Alien [M]

A cargo ship on route back to Earth picks up a transmission, which they interpret as a distress call, and stop to investigate. They discover a derelict alien craft that carries hundreds of eggs. When one hatches and latches onto the face of one of the crew, terror is unleashed as the stricken crewmember is brought back aboard the ship for medical attention and the alien breeds inside him. Now the crew of the Nostromo are fighting not only for their own survival, but the survival of all mankind as they search the ship trying to find and destroy the alien. 

Visually, I can understand why this movie was so popular back upon its release and why it earns its place in The Book. But ultimately, I found Alien to be a boring and rather pointless film. I won’t deny that the gross factor was pretty cool and the suspense and horror aspect was pretty spot-on, but at the end of the day this movie just did nothing for me. 

A cargo ship on route back to Earth picks up a transmission, which they interpret as a distress call, and stop to investigate. They discover a derelict alien craft that carries hundreds of eggs. When one hatches and latches onto the face of one of the crew, terror is unleashed as the stricken crewmember is brought back aboard the ship for medical attention and the alien breeds inside him. Now the crew of the Nostromo are fighting not only for their own survival, but the survival of all mankind as they search the ship trying to find and destroy the alien. 

Ultimately it was the special effects and set and art design that took the cake with this movie. The design and execution of the discovered alien craft was pretty amazing and rather beautiful to behold. It was huge, and considering that this film was made in the very late 70s, really impressive. The whole science fiction genre was taken to a new level with this movie, taking the technological vivacity of Star Wars and pushing it into a whole new league. The sets, gadgets, computers, weapons, and all that were pretty damned cool. 

Then there was the award-winning design of the alien itself, created by artist H. R. Giger and brought to life by Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian, and Ian Whittaker. The alien had a fierce and repulsive look, but at the same time a beauty and grace, which is sort of nice considering that we hardly ever get to see it long enough to take it all in. 

Aside from the impressive visual achievements of this film, I found Alien to be nothing more than flashing lights, screams, a hunt, and incoherent terms and procedures, all done aboard a ridiculously huge spaceship. 

Starring Sigourney Weaver, it was this movie that made her a star overnight, Ian Holm, Tom Skeritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton, and John Hurt, Alien was rather a visually pleasing movie filled with action, suspense, horror, gore, and gutsy last stands. I’ll admit that it had some cool things in it, but ultimately I found it to be rather boring.