Alien (1979) is the first film in the Alien film series. It was directed by Ridley Scott.The film involves the crew of a freighter spaceship who stop to answer a Distress Call from an uncharted moon. One of the crew members gets an alien organism attached to his face and goes into a coma. The next day, an alien embryo explodes from the crewman's chest and rapidly matures into a savage monster. As the alien stalks through the ship, the crew desperately tries to find a way to fight back.Writer Dan O'Bannon based the film on a sequence from his previous film Dark Star, in which a beachball-shaped alien runs amok on a spaceship and tries to push an astronaut down an elevator shaft.
This film provides examples of:
Action Survivor: Ripley, who is only a terrified woman struggling to survive.
Ash: A perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. Lambert: You admire it. Ash: I admire its purity.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Science Officer Ash is programmed to put his mission above the lives of his fellow crew members. He ends up going berserk when Ripley discovers the truth. It's played with in the sense that he's not really going rogue, and is perfectly following his given orders. They just come from the Company, not the rest of the crew.
Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?! Ash the Android: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded.
Air Vent Passageway: The monster actually uses the air duct escape against the protagonists.
All Webbed Up: In a deleted scene, Ripley found Dallas and Brett completely cocooned, and slowly transforming into more Alien eggs.
Animal Immunity: Played straight with Jonesy the Cat. Ripley leaves Jonesy behind when the Alien surprises her, and it curiously looks at the cat as if it's about to eat it. When Ripley gets back the Cat is unharmed.
Anyone Can Die: The characters died in more or less reverse order of how famous the actors playing them were (in 1979) - Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, and even Veronica Cartwright were all familiar to audiences, while Sigourney Weaver was the only entirely unknown actor in the cast, with just four minor credits. The deaths of the characters felt like a downward spiral, and Ripley's demise seemed inevitable. The tension of the last ten minutes (with the ship's computer voice counting them off) was almost unbearable. Ripley's survival was shocking, and until the end credits rolled, the audience still expected the alien to pop up somewhere.
Arbitrary Skepticism: Ripley wants to get rid of the Facehugger carcass, because they already know that the alien creature bleeds acid and have no clue what will happen after it's dead. Ash counters this by snarking at Ripley that it probably isn't a zombie.
Ask a Stupid Question...: After Kane has just spent the last several hours in a coma with an alien creature on his face, he wakes up.
There's a second when Ripley's trying to chase Jones down in the cockpit before her first attempt to get to the shuttle.
Cranial Processing Unit: After Ash the Android gets his head knocked off, the other crewmembers of the Nostromo plug his head into the proper equipment and are able to speak with him.
Dead Star Walking: Tom Skerritt received top billing over Sigourney Weaver. Ripley was never meant to be the main protagonist, merely the Final Girl.
Distress Call: The organic ship's signal which turned out to be a Warning Beacon.
Downer Ending and Kill 'em All: Once the movie was extended to feature the shuttle scene, Ridley Scott wanted the alien to bite off Ripley's head and make the final log in her voice.
Lambert: [about the lousy food] You pound down the stuff like there's no tomorrow.
Parker: I'd rather be eating something else, but right now I'm thinking food.
Do You Want to Copulate?: A scene in the original script had Ripley casually stripping off in front of Captain Dallas saying "I need some release." Although the scene was used in the audition, it was never filmed.
Easy Amnesia: After Kane wakes up from having the Facehugger attach itself to his face, he can't remember anything about the planet, and even seems confused where he is. All he can remember is a horrible dream about smothering.
The End... Or Is It?: The film leaves open the possibility that the cat that Ripley takes along with her as she flees the soon-to-be-nuked ship has been infected. This is, of course, proven untrue in the second film, and quickly takes a back seat to the fact that the title monster stowed away on Ripley's escape pod. There was also an original Twist Ending planned: the Xenomorph bites Ripley's head off, then records a message in her voice, and relaxes, waiting to get picked up.
Everybody's Dead, Dave: The loss of the entire Nostromo crew leads Ripley to record a message at the end of the film concerning their fates and how she's the only one left.
Evil All Along: Ash is revealed to be a robot, working for The Company to bring an alien back, at the expense of the other crew members if necessary.
Failed a Spot Check: Ripley failed her Spot Check at the end, as she sits down face to face with the alien in the shuttle, hidden amongst the pipes and valves on the walls she's facing.
Fanservice: Ripley spends a number of scenes walking around in her underwear.
Fate Worse Than Death: In a deleted scene, Ripley found Dallas and Brett mutating into eggs.
Combines with Tempting Fate. Second officer Kane is the first crew member to die.
Kane: Oh, I feel dead.
Parker: Anybody ever tell you you look dead?
Dallas and Lambert note that the space jockey's ribs seem to have "exploded" from inside and wonder what could have caused it.
Ash never eats. The only thing he consumes is some milky-white fluid. He's later revealed to be an android, with white liquid for blood.
"Where's the rest of the crew?" is a very good question that's never brought up again, but a deleted scene shows that the xenomorph has a habit of turning its victims into more eggs.
Freeze Frame Bonus: When the camera whips back and forth when Ripley dashes into the shuttle before the ship explodes, you can actually see the Alien already camouflaged against the wall. Unless you've seen the film at least once already, you probably won't be able to make it out.
The alien is put into a human body by the Facehugger, whose reproductive organ looks like a vagina with mandibles and a prehensile penis. Its spawn, the Chestburster, looks like an erection with teeth. And the long, eyeless head of an adult Alien is obviously phallic. The Alien was based on a painting◊ by surrealist artist H. R. Giger, whose nightmarish work is very sexualized. Giger wanted the Alien to be the embodiment of the fear of rape.
A Deleted Scene in the first movie showed Dallas and Brett being "converted" into Chestburster eggs - they're double rapists; a man is disfigured into a feminine construct, and dies "giving birth" to something that does the same thing only quicker.James Cameron took advantage of the deleted scene to add a Hive Queen to the Alien life cycle, leading to the following;
Maternal symbolism: the AI of the spaceship in Alien is called "Mother." The organic alien ship is entered through vagina-shaped doors. The showdown between Ripley and the alien queen has a great deal of Mama Bear implications on both sides. Many critics have compared the alien queen with Grendel's mother.
Heroic Sacrifice: Parker attacks the Alien in an attempt to save Lambert. It fails to work, as the Alien kills them both in quick succession.
Hysterical Woman: Lambert (Veronica Cartwright). She's by far the most terrified and emotional member of the crew, and completely freezes up when the Alien confronts her.
Instant Cooldown: Averted. The Nostromo's self-destruct reaches a point where it's too late to stop it from exploding even if the system is fixed.
Irrevocable Order: Ripley sets the self-destruct for the Nostromo in order to destroy the alien when fairly certain that she can safely get to the escape shuttle. However, along the way, she finds that attempting to do so will put her directly into the path of the alien. She tries to go back and shut down the self-destruct, but misses the "point of no return" time by scant seconds.
Laser-Guided Karma: Dallas and Lambert demand to be let in, and Ash violates quarantine and opens the door. All three die as a result of this. Ripley, who didn't want to let them in, survives. Parker, in a deleted scene, says that maybe Ripley was right not to let them in, making him an aversion when he is killed.
Laser Guided Tykebomb: The alien species is implied to be this, bred for the sole purpose of violence. Many thousands of eggs were preserved in the biomechanic derelict, and director Ridley Scott even said the derelict was a bomber - it was designed to bombard planets with Alien eggs.
Last Words: Ash the Android specifically asks for some final words before he is unplugged. He uses them to taunt the remaining heroes.
Let's Split Up, Gang: After a Cat Scare Brett is told to catch Jones so it doesn't happen again. He wanders around going "Here kitty kitty" without the slightest apprehension, as at this stage the crew think the alien is no bigger than the ship's cat. He discovers otherwise.
Lock and Load Montage: When Ripley, Parker and Lambert prepare to evacuate the Nostromo, Ripley is shown pulling some gear together in preparation.
Name of Cain: Played with. Second Officer Kane is a good guy, but he's the first to die and the person which the Alien births from.
The film focuses on the ever-present lurking threat of the eggs, chestburster, and adult alien rather than direct confrontations. The trailer for the film highlights the strategy, showing barely any of the alien and focusing on a terrifying montage of people reacting to what could be after them.
As a more specific example, Lambert's death. Nothing is seen of what happened, and even the aftermath is not seen clearly, we only hear it happening over the radio. It's probably the scariest death in the film. Given that the last thing we see of Lambert is the tip of the alien's tail moving up her leg towards her nether regions, and her corpse is stripped of pants and shoes, this is probably just as well.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Subverted. Ripley quotes "24 hours for decontamination" regulations rather than allow Kane to enter the Nostromo for treatment. Of course, she turns out to be right, but by making her appear unsympathetic the movie conceals her eventual role as the heroine.
Only Sane Man: In spite of the anger it earned her from the rest of the crew for trying to enforce it, Ripley was absolutely right about the 24 hour quarantine. If everyone had listened to her, it's very possible she wouldn't have been the only survivor.
The Reveal: Several, but the two most significant ones are when Ripley finds out that the Company had planned the mission from the very start and considers the crew expendable, and when Ash is revealed to be a robot working for them.
Ash the Android: There is an explanation for this, you know.
Survival Mantra: "You are my lucky star... Lucky star, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky."
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Ripley sets the ship on self-destruct and escapes in a shuttle. The Alien escapes onto the shuttle, but now it can't hide away anymore. She dumps it out the shuttle's airlock, shoots it with a grappling gun when it grabs the opening, and then fries it with the engines when the gun gets caught in the door and it tries to crawl back into the shuttle.
Toughest Chick Always Dies: Interestingly enough, the trope is inverted in the first film (whereas it's played straight in the second, even being the current Trope Namer): the easily scared and very feminine ship navigator Lambert gets killed off in the film's latter half (the original shooting script implied that the Xenomorph actually raped her to death), while cynical, butch, chain-smoking Warrant Officer Ripley survives and becomes the lynchpin for the entire franchise.
Turned Against Their Masters: It's implied that the Aliens were bred to be living weapons but killed their creators, the ancient "Pilot creatures". This was later confirmed in Prometheus. This makes the Company even more Too Dumb to Live, since they seem to be under the delusional impression that the unstoppable killing machine that leaves every encounter with a huge body count... can be trained. They also want to bring it to Earth.
Ultimate Life Form: Ash's opinion on the Alien, referring to it as a "perfect organism".
Uncertain Doom: The fate of Dallas and Bret, unless you see a deleted scene in which their bodies are found.
Unexpected Character: Ripley really was not set up to be "the hero" or even the focal character in the film, or at least not be indicative of such. Dallas (played by Tom Skerrit) would have been expected to be the main character.
You Are in Command Now: After Captain Dallas and Second Officer Kane both die, Ripley is forced to take command.
Ripley: Final report of the commercial starship Nostromo, third officer reporting. The other members of the crew, Kane, Lambert, Parker, Brett, Ash and Captain Dallas, are dead. Cargo and ship destroyed. I should reach the frontier in about six weeks. With a little luck, the network will pick me up. This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.
1 reviews 