Aliens: No Hope Edition

A solid follow-up to the masterpiece first film.

The version I watched was a modified Director’s Cut that removed the Hadley’s Hope opening scene to add an air of mystery to what happened on the Colony. The first time the viewer sees the colony is with Ripley and the marines. It;s intensely effective.

With that, this fanedit achieves what it sets out to, it retains the mystery of what happened on the colony that exists in the original theatrical cut, while also allowing the film to breath with several early scenes that explore Ripley’s state and character as she comes out of deep sleep. Ripley is desperate, PTSD riddled, and backed into a corner by bureaucrats. I think the early scenes add to the film, having a strong thematic correlation as Ripley gets a second chance at being a mom and the obvious correlations to the Alien species. Not to mention the lingering shots that echo the early scenes in the first one before the crew wakes up on the ship.

Unfortunately, the film is a bit overlong, and that takes away some of its power, particularly in its latter half. The reintegration of the automated machine guns sequence while fitting for an action oriented version of Alien, doesn’t work with how dangerous the Xenomorphs are as they’re used as cannon fodder. I greatly prefer the first film to this one. But it’s still a strong continuation the plays on what we know of the first film, circumventing the expectations of the android, and expanding the scope.

I've seen many Bobson's edits, and they are all technically fantastic. This one is no different.
As someone else pointed out though, I found the encoding a bit rough as well. Maybe I got the Lower Quality version, I don't know.

I never despised the Hadley's Hope scenes the first time I've watched the SE of Aliens; as time went on however, I came to realize that while they're a nice bonus to look at, they ruin the mystery surrounding the devastated colony and Newt's traumatized character.
This edit does an amazing job at removing the superfluous material; maybe to enhance the mystery a bit more the editor could have deleted the extended dialogue hinting at the Queen, but overall who doesn't love more Bill Paxton?
Excellent job.

As the other reviews say, by removing the "Hope scenes" the film becomes significantly more enjoyable

This was my second time watching Aliens (1986), and I enjoyed the movie significantly more than I did the first time. I didn’t notice any cuts and was surprised to find that a jarring cut I noticed was already present in both the theatrical cut and the special edition. The editing work is truly marvelous. However, I did find the bitrate/encoding of the edit to be a bit rough, particularly with artifacts appearing in most dark scenes. This might be noticeable if you’re accustomed to watching movies straight from Blu-ray or in theaters. Nonetheless, this is undoubtedly the best way to experience this movie. It skillfully adds the best scenes and removes the worst.

I can't tell you how many times I've MANUALLY done this exact edit by forcing my audience to wait while I fast forwarded through these Hadley's Hope scenes, because this edit has it right: they have catastrophic effects on the mystery and suspense of the rest of the film. BUT on the other hand, the SE includes the most important scene in the movie for Ripley's character arc: the setup about her daughter. (Plus who doesn't love those gun-camera later on?). Point is, this is a simple clean edit and it delivers the best version of the movie possible. THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT!