As you might have guessed, since it was composed in just ten days, this soundtrack isn't very original. It borrows from Horner's earlier Klingon theme from Star Trek 3, Jerry Goldsmith's score for the first Alien movie, and a couple of small thematic segments are derived from Khachaturian's Gayne Ballet, which was used to temp-track the copy of the film that Horner recieved.

The most popular cue on this CD is Bishop's Countdown. An atonal action cue that was used in a lot of action-movie trailers from the late 80s until just recently, and chances are that you'll recognize it when you play the track.

Though it's not the most popular, I believe that Futile Escape is by far the best track. It's one of James Horner's most exciting action cues, and though it's eight minutes long, it goes through plenty of variations and never gets dull. It even utilizes the once-soft main theme (the part derived from Khachaturian) and reworks it into the action in an awe-inspiring way. Ripley's rescue is exciting too, and Sub-Level 3 is ominous and scary (it's got a surprise near the end that'll scare the hell out of you if you're not prepared for it).

Overall, I'd say that this an excellent action soundtrack that's definitely worth your time. Especially if you're a fan of James Horner or even a fan of James Cameron's action movies.

I doubt that many people were in greater anticipation than me over the release of this expanded Aliens soundtrack. When this arrived at my door via UPS, I hurredly took off the wrapping and threw the disc into my player, and found that the wait was definitely worth it. I also realized that, unimportant as it may be, that this is the only score in the series with the composer himself conducting.

I've also come to the realization that Aliens is one of my all-time favorite scores. Really thinking about it, over the past year I've listened to the original release more than 90% of the rest of my collection.