley; a solo survivor of an alien attack on her ship. The movie was the sequel to the 1979 Alien, and took years to develop because of management changes and reportedly a lack of enthusiasm from the studios.
The director who had successfully laid his foundation in the industry with The Terminator, Rambo: First Blood Part II was hired not only to direct the movie but also to write it. The movie went on to become one of the best science fiction, action, and sequel movies of all time. Did you know that it was James Cameron’s Mother who inspired him to work on Aliens? Let’s explore more.
Also read: James Cameron Compared the Terminator Franchise To His ‘Avatar’ Films For 1 Crucial Reason
James Cameron’s mother inspired the script for 1986’s Aliens
In season three of Netflix’s The Movies That Made Us, 1986’s Aliens was covered with makers sharing about how James Cameron got involved in the project. Larry Wilson was assigned to find a writer for the Alien sequel and he stumbled upon James Cameron.
J.W. Rizler mentioned in the documentary that Cameron’s challenge with writing the sequel was how to top the first movie which had already created a great impact on the audience. Randall Frakes, Cameron’s friend and collaborated added,
“Jim himself wrote this treatment called Mother, way before Aliens because he had a very strong-willed mother who encouraged his creativity where his didn’t as much. So because of his mother, he started writing very strong female characters. Equal to the male characters. Maybe even more equal.”
The narrator goes on to explain that James Cameron adapted Mother with Frakes explaining that it was about two mothers defending their children. Frakes noted,
“Cameron said, ‘That’d be an intense movie.’ The battle of the mothers.”
According to a quote in Alien Exploration, James Cameron was asked about his focus in opening the concept of Aliens to which he said,
“To begin with, Aliens happened in space. The characters literally existed in a vacuum, they had no past or life beyond that film. Ripley of course was the only survivor because she was very strong female, and that impressed me very much. I wanted to take the character further, to know Ripley as a person, to see some depth and emotion. The movie is about her, every scene, it gets insider her mind, takes her back to face her own worst nightmare. In an way Aliens is about revenge.”
For Cameron, Aliens was not a love story between a woman and a little girl who became her surrogate daughter (Ripley and Newt.)
James Cameron refused to work on Aliens without Sigourney Weaver
According to Sideshow, actress Sigourney Weaver was reluctant to reprise her character of Ellen Ripley for the Alien sequel. The reason was, that she wasn’t sure if the makers would be able to do justice to her character and might tarnish the legacy they created with the first movie. She turned down the offer several times until she read James Cameron’s version.
The actress was ready to play Ellen Ripley whose character was going to form a mother-daughter bond with Newt. It was also noted that she was worried about the fact that the studios might think that she is taking a hefty pay. The executives according to the publication tried to convince the writer-director to write a treatment, which didn’t include Ripley.
Also read: James Cameron’s New War of Words Against Streaming Giants, He is Actually Right This Time
