Aliens isn't scary..yet!

I'm about a half hour into Aliens! So far, so good! I don't know what I was expecting, but it's definitely way better than most of the other awful sequels I've been watching lately (not that I'm surprised!).

So far we've only seen a little bit of an alien, but Ripley's nightmares make it clear that they are really gross when they pop out of people's chests. It looks like some colonists discovered the remains of the old alien ship (from movie 1) and are all either dead or infected. I think it's interesting that colonization strategy used here is also found in Firefly/Serenity. It seems that terraforming colonists get the short end of the stick in every movie and tv show. They get dumped on hostile planets and are practically abandoned to death and disease by the large corporations that fund their work. Sounds a lot like miners....hmm...

Anyway, it's now over an hour into the movie and I've now seen lots of dead people dripping in some kind of alien excretion (their words, not mine), a few aliens, and at least one person burned alive. I'm not sure how many Marines died in the last scene since there was a lot of blood and smoke, but the body count is pretty high. Bill Paxton is still alive, but he's kind of a dumb hick in this movie. He's also really whiny, and I think I wish he was being cocooned along with the other unfortunate Marines.

Some things I have learned:

1. Bill Paxton plays a super irritating Marine.

2. A small girl is able to survive in the air vents in the colony, but no one else is able to find a good hiding spot in the whole area.

3. Even if you have been encased in alien gook for 3+ weeks, you will still be alive and able to die horribly in front of the Marines. Who needs food or water when you're suspended mid-air anyway?

4. The aliens attack mostly at night..on a planet that is always dark. Hm. Doesn't that mean it's always night? Clearly the aliens know how to tell time.