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Synopsis:
The crew of the commercial towing vehicle,
The Nostromo, wakes
from suspended animation. After they eat, Captain Dallas (Tom
Skerritt), is summoned to the control room by "Mother", the ship’s
computer, while the others resume their duties. Navigation Officer
Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) discovers that the ship is far
off-course. Dallas explains that Mother altered the ship’s course
upon intercepting a transmission of unknown origin. When technician
Parker (Yaphet Kotto) objects that The
Nostromo is not a rescue ship, Science
Officer Ash (Ian Holm) points out that the crew’s contracts oblige
them to investigate any such signals, under penalty of forfeiture of
pay. Boarding their shuttle, the crew travels to the planet from
which the signal is being sent. Due to turbulence, they make a rough
landing, and the shuttle is damaged. While Parker and Brett (Harry
Dean Stanton) begin repairs, Second Officer Kane (John Hurt)
volunteers to investigate the transmission. Dallas and Lambert go
with him. Some distance away, the three find a huge, derelict
spaceship. Inside are the fossilised remains of an alien creature.
Dallas notices a rupture in the creature’s bones which bends
outwards, as if something exploded out of it. On board
The Nostromo, Third
Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) partially translates the signal:
it is not an SOS; it is a warning…. Kane finds a shaft leading to
the cargo hold. After being lowered down, he sees a strange blue
glow, and discovers a clutch of leathery, egg-like objects covered
by an electrically-charged mist. Testing the mist’s reactions, Kane
slips into the enclosure in which the eggs nestle. To his
astonishment, he sees movement within one of them. The next moment,
the egg opens via three fleshy flaps. As Kane leans in to inspect
the pulsating creature within, it suddenly launches from its shell,
smashing its way through Kane’s face-plate. Dallas and Lambert carry
Kane back to the shuttle but Ripley, now in charge, follows
quarantine procedure and refuses to let them out of the
decontamination chamber. Ash ignores her orders and admits the three
into the infirmary. He then cuts off Kane’s helmet. The creature is
wrapped around Kane’s face, gripping his face with finger-like claws
and with its tail wrapped about his neck. Incredibly, Kane is still
alive. Ash puts him through a scanner, and discovers that the
creature has inserted a probe down his throat. Dallas orders Ash to
cut the creature off, despite the potential danger to Kane. Ash cuts
one of the creature’s claws, releasing a stream of blood that is
also an intensely corrosive acid. To the horror of the
panic-stricken crew, the fluid eats its way almost through the
entire ship. Ripley confronts Ash over his ignoring of her orders.
He is unapologetic. Later, Ash summons Dallas and Ripley to the
infirmary. The creature has vanished. Cautiously, the three search
for it, and finally it drops to the ground, dead. Ripley wants it
destroyed but Dallas leaves the decision to Ash, who wants it
preserved as a valuable specimen. Dallas orders the shuttle to take
off, despite the repairs not being complete. Back on
The Nostromo,
Lambert breaks it to the others that they are ten months from Earth.
Ash calls the crew to the infirmary. To their astonishment, Kane is
awake and apparently healthy, although he has no memory of what
happened. He is, however, ravenously hungry, and a celebratory meal
is prepared. During the meal, Kane suddenly collapses, stricken by
agonising convulsions. As the others watch in disbelieving horror,
Kane’s chest bursts open, and a hideous, razor-toothed creature
emerges….
Comments:
Uh, hello? Hello? Is there anyone out there? Hello? Is this thing
on…? [*taptaptaptap*]
Well,
you’ve all been very patient through my ghastly sequels binge – at
least, those of you who are
still out there – and I hope that over the next few weeks you’ll be
rewarded for it. For my next binge, I will be taking a close look at
a clutch of comparatively recent horror and science fiction films;
films that, while not necessarily completely original themselves,
deployed their various elements so very effectively that over time
they have proven to be some of the most influential movies ever
made.
Or to
put it another way – I’ll be reviewing half a dozen films or so that
have probably been copied, ripped-off and
[*cough*]
re-imagined more than just about all the other films ever made put
together. And as well as reviewing the films themselves, I’ll be
taking a look at just what it was about them that appealed so much
to their imitators. In doing so, I’ll be assuming that everyone in
the known universe has seen these films. On the off chance that you
haven’t, be warned: these reviews will be spoiler-rich.
(The
other thing that you will notice about these films is that, not
surprisingly – they all spawned
sequels!! No, no, no, no, no! Don’t
panic! Believe me, it is going to be some considerable time before I
wade into those
murky waters again, for my own sake even more than yours!)
So----
One of
the first questions that has to be asked about Alien
is – is it science fiction or horror? You may have noticed that I
have classified as the former. This is because, early on in the
site’s existence, I settled it in my own mind that any film set "in
space" or "in the future" would be automatically designated as
"science fiction" regardless of its content. That we are forced to
make this kind of decision so often these days is due primarily to
the existence of Alien. The film is often referred
to as a hybrid – which is a polite way of saying that it is a
monster movie with a more than usually snazzy setting. Let’s face
it: by any of the classic definitions, Alien is
not science
fiction. It certainly doesn’t exist to make us think. It doesn’t
want us to contemplate the wonders of the universe, or ponder
mankind’s future, or take heed of grim warnings.
Au contraire. All
this film is interested in doing is scaring the living guacamole out
of us.
(Apropos, I sincerely hope that whoever came up with the simply
glorious tagline, In space, no-one can
hear you scream, is now lying in the sun
somewhere sipping margaritas and living comfortably off their
residuals, because they deserve it!)
Much
has been made of the origins of this film. Many people consider it
to be a fairly blatant cross between Mario Bava’s Terrore
Nello Spazio and the seminal
something-nasty-on-the-loose-in-a-spaceship movie, It! The
Terror From Beyond Space - which was itself derived from
The Thing. (Queen
Of Blood is another obvious candidate progenitor.)
Regardless of the specific influences that operated on the film’s
writers, the bottom line is, Alien is not a
particularly original movie. Nor is it above using scare tactics
that were old when the Brothers Grimm first put pen to paper. It had
been some considerable since I last watched this film, and upon
re-watching it, I was taken aback at realising just how many really
cheap scares it utilises – such as Dallas knocking something over
while he, Ash and Ripley are searching for the face-hugger. (I
jumped, but I resented
jumping.) This is not the film’s biggest flaw, however; not by a
long shot. The biggest problem with Alien – a
problem that at times threatens to derail the entire movie – is the
presence on The Nostromo
of – That Darn Cat.
Sigh….
From
what we learn of "The Company" in this film, it hardly seems likely
that they would be sufficiently concerned over the emotional welfare
of their employees to allow pets onboard. So what, exactly, is Jones
doing there?
The short answer would be, acting as one of the most shameless and
irritating plot contrivances I've ever come across. Four people –
possibly more – worked on the screenplay of this movie. Are we
honestly to assume that not one of them
could think of a better way of separating Brett from his fellow
searchers, or Ripley from the other potential survivors, than by
putting a goddamn cat
on board the ship!? And what are
we to make of Ripley’s actions in the final section of the story?
The cat business can’t possible be to demonstrate her "feminine
side", since as the story stands there’s no need for her to have
one. Moreover, up to that point, Ripley is the one crew member whose
actions have been strictly professional (more on this later). And
yet suddenly, she’s risking her colleagues’ lives, risking her own
life, in order to rescue a cat!!??
Now, I yield to absolutely no-one in my passion for cats. I can even
imagine certain situations where I might be tempted to risk myself
(I hope not anybody else) in order to save one. But this would not –
repeat, NOT – be on a spaceship that is about to explode, on which
an unstoppable, acid-spewing, alien killing machine was running
around loose! And besides, this whole sequence shows a complete lack
of understanding of feline psychology. That cat
knows the alien is
on board. It would, therefore, without any doubt, be holed up in the
smallest, tightest, least accessible point on the entire ship,
not out in
the open where it can be re-captured. That the cat is involved in
two of the film’s most interesting moments – the animal’s crouching,
hissing response to the alien’s presence, followed by its calm
contemplation of Brett’s demise; the endplay confrontation between
cat and alien when, intriguingly, the alien lets it live – does
nothing to excuse this particular subplot. (Nor, cat-lover though I
am, does the fact that this is about the only film I can think of
where a cat is given the kind of Death Battle Exemption usually
reserved for dogs.) This whole storyline is dumb, dumb,
dumb – unforgivably
dumb. And worse still – we are left to the horrifying realisation
(not the least of Alien’s pernicious aftereffects)
that it was this film above all others that was responsible for
inflicting upon the film-watching public, seemingly in perpetuity,
the Spring-Loaded Cat©….
Okay.
I’ve lambasted Alien for the cat subplot. I’ve
criticised it for an overabundance of cheap scares. I don’t like the
film, right? Wrong! The truly remarkable thing about Alien
is just how well it rises above these two potentially crippling
flaws. The film does
work, there’s no question about that; and one of the main reasons is
that it is a technical triumph. I doubt that even Ridley Scott would
dispute the fact that the real stars of Alien are
its production and sound design, particularly the former.
The Nostromo is
simply a wonderful setting. It is one of the few convincing
spaceships in the history of science fiction, being neither overly
simplistic, nor ridiculously "futuristic". Most movie vessels look
untouched by the hand of man; The
Nostromo, in contrast, is gritty,
lived-in, worked-in.
It’s functional.
Alien opens
with an extended visual prowl around the ship, which serves to
orientate the viewer, and to ground the film in a tangible reality;
both essential functions, in view of the events to come. (It also
allows a deep appreciation of the exquisite detail in the design.)
The atmospheric alien planet, with its derelict spacecraft and its
fossilised resident, and the deadly cargo down below, is beautifully
executed as well. The end result of all this is a persuasively alien
milieu.
And
that, of course, brings us to the film’s other "star": H. R. Giger’s
wonderful, terrifying, xenomorphic creature – or rather,
creatures. Ahhh….
You know, I’m with Ash on this one: the alien
is beautiful in its
purity (although not
because of its lack of emotion – well, Ash
would say that,
wouldn’t he?); beautiful in its design; beautiful in its biology.
Each stage in its life cycle is just superb, from the embryo within
the egg (its flutterings mimicking the movements of many larval
marine animals); to the razor-toothed intermediate stage, with its
suggestively umbilical-like tail; to the streamlined savagery of the
adult form. This creature is the composite of every monster we ever
worried was lurking in our closet, or under our bed, or just outside
the window on a dark and stormy night…. I mean, let’s be honest
here: how many films are there where the monster is actually
scary? Or scary
once you got a good look at it? This one is – and miracle of
miracles, the more you see of it, the scarier it gets. Alien
succeeds as a film simply by making the threat to its characters so
utterly, horrifyingly real.
We believe in the crew’s danger. We believe in their fear. We
believe that this creature is a threat not only to the humans in its
vicinity, but to any form of life that it might encounter. This one
point gives not just this film, but the whole Alien
series, the kind of legs that its rivals can only dream about.
And it
is, naturally enough, the alien that gives the film all of its
indelible moments. If the film does have too many cheap scares, it
also has some magnificent, unforgettably
genuine ones, from
Kane’s initial "face-hug" to (perhaps most sublime of all) Dallas’s
close encounter in the air-duct. And then there’s the big one, the
scene that put Alien into the collective
unconscious: the chest-burster scene. Even though we have, in
effect, been told
what’s going to happen ("Paralyses him, puts him in a coma, then
keeps him alive. What the hell is that?" ponders Dallas. I’m sure I
wasn’t the only one yelling, "Wasp! Wasp!"), it is still an immense
shock when it does. And this is one of those rare shock scenes that
retains its power no matter how many times you watch it (or how
often it’s been copied – and parodied). It is not just the visceral
nature of the imagery that makes this episode so compelling,
however; it is also the unmistakable air of complete physical
revulsion that accompanies it. As a number of commentators have
pointed out, this whole sequence has some pretty disturbing things
to say about our attitudes to pregnancy and childbirth. In this
context, it is doubly fascinating that the victim of the alien’s
reproductive cycle is a man. This is another of those touches that
lifts Alien out of the realm of the mere
exploitation film: it avoids the obvious. I’ve seen the chest-burster
scene replicated more times than I care to remember, and in every
other instance the victim is a woman – who, more often than not, has
not been
impregnated via her throat. It would have been easy enough, after
all, to make Lambert the first victim. By instead choosing Kane, the
threat of the creature is instantly broadened; everyone is equally
at risk, the threat being not just death, but the total corruption
and abuse of the human body; the reduction of mankind to the level
of the insect. (It is an immense pity, I think, that the "cocoon"
sequence was cut. Not only does it contain some fascinating
character touches, it adds a whole extra dimension to this aspect of
the story.) Kane’s fate serves as a focal point for Alien’s
all-encompassing sexual and biological imagery. Numerous reviewers
have gone completely Freudian with their interpretations of this
film, and it is not difficult to see why. With its near-organic
design, its endless winding corridors and pipes and ducts, its
dripping cooling towers, The Nostromo
itself ultimately feels like some kind of mysterious organism; or
perhaps just that organism’s reproductive system. Much of the power
of Alien lies in the fact that the fears it
conjures up are (like those found in many of David Cronenberg’s
films) of a distinctly venereal nature.
While
Alien’s screenplay shows rather too many obvious
influences in its main plot points, on another level it contains
some remarkably subtle and interesting writing. We are never told
anything outright about the world, the universe, in which the story
takes place, but the hints are many and fascinating. Before
realising how far from home The Nostromo
is, Lambert puts out a call, identifying the ship as being "out of
The Solomons" and trying to make contact with "Antarctica traffic
control". This in itself is enough to sketch a picture of the world
– our world
– turned upside-down. We know too that
The Nostromo is towing "20,000,000 tons
of mineral ore" – indicating an Earth with its resources utterly
exhausted. Space has not merely been conquered, but space travel
itself has become mundane enough to be relegated to a bunch of
ordinary working joes. And what of the crew? You kind of get the
feeling that these guys do the work they do in order to avoid
military service. Or perhaps, more likely still, because they didn’t
qualify for
military service. Then we have The Company –
The Company. An
organisation big enough, rich enough – possibly desperate enough –
to send its ships across half the universe to obtain the materials
it needs. An organisation with its very own "Weapons Division"; one
that is perfectly prepared to sacrifice its employees in order to
bolster that Division. And in order to facilitate this still
further, The Company replaces one of those employees with a robot,
one programmed to assist its cause at all cost. When Ash’s true
identity is revealed, the others are shocked by the realisation that
he is a robot, but not that such a thing is possible. More "assumed
knowledge" is evident when the crew discusses investigating the
intercepted signal. At no point do they take for granted that it is
of human
origin. When Dallas, Kane and Lambert approach the abandoned
spaceship, they are awestruck by its size and design, not by its
existence.
Nor does the fossilised creature inside cause then anything but mild
surprise. Furthermore, when the face-hugger is being examined, the
comment is not that they’ve never seen anything like it, merely that
they’ve never seen anything specifically
like it. Taken all together, these lightly sketched details paint an
intriguing and yet quite disturbing picture of man’s future. (And
yes, upon reflection, I guess this does qualify Alien
as science fiction.)
Even
granting the supreme importance and effectiveness of the film’s
settings, it would not work as well as it does without the cast it
has, the characters it has. Not merely thematically is Alien
an old-fashioned movie, but also (and very gratifyingly) in its use
of an ensemble cast. This is the kind of grouping you just don’t see
these days – primarily, I guess, because films are "packaged" with
"stars" attached; and once you’ve paid for a "star" there isn’t much
money left over to hire anyone else. The closest person
Alien has to a "star" is John Hurt – and even so, he’s the
first one killed off. (Couldn’t afford to keep him any longer,
perhaps?) By peopling The Nostromo
with character actors, the film-makers make it simply impossible for
the audience to guess in advance who is going to live and who is
going to die – and this adds immeasurably to the tension generated.
(Not content with this, the script whittles its players down in a
most unexpected fashion. When we enter endgame, our choice of
survivors is from amongst a robot, a black man, and two women. Name
me one other
movie where anything like that is the case.) At the same time, the
actual characters are not always as satisfactory as we might wish,
particularly in their responses to the threat confronting them.
Granted, as mentioned previously, the crew members are not military
personnel, trained to deal with crisis situations. Nevertheless,
much of their behaviour is (usually quite literally) suicidally
stupid, from Kane sticking his face over the open egg, to Brett
wandering around by himself in the dark, to Ripley going after
Jones. As individuals, we don’t learn much about most of our
characters beyond a script touch or two; only Dallas, Ripley and
(ironically) Ash really linger in the mind as people. Of Kane and
Brett we know next to nothing; Parker’s role is bigger, but we still
don’t know
him. Lambert--- Who was it I once dubbed Whiny Girl? Lambert is just
plain irritating, particularly in her death scene, when she just
sits there whimpering and waiting for the alien to kill her. (Man,
I hate that! In fairness, though, I suspect that the character of
Lambert may have suffered from the unanticipated developments in the
character of Ripley. You get the feeling that as Ripley became
stronger, the film-makers felt that Lambert had to become weaker,
just to balance the ledger - because, you know, the notion of
two competent women
in the one film is just ridiculous.)
Dallas we do get a good look at, and it isn’t always a pleasant
sight. (There is a tendency these days to discuss Dallas in terms of
his "relationship" with Ripley. However, those comments are based
purely on external evidence, not on anything in the completed film.
As things stand, the only vague hint we get is the pair’s
instinctive clutch of each other after Ripley’s encounter with the
dead face-hugger.) The captain comes across as rather weak and
vacillating, happy to delegate the decision-making to Ash whenever
he can; happy also to "take responsibility" when it’s someone else’s
life at stake (removing the creature from Kane), but less so when
it’s his own (trying against procedure to induce Ripley to admit
himself, Lambert and the infected Kane). Perhaps coming to terms
with the fact that it is at least partially his own fault that the
alien is loose, Dallas does finally redeem himself by volunteering
to enter the air ducts in search of the creature – one of the film’s
unforgettable sequences.
And
then there’s Ash. Hmm, yes, Ash…. You know, I’m rather ambivalent
about Ash. Yes, he’s the film’s villain (naturally – because he’s a
scientist.
Or, he’s a scientist because he’s the film’s villain. However you
prefer to put it). Yes, he protects the creature at the expense of
the crew. Yes, he tries to kill Ripley and Parker. But – these, ah,
character quirks aside, he’s also one of the more interesting movie
scientists I’ve come across. For me, Alien contains
an irony both beautiful and frustrating. In film after film after
film, no-one listens
to the scientist until it’s too late (even after having called him
or her in and asked for their advice);
here, they listen to every single thing
that the Science Officer says – at the cost of almost all of their
lives. The other weird thing – and perhaps this is intended as
evidence of Ash’s robotic nature, who knows? – Ash
behaves like a
scientist. His conduct in handling Kane and investigating the alien,
even the fact that – Good Lord! – he
wears gloves, is straight out of the
textbook. Even his evident admiration of the alien is credible. But
of course, all of these things turn out to have a sinister meaning;
as does Ash’s general behaviour. The audience (weirdos like me
excepted, of course) is not encouraged to
like Ash. His
coolness, his rationality, and his attitude to the alien are
presented as negative
qualities. His very professionalism condemns him. You can
practically hear the disgusted chorus of,
Well, what do you expect? – he’s a scientist.
When the revelation scene finally comes (another of the film’s great
shocks), the upshot is that the viewer is left with the suggestion
that scientist
and robot
are interchangeable terms. Of course, this is hardly unprecedented.
In choosing to champion the emotional over the rational,
Alien simply follows the lead of more science fiction films
than I care to remember. Personally, I can’t bring myself to
entirely condemn Ash (not just because of my professional
prejudices, but also because of the wonderfully nuanced performance
of Ian Holm). After all – to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit – he’s not
really evil, he’s just programmed that way. And to be perfectly
honest – I find Ash’s demise and its aftermath more disturbing than
anything else that happens in this film. What that says about
me, I don’t know.
Which brings us to Ripley.
It is
difficult – almost impossible, in fact – to discuss Ripley’s role in
Alien without your reactions being coloured by the
legendary status that the character has since achieved. Undoubtedly,
Ellen Ripley is one of modern science fiction’s great icons – I’d go
so far as to say the
greatest. Who could have imagined such a thing when this film was in
production? Not its original writers, that’s for sure, since, as is
well-known, the role was written
for a man. The gender switch is one of Alien’s
masterstrokes. (Disheartening, though. Why is it not possible to
write a role for an actress and yet
have it turn out like this…?) It is not immediately apparent that
Ripley will rise to be the film’s hero; at the outset she is merely
– so to speak – one of the boys. Over time, however, something
intriguing happens – not just in terms of this story, but of films
in general. Ripley is the only one of the crew who, regardless of
the specific circumstances, consistently
goes by the book. Let’s think about
that, shall we? How many movies can you name where the "hero" is a
renegade, a lone wolf, the one that refuses to take orders?
Conversely, how many films are there where "following orders" is
somehow interpreted as a sign of limited brainpower? Alien
is different. Throughout, Ripley tries to do her job properly, to
follow procedure, despite being thwarted at nearly every turn by
either Ash’s ulterior motives or Dallas’s spinelessness. She is
first distinguished from the other crew members, and gets to display
the steel in her character, when she refuses to override quarantine
protocol and admit Dallas, Lambert and Kane into the ship. Later,
when Dallas and Kane, the two senior officers, are gone, Ripley
takes command, as is her right. Refreshingly, none of the others
dispute her authority. Ripley continues to go by the book until the
book no longer applies – at which point, she relies upon her own
initiative and intelligence, and is allowed to triumph.
The
final scenes of Alien work because of Sigourney
Weaver’s intensity and conviction, which are sufficient to carry us
over the various plot contrivances, and even to get us over that
whole ridiculous "cat" business. (Well – almost.) One of the most
entertaining aspects of this section of the film is the way it plays
with the audience’s expectations regarding the self-destruct
countdown. Has there ever been another film where the hero’s attempt
to diffuse a bomb failed?
I can’t think of one. Here it happens, most unexpectedly (as the
countdown dropped below ten, I’m sure every first time viewer was
waiting for the seemingly inevitable last-moment "self-destruct
aborted" announcement; I know I
was), and throws a whole new level of tension into the story. When
Ripley makes her escape in the shuttle (ironic, given the film’s
tagline, that it cannot resist noises and flames in outer space), we
are hardly as certain as she is of the alien’s destruction. We
know it must
be somewhere on board, and yet despite this, the revelation of its
whereabouts is yet another great jump scene. Terrified, and rightly,
yet not paralysed by her fears (Weaver’s performance here is just
marvellous, particularly the shake in her voice when Ripley sings
"You Are My Lucky Star" to herself in order to keep her nerve up),
Ripley’s final disposal of the creature is via a wonderfully
intelligent sequence of events. Lots of science fiction films try to
demonstrate mankind’s "superiority"; Alien gets
close to doing it. In the final battle, imagination wins over pure
biology. Ripley’s victory is not one of luck (at least, not
pure luck), or an
accident; it is the outcome of a combination of brains, courage and
ingenuity. Without any grandstanding, we are made aware of what a
human being can be capable of when faced with a crisis. It is a
remarkably satisfying experience.
Another
pleasing aspect of Alien, at least as far as it
goes, is that gender is rarely an issue. No-one is ever ordered to
do something – or not to do something – because they’re a woman, or
because they’re a man. Everyone just does their job. On the other
hand, when gender does intrude, it
really intrudes. First of all (and
irritating enough), we have Lambert’s continual teariness and
snivelling. In addition, there are two notable incidents involving
Ripley, one astonishing, the other simply inexcusable. The first
occurs after Ripley has discovered the truth about the mission, and
attacks Ash out of fury and terror. He then attacks her, savagely.
He throws her down on a bunk (whose? - we don’t know) and we see
that she is surrounded by girlie pictures. Ash then picks up a men’s
magazine, rolls it up, and forces it into Ripley’s mouth, almost
choking her to death. At one moment, this ugly scene seems blatant
enough in its meaning; the next, Ash is revealed to be a robot and
the scene is stripped of all obvious interpretations – and is left
all the more disturbing for it. The other scene that forces gender
issues upon us is perhaps the film’s most notorious sequence
("notorious" in a bad
way, I mean, not like the chest-burster), when Ripley prepares for
her final confrontation with the alien while running around in the
skimpiest of underwear.
You
know – I wish I didn’t have to talk about this. I wish it didn’t
exist. It is unnecessary, it is tasteless, it is utterly
infuriating! Why,
oh why, oh why,
after doing so much right
with respect to the characters all through the film, did they
suddenly insist on doing something as tacky and exploitative as
this?
What
really bothers me about this scene is not just that it’s there, but
that the script was so obviously structured to accommodate it.
Perhaps we don’t realise it at first, as we watch the crew of
The Nostromo wake
from suspended animation in the film’s opening scene (significantly,
Ripley and Lambert are both out of shot), but eventually the
question does occur: why in the world would the crewmembers have to
take their clothes off
in order to be frozen? I can’t think of a reason, and the screenplay
certainly never offers one. But by establishing early on that, for
whatever reason, it is
necessary, the film-makers set up one of the most gratuitous scenes
in film history. Like everyone else on board, Ripley has been
dressed throughout in sensible work clothes. When she prepares for
freezing, however, she peels those off and strips right down to the
flimsiest of sleeveless undertops (no bra, of course) and a pair of
panties so small and ill-fitting that you get the impression that
she must have prepared for the mission in an awful hurry and packed
her kid sister’s knickers by mistake. And it is dressed like that
(if "dressed" isn’t rather too strong a word for it) that Ripley
realises that the alien has not been blown up with
The Nostromo –
which naturally provokes a bout of agitated running around, all of
it captured by the camera in loving detail. And you know what pisses
me off the most about this? Even more than the very
fact of it? It is
that as soon as Ripley is in her underwear, the camera
drops to crotch-level
– and stays there until she slips into the spacesuit; at which time
it lifts back to the normal height.
I don’t
know, maybe I’m overreacting. Probably I am. But to have that scene
come so completely out of the blue, to force this film’s strong and
resourceful heroine into such a demeaning situation when it is so
patently unnecessary is not merely offensive, it’s bitterly
disappointing. And – it is extremely unwise. Alien’s
setting and design might conspire to distract us from the fact, but
the truth of the matter is that at heart there is not really all
that much difference between this film and any old slasher movie you
might care to mention. It’s set in a spaceship rather than a summer
camp, and the killer is an alien rather than a knife-wielding
maniac, but those two factors aside, there’s not as much distance
between Alien and some of the more disreputable
horror films as its makers would like you to believe. And when we
find ourselves watching the classic slasher film situation of Final
Girl heroine versus seemingly unstoppable killer, having that
heroine stripped to her underwear makes
Alien seem considerably less like great
science fiction, and rather more like second-rate horror.
Alien
was a huge success, of course, and still more hugely influential –
perhaps the most
influential of the films I’ll cover over the next few weeks.
Unfortunately, most of that influence has been exerted in the most
dismal of ways. With the single possible exception of
Halloween, Alien has been responsible
for inspiring the production of more Idiot Pictures©
than any other film in history. And it isn’t difficult to see why.
Exactly as with Halloween, the imitators stole just
the bare bones of their model, then used them as the basis of a
seemingly endless stream of weak, obvious, yawningly predictable
knock-offs. It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the reasoning
behind all of this. "Hey, let’s make a film like Alien!
Dark corridors! We need dark corridors! Nah, they don’t have to have
anything in
them. And a monster! We won’t show
it, so it’ll be cheap.
And all the cast will have to do is run around in the dark screaming
and swearing, so they won’t have to be good actors. And, hell! – we
don’t need to waste money on a
screenplay at all!" Sigh…. What these
people don’t seem to realise – or maybe they don’t care – is that
the things that made Alien work are completely out
of their grasp. It worked because of its monster; it worked because
of its setting; it worked because of the care put into its casting.
And above all, perhaps, it worked because of Ripley. Ironically,
what should have been the most
influential aspect of Alien has been the least. Oh
sure, we’ve got Ripley clones by the dozen; that’s not what I mean.
What Alien does so successfully is what producers
nowadays keep trying to tell us that you
cannot do: base
your story around a female character and
still have it
appeal to both sexes and all (or most) ages. There isn’t much doubt
that Sigourney Weaver really lucked out when she landed the role of
Ripley. Alien was not, as is frequently asserted,
Weaver’s film debut. It was her first starring role, however, and
she seized the opportunity (one that most actresses these days would
probably kill for) with both hands. Looking back with twenty years
of hindsight, it is startling, even astonishing, to realise that
Sigourney Weaver isn’t
top-billed in this film, but listed after Tom Skerritt! How on earth
did they justify that?
By any possible definition Weaver is the film’s star, even if she
was comparatively unknown at the time it was made. Were the
bean-counters worried that if they let on that the film starred a
woman, the teenaged boys wouldn’t pay to see it? Unbelievable….
Thankfully, when Aliens finally rolled around (an
incredible seven years
later), this injustice was thoroughly rectified, with Sigourney
Weaver achieving science fiction superstardom, and her creation an
indelible place in the modern mythology.
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