OK time for some blog robbery, as the virtual robber has gone around with his shotgun and held up the blog bank and taken some rather worthless but nonetheless amusing entries from my tennis/other stuff blog. And so this time its the Alien movies, which let's face it should be on this blog and not that un! So let's start with the first (and best) one, Alien:
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, starting with Tom Skerritt as the
cool headed captain, who refuses to get drawn into arguments or debates, and sees everything as black and white, and it is suggested at one point that he and Ripley had a relationship together (although its only hinted at). Yaphet Kotto is great as the sarcy ship engineer, who get's some great lines of dialogue, one of which being when he sits at the dining table and says "I'd rather be eating something else, but right now I'm thinking of food!". Ian Holm
is terrific as Ash the science offier Ash who isn't what he appears to be, and he has some strange little idiosyncratic moments in the film, where jogs up and down on the spot before sitting in the ship's console to view Dallas, Kane and Lambert as they go outside the ship on the planet. And Sigourney's excellent performance as Ripley also proved to show that Ripley could become a strong female figurehead in future films, as she played the part with a strong sense of responsibility and vulnerability. Sigourney as Ripley also get's one of the film's best lines where she takes charge of the crew once Dallas has gone, she says "we'll move in pairs and cut off every bulkhead and every vent and we'll blow it the fuck out into space!".
As for the other supporting cast members, John Hurt, while he doesn't have a particularly big role in the film, his role is of course pivotal, as he enters the alien lair and is attacked by a facehugger as it bursts out of its egg casing, and attaches itself to his face. And Hurt's performance is definitely solid, and he does get some good lines of dialogue, one of which is when Lambert asks him on the ship, "where's Earth" and he replies "you should know!". Which brings me onto Veronica Cartwright who also does a fine job as the anxious Lambert, who basically has the most common sense in saying that they shouldn't have landed on the planet, they shouldn't have went outside on the surface, and basically just gotten the hell out of there, but then no one listened to her, alas. And finally Harry Dean Stanton is great as Brett, the rather untalkative engineer, who keeps saying "right" all the time, much to the annoyance on Ripley. Brett's best scene is of course where he looks for the cat, Jonesey, as he looks in the engine room, and soon finds the cat, who recoils from him as it sees the alien come down in the background, its a great scene.
Direction wise Ridley
Scott does a top notch job, 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 for the most part, and Scott sensibly doesn't over expose the alien on the screen for a prolonged period of time.
And 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 aforementioned
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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