Impressions

• Went with SamHurst
• Amazing amount of mechanical design. The ship is full of vehicles and machinery that look complete but are never used.
• The sets seem unbelievably enormous and detailed. Something seems lacking in today's sci-fi, especially Star Trek. Perhaps Star Wars / Alien / Blade Runner will remain the 'golden age' of movie sci-fi
• In the scene where we approach Ash in the infirmiry, there are some weird reflections on a panel. Consider also the slimy 'facehugger' under scrutiny. What makes these so interesting is that you are using these to get secondary visual effects. The models themself create visuals you could never artificially create. It draws my mind to where you draw the line between what you create artificially, and what you include naturally. Computer animation is really all of the former, leading me to wonder if we miss out by having less of the latter in current films. I mean it's one thing to duplicate everything you expect to see on film, but it's another when playing with real elements creates something compellingly real serrenditiously.
• They did miss one concept of future computing: remote access. You have to go to a certain room to see 'Mother'.
• Love those old school sound effects, keyboards and computers
• Forgot that Ian Holm (Bilbo himself) starred as the android.
• Veronica Cartwright looks a lot like one of the marine pilots in 'Aliens'
• The 'field of eggs' scene in the enemy craft was stunning
• The one part that just didn't look 'Alien' enough was at the end in the escape shuttle when the Alien, curled up in the ship suddenly reaches out a hand to swipe at Ripley. The hand looked too human, like a glove with stuff stuck on it.
• Evidently the added footage is also on the DVD. But most interesting was the 'nest' scene. Indeed, as one reviewer put it, Aliens might have been a different movie if this scene remained in the original film. It means there might not need be a queen, if this 'drone' would create a nest. Said reviewer suggested the cocooned victims were being turned into eggs. Still, this scene is so close to the one in Aliens that one has to believe Cameron saw it, down to the 'kill me' line. So perhaps one could rationalize it thusly: drones automatically make nests for queens whether one is around or not.
• Hope they show Aliens in theatres someday soon.
• There was a short teasing trailer for 'Alien vs. Predator'. Not sure if this will work in the same way that 'Star Wars vs. Star Trek' wouldn't either. They're from 2 different universes with different rules, sort of. Maybe it's just that the Predator movie treatments were more fun and lively.
• There was a huge line around the theatre to see 'Matrix: Reloaded' with some people dressed up in shiny leather. The lines had not abated at 10:30 when we left.
• Sam and I composed 25% of the entire audience there to see Alien. I sensed the others were fans, like myself.

Dark Star connection

Although originally released on May 25th 1979, the groundwork for Alien was laid in 1975, when writer/producer Dan O’Bannon made the comedic Dark Star. Although completely different in tone, this earlier film disposed of the clean, efficient design that runs through most science fiction such as 2001 (1968), in favour of a grubby, used look and feel, suggesting that in the future, technology and human relations may not have moved on quite as much as we would have hoped. Also influenced by older black and white science fiction films, most notably It: The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), O’Bannon developed a script with the working title Star Beast, a script that sets the stage for suspense by presenting likeable, everyday characters being picked off by an unseen presence inside of a "haunted mansion", in this case the Nostromo.

Star Beast was picked up by the production company Brandywine, set up by directors/producers David Giler and Walter Hill, who saw the potential of this ‘Jaws in space’ idea. After Hill passed on the directing duties, the script soon found it’s way to Ridley Scott, a relatively unknown British director who was staring to gain some reputation following his first feature, The Duellists (1977). Scott had himself confessed to only having seen a handful of sci-fi movies, but responded to the visual opportunities that presented themselves to him in O’Bannon’s script and he came aboard. With a diverse, talented cast and crew, Scott created a film that was a Box Office smash and created critical acclaim worldwide. One multimillion-dollar franchise later, the rest is history and although many people consider James Cameron’s 1986 sequel to be superior, there is something truly unique about Scott’s original nightmarish vision that cannot be ignored.

Although the film sparkles with quality on all levels, without a doubt the two main elements that make Alien unique within the genre are the palpable sense of terrifying realism combined with the truly unique environment that Scott committed to film, largely thanks to the contributions of designers Ron Cobb and surreal Swiss sculpture and painter H. R. Giger.

Firstly, the realism presented in this film is a triumph. Visually, Ron Cobb who had also worked on the cantina scene in Star Wars (1977) had proved to be adept at creating a very real, very broken vision of the near future with his work on Dark Star and was the immediate choice for visualising the Nostromo and it’s crew. The ship itself is a claustrophobic labyrinth of ducts, passageways and tunnels through which the members of the crew can barely pass. Cobb’s input and O’Bannon’s script instil within the core of the film the necessary intimacy required to create tension within a film of this genre. The crew of the Nostromo are no chisel-jawed, faceless astronaut heroes - they are intergalactic truckers, replete with baseball caps, faded denim and attitudes as bad as their Hawaiian shirts. Before the terror begins for real, we witness numerous squabbles over fair pay and bonuses for overtime as well as the perennial paranoid mistrust between fellow employees. These are real people with real problems; it is this device that makes us empathise with the crew and care about what happens to them throughout the film, a skill so often ignored in today’s movie making. Alien is comprised of highly distinguished and talented character actors from both sides of the Pond and indeed, their naturalistic, often improvisational approach gives the film extra credibility; the dialogue is overlapping and muffled, so much so that often it is inaudible, creating the notion in places that we are watching an unscripted documentary.

-- MattWalsh - 06 Nov 2003