- What if Gene Roddenberry got it wrong? What if space travel turned out to be just another way for powerful mega-corporations to exploit workers? What if the sleek, antiseptic bridge of the starship Enterprise concealed a tangled mess of constantly venting steampipes and leaky ductwork? More interesting still, what if Star Trek and its ilk completely missed the mark on extraterrestrial life? What if the universe wasn't populated exclusively by English-speaking humanoids with a rather narrow distribution of ethical norms and forehead wrinkles? What if space was not something one should explore, but rather something one should fear?
- Alien presents one of the most pessimistic sets of cinematic answers to the major "What if..." questions of science fiction. It's also one of the most terrifying and wonderfully designed films ever made. Everyone knows the plot, which the imdb dryly summarizes as "A mining ship, investigating a suspected SOS, lands on a distant planet. The crew discovers some strange creatures and investigates." Well, yes, but I can't help but feel that some essential details have been omitted. For one, this is not just any mining ship. The Nostromo is a mammoth, misshapen, miasmatic maze of metal that could very well have served as the digestive system of that man-eating industrial machine from Metropolis. One particularly wonderful room is nothing more than a cavern full of chains that hang from the ceiling and drip water. A less self-assured film might have tried to explain it away as a water reclamation plant or something, but Alien is content to let the room speak for itself. The ship has the first five minutes of the film completely to itself, and it deserves them.
- Despite nominally representing the future of humankind, the Nostromo's crew of seven is surprisingly recognizable. From the fact that they dwell on trivial matters like lousy food and unfair wages, we gather that the basic problems of humanity are still going strong even in the space age. Some of these issues even threaten to distract the crew from investigating the source of that mysterious alien distress call...or is it a warning? Regardless, Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) takes out officers Kane (John Hurt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) to explore while Warrant Officer Ripley (Signorney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and the maintenance crew (Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton) remain behind. What the explorers find is truly otherworldly. Normally, I would have described the ship and its lone occupant as something H.R. Giger might have dreamed up, but of course this film is the reason such a description leapt to mind. Dallas' attempt at a clinical description provides the essential details concerning this mysterious giant: "Alien life form. Looks like it's been dead a long time. Fossilized. Looks like it's growing out of the chair...Bones are bent outward, like he exploded from inside." Perhaps Kane should use caution in exploring that pit he discovers, "full of leathery objects, like eggs or something."
- The next time we see Kane, "something has attached itself to him." Ignoring some eminently sensible quarantine procedures, Ash lets the away team back inside the lander to examine Kane and his parasite more closely. The alien looks something like a crustacean, but with acid blood and a prehensile tail that render it considerably more formidable than any mere lobster. But then, quite unexpectedly, Ripley finds the alien dead, legs-up on the floor. "Pfui!" says the audience. "Is that the best these aliens can do?" Rest assured, filmgoers, that the main course has yet to arrive. In what is rightly the film's most infamous scene, Kane, the crew, and the audience all discover...how to put it?...an unexpected detail concerning the life cycle of these aliens. Now they've got a very, very rapidly growing monster on their ship that looks something like a cross between two piranhas and a cockroach (if you've seen it, you'll understand). Crewmembers start getting picked off one by one, and the ship is slowly transformed into a terrifying hell of steam, claxons, and flashing lights.
- I usually walk away from horror films disappointed. When I see Alien, I'm only disappointed with myself for getting so scared. Every single time. On this viewing, I paused the DVD at one point when the full-grown creature appears -- it's obviously a guy in a suit! Sure, a tall, skinny guy (named Bolaji Badejo, apparently) in a really amazing suit, but clearly the monster was made using essentially Godzilla-era technology. So why is it so damn scary? The answer lies with the incredibly atmospheric movie surrounding the alien itself. Ridley Scott, the writers, Giger, and the set designers all managed to create a world that is somehow simultaneously futuristic, realistic, exotic, and terrifying. Hardly a utopia, this future is populated by faceless computers ironically named "Mother," robot impostors who are distinctly unfamiliar with Isaac Asimov's three laws, and a petrifying alien whose "structural perfection is matched only by its hostility." By the film's end, I find myself agreeing with Ash on the future of humanity: "I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathies."
- There are a few strange deleted scenes, the most interesting of which is an encounter with Dallas after he'd been taken by the alien. This idea would later show up in the sequel.
- So, this was Ridley Scott's second film. And Blade Runner was his third.
