#alien40

I saw James Cameron’s ALIENS at the Egyptian Theater when I was sixteen, summer of 1986. Walking out of the theater into the bright Hollywood sunlight dazed and thrilled, I passed a shoe store on Hollywood Boulevard next to the theater. Lo and behold, they actually had the Reebok “Alien Stompers” featured in the film, and I instantly bought them.

Not really knowing how collectible they’d become, I actually wore them fairly regularly for about a year. Eventually, I learned that they were a very limited edition; realizing how much I’d lucked out in finding them, I put them in the back of my closet for safekeeping.

I pulled them out of storage once in 2009 to wear to a screening of ALIENS here in LA — which ended up having a surprise appearance by Cameron himself for a Q&A after the film. Everyone crowded the stage at the end for autographs; Cameron’s handlers yelled “no autographs” and tried to quickly usher him out of the theater. I quickly pulled one shoe off and thrust over the crowd, right in Cameron’s face. He gasped and said “OH MY GOD where did you get these!?”, grabbing the shoe and immediately scrawling his name on the top in Sharpie. Out the door he went, and the remaining fans had nothing but laser-beam scowls aimed at me.

Reebok had reissued the “Stomper” shoe type a few times, and in 2017 I bought the two-pair “Final Battle” pack — one yellow “Power Loader” pair, and one shiny-patent-black “Alien Queen” pair, which also had the best box of any of them, fully themed as a Weyland-Yutani crate.

And now this year, for the Alien 40th Anniversary, it’s come full circle. This latest pair is a reissue of the original 1986 color scheme, inspired by the (much taller and more boot-like) versions worn by Ripley and Bishop in the film. They’ve got some fun fan-service details like Weiland-Yutani logos on the inside.

Michael Biehn meets fans at ALIENS tribute

Actor Michael Biehn (Corporal Hicks) appeared in person at an Aliens Tribute in Omaha this weekend. The event, held by film historian Bruce Crawford, is one of many that Crawford hosts twice a year to honor classic films and raise money for local charities, in this case the Nebraska Kidney Foundation. Biehn answered questions for nearly thirty minutes before the screening of a new 35mm print of…