From Aliens to the Battlefield: How James Cameron’s Vision Shaped Real Military Tech

It turns out James Cameron did a bit more than terrify us with chest-bursting monsters and acid-spewing xenomorphs. According to Ricco Ross, who played Private Frost in Aliens, some of the kit cooked up for the Marines in the 1986 classic was so ahead of its time, the actual US military wanted in.

'Aliens' Gear: Too Clever for Just Hollywood?

Ross recently popped up at a Big Lick Comic Con NOVA panel to reminisce about filming Aliens, and wound up admitting he’d heard the American military went straight to James Cameron after seeing what he’d built for the film. We're talking about stuff that at first just seemed like movie wizardry – but apparently, it made some folks in uniform sit up and take notes.

The bit of tech causing all the fuss? The way Cameron and his team used a Steadicam setup, only instead of keeping a film camera stable, they had the brilliant notion to slap a heavy marine gun on it. The concept was, if you can keep a camera level while you’re legging it round a set, why not try keeping a gun on target the same way?

'That’s when they say, what is it? Life imitates art,' Ross told one interviewer, explaining how in Aliens Jenette Goldstein (who played Vasquez) and Mark Rolston (who played Drake) both used a Steadicam rig to carry their giant guns. 'For James to think, “Let’s put a gun, a rifle on that, and then the target, even if you’re running, it will be there as well,” was such a brilliant idea at the time.'

Ross claims Cameron was shrewd enough to retain the rights for this invention before any government type could run off with it for free.

GoPro? Aliens Did It First

Jenette Goldstein herself was on hand as well, and pointed out something plenty of us probably never considered: those tiny “helmet-cams” the marines use in the movie basically predate the GoPro by decades. There were no GoPros back then, just massive video cameras and a good imagination.

Goldstein put it like this: 'The camera, the GoPro that everybody uses… I mean, there was no such thing as a GoPro. It was this really cool idea he had. He was like, you know, “What if there was a little camera?” …and now we just think, like, “Oh yeah, of course, a GoPro.”'

Fun fact: the US military now does actually use GoPro-type action cameras for things like training and recording operations. So in a strange twist, the gear designed for sci-fi space marines has turned up, in a roundabout way, on real-life soldiers.

Quick Facts (Aliens Style)

• Film: Aliens (1986), directed by James Cameron, second in his Alien franchise
• Gadget 1: Gun-mountable Steadicam rig (the inspiration for military hardware)
• Gadget 2: Prototype helmet-cam (years before GoPros existed)
• Reported Reaction: US military inquiries about adapting the tech
• Actors involved: Ricco Ross (Frost), Jenette Goldstein (Vasquez), Mark Rolston (Drake)

Aliens has long since become a cult classic, landing in cinemas on 18th July 1986, and it keeps cropping up in strange corners of pop culture history – but even I didn’t expect to find the US military knocking on James Cameron’s door, asking about his sci-fi props.