Rediscovering Ridley Scott’s “Alien”

Today I'm happy to bring you another great guest post. This time Jordan Siron joins us to rekindle our love for the original "Alien" movie. I remember being seriously freaked out after watching Alien as a small kid, and it still remains one of my personal favorite scary sci-fi movies.

As a fan of science fiction, it shames me to admit that I had not once watched the Ridley Scott classic Alien over the past six years. For sci-fi fans, that is essentially akin to a gambler saying he hasn’t stepped foot in Las Vegas since Frank Sinatra used to roam the strip.

It isn’t that I didn’t love and respect the film, but my focus had drifted elsewhere for a moment. However, upon hearing murmurs regarding the in-production prequel (Prometheus) that should hit theatres next year, I knew I had to revisit my old friend.

How does Alien stack up after all of these years? Is it still the classic example of space-horror as so many have claimed? The answer, of course, is a resounding “Yes!”, and here’s why.

The Story

Not that any one here needs any reminding, but in case we have uninformed readers checking this out: A salvage crew is returning to Earth when they receive a distress call from a stranded space ship. One of the crew picks up a stomach-dwelling alien hitchhiker, and it wreaks havoc on the rest of the crew.

The premise is simple enough, taking a page out of the popular conceit that, until previously, had been reserved for horror movies. Instead of a group of teens stuck in a secluded cabin/haunted house, Ridley Scott and writer Dan O’Bannon give us a crew of surly adults trapped in the seemingly endless ocean of space and time. When Hell breaks loose, our cast of survivors has literally no escape.

This re-invention of the narrative wheel allows for perfectly paced terror, making use of the narrow passages of the story’s setting to masterfully ratchet up the tension to unhealthy levels. The minds behind the film obviously used their rustic, lived in space ship as an embellishment rather than a crutch or gimmick (which cannot be said for most science-fiction/horror movies being made these days). The result is a cripplingly horrific experience that feels as real as it does terrifying.

The Cast

Part of the reason the story sings as well as it does is because of the talent Scott found to play the ensemble cast. Instead of filling the film with MTV-bred tweens, Ridley Scott cast actors who (with the help of wardrobe and makeup) fit right in with the dirty, grungy setting. That isn’t to say that any of the actors are particularly ugly, but they aren’t top models either.

Perhaps the perfect example of the inspired casting would be the always-enjoyable Harry Dean Stanton as one of the two blue-collar maintenance men. Spending most of his time in the engine room of the crusty salvaging vessel, his face and body language mirror his surroundings perfectly; spindly, covered in grease, and constantly smoking.

The rest of the cast (including Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holme, and John Hurt) turns their characters into fully formed human beings. When we see the group interacting with one another, we believe these people exist, and that they have grown very familiar with one another. It really says something when a cast can make every day life interesting for a whole thirty minutes before the scares start coming.

The Cinematography/Design

Alien is an absolutely gorgeous film – very light praise considering that every shot is filled with grease, steam, sweat, and (eventually) blood. There’s nothing inherently beautiful about those elements, but cinematographer Derek Vanlint lit every scene so masterfully that the viewer wants to see them all collide amidst the chaos.

Another thing that Alien gets right visually is that it has the benefit of standing out in a genre that usually favors sterile white sets. Think about most recent sci-fi films (like, say, the 2009 Star Trek). Think about their ship designs; mostly clean, sleek, and untouched. The same cannot be said for Alien, which gives us a blue-collar spaceship that looks so lived in, so used, and so real that we can practically smell the place.

This seems to be a recurring strength of Ridley Scott’s, but it’s especially grand considering this was one of his earlier films – let alone a “simple” story about an alien creature killing humans left and right. It certainly does the film a great deal of justice, and elevates it to something far better than it had any logical right to be.

Perhaps the worst thing I can say about Alien is that it is too good. Sounds like a strange complaint, but hear me out: I know that many people consider Aliens (the James Cameron sequel) to be their favorite of the franchise, but I resent it for abandoning the tone and thrill of the first film. Pretty much every sequel that has followed in Alien’s footsteps has been a stripped down version that replaces terror for action.

While this wouldn’t be a problem were Alien not such a different film, it seems to me like an opportunity wasted. With the right story and a less spastic director behind the wheel, any sequel could have delivered on the promise of the original.

As it is, even after six years of collecting dust on my shelf, Alien remains the timeless classic it has been branded as since it first hit theaters.

Jordan Siron is a freelance writer living in Florida. In his free time he promotes online printing.

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