Chapter 21 - Movie

September 12th, 1980

From there, Ripley would be put in front of a council where they would deem her unfit to have her license to pilot or man a crew. She is also made to get counseling and monthly check-ins for a psych evaluation.

In the meeting, the lead investigator would be very hostile towards Ripley and accuse her of destroying an expensive ship under poor judgment.

Most of the people on the council would share this sentiment.

Ripley insisted there was Alien life on the planet that did not originate from there and was a very real threat to humanity due to there still being many more eggs being incubated on it.

This report would seem strange and ridiculous to the people on the council as a colony was currently stationed there, currently terra-forming the planet, but there had been no sighting of foreign life on the planet.

"My crew said they saw thousands of those things on that ship! Those things! Thousands! If we don't take precautions, you won't have time to worry about all this stupid shit you care so much about. All of this bullshit, you are blaming ME for!" Ripley would yell.

James would cut to a scene where people on the planet get news of Ripley's report sometime later, due to how far the outpost is from other areas in space. Someone from the colony would be made to investigate, but the report does not fully disclose every bit of information.

The colony would not be made aware of the xenomorph's presence or its danger, leading the underpowered colony to haphazardly search.

There, they would suffer an encounter with the Alien eggs, leading a face-hugger to latch on to a man sent to investigate.

The report of this encounter comes late back to Earth due to the distance the planet is located from other outposts. Transmissions would also be cut-off leading the company that owns the terra-forming business, Weylan-Yutani, to send Marines to secure the colony.

Weylan-Yutani would also ask Ripley to come along as an advisor, offering to renew her licenses as an incentive.

Ripley would initially refuse, but James would show her sorry state, still plagued by the memory of her crewmates being killed;

Ripley would have constant nightmares. Nightmares that would wake her from her sleep, sweating profusely.

This would lead Ripley to want to go back, to get over her fears, and to save anyone from going through that same experience.

This is where the movie starts getting more intense.

The marines would land on the planet, but find no one in sight. They would take control of part of the compound, look around for any signs of life, and map out every inch of the compound.

The marines would find a little girl, Newt, who had survived the alien attack by hiding in small crevices around the compound.

The marines would also be able to locate the outpost residents' life signature located in one spot, underground in an adjacent building's sub-level 3.

As it was a rescue operation, they would send their team towards those life signatures, with Ripley staying behind, in their armored tank, along with the surveillance team.

In sub-level 3 they would find the survivors cocooned and seemingly glued to alien secretions, something like a polymer holding them up.

"What the hell are we looking at?" The surveillance team would ask looking through the marine's helmet cameras.

As the marines would explore and go deeper into the den, they would find a cocooned female, who had just woken up. This haggard-looking female would look relieved to see them before quickly turning nauseous as a xenomorph would pop out of her stomach.

Panic would ensue as they decided on how to both kill the xenomorph and save the woman.

Xenomorphs would pop out of the walls, having been camouflaged, with the alien-polymer-covered walls.

The marines, being surrounded, would suffer many casualties.

Ripley would commandeer the surveillance team's tank to rescue them, only a few surviving the attack.

The tension would escalate as Ripley, Newt, a Weyland-Yutani representative, and the remaining marines were left bunkered in a med-bay facility.

Ripley and the marines would have to figure out to survive the xenomorph onslaught using their remaining weaponry.

They would weld certain doors together, set up barricades, use sentries in certain corridors, and map out any other potential entrances or escapes.

During this tense situation, Weyland-Yutani's desire to bring back an alien sample, through their representative, would become known by Ripley, knowing it could be worth millions for the bio-weapon industry.

Ripley would confront him, only for their base to be raided by the xenomorphs.

Now, the crew had to desperately find a means of escape, without confronting the aliens.

James would include many close encounters, tense scenes, and claustrophobic chases through vents.

It would end with Ripley saving Newt from the Xenomorph Queen, escaping, then eventually confronting it with the giant mechanical robot. It was an iconic scene in James' past life, so he was only hoping to make it look a little better this time around.

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Production took a total of 9 months. During this time, James was very busy. James had to be responsible for a lot of the production and filming.

He also had a to have a good rapport with Sigourney. James unfortunately(?) had to spend a lot of time with her, but he wanted to focus all of his concentration on making the movie.

Often Sigourney would complain to him that he didn't spend enough time with her.

James would remind her that they were also working on a movie together and that he couldn't waste too much time as he had investors pressuring him about the budget.

Sigourney would get mad at this and tell him she only wanted to work on her character portrayal.

Of course, when James would visit her house, or when she would come to his, they would just mess around.

This wasn't all Sigourney's fault, as James would expect this behavior, never really doing anything to stop it.

If James was a little more serious, he could've easily stopped her antics. Sigourney would've understood as well, as she wasn't a child.

But, it was them playing a game, seeing who would stop their antics first, going from playful to serious whenever work was involved.

It made the process fun for James, but he was also starting to feel guilty for procrastinating and wasting the production team's time.

It wasn't as if James was going above schedule, but he obviously could've finished faster if he wasn't so preoccupied with Sigourney all the time.

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June 1st, 1980

When the movie was finally ready and all the production had been squared away, there would be a big screening held at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

This was James' first big movie premiere, as his movies weren't ever taken as seriously, until now. Now, with multiple big office scores, James was getting the big director treatment, with 20th Century Fox giving his movie as much publicity as it could.

So when James arrived, he was given many questions by reporters that were there-most of them being placed or asked to come, by Fox.

"Sigourney! Sigourney! Sigourney!"

James was also getting a lot of attention because his date was his lead actress.