Everything GREAT About Alien!

Alien: Romulus is out this weekend! So it was time to go back to the very beginning and talk about a movie some people think is overrated. Not me though. Here's everything right with Alien (1979)!

[PennTankerGuy]

I think the ship's interior tour is so eerie because you already know what's about to come.
It's a sense of "Oh god THIS PLACE is where they're going to have fight an alien???"

[panchozari]

Fun fact that i recently learned, during the space jockey scene those are children in small space suits, thats how they made the giant set look even bigger

[BatAmerica]

Part of what makes the Xenomorph so memorable is its lack of expression. Unlike most frightening designs, we can't see its eyes, so we never know how the creature feels rather than have any human traits of empathy or fear.

[Malrottian]

13:57 I always took it that the cat recognized there was a MUCH larger and nastier predator on the ship and knew staying still and quiet were key to survival.

[trinaq]

The Chestburster scene always creeped me out as a teenager. I remember that John Hurt reprised the exact same role eight years later in "Spaceballs", where he had the line "Not again!"

[hyperbiscuit]

One of the coolest things about the movie is how it really doesn't have a main character. Obviously with hindsight, Ripley is the main character, but in terms of how the story is told, the only thing that makes her special is that she's the only survivor. It could have easily been one of the other crew members that survived, but it just happened to be Ripley. None of the characters are depicted as more or less important to the plot, because they all do important things. It's a feeling that none of the sequels really capture because we know Ripley is the main character. Once we know that, it becomes a lot easier to tell which characters are important, and which are just fodder for the xenomorphs.

[nighthellcat]

13:55 That isn't cold and unmoved, that's cat for "Well, dummy, I tried to tell you..."

[averymerrick]

Word of God (according to TV Tropes):
- Ridley Scott mentions on the DVD Commentary that *Ash is a Replicant.*
- Scott mentions that he had conceived the Alien having the lifespan of only a few days (which explains why it snuck aboard the escape pod) *as it wanted to find a nice quiet place for it to die alone and why it doesn't attack Ripley until she coaxes it out of its hiding spot.*

[MilkyWayGrump]

I'm a bit miffed you skipped over my favourite line in any movie ever from Ash re killing the Xeno:

"I won't lie to you about your chances... but you have my sympathies."

So back-handed and venomous purely on implication while technically being a polite sentiment, perfect for an android sending its crew mates off to die at the hands of a creature it was made to preserve.

[twofacetoo]

Honestly, I always loved the Ash twist, it's a great way of ramping up the tension even further.

From the start, the crew have been snipping at each other over things like wages and Ripley's hardass attitude, but overall they're still in this together, still working as a unit, still fighting for each other's survival as well as their own. When Ash is trying to suffocate Ripley, the others all rush to her defence, despite (as said) her being a hardass bitch who snaps at them a lot. The only villain we'd been facing was the alien itself, which is a big scary monster, we know it when we see it.

Then, Ash is revealed to not only be working against them, but to also be an android. That one creative decision suddenly changes everything. Suddenly it's not JUST the alien we have to be scared of, it's our own team as well. If Lambert starts suddenly playing nice with Ripley, can we trust her? Could we trust Brett either? Could we trust ANY of them? Can we even trust Ripley? Sure it all goes nowhere, but it adds this heavy amount of paranoia to everything that happens next, because you're constantly having to ask 'can I trust these people?' Before the Ash reveal, the answer was an emphatic 'yes'. Even if we didn't LIKE them, we could still TRUST them. But after the reveal? No way can we trust ANYONE anymore.

So sure, while the twist didn't 'change' anything, I still think it's a vital part of the movie. You mention Ripley being alone in space, I say she was 'alone' the minute Ash was revealed as an android since, as said, there was no more security in trusting her team. She couldn't be sure any of them were safe anymore, and nor could the audience.

[gir]

i disagree with the idea that the ash twist doesn't add anything to the story VERY hard. the fact that he was directly sent from the company they work for adds a really stressful dimension to the story about worker exploitation. he wasn't some kind of infiltrating spy - he was a tool being used by upper management to make sure their main directive was carried out at the direct expense of their employees

[lordofthebuckets]

How did you not include Ash’s little smirk when he says “You have my sympathies.”? It’s so great!

[Unaliq]

11:13 Another detail about Ash. You know you're screwed when the ROBOT's eyes go wide.

[ZanguSwe]

Alien is just a different breed of movie imo. It's the definitive sci-fi horror movie for me. The way the camera moves, slowly panning around each dark corner. The sheer amount of scenes with little to no music, slowly moving throughout the scene, the sheer tension in almost every scene even before the first introduction of the eggs. Man, it's always an insanely intimate and legendary feeling to come back and watch Alien, and, while I like Aliens, it doesn't hold a candle to the first movie.

[averymerrick]

Ridley Scott's original ending had the alien killing Ripley by biting her head off and communicating with Earth in her voice.

*20th Century Fox scrapped it for being too dark.*

[jekebe]

Gotta love how the escape shuttle is a sterling example of Weyland-Yutani's utter disregard for the lives of the people they were sending out, it had fewer seats than the command deck alone, nevermind any maintenance or other crew. Almost like they never heard of another famous ship disaster and the devastating results of having insufficient escape craft.

Sure, it fits plot convenience so the crew couldn't just eff off and end the movie, but it also fits the general company philosophy.

[chefzilla]

For the record; The Duelists was Ridley Scott's first movie.

This is one of my all time favorite films and have seen it at least a dozen times. I've never noticed the Big Chap in the landing strut! My focus was always on Brett. Who just happens to be the brightly lit.

[MitchellFace]

I truly think Veronica Cartwright is one of the unsung scream queens. Her distressed voice when Dallas is in the ventilation is iconic and she’s been a part of some very iconic horror moments.

[finalascent]

2:50 - Also a win: when Ripley is attempting to hail Traffic Control, that exterior shot with the reverb added to her voice really brings home how far off track they are, heavily implying that no one is there to help them - either by coming to their rescue, or even offering advice over subspace comms...

[Mohagnito]

I first watched this movie when i was 8, and it was at midnight. I was alone. I couldn't sleep for 2 weeks, but it was so worth it.