Though it’s perhaps the most iconic single prop in the entire Alien franchise, the power loader Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) uses to fend off the xenomorph queen in Aliens (1986) was a real pain to make. A new featurette, premiering today on The Creators Project, reveals that, while Rome wasn’t built in a day, the very first model for this “far future forklift,” actually was. “The practical effects guys in England, they just thought I was nuts,” Cameron says in the clip, referring to the time he essentially locked his team in a room with a bunch of pipes and foam core. But by the end of the day they had a recognizable prototype of the first robot exoskeleton to hit the silver screen. When they tested out their experiment, Cameron says, “All the effects guys were starting to think, ‘Oh my god this actually sort of works just enough that he’s going to make us do this.’ And I did, I made them do it.”
Check out the full clip, just one part of an amazing documentary that comes with the Aliens 30th Anniversary Edition below.
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Courtesy Fox Home Entertainment
Courtesy Fox Home Entertainment
Courtesy Fox Home Entertainment
Courtesy Fox Home Entertainment
Courtesy Fox Home Entertainment
Download the Aliens 30th Anniversary Edition on Digital HD here, or snag it on Blu-ray.
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