Alien: A Review

28th December, 2018.

Yes … 

You have just seen the intro video, there, haven’t you?

Just in case you’re wondering … ?

Just in case you’re wondering about the Japan reference, there, I’ve got Japan’s Tin Drum album on in the background.

It’s both a personal favourite, gorgeous to listen to … 

And possibly something I’ve listened to a lot, at this time of night.

Good knows what the neighbours must be thinking.

Either way, it’s a LP I like listening too, while I write … 

~≈§≈~

Which is possibly something you may or may not have worked out.

As I think I’ve mentioned the blessed thing a few times … 

Funnily … it’s also not a CD I’ve ever owned … 

Nor, unfortunately, am I ever likely to.

Who buys CDs, or DVDs, these days, with things like Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and Netflix?



That sad fact, there … ?


Is that record retailers, HMV, have gone into administration: and their owners make no bones about the fact that people’s move to streaming and downloading has played its part.

It’s sad: and believe me, I’m sympathetic to what the staff are going through, having been working at Threshers, when it collapsed.

But … ?

I can’t help but think a better online offering from the company could’ve been helpful.

Let’s face it, we all of us finding the streaming option so much easier than walking into a shop.

~≈§≈~

That’s not necessarily always the case.

Sometimes?

Sometimes we can happily watch a movie on DVD or blu-ray.

Although, personally?

I’ve not actually owned a DVD player for 3 or four years: if you see me mention my movie collection, that collection consists of digital files I’ve either bought on iTunes, and streamed across the internet.

Or digital files I’ve ripped, and have stored on an external hard drive.

That later?   I can watch on my AppleTV.

That later option, raiding that external drive?

Is something I’ve done, tonight.

Yes: I’ve not seen fan favourite, Alien, for some time … 

~≈§≈~

Set in the year 2122, Alien shows us the tug, Nostromo: heading home to Earth after completing a long mission, with its crew — Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) and two Engineers, Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) — in suspended animation for the duration.

They’re awakened much earlier than they expect to: as Mother, the ship’s computer, has picked up what Captain Dallas assumes is a distress signal.

One from a nearby planet.

One that the crew are contractually obliged to respond to, with no extra pay: much to the disappointment of Parker and Brett.

Once planet side?

Once planet side, Dallas, Kane and Lambert managed to find the ruined, alien ship the beacon is transmitting from … 

The ship … 

The body … 

And the stange eggs stored at the bottom of the wreck … 

It’s only when Kane get’s too close, that the crew’s problems start …



Frozen eggs aren’t supposed to hatch …

~≈§≈~

Now … usually, I’d be asking you, if you thought I thought — ahem! — Alien was good, bad, indifferent, cheese-flavoured, moronic, capable of causing epilepsy in susceptible cats, what have you.

I think we can rule out the cat* option.

Or possibly not … 

At any rate, I’m thinking the same thing I was, the last time I saw Alien.

That it’s possibly one of science fiction’s high points.

It looked at the success of things like Star Wars and Star Trek, and decided to ignore the light and frothy take they gave the genre.

Frothy is as far from Alien as it be.

Ridley Scott and the rest of the team built a movie that came out of the dark, intent on scaring the lights out of anyone who thought sci-fi was frothy … 

They set an example of what sci-fi could be: this was no frothy space opera like Star Wars, no arthouse piece like Kubrick’s 2001, no democracy-spreading piece of Americana, like Star Trek, oh no.

No, Alien promised you no one would hear you scream … 

And, unlike some of its sequels?

Managed to keep that promise.

However you manage to watch it?

Revisit Alien.

Terror has never been so watchable.

Alien
★★★★

*        I still think one of the biggest scares in Alien?   Is when Parker, Ripley and Brett, find the cat …