Man. It's Monday. He's still gone...
I haven't really put my thoughts into articulate words yet. I think I'm mostly distraught because Aliens has been my favorite film for my entire life, for different reasons over the years. He played my favorite character. The movie has profoundly influenced the trajectory of my life, to the point that it would be stupid to say that enlisting in the real-life US Marines wasn't in part a result of my obsession with the film, and his role featured prominently means that he has been a part of that. I suppose, Paxton being 61 and me being 28 meant that there was always a chance that my life would outlast his in terms of the year we died. I'm just so shocked that I got to spend less than 30 years of my life watching the path his career took. The dude was a master, a true craftsman to observe in the same way that I think Gary Oldman and Johnny Depp have been. The man could transform himself from one role to another. It's amazing to watch the same guy as Chet and then as astronaut Fred Haise. I should've been more diligent about making it to a convention that he appeared at. I feel like looking back I made excuses to avoid it. I could've met him. I should have tried at least.
I wish I would've been a closer fan in terms of seeing everything he's been in over the years, because now all the catching up I have to do on seeing all of his different appearances have a depressing overtone. I think I'm looking forward to watching Big Love for the first time and also One False Move, which I haven't seen yet. But I'm happy to have seen him pop up in Commando or The Terminator, or Titanic and I've always been a fan of Twister, Predator 2, True Lies, and Apollo 13 among other roles. I thought he was good in Nightcrawler and I recently saw Near Dark for the first time a few years back, perhaps as recently as four years ago for the first time. Classic. And always Aliens.