The title of this document of course refers to the Alien anthology, which will be the topic of this post as I would quite like to say a bit about the Alien series, as naturally the first one is one my favourite films, so I will start with that, and to reduce the length of the posts, they will be split up for the films.
In Alien, to summarise the plot quickly, it takes place in deep space with a mining spaceship called the Nostromo, and a crew of seven onboard, who are awakened from the cybersleep on orders from their employers, the company Weyland Utani. They receive orders from the company to investigate an alien planet for life signs and to investigate what appears to be a request beacon message for help. On landing on the planet, three of the crewmembers, the Captain, Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) go outside in spacesuits to investigate the planet, which is barren and very windy. They soon come across what appears to be an alien spaceship, and on investigation inside, they find what appears to be a vast cavern full of eggs, Kane, goes down into the cavern and looks closer at one of them, which opens a strange creatures pounces out on his helmet. Dallas and Lambert soon take the unconscious Kane back to the ship, where the third in command, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) refuses to let them aboard, due to quarantine laws, but the science officer Ash (Ian Holm) lets them in anyway. After getting Kane to medical bay, they cut off his spacesuit helmet to find that the alien has attached itself to his face, on attempting to remove it, the creature bleeds what appears to be an acidic blood, which eats into the floor of the ship, but it stops before it does any damage to the ship's hull. Soon after the alien detaches itself from Kane's face and it dies due to blood loss, and shortly after Kane regain consciousness, apparently fine, but when they sit around having dinner, Kane convulses violently on the table, and before we know a small alien creature bursts out of his chest, and scuttles away, and that's when their troubles really begin, as the alien grows in size and starts to pick off the crew one by one.
Alien is a classic no doubt it, the cast are all excellent, particularly Tom Skerritt as the cool headed captain, Yaphet Kotto as the sarcy ship engineer, Ian Holm as the science offier Ash who isn't what he appears to be, and of course Sigourney Weaver herself as Ripley, the warrant officer. Ridley Scott's direction is top notch, and the visuals, set design and alien and spaceship miniatures are all stunning. The alien itself is a real achievement in terms of design and originality, as the conceptual artist H.R. Giger designed the alien himself, and ultimately it was played by a tall skinny Nigerian (Bolaji Bedejo) in the alien suit. And the appearance of the alien in the film is extremely effective, creepy and very unsettling.
Overall the film is highly effective and has many tense and creepy moments, especially where Dallas crawls around the airshafts with a flamethrower trying to seal off the ducts and zap the alien into space, as well as the "chest burster" scene, the scene with ship engineer Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) looks for Jonesy the cat, and the scene where Ash is revealed to be something else. The score is also superb, one of Jerry Goldsmith's best, and he later revealed that he was never happy with the score, as he had to rewrite the title theme, from originally being romantic and idealistic sounding, to the sinister utterly memorable theme that is in the film.
The script by Dan O'Bannion and Ronald Shusset is terrific also, and their concept of the alien and its life cycle are great too, and if you look at it, the aliens only do two things: have sex and kill people, in a bizzare way, that's quite a good life isn't it???? (well ok, the killing part isn't so good). The characters themselves are all very well drawn, with Dallas being in command and refusing to be drawn into debate or argument, Ripley being stubborn and very headstrong, Lambert being hysterical and highly strung, Ash being controlled and somewhat inhuman himself, Kane is curious and ambitious, and the two engineers Parker and Brett, who have a weary cynicism. Also if you look at the film, it mirrors very nicely the politics of a business even in outer space, with a corrupt, duplicitous company, forcing its crew to go out and investigate an alien lifeform, regardless of whether its hostile or not. Its also a nice touch how the crew are split into a hierarchy with the captain (Dallas), executive officer (Kane) and warrant officer (Ripley), all on a higher pay grade, while the engineers Parker and Brett bitch and moan about not getting the same money. Even in space its still all about money.
Later on there was of course a director's cut released under the approval of Ridley Scott, which brought in a couple of scenes that were cut from the original theatrical release. The scenes included a row between Ripley and Lambert after the bring Kane back on the ship, as Lambert is furious at Ripley for refusing to let them in the spaceship with Kane. Another scene is toward the end where Ripley stumbles upon Dallas, who has been cocooned by the alien, and he begs Ripley to kill him, and she does with her flamethrower. While these scenes don't add a great deal to the film, they don't detract from it either, however Ridley Scott himself said his preferred version was the theatrical release, which leaves me puzzled as to why he released the director's cut in the first place. It probably seemed more of an excuse to remaster the film print, and enhance the soundtrack and add in a few new things, but in a way it seems redundant, as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Alien sure isn't a film that needs fixing.
Right so that will just about do it for Alien, its a classic film, and to this day it is still as creepy, spooky and as effective as it was when it was originally released back in 1979.
Cue part two.....
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