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Alien |
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Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, is an extremely popular and influential science fiction/horror film that spawned several sequels and imitators. Although the title characters are the highly aggressive extraterrestrial creatures, the real connecting thread is the saga of Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, a human woman who finds herself the principal opponent of the species throughout the series. This makes it the first major American film series with a female action hero.
There are just seven human actors in the movie: Tom Skerritt (Captain Dallas), Sigourney Weaver (Warrant Officer Ripley), Veronica Cartwright (Navigator Lambert), Harry Dean Stanton (Engineering Technician Brett), John Hurt (Executive Officer Kane), Ian Holm (Science Officer Ash), and Yaphet Kotto (Chief Engineer Parker).
The film's visual imagery was designed by H.R. Giger, for which he won an Oscar.
Plot
The story begins when the crew of the commercial transport ship Nostromo (named for a character in a novel by Joseph Conrad) receive a transmission which might be of nonhuman origin. They land on a deserted planet (Acheron) and find a derelict spaceship with a dead alien and many large eggs. When one of the crew is attacked by a newly-hatched alien, the creature is brought aboard the Nostromo, where it methodically wipes out the crew.
The eponymous alien creature is a lethal predator with consistently surprising abilities and physical forms, and which reproduces by parasitizing living victims. The plot device of the alien having acid for blood was created in order to prevent the Nostromo's crew from being able to kill it easily with firearms—the spilled blood would have eaten through the ship's hull. On the other hand, a flamethrower proved to be a suitable weapon, even though they have a limited firing range. The life cycle of the alien has been compared to that of the tsetse fly.
In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed Alien "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Early versions
The original screenplay was written by Dan O'Bannon, who had worked with John Carpenter on Dark Star. O'Bannon's original script was titled Star Beast, and was a revision of an idea O'Bannon had years before, about gremlins getting loose aboard a World War II bomber and wreaking havoc with the crew.
O'Bannon's original script bears many resemblances to the film that was actually produced, yet with significant differences. The spaceship—designed for a low-budget production in mind—was a small craft called the Snark. Its crew was all-male. The alien embryo is discovered in a ruined pyramid on an alien planet. This concept was retained for a long time, and preliminary H.R. Giger pyramid drawings intended for Alien exist, but eventually the producers went with the idea of a wrecked derelict (also designed by Giger).
Substantial excerpts of O'Bannon's original script appeared as bonus materials on the 1992 laserdisc boxed set of Alien, though they were not included in the 1999 Alien Legacy DVD box. The complete O'Bannon script was included on the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set as a bonus feature.
Some early concept art was drawn by Chris Foss, and Jean Giraud, who is better known as the comic book artist Moebius. Moebius' designs for the Nostromo spacesuits made it into the final film.
Cast
Tom Skerritt .... Dallas
Sigourney Weaver .... Ripley
Veronica Cartwright .... Lambert
Harry Dean Stanton .... Brett
John Hurt .... Kane
Ian Holm .... Ash
Yaphet Kotto .... Parker
Bolaji Badejo .... Alien
Helen Horton .... Mother (voice)
Crew
Ridley Scott ... Director
Dan O'Bannon ... Story
Ronald Shusett ... Story
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