Finally saw most of Aliens.
Some thoughts:
How does someone think up such a bizarre SyFy plot?
It evolved from the original "Alien" (1979) movie, directed by Ridley Scott, which is really good, not your typical sci-fi horror movie (although it is in the same vein as "Thing" where alien lifeform goes through the crew one-by-one). The Alien and the accompanying elements were designed by Swiss surrealist artist
H. R. Giger, as he did for all of the subsequent Alien movies, which didn't hurt the film winning an Academy Award for Visual Effects. The stellar cast is Tom Skerrit, Signourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Hol and Yaphet Kotto. Only Weaver's character, Ellen Ripley, makes it out alive. The movie is a virtual permanent fixture on every "greatest films of all time" lists. The Library of Congress designated it as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
I highly recommend watching it, as it totally sets up the "Aliens" sequel, which is an even better movie, amazingly. "Aliens" was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Weaver, and it won 2, for Sound and for Visual Effects. The horror genre feel of the original contrasted with the war genre feel of the sequel makes for a great pairing.