I sure liked Biehn in Terminator as well as Tombstone. He was fine in the underwater movie... oh, heck, I can't remember the name of it now. But he goes nuts from the bends, or something. The role was kinda cooked, but that's what he had to do. I always felt Biehn was underused in Hollywood. Square-jawed, good-looking actor. Sort of like a potential Tom Cruise, but sane.It's also arguable whether Biehn and Paxton have ever produced performances on the same level.
I thoroughly enjoyed Paxton in Weird Science. Played for laughs, sure. On the other hand, while he did a decent job in Twister, there were about 24,872 members of SAG who could've done that role with that range. I never saw an episode of Big Love, but I hear he was good in it.
I haven't. Honestly, while I liked Alien and have seen it a couple, three times, it isn't in my library. I didn't watch Alien 3, watched but didn't care for Alien 4. So Aliens is pretty much it for me in terms of the franchise, although I do have an extended version where we hear Ripley's and Hicks' first names, and other stuff.Re: the movie making, though...have you see the extras and 'making of' featurettes at all? I'm not sure which other versions would have them, but the Alien Quadrilogy (9 disc box-set, which is the one I own) does. If you haven't, they're worth looking up. I'm sure you'd find them interesting.