Subject: Retrospective: Alien (1979)

From: [email-masked] (Chad Polenz)
Date: 26 Oct 1997 19:12:47 GMT

Alien

Chad'z rating: **1/2 (out of 4 = OK)

1979, R, 117 minutes [1 hour, 57 minutes]

[science fiction]

starring: Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerrit (Dallas), Yaphet Kotto
(Parker) Ian Holm (Ash); written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett; produced by
Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill; directed by Ridley Scott.

From the title alone, "Alien" doesn't sound too appealing because it's so
generic and boring. It's the epitome of a sci-fi title, and not surprisingly,
this is the epitome of a sci-fi movie. It takes place in the distant future
and in outer space, there's lots of advanced technology and slimy aliens, and
it tries to use both intelligent reasoning and barbaric violence to solve
problems - guess which method dominates?

The film opens in a dark, dismal manner as it establishes its setting of a
giant spaceship on its way back to Earth. Where it's coming from and what its
crew's mission is we never really find out, which is the film's first major
flaw. The first half hour is a tedious exercise in mood - all we get is
sci-fi jargon that is nearly impossible to comprehend as nothing said nor
done seems to lead to anything. However, I admired the bleak art direction -
it is full of intricate detail and is just as Gothic as Medieval cathedrals.
This helps to create a chilling mood, but is ultimately unable to save the
film from its screenplay.

We quickly meet our characters, but we're not given many clues as to who
these people are or what their purpose is. They all have radically different
personalities, and almost none of them seem like they should be on a such a
high-tech, important ship. 

First there's Tom Skerrit as Dallas, the stern leader who likes to bark
orders. Then there's Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, a strong-willed officer who
doesn't think the crew follows procedure correctly. Two other generic
characters include Yaphet Kotto as Parker, who tends to be exploited since
he's the only black character, and Ian Holm as Ash, the obsessed scientist
who values research over human life. The rest of the crew consists of another
scientist, a frail woman who worries and screams a lot, and another guy who
doesn't do much of anything.

The crew has been awoken from "hibernation" (the same technique used in
"2001") to investigate a signal coming from a nearby planet. Of course they
check it out and end up coming back on board the ship with an alien larvae
attached to one of the crew members. Ripley had warned them this could
happen, and since she's the main character who's never wrong, it creates a
somewhat suspenseful atmosphere due to the fear of the unknown. The problem
is, it takes almost 45 minutes for the film to raise this kind of interest.

And just as the film becomes thrilling and intriguing, it essentially turns
into a horror flick as an alien creature runs amok throughout the ship. One
by one the characters are killed off in the most predictable of ways. It's a
dark ship with lots of hiding places and no one is smart enough to hunt the
alien with a partner?

There is a fair attempt to balance the mindless cat-and-mouse game with a
subplot when we learn one of the crew is actually a robot and it would
willingly sacrifice the others to study the alien. There's some dialogue
like, "How do we kill it?"/ "You can't, it's a perfect organism." For such a
superior being, this alien never shows signs of intelligence. Its size and
composition certainly isn't any kind of advantage. And why must it hiss, drip
slime, and eat people?

I would say the film goes downhill from the mid-point on, but it never
really goes uphill enough to come down. Everything stays on the same level,
which isn't terribly low, but never gets very high. It does a satisfactory
job in terms of general storytelling, but falls short with its specific
attempts at characterization, suspense, and shock (the last act proves this).

"Alien" is rich with atmosphere in all respects, but takes the easy way out
by becoming another thriller. What's most disappointing is the fact it never
really had to.