[Lawtan]

22) Alien

The First Alien Movie was a novel of both Science Fiction and Horror. Firstly, the cast of Alien at the time came from a largely unknown group of actors. It really worked on hard science fiction in explaining the traits of the Nostromo and the daily life of the crew. You actually have the crew arguing, talking, laughing, etc. – without the “sex equals death” trope or other such features.

Then there is the Alien itself. A biomechanical parasitic creature from surrealist H.R. Giger, it is an intelligent but sightless predator (a trait forgotten in other iterations in favor of a zombie horde). It outwits members of the crew through the vent systems.

It is different from Predator in that it is really set in space, on ships and all. It does not go for the “space is a special effect” that most sci-fi horror cheese movies go. In fact, it works to mock them. There is so little CGI stuff that the overall feel is more realistic. This may be one of the few successful hard science fiction movies I know of.

What made me realize this was a better work than most such things was listening to the dialogue. There aren’t stupid decisions made by anyone except the wife of the guy infected. The alien only gets in (isn’t frozen, detained, or shot) due to sabotage. Also, the tropes parodied in things like “Scream” are almost reversed in Alien. In addition, before Ripley became the James Cameron superhero, she was just a professional second-in-command trying to follow protocol. She wasn’t strong, or superhumanly brave, but she led everyone as best as she could.

Overall, I wish there were more subtle and human works like this out there. Stylized, but a style that I find timeless.