It was nice to watch this movie again. After seeing all the sequels, you start to forget what happened in which movie. This one and the one with the marines are my favorites, not counting the predator cross-overs.
One of the things that makes this movie so good is that the audience knows how bad-ass the alien is, but never really gets to see much of it. In fact, the movie itself is so intentionally dark. A character just walking down a passage alone is scary in this movie. Ridley capitalizes on that with scenes where the cat jumps out and scares them. I loved the suspense, but the cat I could have done without. Its presence on the ship was illogical. Who's cat was it anyways? I think the cat was in the movie just to be able to have that scene where it jumped out and scared everybody. But, did that scene work? Hell yeah. The whole movie, once the alien was out and about, was a long ride in suspense and tension. It didn't matter that you already figured out everyone was going to die, except for maybe Ripley, the protagonist... you weren't sure until it happened, and the suspense to it happening was awesome.
As a minor critique, I don't understand how the alien could grow from that little eel-looking thing that burst out of Kane's chest, to a creature over six-feet tall, in less than 24 hours. Living organisms need to consume to grow. What did it consume that could have allowed it that kind of growth in such a short period of time? Not saying something couldn't be part of the alien's story there... just wish it would have been explained in the movie somehow.
I had a little bit of a "Barbara" flashback (from Night of the Living Dead" with the Lambert character, though she wasn't even half as bad as Barbara. But there was a little bit of a similarity there, and I probably wouldn't have picked up on it had Barbara not just annoyed me so much recently. :)
As far as a monster goes, the alien is at the top of the mountain. It may have company there, but its at the top. Fierce, practically indestructible, relentless, and offensive defense in its acid blood, and extra rows of teeth. A truly spectacular monster. Its the kind of thing that keeps coming, even after you thought you stopped it... but it always makes sense that it keeps coming. The first time I saw the movie (who knows when?), when it got burned in the flame from the shuttle and swung up, I thought it was going to re-enter the shuttle from some other point of access, even if it made its own way in. It was one of those... can I go ahead and breathe now?... moments. I wasn't even sure it was over til I saw the credits. That's a powerful monster.
Hi Shoe,
ReplyDeleteGood point about the Alien's growth rate. I always had that in the back of my mind when I watched the film. It would have been cool if there had been some kind of explanation to justify that part of the story. Its a small thing but considering how pivotal to the plot the Alien's life cycle is, it seems like an oversight on the part of the producers.
I will say the suspense is great in some areas of the film, but I also felt it was very predictable. Oh, yeah, he is going to die or these two are gonna die was very in your face. We also all already knew the alien was going to get into her pod without even having to think about it because the film gave it to us. So, there was no surprise when Ripley saw it catching some z's. Ripley was one of the most unlikable and unenjoyable characters I have followed in this course. I personally think she is worse than Matt from Breeding Ground. She was arrogant, annoying, and way too poster character-ed for me to even find one quality I liked about her. I was hoping she got it when the she woke the alien up from its nap in the shuttle pod.
ReplyDeleteSince we are focused more on the monster aspect, I will say that the Xenomorph was an excellent monster and its evolution/growth was very powerful and attention-keeping.
I left a reply to Vince about the cat: Even though I loved the cat, I was confused as to what point he had being in space with them. Who takes a cat to space that clearly isn't reliant or obsessed with the creature? All the scientist basically disregard him for most of the film, which clearly shows he is not some form of support animal to anyone on the team or a beloved pet. What was his point? Just a loose warning symbol animals seems to be used for in horror that no one takes seriously? Why did they take him with them?
I totally agree about how effective the monster was in the film because of how little we actually saw! I'm normally not a fan of jump scares, but I think they're used well in Alien and come at all the right places for the maximum tension. I had the same thought with the Xenomorph trying to re-enter the escape pod in the last scene—the suspense really doesn't let up until the very end!
ReplyDeleteI had the same thought about Lambert as well. It's a shame, really—to me it kind of undercuts the impact of having a strong female protagonist, since the moral seems to be that Ripley survives because she's "not like other women" (with Lambert as her foil), rather than simply because she's the most capable person on the crew.
In the meme world we say...
ReplyDeleteCaptain here!
The purpose of Jonesy was supposed to be to keep the rodents under control in the ship. He is also Ripley's pet, but that is less of a reason and more of a connection for Ripley to have.
I also think one of the unique things about Jones is he seems invulnerable to the xenomorph, or at least he is not of any concern. I would assume that the xenomorph is far superior to any earth creature, so it probably knew about the cat but chose to ignore it for larger prey. It is either that or, since the xenomorph spawn was so little, it actually feared the cat and kept that fear into its maturity (?? would you call it that. it went from a foot tall to like 7 feet since the guy that played him was 6'10" or something when they had him play the alien.) Cats are, after all, one of the most accurate hunters on the planet. I think it is something like over 90% success rate. It's interesting to think that they're that deadly and we keep them as house pets.