MOVIE MADNESS
Alien (1979):
Early last month, on August 13th,
Disney Hollywood Studios closed The Great Movie Ride. On the whole, I enjoyed the ride, though I
found the cast conductors to be annoying, especially once the sound track
commentary was added by Robert Osborne, and the ride conductors seemed to think
there job was to compete with instead of complement the audio commentary. For those who haven’t gone on the ride, the
premise was to take you into the movies of yesteryear. It was a dark ride that went through scenes
of classic movies, most of them from the Turner library of MGM/ Warner Bros.
classics. The few exceptions were a
couple of Disney movies, a Paramount film, Raiders of the Lost Ark licensed
from Lucasfilm, and a 20th Century Fox film. The latter was the oddest choice of all
because here in the middle of a ride in a park run by a company that prided
itself on being wholesome family fun was a salute to an R rated Science
Fiction/Horror film. My family and I
rode it one last time its last week, and as I went through the Nostromo while
Mother counted down the self-destruct one last time, I was moved to watch it
again.
Alien, released in 1979, tales the
tale of the ill-fated crew of the mining ship Nostromo. It was directed by Ridley Scott and starred
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, John
Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm, and John Hurt.
The film is considered to be a classic and rightly so. In one of the pre-ride commentaries, Robert
Osborne attributed part of its success to being a unique blend of science
fiction and horror. I would disagree
with that as the combination in film arguably went as far back as Dr. Jeckyll
and Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein, and the combination was definitely prevalent in
the science-fiction hey-day of the 50’s in films like The Thing from Another
World and Invader of the Body Snatchers.
What it did to was type into the zeitgeist of the time of how those
genres were changing in the late 70’s. If
I wanted to be facetious, I would say it is Star Wars meets Halloween. Now obviously, this isn’t really true. For one, Alien is more hard science-fiction
than Star Wars science-fantasy. It also
falls more in the dystopian sci-fi tradition than Star Wars, which has a much
more hopeful tone. Similarly, there are
parts of Alien, particularly the 1st third that are more constructed
like a haunted house story. The
characters are mysteriously summoned to a dark and stormy location, and then
they are trapped there. I also don’t
want to suggest plagiarism, the release dates are too close together for one to
be inspired by the others, but Alien has the same production values as Star
Wars with the pacing and building of tension of Halloween.
The movie looks spectacular with
the model work of the Nostromo, the sets of the ship’s corridors, to the Alien
creature effects. The Academy evidently
agrees because the film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects that year, and
they still hold up. The only effect that
doesn’t work is the transition from the dummy of the decapitated Ash (Ian Holm)
to the actor’s head which was coming through a hole in the table which was
covered up by the ragged faux flesh of the android’s torn neck. What lets the transition down is the lighting
and editing. The lighting was much
darker in the scene with the dummy than with the actual actor which makes the
change between frames jarring. Once the
Alien bursts through Kane (John Hurt)’s chest, the film transitions to the
slasher structure as the Alien stalks and kills the crew while they try to trap
and capture it. Similar to Carpenter and
Spielberg, Scott knew that less was more so that you typically got quick cuts
of the creature. Also, like Halloween,
while there were several jump scares, few of them were because of the monster
itself. You almost always see the
creature slide in and out of frame before it strikes, with the tension building
while you wait for the victim to realize the trouble there in, then the tension
is released because of a flash of light, a hissing cat, or a clanging
cylinder. It’s also worth noting that
this film has two villains, the second being the android Ash, effectively
played as a mumbling, nervous Science Officer.
The real climax of the film to me comes when Ripley (Sigourney Weaver),
Parker (Yaphet Kotto), and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) were “doomed” from the
beginning of the film as Ash, on behalf of the company, has been doing
everything he can to make sure they bring an Alien back. That in and of itself makes the film worthy
of at least one re-watch to reevaluate the motive behind all of his actions (It
makes sense to suggest that all creatures have a primal fear of fire, but was
he guessing or suggesting something he knew wouldn’t be effective? Were the trackers crap on purpose?) I also like his movements when he attacks
Ripley. It suggests someone not in control of their actions like
a robot under an outside influence. The
cast is fine, though other than Weaver and Holm most of them don’t get a lot to
do. I do wish we had gotten some time to
know the characters more, though there are some inferences: Parker and Brett
are the blue collar second class to the white collar officers, there seems to
me to be a romantic relationship or attraction between Kane and Lambert, though
there isn’t much to overtly suggest it, and Dallas seems to be the company man
who doesn’t want to make waves. There
are a few quibbles that I have: if it’s a mining vessel with five officers and
two technicians who does all of the mining?;
the planet set suggests that the organic design is that of the “native”
race [there is an alien corpse in a chair in a structure that was also Giger
designed], but the Alien creates a nest with the same look; who is the second
corpse in the nest with Dallas, everyone else was clearly killed? However, in the end, it is highly entertaining
and deserves its status as a classic.
Therefore, it maybe isn’t too
surprising to find an R rated sci-fi horror movie in the middle of The Great
Movie Ride. Other than Star Wars, which
had its own attraction, and Star Trek, which was IP from a competitor, Alien
was probably the most famous and well regarded science-fiction franchise at the
time the ride was created.
