In honor of the 30th anniversary of James Cameron’s Aliens on July 18, the San Diego Comic-Con will hold a special panel with those who made the film, Entertainment Weekly reports. The panel will include Cameron himself, producer Gale Anne Hurd, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, and Carrie “Mostly” Henn.
Cameron told EW that he usually doesn’t indulge in things that won’t make him millions of dollars, but this time he’s willing to take a break from his motion-capture day job because of what Aliens represents:
You know, it’s interesting. I don’t normally pursue these kind of nostalgia moments like we’re going to do down at Comic-Con, and I didn’t do it much at all for Terminator on its 30th, but there’s something about Aliens. It was a milestone for myself and Gale because the film got seven Academy Award nominations. All of a sudden, we were playing in the big league. So looking at it retrospectively, you know, [Gale] and I both feel that was more of our graduation, or breakthrough, than Terminator—even though Terminator’s the film that put us on the map.
At Comic-Con, you can also pre-order a new Aliens 30th anniversary Blu-ray, which has mostly the same content as the 2013 Blu-ray, along with a new interview with Cameron discussing “the design and inspiration of the film.” It also boasts some sweet packaging that includes art cards with Cameron’s concept sketches and a book featuring art from Dark Horse’s Aliens comic book series. You can check out the set below:
The Blu-ray and DVD versions will be available September 13, and there’s no shame in double dipping.