Aliens (soundtrack)


Aliens: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack The score to the 1986 James Cameron film Aliens was composed by James Horner, who took over for Jerry Goldsmith. The score itself includes musical references to Gayane's Adagio from Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suite, which had been used in Stanley Kubrick's . The score also uses musical motifs, sound treatments and excerpts from Jerry Goldsmith's original soundtrack to Alien. Additional cues taken from Jerry Goldsmith's Alien score were used in the climax of the film when Horner was unable to finish some cues to Cameron's satisfaction. The film's editors also reportedly altered the score's chronological flow, sometimes looping, truncating or removing the music and placing it in fragmented form in the film out of context. Despite production issues, it was nominated for an Academy Award in 1986. It was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The soundtrack album was released the following year, in 1987.

Track listing

Original track listing

  1. "Main Title"
  2. "Going After Newt"
  3. "Sub-Level 3"
  4. "Ripley's Rescue"
  5. "Atmosphere Station"
  6. "Futile Escape"
  7. "Dark Discovery"
  8. "Bishop's Countdown"
  9. "Resolution and Hyperspace"

    Deluxe edition track listing

  10. "Main Title"
  11. "Bad Dreams"
  12. "Dark Discovery/Newt's Horror"
  13. "LV-426"
  14. "Combat Drop"
  15. "The Complex"
  16. "Atmosphere Station"
  17. "Med.Lab."
  18. "Newt"
  19. "Sub-Level 3"
  20. "Ripley's Rescue"
  21. "FaceHuggers"
  22. "Futile Escape"
  23. "Newt is Taken"
  24. "Going After Newt"
  25. "The Queen"
  26. "Bishop's Countdown"
  27. "Queen To Bishop"
  28. "Resolution and Hyperspace"
  29. "Bad Dreams"
  30. "Ripley's Rescue"
  31. "LV-426"
  32. "Combat Drop"
  33. "Hyperspace"

    Credits

℗ © 1986 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

Uses in other films and trailers

Some of the soundtrack has been used many times in trailers for other films. As of April 2011, there were reportedly 24 different film trailers that used "Bishop's Countdown" alone. Some of those trailers include Misery, Alien 3, Broken Arrow, Dante's Peak, Lake Placid and Minority Report.
Other tracks have been used in other movies, as well, such as the use of "Resolution and Hyperspace" in Die Hard at the last action sequence in the movie.