Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film written and directed by James Cameron as the sequel to the 1979 film Alien. Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley, who agrees to lead a unit of Colonial Marines back to a moon colony that has gone silent. The sequel took years to develop because of lawsuits, uncertainty at 20th Century Fox and repeated management changes. Cameron was hired to write it in 1983 on the strength of his scripts for The Terminator and Rambo: First Blood Part II. Shot for about $18.5 million, it became one of the highest-grossing films of 1986.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.