Part of what makes the Xenomorph so memorable is its lack of expression. Unlike most frightening designs, we can't see its eyes, so we never know how the creature feels rather than have any human traits of empathy or fear.
Also the fact that both its skull shape and its tongue are supposed to be phallic. The entire creature is one big unsubtle rape metaphor to make it all the more disturbing.
I think the ship's interior tour is so eerie because you already know what's about to come. It's a sense of "Oh god THIS PLACE is where they're going to have fight an alien???"
@lovescarguitar I mean. The movie's called Alien and was heavily advertised as a horror movie. Kinda self-explanatory that s-word is about go do d-ward.
It actually feels more like a liminal space like the backrooms, and the fact that there's gonna be a hungry monster hunting the crew down is even more similar
Fun fact that i recently learned, during the space jockey scene those are children in small space suits, thats how they made the giant set look even bigger
i disagree with the idea that the ash twist doesn't add anything to the story VERY hard. the fact that he was directly sent from the company they work for adds a really stressful dimension to the story about worker exploitation. he wasn't some kind of infiltrating spy - he was a tool being used by upper management to make sure their main directive was carried out at the direct expense of their employees
It also makes you look back on the earlier scenes in the fresh context, the mark of a good twist. Like the Xenomorph concealed in the chains the clues were there and hindsight makes them easier to spot. The Crew Expendable line really is what characterises the Company across the franchise, individual lives and whole groups are a justified cost in the endgame of getting biological Xenomorph material. Burke in Aliens sacrificed a whole colony just to have pretence to obtain specimens with plausible deniability to certain authorities.
It's surprising how pivotal this reveal is. Even the most heartless of humans might be swayed by the human cost as it happens. This robot in particular even shows some kind of concern for Ripley. Duringthe search for the facehugger in the infirmary, Ripley goes towards a corner in the dark. Ash notices this and tells her not to go further without a mobile light source. This would appear to go against his mission to study the creature, as infecting Ripley would give him another chance to observe it in action.
One of the coolest things about the movie is how it really doesn't have a main character. Obviously with hindsight, Ripley is the main character, but in terms of how the story is told, the only thing that makes her special is that she's the only survivor. It could have easily been one of the other crew members that survived, but it just happened to be Ripley. None of the characters are depicted as more or less important to the plot, because they all do important things. It's a feeling that none of the sequels really capture because we know Ripley is the main character. Once we know that, it becomes a lot easier to tell which characters are important, and which are just fodder for the xenomorphs.
I love this movie so much. Never forget the first time I watched this movie. In my room with all the lights off with the volume loud 😈 I was hooked right away and super gripped by Fear. The outer space isolation vibes gave me goosebumps all over and chills up my spine. Ridley Scott + cast and crew thank you so much for making the best science fiction terror movie ever. 😈
One thing I'm definitely excited for in Alien Romulus. Since there's no big stars or anything, I don't really know who's gonna live or die beyond the character who got chestbursted in the trailers
Yeah, if either Aliens or Alien 3 had the balls to have Ripley unexpectadly killed in Act 2, everyone in the cinema would have been goggle eyed in shock.
@@moon-moth1 I read your comment quickly.and though it said "he was a recognisable actor and , at the time, a man." Suffice to say I did a double take!
13:57 I always took it that the cat recognized there was a MUCH larger and nastier predator on the ship and knew staying still and quiet were key to survival.
@@Durwood71 Such an “original” and “hilarious” joke that isn’t at all harmful to the public perception of cats. Can we stop spouting this anti-cat nonsense, please? Cats and dogs are two very different animals and serve different roles as pets. And, unlike with most dogs, you actually have to earn a cat’s trust, which should never be mistaken for the cat being psychotic. If a cat isn’t affectionate and treats you coldly, it has either been traumatized by a human (possibly even you yourself) in the past, it grew into an adult without positive interaction with humans or you simply haven’t befriended it yet.
@@stevelordofdarkness2340 I'm glad you appreciated my joke. For the record, I have four cats, and they can be affectionate to the point of annoyance, but I still enjoy jokes like "My dog thinks it's a human; my cat thinks it's a god."
@@Durwood71 It can be impossible to tell when a joke is made ironically, and I have encountered enough people who say stuff like this with 100% sincerity that I find it difficult to tolerate.
The fact that Ridley Scott saw Star Wars, got depressed after he saw it, abandoned his project, and then made this masterpiece will always be insane to me
Word of God (according to TV Tropes): - Ridley Scott mentions on the DVD Commentary that *Ash is a Replicant.* - Scott mentions that he had conceived the Alien having the lifespan of only a few days (which explains why it snuck aboard the escape pod) *as it wanted to find a nice quiet place for it to die alone and why it doesn't attack Ripley until she coaxes it out of its hiding spot.*
i always thought that aliens absorbed the faculties and sensibilities of those that they kill, so they know how the ship operates. i figured it knew she was getting on the shuttle and wanted to kill her, so, because it’s an animal it camouflaged itself in the wiring/guts of the ship and reacted strangely to the effects of gravity/the ship moving because it had been stuck in stasis for its entire prelife. imo.
Sometimes I feel I have the only cat that is actually cold. My cat would knock the phone off the hook in a raging wild fire, then order pizza instead of calling 911.
I'm a bit miffed you skipped over my favourite line in any movie ever from Ash re killing the Xeno: "I won't lie to you about your chances... but you have my sympathies." So back-handed and venomous purely on implication while technically being a polite sentiment, perfect for an android sending its crew mates off to die at the hands of a creature it was made to preserve.
To be fair, i wonder if he did technically sympathize but had to ignore but for the "greater good" in a "the needs of the many outweigh the needs if the few" type of way.
The Chestburster scene always creeped me out as a teenager. I remember that John Hurt reprised the exact same role eight years later in "Spaceballs", where he had the line "Not again!"
In addition to natural human curiosity and us assuming eggs are harmless, Kane also probably expected that his spacesuit would protect him from any biohazards, which is pretty reasonable when you live in a universe that hasn't encountered acid-spewing parasites before.
I once heard someone (I think it was John Landis on Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments) say how Alien solves the riddle of the haunted house - 'why not just leave the house? Because in space there is nowhere else to go...' which is a take I found fascinating
Honestly, I always loved the Ash twist, it's a great way of ramping up the tension even further. From the start, the crew have been snipping at each other over things like wages and Ripley's hardass attitude, but overall they're still in this together, still working as a unit, still fighting for each other's survival as well as their own. When Ash is trying to suffocate Ripley, the others all rush to her defence, despite (as said) her being a hardass bitch who snaps at them a lot. The only villain we'd been facing was the alien itself, which is a big scary monster, we know it when we see it. Then, Ash is revealed to not only be working against them, but to also be an android. That one creative decision suddenly changes everything. Suddenly it's not JUST the alien we have to be scared of, it's our own team as well. If Lambert starts suddenly playing nice with Ripley, can we trust her? Could we trust Brett either? Could we trust ANY of them? Can we even trust Ripley? Sure it all goes nowhere, but it adds this heavy amount of paranoia to everything that happens next, because you're constantly having to ask 'can I trust these people?' Before the Ash reveal, the answer was an emphatic 'yes'. Even if we didn't LIKE them, we could still TRUST them. But after the reveal? No way can we trust ANYONE anymore. So sure, while the twist didn't 'change' anything, I still think it's a vital part of the movie. You mention Ripley being alone in space, I say she was 'alone' the minute Ash was revealed as an android since, as said, there was no more security in trusting her team. She couldn't be sure any of them were safe anymore, and nor could the audience.
It also shows just how horrible and antagonistic Weyland-Yutani is going forward. Willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to further their goals of continuous profit with Androids that’ll follow their every order.
Gotta love how the escape shuttle is a sterling example of Weyland-Yutani's utter disregard for the lives of the people they were sending out, it had fewer seats than the command deck alone, nevermind any maintenance or other crew. Almost like they never heard of another famous ship disaster and the devastating results of having insufficient escape craft. Sure, it fits plot convenience so the crew couldn't just eff off and end the movie, but it also fits the general company philosophy.
In supplementary material it's revealed the Nostromo had two shuttles but one of them was damaged when the ore was loaded and left behind at Thedas I think the system's name is. Of course, they can both carry 3 crew members but the Nostromo has 7 crew so that still means 1 person is unlucky if both shuttles are on board and they have to abandon ship.
@@Riggswolfe Interesting, didn't know about the second shuttle. Still with the odd one left out you have to wonder if there wasn't some sadist in W-Y deliberately arranging the design so that any crew would have to make... arrangements... to decide who was staying behind (barring losses incurred due to whatever emergency requiring escape). Maybe they'd latch onto the old saw about the captain going down with their ship? Go in order of seniority/rank? Pick straws? Play a quick game of poker? Nah, no way there wouldn't be bloodshed.
@@jekebe4858 I think the shuttles are more intended for things like flying down to planets and to space stations. Which is worse in a way because it means that they don't really care if the crew escapes if the ship is destroyed.
@@Riggswolfe Hmm, taking into account the lacking number of pods installed and the haphazard tubing and wiring in the shuttle itself (to the point that a 7ft tall alien could fit in there! lol), you might be right that the shuttles are intended for transit. W-Y design includes shuttles but no escape measures, individual crew/captains might well take it on themselves to jam in as many coldsleep pods as there's room for/they could afford. Which really just leads back to W-Y being unimaginably callous about their minions. The universe lore is endlessly fun to consider, from the xenomorphs to the engineers to the preds to the replicants to the marines to the megacorps.
15:56 despite it being such a weird design choice, i love the fact that they went with this white waxy milky secretion flowing out of him...its unnerving and i think it works so well with the concept of the film. also its so unique!
Alien is just a different breed of movie imo. It's the definitive sci-fi horror movie for me. The way the camera moves, slowly panning around each dark corner. The sheer amount of scenes with little to no music, slowly moving throughout the scene, the sheer tension in almost every scene even before the first introduction of the eggs. Man, it's always an insanely intimate and legendary feeling to come back and watch Alien, and, while I like Aliens, it doesn't hold a candle to the first movie.
I like aliens enough, but it took what alien was, and made it a regular action flick. The original was better, and I liked alien 3 more than I did aliens because 3 tried to go back to the horror movie aesthetic of the original movie
Yes I love it so much. This is the movie that made me fall in love with great movies and become totally obsessed. Healthy obsession! Alien is absolute classic. I really like Aliens too but Alien slaps a lot harder with the sci fi terror isolation vibes! Though I love both!
@@tgiacin435I agree with you about what you first said. I’ve never seen alien 3 only alien and aliens you’re gunna kill me but I love Prometheus and Covenant too I know they’re flawed but I still love the “alien vibes” they bring. Gives me goosebumps on my whole body and chills up my spine
@@wattsnottaken1 I like Prometheus and covenant. For me I always see people crap on the other movies while praising aliens even though aliens was made because alien did well in the box office. And alien 3 made about 100 million less than aliens in the global box office. With Prometheus and covenant, I saw them more as every answer leads to new questions. Especially if you compare the ships from alien and Prometheus. They may be similar in shape, but the ship in Prometheus is metal while the derelict is organic, which makes me think there’s a species older than the engineers that the engineers worshiped as their gods and developed technology that would allow them to integrate themselves like the pilot chair in Prometheus, but not to the point of they could make a ship with its own pilot. I kinda look at the derelict like the cylon basestars in the syfy channel battlestar Galactica series where the cylons had the hybrids which looked like human in the pool. With cosmic horror, there are always more questions
@tgiacin435 I saw aliens first and it's my favorite of the series. It also ended up defining what Space Marines look like in sci-fi. Warhammer, Halo are two of the biggest to be shaped by Aliens.
I truly think Veronica Cartwright is one of the unsung scream queens. Her distressed voice when Dallas is in the ventilation is iconic and she’s been a part of some very iconic horror moments.
Yeah, when I watch the film, I'm like "get it together!" but I watched (not PLAYED, just watched) a playthrough of Alien Isolation, and the number o ftimes I had to just pause it because I was scared to death........the truth is I'd absoluely be frozen with fear in that situation.
2:50 - Also a win: when Ripley is attempting to hail Traffic Control, that exterior shot with the reverb added to her voice really brings home how far off track they are, heavily implying that no one is there to help them - either by coming to their rescue, or even offering advice over subspace comms...
one of my favourite details and I'm sad it doesn't get a win here is the absolute venom Sigourney puts on Ash's name when reciting the names of the deceased at the end.
For the record; The Duelists was Ridley Scott's first movie. This is one of my all time favorite films and have seen it at least a dozen times. I've never noticed the Big Chap in the landing strut! My focus was always on Brett. Who just happens to be the brightly lit.
The first time I watched it, the entire sequence of her arming the self destruct, getting blocked from the shuttle by the xenomorph, going back to try and disarm the self destruct but failing, and then having to get back to the shuttle before the ship explodes, all while constantly terrified of running into it again…… it literally gave me an anxiety attack 😂 it’s so good
5:04 - Veronica Cartwright is one of the more genius castings in this movie. She came onboard with some experience at playing the traumatized victim of a horrifying situation, having been in Hitchcock's The Birds at age 14.
15:48 Watching Alien in theaters for Alien Day was the first time I heard Parker say, "Android! He's an Android!", the theater viewing experience made me appreciate the sound design of Alien so much more. Another detail I noticed is how often the sound of heartbeats or sounds mimicking heartbeats were in the background of the score, to ratchet up the tension further
I was lucky enough to see 'Alien' in theaters, too, but I didn't catch that; it always sounded to me like Parker was saying, "Egh, sandpipe!" In fact, watching this video is the very first time I finally understand what he really said.
Ridley Scott's original ending had the alien killing Ripley by biting her head off and communicating with Earth in her voice. *20th Century Fox scrapped it for being too dark.*
That was a wise move by Fox. It would have been a slap in the face to the audience, and Alien would very quickly have been forgotten. A film full of horror and tragedy and death, that doesn't have a positive ending, is just a waste of everyone's time.
I watched it as a young teen, pulled my dad into the room as i was terrified! but he kept falling asleep! The music of this film is my fave element of the production, the whole thing is win. My # 1 fave movie.
I seem to recall an anecdote(I can't remember where I heard it) about test screenings for Alien. Members of the screening audience started getting up when the Xenomorph first appears to off Brett. Studio representatives thought they were getting up to walk out and started to panic, only to discover the reason audience members were getting out of their seats. They weren't leaving, they just wanted some distance from the alien and were moving to seats further away from the screen.
One thing i love in the scene before the chestburster is how when thier eating ash is just watching kane like a hawk and smiles when someone looks at him but then just goes back to staring at him. Like he knew about the egg and was just waiting for something to happen. Such a small detail but i love it
I'm glad you spotted the Big Chap on the top of the landing claw as Bret entered the landing strut chamber. Sooo many people missed that. I first saw Alien on opening day at the tender age of 10. My parents figured "It's gunna be like Star Wars, right?" That conceit started to falter when we saw the set pieces arranged outside the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, including the eggs, the Engineer (well, Space Jockey back then) and the MU/TH/UR set, which the line went right through. Then the movie happened. Everyone in the theater was screaming by the end.
Ahh, Alien... the movie that gave me the name of my first cat (which was really fitting considering he, too, was an orange cat). The five years and two months i had him (from that day in November that he decided he lived with me to when he passed away by my side in my kitchen), good events and bad, is time that i will always treasure.
22:15 - it's actually his second feature length movie (3rd movie overall). He had already made The Duelists starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine in 1977.
One thing they did that amplified the tension with each scene of the crew together was they had the actors talking over each other on purpose so they'd get angry and start shouting. That's why when Dallas and Ripley snap at Parker, it feels so real.
I remember reading that Ridley Scott had Parker's actor annoy Sigourney Weaver on purpose so when she finally snaps at Parker in that one scene it is her letting her actual anger out.
The thing I truly love about Alien is that it's always felt to me like a nightmare. Not a nightmarish situation or concept, an actual, honest-to-goodness _nightmare_ that you'd have while you're asleep. Everything about it is unsettling - the cramped ship that's simultaneously high- and low-tech, the grainy, static shots of outer space, the too-big matte-painting space of the alien ruins, and all the hideous _biologicalness_ of the alien itself. The people seem almost distant, separated from you by a sort of haze of discomfort and unease - they still feel _human,_ but you're not one of them. You are looking in at their life, and watching in horror as it all goes wrong. And when it finally comes to an end - to a weird, slow, musicless crescendo - you can almost imagine yourself waking up while Ripley is still staring at the xenomorph, and just assuming that she fires it into space because that's some kind of ending that would give any of that any meaning at all. It feels dreamlike in an uncomfortable way, its aesthetic suspended in time and its creature simultaneously unnervingly other and disgustingly real. I adore every part of it.
Ash didn't close the door because he cared about quarantine, he closed it because he suspected that the face crawler might want another host, and wanted to keep them from being heard or escaping.
This is my all-time favorite movie. I actually wrote a paper on it in college when taking a class about the sci-fi genre in film and tv, the history of it, and how it was used to discuss social issues. One of my favorite things about the set design in this film is that for the more industrial ship interiors they used old airplane parts which I think helps to establish not only a creepy interior, but I think it also creates a fascinating juxtaposition with the clean, almost sterile, environments on the ship and the warped and curved architecture seen on the planet. Also, if you ever get the chance, check out the director's cut. Somehow, it's just a little shorter, but it includes a fascinating scene where Ripley enters what essentially is the Alien's nest and while it isn't my preferred version of the movie, I think that scene is really interesting. I could talk about this film for hours if you let me.
14:50 always reminds me of my Mum as she looked like Sigourney's twin in the 80s, especially in Aliens. But here, the way she yells "SHUT UP!" reminds me of her when I was a kid and me and my siblings were playing up 😂
75% of the time a new EGA comes out, I sit wondering "Hey I coulda sworn Lee already did that one" You're still the best, kindest, most necessary youtuber out there. Keep up the good work and I love you, to everyone at CW ❤
One of the most underrated aspects of the film is the score by the late Jerry Goldsmith, who along with John Williams, is probably the greatest composer of film scores. His music for Alien perfectly creates a mood that is eerie and otherworldly.
I always liked the way that Ash being an Android is a surprise, not because Androids are sci-fi nonsense to these people, but because they didnt realize Ash was one at all. The implication that human-passing Robots are just A Thing that people are familiar with is such an underrated detail to making the world feel real
The person who never gets a mention, but was who had the biggest influence on everything atheistic was Ridley himself. He was a graphic designer and had a hand in every aspect of the design process. Most of which were his own.
The Duelists was Scott's first feature film (1977). If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch. Right out of the gate, it showed Scott's had "Don't tell, show" down pat.
It is! In fact, I prefer to watch Prometheus, then Covenant, then this, then play Isolation, then watch Romulus, then Aliens, and end there. No Alien 3 or Resurrection for me.
Also marketing: None of the trailers or movie posters ever showed what the alien actually looked like. Most just showed the egg at the most. First-time viewers in the theater were actually surprised (terrorized) when they first saw the xenomorph, or even just the face-hugger. Modern advertising could learn a few things from this movie.
@@Unversed333honestly the 5 minutes is all it needed to be the star of the movie. The thing basically added tension to the entire ending half of the movie after we first saw the chest burster.
In addition to the genuine surprised reactions of to the chestburster; I love that the set of the Nostromo was built as a contiguous set. Those hallways were enclosed, Scott did it specifically to give a genuine feeling of claustrophobia.
Great video and thank you so much for doing the Director’s Cut. Bits like Lambert attacking Ripley or Kanes “Kill me!” are just iconic and I’m glad you kept them in. If you ever get around to Aliens, I really hope you do the same 😊
For me the Kane/Dallas scene slows down the pacing of Ripley running around the spaceship! But I do prefer the Aliens director cut & hopefully CWEGA does that version!
The first movie Ridley Scott directed was The Duellists (1977). Alien was his second but the one that made him famous. Alien and Aliens are two of my favourite movies of all time! Good video review 👍🏾 😊
Fun fact. The Who were shooting their live performances for Baba O' Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again at Shepperton Studios. Ridley Scott saw their laser show and asked if he could borrow them for the film he was working on...Alien.
My father saw this when it came out in theaters and claims that people literally jumped, some of them throwing their drinks, at the chestburster moment and the liquid hitting theater-goers added to the realism.
my dad told me that when he saw it, he and his friends were absolutely frozen with shock. until it ran off the table which made them all start screaming hysterically lol
Another great thing about the 'russian spy twist' is taht it gives the crew something that allows them to make stupid decisions. Opening the ship, not killing the chestpopper, etc. It all happens because he is actively working against them, and thus, we don't have a stupid crew working against their best interests.
the cut to the cat staring impassively evokes ash’s similar detached observation of the crew’s deaths. we don’t know it yet, but “he doesn’t care because he isn’t human” is telegraphed here to prime us for ash’s betrayal.
I was lucky enough to be able to see this in theaters earlier this year for the 45th anniversary, and the sound design was somehow even better with the theater experience! Extremely excited for Romulus this Friday!
I've always gotten to vibe from the Xenos that they are intelligent and sentient but are just the perfect predator, especially because they are shown later to have parts of the species that they consume as part of their genetic make up. This movie is iconic, and it inspired so many horror and sci fi stories.
I am surprised that the iconic self destruct alarm was not included in your list. That alarm still gives off so much tension and panic at the same time I love it!
Alien introduced me into sci-fi horror done right. To the lighting, the unnerving scenes, the music that sometimes gives dread, the design of the creatures, my fear of facehuggers, my love to see more good alien movies, and Ripley became my favorite character in any film she's in. This and the second movie are both my favorite out of the Alien movies and still holds as the scariest movies I've ever seen.
22:14 If you believe it you would be wrong because this is not Ridley Scott's first movie, it's his second. Yes, he hit it out of the park, but it was not his first swing at a feature. That was "The Duellists" (1977).
IKR i haven't been that freaked out by something like this since deadspace one and two being trapped in a house is one thing but being trapped in space that's just a whole new level of WTF
The Ash twist is more than just a lore drop, it's the whole theme of the movie. The alien is a scary monster, but the villain is the Weyland Yutani company. The crew of the Nostromo is being sacrificed for the company's bottom line.
I'm a huge fan of big universes with interconnected stories and isolated one offs that explore and expands said universes. but there is always a point where we have to say "this is enough", and either explore something completely different in that same universe, or decide it's done and there is nothing else to do there besides watching it getting ruined.
Small note: you're watching an alternate cut of the movie, there, not the theatrical, so the xeno would not have been visisble to the audience originally. Also that room where Brett bites it contains the landing gear, and given how cold the planet was, the falling "rain" is just ice melting.
I played the game, Alien Isolation, on my switch. and it is the best and most terrifying game Ie every played. I loved it. No game has ever topped it nor do I want another game to top it.Funnily enough I died to the Joes more than the Xeno cuz my aim is shit on the switch XD One part from my playthrough will always stick with me. I was at the part where I had to get meds for our friend. I had gotten them but was stuck in a vent way to terrified to move. I just sat there listening to the sounds of the ship and the Xeno as it moved around me, stalking the halls. As I finally got enough courage to leave the Xeno appeared from the other side of the vent and killed me. No sound, so warning. Just there and dead. I had to stop and a few minutes to recover from that. I dunno if I had just been killed for basically going afk or the Xeno just finally found me. Either way, I loved it. Loved every single bit (I did beat the game btw). Alien Isolation was my first step into the Alien Universe. I said all that to say this: plating that game made me feel like I had been apart of the actual Alien movie. Go play it if you haven't. Just watching it on YT doesn't do it justice. And also watch this movie too!
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention as a look at how good Sigorni Weaver’s acting that originally her character was originally meant to be a male but her audition was so good that her character was rewritten to fit her
Speaking of Jones the Cat cat scares: [Cat flies across the screen] Jeff: Jesus! Haha, it was just a cat. Let's keep moving. [Cat flies across the screen again] Troy: Holy crap! [Cat flies across the screen again] Jeff: What is up with that cat?! Troy: IS SOMEONE THROWING IT?! Abed: Keep moving! [Cat flies across the screen again] Jeff: Let's not keep moving, because there is an insane cat down here! Troy: Well, what about the zombies? Jeff: Backburner, Troy! This cat has to be dealt with! - Community, "Epidemiology"
I remember rewatching Alien in preparation for another playthrough of Alien: Isolation, which is an excellent story on its own as well as a great companion piece to this movie. The one thing I picked up on my rewatch are all the moments that Ash knew and how he was actively making sure this disaster happened. He even psychologically manipulates Ripley when she wanted to check on the crew outside on the planet before they got back to the ship. It's subtle but it's there in the dialogue. These subtle details I picked up on my rewatch are what made me realise The Company planned this from the beginning. I know there's the revelation text later in the movie but it shocked me how much planning The Company put into dooming the crew from the start. In turn, this made me realise how much effort went into the writing of this movie.
22:16 I would not believe it is Ridley Scott's first film because it is not his first film. It was his second. His first film came out two years before Alien in 1977, The Duelists. Starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine as two rival officers in Napoleon's army who engaged in a series of duels over 20 years. It is a pretty solid historical drama and worth checking out. It provided the inspiration for Gregory Widen to write Highlander.
I can say that younger audiences still love this movie! I and some college friends had a movie night over Zoom during COVID, and for most of us it was our first time watching Alien. Even seeing it on crappy tablet screens, we loved it for all the same reasons you did! Alien really is timeless.
22:24 Hold on what? A relationship between Ripley and Lambert was a possibility? Now I feel a lot more justified shipping Ripley and Call in Resurrection.
something i'm really surprised didn't get mentioned is that ripley's character was actually conceived as male to begin with. when sigourney weaver auditioned for the movie they decided to cast her in the role with the writing completely unchanged. they even ended up shooting some scenes where they showed that romance between ripley and lambert onscreen, but iirc it was cut from the movie pretty early on
@@girzarro, Also fun fact, Lambert was born a male....that might have been cannon as of Aliens though, I don't recall which film had her bio pop up stating that
I think an important element to Alien's greatness, one that even Ridley Scott conveniently forgets, is the combined creativity and TEAM effort that went into the creation of the film, in concept, writing, execution, post-production. We're talking about the incredible production design artists, the ones who were kit-bashing and using all these interesting props and machines to make that 70s trucker-industrialist aesthetic of the entire spaceship, let alone the Derelict, and the planet. We're talking about prop-makers who made every space and item and tool of the film look so in-world realistic and believable and cool. We're talking about the costume design, we're talking about the incredible prosthetics and practical effects of all the alien-related stuff and blood and gore. We're talking about even just the concept artists, and sketches and drawings, and of course HR Giger's incredible input, and the ideas and writing of Dan O'Bannon and also Hill and Giler writing the script and story. And ALL the incredible actors on set. And the cinematographer Derek Vanlint, and the editor, and all the supervisors of whatever stunt, special effects, visual effects etc etc. I'm so sick and tired of Ridley Scott trying to take all the credit for the genius of this film
I'm surprised you didn't mention the pretty crystal-looking wind chime hanging behind Parker - personalizing a sterile industrial space for a win! Also, actors named Tom really do seem to be the Scott brothers' lucky charms for great movies, don't they?
Everything here is just so well crafted. The acting, the creature design, Jerry Goldsmith’s score & the scares just meld and you feel terrible for the bad things that happen to the Nostromo crew
If I could say a gripe with the upcoming new Alien movie, I think the brunette final girl trope of horror movies has been so ingrained in popular culture and the Alien series has always been guilt of it. When I go to see Romulus I know who is gonna make it to the end of the movie, it’s Cailee Spaeny. Something I think is cool about the first Alien movie is that you don’t necessarily know that Ripley is the main character from the start. Everyone feels equally vulnerable until the end.
The whole point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to mess with these kinds of tropes. Joss Whedon pictured a tiny little blond cheerleader going into a dead end alley while being chased by a monster only to turn around and kick its butt.
This is one of my favorite horror movies, with John Carpenter’s The Thing being my absolute favorites of the genre, which I would love to see you do a video on.
The majority of the cast not knowing the chestburster coming out is one of those movie rumors that I just refuse to believe considering it's such a pivotal scene that also what I can assume requires quite a lot of set up time. Not to mention probably expensive too. To me, it doesn't make any sense from a production or script writing perspective.
17:54 - Scuttling a ship should indeed very complex to give an edgy crew time to reconsider, or to discover a saboteur. I'm under the impression that the instructions are right on the inside of the cover.
2:00 Just to nitpick, Yaphet Kotto would have also been reasonably well-known at this time, especially since he'd been a Bond villain in Live And Let Die. (Plus a lot of "blacksploitation" work throughout the 70s.) Also: 12:50 The cast basically knew what was going to happen. I mean, they'd read the script and they were on-set with the full prosthetic rig and soforth. What they weren't expecting was just *how much* blood would be sprayed, and Veronica Cartright got absolutely hosed with no warning. Which was apparently an accident, but it did make her reaction very real. Also also: 22:15 It was NOT Scott's first movie. He did "The Duellists" before this, which is what got him noticed by Fox.
Point of interest: The two people with the most rational responses are Lambert and Ripley. The two women. Derelict alien spaceship? Lambert: “Let’s get out of here.” Horrible face-hugger on crew mate? Ripley: “No. I’m not breaking quarantine.”
Let's not paint Lambert as the picture of rationality - she wanted to get away from the derelict because she was (rightfully!) freaked the fuck out, and at most other points she's really riding her emotions. I'm not going to hold it against her, much the same as I don't hate on Hudson for losing his grip in Aliens. They're both way out of their depths in situations that nobody could have prepared them for but when it comes down to it they both put in the work to do what needs to be done.
Are we not gonna talk about how he said this was Ridley Scott's first movie when it wasn't? The Duellists came out two years prior and was Scott's directorial debut.
Should be noted Fly Agaric (also known as Amanita muscaria) is not hallucinogenic in the same way that magic mushrooms are. Completely different active compound. More of a delerient effect than psychedelic. They're a lot more unpleasant, scary, and potentially dangerous. Which thematically fits the movie even better haha.
13:20 This scene is such a Clark Kent glasses moment and I love it. I've watched Alien with so many people on their first viewing and most of them miss the alien just dangling there. I think it goes to show just much of a distraction human emotions can be during intense situations that cause us to miss such major details. Also the alien wasn't jumping on the shuttle to get Ripley it was trying to escape the unyeilding rage of a mad ginger cat. That's why it hid away when it realised Jonsie was aboard the shuttle and it even tried to warn Ripley with its hand.
Great video, but a couple of things. 1. Alien was not Scott's first movie. He did The Duelists in 1977, and it's fantastic. I'd love to see you do an Everything GREAT video about it. 2. It's Weyland-Yutani. Weyland has a D at the end.
I also really appreciate the opening tour shots because it really showcases the level of detail and care that went into the set and the people who put that effort in. It helps establish the audience as part of the crew when we are given a rough idea of the environment. It is still alien to us being future tech (at the time), but not entirely blind.
shoutout to my dad for showing me this wayyy too early and traumatizing me as a child. at least he showed me one of my top 5 movies and one of my favorite franchises (yes, including all the movies, games, and comics people deem "bad")
22:14. Actually Alien was his second feature film as director. Ridley had made the movie the duellists previously as his first feature film two years prior. Just a small correction for you.
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!!! I understand how you might be busy with Inside Out 2 soon. I still have that spreadsheet of all the main videos you've made over the years. Also, I can't wait for the teaser frame for next week’s video! I hope you heard the announcement of Shrek 5, and I also have my 33rd request for "Everything GREAT About Shrek (2001)!", 43rd request for Jurassic Park 2 (1997) and 3 (2001), and my 33rd request for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). But still, take your time. Love you, CinemaWins, Always! ❤🎉
i watched this movie for the first time recently with one of my best friends and something they said really stuck with me-- in the scene at 9:32 Ripley is placed above Ash, looking down at him and slightly in shadow, masculinizing her in the shot as per cinematography cliché!! which plays into how Ripley is such a non-traditional female character and a non-traditional hero in general! there's a lot of moments adjacent to this, the airlock scene in particular comes to mind also knowing Ridley originally wanted Ripley & Lambert to be in a relationship is SO VINDICATING
Part of what makes the Xenomorph so memorable is its lack of expression. Unlike most frightening designs, we can't see its eyes, so we never know how the creature feels rather than have any human traits of empathy or fear.
And because you can't see it's eyes, you can't tell if it sees you (or how its vision works) before the kill.
@@tallyp.7643 Very true, that's something I didn't even think about.
Also the fact that both its skull shape and its tongue are supposed to be phallic. The entire creature is one big unsubtle rape metaphor to make it all the more disturbing.
@@dracodracarys2339 Wow, that's a great interpretation. I've never thought of it like that before.
@@BatAmerica Welcome to a woman's world. The facehuggers are also supposed to be a metaphor for r*pe and the chestburster scene is forced pregnancy.
I think the ship's interior tour is so eerie because you already know what's about to come.
It's a sense of "Oh god THIS PLACE is where they're going to have fight an alien???"
Hm, for me it is the sound design what makes the beginning so unsettling.
Just think about when it was first released and no one had any idea
@lovescarguitar I mean.
The movie's called Alien and was heavily advertised as a horror movie. Kinda self-explanatory that s-word is about go do d-ward.
@@PennTankerGuydown?
It actually feels more like a liminal space like the backrooms, and the fact that there's gonna be a hungry monster hunting the crew down is even more similar
Fun fact that i recently learned, during the space jockey scene those are children in small space suits, thats how they made the giant set look even bigger
Those were Ridley's kids, and they fainted inside the suits. Thats what finally got Ridley to acccept the suits were dangerous.
@@albertfronton3634 Yikes, never want your bring your kid to work day to end in fainting
@@albertfronton3634 And being a white rich man he probably got never charged with 2 counts of child endangerment i suppose?
@@Some_Guy_6 why you people always gotta make shit about race
@@Some_Guy_6Are you projecting based off something you did and got caught for?
i disagree with the idea that the ash twist doesn't add anything to the story VERY hard. the fact that he was directly sent from the company they work for adds a really stressful dimension to the story about worker exploitation. he wasn't some kind of infiltrating spy - he was a tool being used by upper management to make sure their main directive was carried out at the direct expense of their employees
Yeah, it’s mentioned that Ash was a last-minute replacement for their usual science officer.
It also makes you look back on the earlier scenes in the fresh context, the mark of a good twist. Like the Xenomorph concealed in the chains the clues were there and hindsight makes them easier to spot.
The Crew Expendable line really is what characterises the Company across the franchise, individual lives and whole groups are a justified cost in the endgame of getting biological Xenomorph material. Burke in Aliens sacrificed a whole colony just to have pretence to obtain specimens with plausible deniability to certain authorities.
Ash was the first amogus.
Exactly like in real life. Lol but for real always remember your boss will let you die to save a penny.
It's surprising how pivotal this reveal is. Even the most heartless of humans might be swayed by the human cost as it happens.
This robot in particular even shows some kind of concern for Ripley. Duringthe search for the facehugger in the infirmary, Ripley goes towards a corner in the dark. Ash notices this and tells her not to go further without a mobile light source.
This would appear to go against his mission to study the creature, as infecting Ripley would give him another chance to observe it in action.
One of the coolest things about the movie is how it really doesn't have a main character. Obviously with hindsight, Ripley is the main character, but in terms of how the story is told, the only thing that makes her special is that she's the only survivor. It could have easily been one of the other crew members that survived, but it just happened to be Ripley. None of the characters are depicted as more or less important to the plot, because they all do important things. It's a feeling that none of the sequels really capture because we know Ripley is the main character. Once we know that, it becomes a lot easier to tell which characters are important, and which are just fodder for the xenomorphs.
I love this movie so much. Never forget the first time I watched this movie. In my room with all the lights off with the volume loud 😈 I was hooked right away and super gripped by Fear. The outer space isolation vibes gave me goosebumps all over and chills up my spine. Ridley Scott + cast and crew thank you so much for making the best science fiction terror movie ever. 😈
One thing I'm definitely excited for in Alien Romulus. Since there's no big stars or anything, I don't really know who's gonna live or die beyond the character who got chestbursted in the trailers
Yeah, if either Aliens or Alien 3 had the balls to have Ripley unexpectadly killed in Act 2, everyone in the cinema would have been goggle eyed in shock.
@@moon-moth1 I read your comment quickly.and though it said "he was a recognisable actor and , at the time, a man." Suffice to say I did a double take!
In the first movie, she's not the main character, she's the Final Girl, just in a spaceship instead of a camp or haunted house.
13:57 I always took it that the cat recognized there was a MUCH larger and nastier predator on the ship and knew staying still and quiet were key to survival.
nah it's just a cat being a cat
I always saw it as the cat enjoyed watching a human be brutally killed, which is in character for a cat.
@@Durwood71 Such an “original” and “hilarious” joke that isn’t at all harmful to the public perception of cats.
Can we stop spouting this anti-cat nonsense, please? Cats and dogs are two very different animals and serve different roles as pets. And, unlike with most dogs, you actually have to earn a cat’s trust, which should never be mistaken for the cat being psychotic. If a cat isn’t affectionate and treats you coldly, it has either been traumatized by a human (possibly even you yourself) in the past, it grew into an adult without positive interaction with humans or you simply haven’t befriended it yet.
@@stevelordofdarkness2340 I'm glad you appreciated my joke. For the record, I have four cats, and they can be affectionate to the point of annoyance, but I still enjoy jokes like "My dog thinks it's a human; my cat thinks it's a god."
@@Durwood71 It can be impossible to tell when a joke is made ironically, and I have encountered enough people who say stuff like this with 100% sincerity that I find it difficult to tolerate.
The fact that Ridley Scott saw Star Wars, got depressed after he saw it, abandoned his project, and then made this masterpiece will always be insane to me
Word of God (according to TV Tropes):
- Ridley Scott mentions on the DVD Commentary that *Ash is a Replicant.*
- Scott mentions that he had conceived the Alien having the lifespan of only a few days (which explains why it snuck aboard the escape pod) *as it wanted to find a nice quiet place for it to die alone and why it doesn't attack Ripley until she coaxes it out of its hiding spot.*
you use TV Tropes as well so Alien/Blade Runner are connected
@@JBTriple8
Yes.
I think in an Alien game you can find correspondance between characters from Blade Runner and Alien, creating an actual canon connection!
i always thought that aliens absorbed the faculties and sensibilities of those that they kill, so they know how the ship operates. i figured it knew she was getting on the shuttle and wanted to kill her, so, because it’s an animal it camouflaged itself in the wiring/guts of the ship and reacted strangely to the effects of gravity/the ship moving because it had been stuck in stasis for its entire prelife. imo.
@@samanthanickson6478 I mean, it's a cool opinion but we have confirmation that it went there to die by the director himself.
13:55 That isn't cold and unmoved, that's cat for "Well, dummy, I tried to tell you..."
Sometimes I feel I have the only cat that is actually cold. My cat would knock the phone off the hook in a raging wild fire, then order pizza instead of calling 911.
jonesy: "dammit i'm the only sane one on this ship"
@@dracodracarys2339 When Jonesy becomes the "better come take a look at this, cliche"
I'm a bit miffed you skipped over my favourite line in any movie ever from Ash re killing the Xeno:
"I won't lie to you about your chances... but you have my sympathies."
So back-handed and venomous purely on implication while technically being a polite sentiment, perfect for an android sending its crew mates off to die at the hands of a creature it was made to preserve.
@@MilkyWayGrump
I made that line my senior quote when I graduated high school lol.
To be fair, i wonder if he did technically sympathize but had to ignore but for the "greater good" in a "the needs of the many outweigh the needs if the few" type of way.
The Chestburster scene always creeped me out as a teenager. I remember that John Hurt reprised the exact same role eight years later in "Spaceballs", where he had the line "Not again!"
AS A CHILD?! Wtf, this is rated R
@@jackthesmoltangerine I meant as a teenager, I was about 15 when I first saw it.
@@trinaq jeez, you’re braver than me lol
Wait, John Hurt? As in the War Doctor? I'm asking because I genuinely like the War Doctor.
@@user-Phoenix125 Yes, the very same man. We sadly lost him in 2017.
When you realize the Alien had less than three minutes of screentime but managed to feel like an ever-present looming threat.
That's the strength of the Alien. You feel it's presence even when it's not there because it always feels like it could be lurking just out of sight.
How did you not include Ash’s little smirk when he says “You have my sympathies.”? It’s so great!
OR THE BEST LINE IN THE MOVIE "I admire.. It's purity."
@@QuiteSincere To me his catty little smirk and sarcastic “You have my sympathies” is low key what makes the character.
@@QuiteSincere For some reason I misremembered that line "I admire it's perfection".
Right before he says this, he goes, "I can't lie to you about your chances, but..." meaning he's lying to them about them having his sympathies.
In addition to natural human curiosity and us assuming eggs are harmless, Kane also probably expected that his spacesuit would protect him from any biohazards, which is pretty reasonable when you live in a universe that hasn't encountered acid-spewing parasites before.
I once heard someone (I think it was John Landis on Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments) say how Alien solves the riddle of the haunted house - 'why not just leave the house? Because in space there is nowhere else to go...' which is a take I found fascinating
Honestly, I always loved the Ash twist, it's a great way of ramping up the tension even further.
From the start, the crew have been snipping at each other over things like wages and Ripley's hardass attitude, but overall they're still in this together, still working as a unit, still fighting for each other's survival as well as their own. When Ash is trying to suffocate Ripley, the others all rush to her defence, despite (as said) her being a hardass bitch who snaps at them a lot. The only villain we'd been facing was the alien itself, which is a big scary monster, we know it when we see it.
Then, Ash is revealed to not only be working against them, but to also be an android. That one creative decision suddenly changes everything. Suddenly it's not JUST the alien we have to be scared of, it's our own team as well. If Lambert starts suddenly playing nice with Ripley, can we trust her? Could we trust Brett either? Could we trust ANY of them? Can we even trust Ripley? Sure it all goes nowhere, but it adds this heavy amount of paranoia to everything that happens next, because you're constantly having to ask 'can I trust these people?' Before the Ash reveal, the answer was an emphatic 'yes'. Even if we didn't LIKE them, we could still TRUST them. But after the reveal? No way can we trust ANYONE anymore.
So sure, while the twist didn't 'change' anything, I still think it's a vital part of the movie. You mention Ripley being alone in space, I say she was 'alone' the minute Ash was revealed as an android since, as said, there was no more security in trusting her team. She couldn't be sure any of them were safe anymore, and nor could the audience.
Dude was an Imposter 50 years before Among Us
Yes. And it gives Ian Holm a real point of difference to create the character from and he did it so so well.
Bilbo, the Amogus.
It also shows just how horrible and antagonistic Weyland-Yutani is going forward. Willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to further their goals of continuous profit with Androids that’ll follow their every order.
11:13 Another detail about Ash. You know you're screwed when the ROBOT's eyes go wide.
Gotta love how the escape shuttle is a sterling example of Weyland-Yutani's utter disregard for the lives of the people they were sending out, it had fewer seats than the command deck alone, nevermind any maintenance or other crew. Almost like they never heard of another famous ship disaster and the devastating results of having insufficient escape craft.
Sure, it fits plot convenience so the crew couldn't just eff off and end the movie, but it also fits the general company philosophy.
In supplementary material it's revealed the Nostromo had two shuttles but one of them was damaged when the ore was loaded and left behind at Thedas I think the system's name is. Of course, they can both carry 3 crew members but the Nostromo has 7 crew so that still means 1 person is unlucky if both shuttles are on board and they have to abandon ship.
@@Riggswolfe Interesting, didn't know about the second shuttle. Still with the odd one left out you have to wonder if there wasn't some sadist in W-Y deliberately arranging the design so that any crew would have to make... arrangements... to decide who was staying behind (barring losses incurred due to whatever emergency requiring escape).
Maybe they'd latch onto the old saw about the captain going down with their ship? Go in order of seniority/rank? Pick straws? Play a quick game of poker? Nah, no way there wouldn't be bloodshed.
@@jekebe4858 I think the shuttles are more intended for things like flying down to planets and to space stations. Which is worse in a way because it means that they don't really care if the crew escapes if the ship is destroyed.
@@Riggswolfe Hmm, taking into account the lacking number of pods installed and the haphazard tubing and wiring in the shuttle itself (to the point that a 7ft tall alien could fit in there! lol), you might be right that the shuttles are intended for transit.
W-Y design includes shuttles but no escape measures, individual crew/captains might well take it on themselves to jam in as many coldsleep pods as there's room for/they could afford. Which really just leads back to W-Y being unimaginably callous about their minions.
The universe lore is endlessly fun to consider, from the xenomorphs to the engineers to the preds to the replicants to the marines to the megacorps.
15:56 despite it being such a weird design choice, i love the fact that they went with this white waxy milky secretion flowing out of him...its unnerving and i think it works so well with the concept of the film. also its so unique!
Alien is just a different breed of movie imo. It's the definitive sci-fi horror movie for me. The way the camera moves, slowly panning around each dark corner. The sheer amount of scenes with little to no music, slowly moving throughout the scene, the sheer tension in almost every scene even before the first introduction of the eggs. Man, it's always an insanely intimate and legendary feeling to come back and watch Alien, and, while I like Aliens, it doesn't hold a candle to the first movie.
I like aliens enough, but it took what alien was, and made it a regular action flick. The original was better, and I liked alien 3 more than I did aliens because 3 tried to go back to the horror movie aesthetic of the original movie
Yes I love it so much. This is the movie that made me fall in love with great movies and become totally obsessed. Healthy obsession! Alien is absolute classic. I really like Aliens too but Alien slaps a lot harder with the sci fi terror isolation vibes! Though I love both!
@@tgiacin435I agree with you about what you first said. I’ve never seen alien 3 only alien and aliens you’re gunna kill me but I love Prometheus and Covenant too I know they’re flawed but I still love the “alien vibes” they bring. Gives me goosebumps on my whole body and chills up my spine
@@wattsnottaken1 I like Prometheus and covenant. For me I always see people crap on the other movies while praising aliens even though aliens was made because alien did well in the box office. And alien 3 made about 100 million less than aliens in the global box office. With Prometheus and covenant, I saw them more as every answer leads to new questions. Especially if you compare the ships from alien and Prometheus. They may be similar in shape, but the ship in Prometheus is metal while the derelict is organic, which makes me think there’s a species older than the engineers that the engineers worshiped as their gods and developed technology that would allow them to integrate themselves like the pilot chair in Prometheus, but not to the point of they could make a ship with its own pilot. I kinda look at the derelict like the cylon basestars in the syfy channel battlestar Galactica series where the cylons had the hybrids which looked like human in the pool. With cosmic horror, there are always more questions
@tgiacin435 I saw aliens first and it's my favorite of the series. It also ended up defining what Space Marines look like in sci-fi. Warhammer, Halo are two of the biggest to be shaped by Aliens.
I truly think Veronica Cartwright is one of the unsung scream queens. Her distressed voice when Dallas is in the ventilation is iconic and she’s been a part of some very iconic horror moments.
I agree I just watched invasion of the body snatchers and she was a good addition to the cast in that, she's got a very iconic scream I think!
@@nathanabbotts9588 dude that scream at the end when Donald Sutherland points is heartbreaking
@@nathanabbotts9588 one thing I always forget is that she’s the little girl in The Birds, too
Yeah, when I watch the film, I'm like "get it together!" but I watched (not PLAYED, just watched) a playthrough of Alien Isolation, and the number o ftimes I had to just pause it because I was scared to death........the truth is I'd absoluely be frozen with fear in that situation.
@@Bazookatone1 exactly. I’d totally be the same.
2:50 - Also a win: when Ripley is attempting to hail Traffic Control, that exterior shot with the reverb added to her voice really brings home how far off track they are, heavily implying that no one is there to help them - either by coming to their rescue, or even offering advice over subspace comms...
one of my favourite details and I'm sad it doesn't get a win here is the absolute venom Sigourney puts on Ash's name when reciting the names of the deceased at the end.
For the record; The Duelists was Ridley Scott's first movie.
This is one of my all time favorite films and have seen it at least a dozen times. I've never noticed the Big Chap in the landing strut! My focus was always on Brett. Who just happens to be the brightly lit.
The first time I watched it, the entire sequence of her arming the self destruct, getting blocked from the shuttle by the xenomorph, going back to try and disarm the self destruct but failing, and then having to get back to the shuttle before the ship explodes, all while constantly terrified of running into it again…… it literally gave me an anxiety attack 😂 it’s so good
5:04 - Veronica Cartwright is one of the more genius castings in this movie. She came onboard with some experience at playing the traumatized victim of a horrifying situation, having been in Hitchcock's The Birds at age 14.
15:48
Watching Alien in theaters for Alien Day was the first time I heard Parker say, "Android! He's an Android!", the theater viewing experience made me appreciate the sound design of Alien so much more.
Another detail I noticed is how often the sound of heartbeats or sounds mimicking heartbeats were in the background of the score, to ratchet up the tension further
I was lucky enough to see 'Alien' in theaters, too, but I didn't catch that; it always sounded to me like Parker was saying, "Egh, sandpipe!" In fact, watching this video is the very first time I finally understand what he really said.
Ridley Scott's original ending had the alien killing Ripley by biting her head off and communicating with Earth in her voice.
*20th Century Fox scrapped it for being too dark.*
I think that's fair. Also we would not have had Ripley in Aliens then
That was a wise move by Fox. It would have been a slap in the face to the audience, and Alien would very quickly have been forgotten. A film full of horror and tragedy and death, that doesn't have a positive ending, is just a waste of everyone's time.
Honestly for a standalone horror film that would have been fucking perfection
I wouldn't call it dark. Honestly it's pretty silly. Definitely not fitting with the rest of the movie either way
isn't there a couple of movies that end basically like that ? I'm pretty sure I've watched a few horror movies with that ending.
I first watched this movie when i was 8, and it was at midnight. I was alone. I couldn't sleep for 2 weeks, but it was so worth it.
I watched it as a young teen, pulled my dad into the room as i was terrified! but he kept falling asleep! The music of this film is my fave element of the production, the whole thing is win. My # 1 fave movie.
Yep. I watched with my mom during a weekend, in the day time, and I still had nightmares for 2 weeks. Now, I love the xenomorphs.
@@sbaker3426 same. I fell in love with Sci-fi after this movie
@@Mohagnito94 a classic❣️
I seem to recall an anecdote(I can't remember where I heard it) about test screenings for Alien. Members of the screening audience started getting up when the Xenomorph first appears to off Brett. Studio representatives thought they were getting up to walk out and started to panic, only to discover the reason audience members were getting out of their seats. They weren't leaving, they just wanted some distance from the alien and were moving to seats further away from the screen.
One thing i love in the scene before the chestburster is how when thier eating ash is just watching kane like a hawk and smiles when someone looks at him but then just goes back to staring at him. Like he knew about the egg and was just waiting for something to happen. Such a small detail but i love it
I'm glad you spotted the Big Chap on the top of the landing claw as Bret entered the landing strut chamber. Sooo many people missed that. I first saw Alien on opening day at the tender age of 10. My parents figured "It's gunna be like Star Wars, right?" That conceit started to falter when we saw the set pieces arranged outside the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, including the eggs, the Engineer (well, Space Jockey back then) and the MU/TH/UR set, which the line went right through. Then the movie happened. Everyone in the theater was screaming by the end.
Ahh, Alien... the movie that gave me the name of my first cat (which was really fitting considering he, too, was an orange cat). The five years and two months i had him (from that day in November that he decided he lived with me to when he passed away by my side in my kitchen), good events and bad, is time that i will always treasure.
22:15 - it's actually his second feature length movie (3rd movie overall). He had already made The Duelists starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine in 1977.
Week 189 of Asking For Everything Great About Dead Man's Chest
damn still going
Kannatetaan!
Keep up the good fight
Yes
Agree with you entirely.
One thing they did that amplified the tension with each scene of the crew together was they had the actors talking over each other on purpose so they'd get angry and start shouting. That's why when Dallas and Ripley snap at Parker, it feels so real.
I remember reading that Ridley Scott had Parker's actor annoy Sigourney Weaver on purpose so when she finally snaps at Parker in that one scene it is her letting her actual anger out.
The thing I truly love about Alien is that it's always felt to me like a nightmare. Not a nightmarish situation or concept, an actual, honest-to-goodness _nightmare_ that you'd have while you're asleep. Everything about it is unsettling - the cramped ship that's simultaneously high- and low-tech, the grainy, static shots of outer space, the too-big matte-painting space of the alien ruins, and all the hideous _biologicalness_ of the alien itself. The people seem almost distant, separated from you by a sort of haze of discomfort and unease - they still feel _human,_ but you're not one of them. You are looking in at their life, and watching in horror as it all goes wrong. And when it finally comes to an end - to a weird, slow, musicless crescendo - you can almost imagine yourself waking up while Ripley is still staring at the xenomorph, and just assuming that she fires it into space because that's some kind of ending that would give any of that any meaning at all. It feels dreamlike in an uncomfortable way, its aesthetic suspended in time and its creature simultaneously unnervingly other and disgustingly real. I adore every part of it.
That is so utterly, excellently put.
I've had nightmares exactly like this.
I have a recurring nightmare every few years with Big Chap hunting me alone in school 😱@@kjj26k
Ash didn't close the door because he cared about quarantine, he closed it because he suspected that the face crawler might want another host, and wanted to keep them from being heard or escaping.
13:22 this is my first time seeing the full grown xenomorph in this shot & I 've watched the movie a dozen times..such a FANTASTIC take..OmG🎉💥🤯👏🏽🥳
This is my all-time favorite movie. I actually wrote a paper on it in college when taking a class about the sci-fi genre in film and tv, the history of it, and how it was used to discuss social issues. One of my favorite things about the set design in this film is that for the more industrial ship interiors they used old airplane parts which I think helps to establish not only a creepy interior, but I think it also creates a fascinating juxtaposition with the clean, almost sterile, environments on the ship and the warped and curved architecture seen on the planet. Also, if you ever get the chance, check out the director's cut. Somehow, it's just a little shorter, but it includes a fascinating scene where Ripley enters what essentially is the Alien's nest and while it isn't my preferred version of the movie, I think that scene is really interesting. I could talk about this film for hours if you let me.
Also at 12:27 you talk about my favorite scene in this movie. Ahh, I love this movie so much.
14:50 always reminds me of my Mum as she looked like Sigourney's twin in the 80s, especially in Aliens. But here, the way she yells "SHUT UP!" reminds me of her when I was a kid and me and my siblings were playing up 😂
75% of the time a new EGA comes out, I sit wondering "Hey I coulda sworn Lee already did that one"
You're still the best, kindest, most necessary youtuber out there. Keep up the good work and I love you, to everyone at CW ❤
One of the most underrated aspects of the film is the score by the late Jerry Goldsmith, who along with John Williams, is probably the greatest composer of film scores. His music for Alien perfectly creates a mood that is eerie and otherworldly.
Goldsmith was an undisputed master of the film score. The quality and sheer amount of work he produced across all genres is absolutely staggering.
2:43 Correction. Ripley and Jones are the last faces we see. Don't forget the kitty!
I always liked the way that Ash being an Android is a surprise, not because Androids are sci-fi nonsense to these people, but because they didnt realize Ash was one at all.
The implication that human-passing Robots are just A Thing that people are familiar with is such an underrated detail to making the world feel real
Thank designer Ron Cobb for all the sci-fi industrial distressed designs of the ship he was very talented
And French artist Mobius for the design of the space suits
The person who never gets a mention, but was who had the biggest influence on everything atheistic was Ridley himself. He was a graphic designer and had a hand in every aspect of the design process. Most of which were his own.
@@creepingdread88 he helped get a lot more $$$ with his story boarding to Fox execs for sure
The Duelists was Scott's first feature film (1977). If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch. Right out of the gate, it showed Scott's had "Don't tell, show" down pat.
Even though it's a video game, I think Alien Isolation is the perfect sequel to Alien
ESPECIALLY in VR.
It's a really good transition piece from the tone of Alien to Aliens (even if I think it could be paced out WAY better)
It is! In fact, I prefer to watch Prometheus, then Covenant, then this, then play Isolation, then watch Romulus, then Aliens, and end there. No Alien 3 or Resurrection for me.
The marketing: “In Space…Nobody Can Hear You Scream.”
Also marketing: None of the trailers or movie posters ever showed what the alien actually looked like. Most just showed the egg at the most. First-time viewers in the theater were actually surprised (terrorized) when they first saw the xenomorph, or even just the face-hugger. Modern advertising could learn a few things from this movie.
@@shawnheidingsfelder8179 “less is more of the monster” for sure
@@shawnheidingsfelder8179and even then, we barely get a full glimpse of the Xenomorph in its less than five minutes of screentime
@@Unversed333honestly the 5 minutes is all it needed to be the star of the movie. The thing basically added tension to the entire ending half of the movie after we first saw the chest burster.
@@Unversed333old effects/budget being so bad they could only afford to show the monsters for short periods of time was a blessing in disguise tbh
In addition to the genuine surprised reactions of to the chestburster; I love that the set of the Nostromo was built as a contiguous set. Those hallways were enclosed, Scott did it specifically to give a genuine feeling of claustrophobia.
Great video and thank you so much for doing the Director’s Cut. Bits like Lambert attacking Ripley or Kanes “Kill me!” are just iconic and I’m glad you kept them in.
If you ever get around to Aliens, I really hope you do the same 😊
For me the Kane/Dallas scene slows down the pacing of Ripley running around the spaceship! But I do prefer the Aliens director cut & hopefully CWEGA does that version!
The first movie Ridley Scott directed was The Duellists (1977). Alien was his second but the one that made him famous. Alien and Aliens are two of my favourite movies of all time! Good video review 👍🏾 😊
Fun fact. The Who were shooting their live performances for Baba O' Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again at Shepperton Studios. Ridley Scott saw their laser show and asked if he could borrow them for the film he was working on...Alien.
My father saw this when it came out in theaters and claims that people literally jumped, some of them throwing their drinks, at the chestburster moment and the liquid hitting theater-goers added to the realism.
my dad told me that when he saw it, he and his friends were absolutely frozen with shock. until it ran off the table which made them all start screaming hysterically lol
Another great thing about the 'russian spy twist' is taht it gives the crew something that allows them to make stupid decisions. Opening the ship, not killing the chestpopper, etc. It all happens because he is actively working against them, and thus, we don't have a stupid crew working against their best interests.
the cut to the cat staring impassively evokes ash’s similar detached observation of the crew’s deaths. we don’t know it yet, but “he doesn’t care because he isn’t human” is telegraphed here to prime us for ash’s betrayal.
I was lucky enough to be able to see this in theaters earlier this year for the 45th anniversary, and the sound design was somehow even better with the theater experience! Extremely excited for Romulus this Friday!
I've always gotten to vibe from the Xenos that they are intelligent and sentient but are just the perfect predator, especially because they are shown later to have parts of the species that they consume as part of their genetic make up.
This movie is iconic, and it inspired so many horror and sci fi stories.
I always saw Ripley singing as a way of verbalizing how impulsively desperate she is to keep it asleep, she's singing a lullaby.
@@moon-moth1 yes, thank you! I actually mentioned that, also, in my original comment but deleted because I thought it got too long 😭
I am surprised that the iconic self destruct alarm was not included in your list. That alarm still gives off so much tension and panic at the same time I love it!
Alien introduced me into sci-fi horror done right. To the lighting, the unnerving scenes, the music that sometimes gives dread, the design of the creatures, my fear of facehuggers, my love to see more good alien movies, and Ripley became my favorite character in any film she's in. This and the second movie are both my favorite out of the Alien movies and still holds as the scariest movies I've ever seen.
22:14 If you believe it you would be wrong because this is not Ridley Scott's first movie, it's his second. Yes, he hit it out of the park, but it was not his first swing at a feature. That was "The Duellists" (1977).
One of the best horror movies.
It surely is and it also has great rewatch ability.
IKR i haven't been that freaked out by something like this since deadspace one and two being trapped in a house is one thing but being trapped in space that's just a whole new level of WTF
The Ash twist is more than just a lore drop, it's the whole theme of the movie. The alien is a scary monster, but the villain is the Weyland Yutani company. The crew of the Nostromo is being sacrificed for the company's bottom line.
I'm a huge fan of big universes with interconnected stories and isolated one offs that explore and expands said universes. but there is always a point where we have to say "this is enough", and either explore something completely different in that same universe, or decide it's done and there is nothing else to do there besides watching it getting ruined.
Small note: you're watching an alternate cut of the movie, there, not the theatrical, so the xeno would not have been visisble to the audience originally.
Also that room where Brett bites it contains the landing gear, and given how cold the planet was, the falling "rain" is just ice melting.
I played the game, Alien Isolation, on my switch. and it is the best and most terrifying game Ie every played. I loved it. No game has ever topped it nor do I want another game to top it.Funnily enough I died to the Joes more than the Xeno cuz my aim is shit on the switch XD
One part from my playthrough will always stick with me. I was at the part where I had to get meds for our friend. I had gotten them but was stuck in a vent way to terrified to move. I just sat there listening to the sounds of the ship and the Xeno as it moved around me, stalking the halls. As I finally got enough courage to leave the Xeno appeared from the other side of the vent and killed me. No sound, so warning. Just there and dead. I had to stop and a few minutes to recover from that. I dunno if I had just been killed for basically going afk or the Xeno just finally found me. Either way, I loved it. Loved every single bit (I did beat the game btw). Alien Isolation was my first step into the Alien Universe.
I said all that to say this: plating that game made me feel like I had been apart of the actual Alien movie. Go play it if you haven't. Just watching it on YT doesn't do it justice. And also watch this movie too!
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention as a look at how good Sigorni Weaver’s acting that originally her character was originally meant to be a male but her audition was so good that her character was rewritten to fit her
Just sat down with a snack looking for a video and this came up on my feed, perfect timing.
Is the snack human?
@@awesomness36 it's a hot pocket if you must know
@@awesomness36 If it is, would that make you a Humanitarian?
17:19 one thing you didn't notice here or it wasn't important is I think you can see the shadow of the xenomorph descending down as it zooms in
14:33 it's literally a puppet and it still scares me to death on rewatches.
It's actually a guy in a suit.
@@yoshijb9428ohhhh That makes it scarier.😂
The way Lambert says "OH GOD" is one of my most quoted lines
Speaking of Jones the Cat cat scares:
[Cat flies across the screen]
Jeff: Jesus! Haha, it was just a cat. Let's keep moving.
[Cat flies across the screen again]
Troy: Holy crap!
[Cat flies across the screen again]
Jeff: What is up with that cat?!
Troy: IS SOMEONE THROWING IT?!
Abed: Keep moving!
[Cat flies across the screen again]
Jeff: Let's not keep moving, because there is an insane cat down here!
Troy: Well, what about the zombies?
Jeff: Backburner, Troy! This cat has to be dealt with!
- Community, "Epidemiology"
I remember rewatching Alien in preparation for another playthrough of Alien: Isolation, which is an excellent story on its own as well as a great companion piece to this movie.
The one thing I picked up on my rewatch are all the moments that Ash knew and how he was actively making sure this disaster happened. He even psychologically manipulates Ripley when she wanted to check on the crew outside on the planet before they got back to the ship. It's subtle but it's there in the dialogue.
These subtle details I picked up on my rewatch are what made me realise The Company planned this from the beginning. I know there's the revelation text later in the movie but it shocked me how much planning The Company put into dooming the crew from the start.
In turn, this made me realise how much effort went into the writing of this movie.
Extra win for doing a classic, CW!
EDIT: Oh, and please do everything great about Speed Racer!
22:16 I would not believe it is Ridley Scott's first film because it is not his first film. It was his second. His first film came out two years before Alien in 1977, The Duelists. Starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine as two rival officers in Napoleon's army who engaged in a series of duels over 20 years. It is a pretty solid historical drama and worth checking out. It provided the inspiration for Gregory Widen to write Highlander.
Alien and Aliens are masterpieces ❤
Let’s hope Romulus can be their true successor after many decades
Oh, man. I keep saying that for every new movie. Hope doesn't ever truly dies, I guess.
@@FredThePhoenix
True.
I mean odds don't look good
@@Deimos2k5
I heard reviews were positive for the movie. It’s on the same level as the first two movies.
@@averymerrick You can't trust reviews these days tbf. There's a LOT of paid actors, and botting going on.
I can say that younger audiences still love this movie! I and some college friends had a movie night over Zoom during COVID, and for most of us it was our first time watching Alien. Even seeing it on crappy tablet screens, we loved it for all the same reasons you did! Alien really is timeless.
22:24 Hold on what? A relationship between Ripley and Lambert was a possibility? Now I feel a lot more justified shipping Ripley and Call in Resurrection.
something i'm really surprised didn't get mentioned is that ripley's character was actually conceived as male to begin with. when sigourney weaver auditioned for the movie they decided to cast her in the role with the writing completely unchanged. they even ended up shooting some scenes where they showed that romance between ripley and lambert onscreen, but iirc it was cut from the movie pretty early on
@@girzarro, Also fun fact, Lambert was born a male....that might have been cannon as of Aliens though, I don't recall which film had her bio pop up stating that
@@cliffordparkes4894 i DID know about that!! lambert being a trans woman is such a fun cool detail i love it to bits
I think an important element to Alien's greatness, one that even Ridley Scott conveniently forgets, is the combined creativity and TEAM effort that went into the creation of the film, in concept, writing, execution, post-production. We're talking about the incredible production design artists, the ones who were kit-bashing and using all these interesting props and machines to make that 70s trucker-industrialist aesthetic of the entire spaceship, let alone the Derelict, and the planet. We're talking about prop-makers who made every space and item and tool of the film look so in-world realistic and believable and cool. We're talking about the costume design, we're talking about the incredible prosthetics and practical effects of all the alien-related stuff and blood and gore. We're talking about even just the concept artists, and sketches and drawings, and of course HR Giger's incredible input, and the ideas and writing of Dan O'Bannon and also Hill and Giler writing the script and story. And ALL the incredible actors on set. And the cinematographer Derek Vanlint, and the editor, and all the supervisors of whatever stunt, special effects, visual effects etc etc. I'm so sick and tired of Ridley Scott trying to take all the credit for the genius of this film
I'm surprised you didn't mention the pretty crystal-looking wind chime hanging behind Parker - personalizing a sterile industrial space for a win! Also, actors named Tom really do seem to be the Scott brothers' lucky charms for great movies, don't they?
Everything here is just so well crafted. The acting, the creature design, Jerry Goldsmith’s score & the scares just meld and you feel terrible for the bad things that happen to the Nostromo crew
If I could say a gripe with the upcoming new Alien movie, I think the brunette final girl trope of horror movies has been so ingrained in popular culture and the Alien series has always been guilt of it. When I go to see Romulus I know who is gonna make it to the end of the movie, it’s Cailee Spaeny. Something I think is cool about the first Alien movie is that you don’t necessarily know that Ripley is the main character from the start. Everyone feels equally vulnerable until the end.
The whole point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to mess with these kinds of tropes. Joss Whedon pictured a tiny little blond cheerleader going into a dead end alley while being chased by a monster only to turn around and kick its butt.
This is one of my favorite horror movies, with John Carpenter’s The Thing being my absolute favorites of the genre, which I would love to see you do a video on.
The majority of the cast not knowing the chestburster coming out is one of those movie rumors that I just refuse to believe considering it's such a pivotal scene that also what I can assume requires quite a lot of set up time. Not to mention probably expensive too. To me, it doesn't make any sense from a production or script writing perspective.
It's Ridley's second movie. His first was The Duelists, which is equally impressive as a directorial debut.
17:54 - Scuttling a ship should indeed very complex to give an edgy crew time to reconsider, or to discover a saboteur. I'm under the impression that the instructions are right on the inside of the cover.
2:00 Just to nitpick, Yaphet Kotto would have also been reasonably well-known at this time, especially since he'd been a Bond villain in Live And Let Die. (Plus a lot of "blacksploitation" work throughout the 70s.)
Also: 12:50 The cast basically knew what was going to happen. I mean, they'd read the script and they were on-set with the full prosthetic rig and soforth. What they weren't expecting was just *how much* blood would be sprayed, and Veronica Cartright got absolutely hosed with no warning. Which was apparently an accident, but it did make her reaction very real.
Also also: 22:15 It was NOT Scott's first movie. He did "The Duellists" before this, which is what got him noticed by Fox.
Point of interest: The two people with the most rational responses are Lambert and Ripley. The two women.
Derelict alien spaceship? Lambert: “Let’s get out of here.”
Horrible face-hugger on crew mate? Ripley: “No. I’m not breaking quarantine.”
Let's not paint Lambert as the picture of rationality - she wanted to get away from the derelict because she was (rightfully!) freaked the fuck out, and at most other points she's really riding her emotions. I'm not going to hold it against her, much the same as I don't hate on Hudson for losing his grip in Aliens. They're both way out of their depths in situations that nobody could have prepared them for but when it comes down to it they both put in the work to do what needs to be done.
Are we not gonna talk about how he said this was Ridley Scott's first movie when it wasn't? The Duellists came out two years prior and was Scott's directorial debut.
Should be noted Fly Agaric (also known as Amanita muscaria) is not hallucinogenic in the same way that magic mushrooms are. Completely different active compound. More of a delerient effect than psychedelic. They're a lot more unpleasant, scary, and potentially dangerous.
Which thematically fits the movie even better haha.
13:20 This scene is such a Clark Kent glasses moment and I love it. I've watched Alien with so many people on their first viewing and most of them miss the alien just dangling there. I think it goes to show just much of a distraction human emotions can be during intense situations that cause us to miss such major details.
Also the alien wasn't jumping on the shuttle to get Ripley it was trying to escape the unyeilding rage of a mad ginger cat. That's why it hid away when it realised Jonsie was aboard the shuttle and it even tried to warn Ripley with its hand.
Great video, but a couple of things.
1. Alien was not Scott's first movie. He did The Duelists in 1977, and it's fantastic. I'd love to see you do an Everything GREAT video about it.
2. It's Weyland-Yutani. Weyland has a D at the end.
I also really appreciate the opening tour shots because it really showcases the level of detail and care that went into the set and the people who put that effort in. It helps establish the audience as part of the crew when we are given a rough idea of the environment. It is still alien to us being future tech (at the time), but not entirely blind.
shoutout to my dad for showing me this wayyy too early and traumatizing me as a child. at least he showed me one of my top 5 movies and one of my favorite franchises (yes, including all the movies, games, and comics people deem "bad")
I too saw this movie *way* too early in life! Probably a mistake, but not one I'd take back. 8-year-old me might have a different opinion, however.
22:14. Actually Alien was his second feature film as director. Ridley had made the movie the duellists previously as his first feature film two years prior. Just a small correction for you.
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!!! I understand how you might be busy with Inside Out 2 soon. I still have that spreadsheet of all the main videos you've made over the years. Also, I can't wait for the teaser frame for next week’s video! I hope you heard the announcement of Shrek 5, and I also have my 33rd request for "Everything GREAT About Shrek (2001)!", 43rd request for Jurassic Park 2 (1997) and 3 (2001), and my 33rd request for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). But still, take your time. Love you, CinemaWins, Always! ❤🎉
i watched this movie for the first time recently with one of my best friends and something they said really stuck with me-- in the scene at 9:32 Ripley is placed above Ash, looking down at him and slightly in shadow, masculinizing her in the shot as per cinematography cliché!! which plays into how Ripley is such a non-traditional female character and a non-traditional hero in general! there's a lot of moments adjacent to this, the airlock scene in particular comes to mind
also knowing Ridley originally wanted Ripley & Lambert to be in a relationship is SO VINDICATING
Excited just in time for snacks
I appreciate you not cursing in your commentary. One reason I usually avoid Cinemasins. Great job!
Cry you fuckin grandpa