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Why I prefer Alien over Aliens
12 years ago
Taking a load off.
Alien, first released in 1979, is a film that encompasses all that is great in science-fiction. The film would launch the careers of director Ridley Scott and actress Sigourney Weaver and later spawn three sequels, and two Aliens Vs. Predator movies I'll pretend never existed . At the heart of the series' success is the H.R. Giger designed sets and the titular Alien: a creature that has stood the test of time as one of the most iconic figures in science-fiction.
What exactly is the Alien of Scott's film? An iconic movie monster for sure, but I don't think many truly grasp the creature as it was intended. In short I can describe the titular alien in two words: Beautiful Nightmare. From the moment it is born the Alien is a killer. In maturity the alien is a monster that preys on the lives of men and women, yet has such a striking appearance, and grace to its movements that one cannot look away from. It lies in wait at every dark corner, blending seamlessly into its surrounding, observing your every movement until the time is right and it emerges from its veil. The Alien of Ridley Scott's film is a seductive creature, never taking action unless it is required, never allowing itself to be revealed to its prey until it is too late for the crewmember(s) of The Nostromo to resist, at which point the creature takes its time with its kill.
Giger's creature design is a fascinating blend of organic and inorganic. A skeletal body lacking any traces of fat or muscle, pipe-like extensions sprouting from its back, and various ports and wire-like patterns tracing its body as if it had been attached to a machine, an elongated phallic shaped head without eyes with chrome fangs, with a secondary, flaccid set of jaws within its primary jaws which could stiffen and deliver killing blows like the piston of a machine, the xenomorph was unlike any monster ever seen on film before. It is as much at home in the vents and pipes of man's machinery as it would be in any natural environment.
By nature the xenomorph is similar to the opening title card of Alien where line segment by line segment the title of the film slowly is revealed. The entire movie's presentation relies heavily on the build-up to the startling events making what could be an otherwise standard sci-fi/horror movie into a real piece of art. First and foremost that is what the xenomorph is as a monster: Art. A creature that is both startlingly real in presentation due to the special effects team, yet also surreal in how Giger's design creeps into the viewer's mind, creeping into a deep part of the subconscious which Freud would have a field day with.
It is also a curious creature that toys with its prey, and observes things in detail. When encountering Jonesy – the crew's cat – the Alien does not attack the feline, but instead chooses to closely observe it. When alone in the escape pod with Ripley at the film's climax the creature hardly moves, blending into the pipes and machinery of the small spacecraft, observing Ripley. The Alien's mostly motionless moments with Ripley can be attributed to many interpretations of the story, but I believe the Alien knew Ripley had nowhere to go and chose to observe rather than to kill. Ultimately the "perfect organism" is overcame by one woman's resilience and bravery (I believe it was only fitting that a female character puts an end to a monster that embodies inner fears regarding sexuality).
Alien gave audiences a creature that was more than a simple shrieking beast that leaped from the shadows. Here the monster preyed as much on the crewmembers of the The Nostromo as it did on audience member's sexual insecurities. Ridley Scott wanted to emphasize the sexual aspects of the script, creating a creature who orally rapes victims before causing them to die in a perversion of childbirth. It was different both in execution, and visual design, as the monster was as much a symbol as it was something that goes bump in the night.
A sequel to Alien wouldn't come until 1986 with Aliens, a movie written and directed by James Cameron, who had just finished The Terminator and was also writing the script for Rambo First Blood Part 2. Aliens was met with universal praise and today is considered one of the definitive science-fiction movie, but how well does it fair as a sequel to Alien?
Aliens picks up decades after the events of Alien with the Nostromo's escape pod finally being found. Sigourney Weaver was back as Ellen Ripley (one of Weaver's Oscar nominated performance) and the plot concerned a return to the planet where the Nostromo first encountered the alien organism. A human colony has gone dark on that same planet and Ripley goes along with a crew of space marines to deal with it only to find that the colony has been overrun by xenomorphs. Ripley becomes a surrogate mother to a young girl who is the last survivor of the colony and ultimately becomes solely responsible for dealing with the xenomorph threat.
I consider Aliens to be one of the greatest action movies of all time, but for me it just isn't a true sequel to Alien. Symbolism, atmosphere, build-up, and mystery are exchanged for machine gunfire and explosions. Aliens has a lot of gunplay, and a lot of "aliens" but very little Alien in its DNA. Audiences embraced James Cameron's xenomorphs because their insect hierarchy was something any audience member could understand. The masses wanted more space marines, more of Sigourney Weaver dispatching aliens single handedly; Not a study of fear featuring a creature which was intelligent and not fully comprehensible by human minds (in short: a true alien).
The alien (the species became known as xenomorphs at this point in time due to an offhand piece of dialogue by one of the characters) who once was a figure shrouded by shadow and mystery became insects, grounding them in Earth logic, and biological reasoning. Now the xenomorphs were ruled over by a Queen, with the standard alien becoming a simple drone that would run mindlessly into hails of bullets, attacking with swarm tactics, and dying by the hundreds just trying to get to eight humans. All semblances of the first film's sexual overtones is removed in Cameron's sequel. The shimmering monster now was ridged in design, removing much of the sexuality of the design. The switch from dome to ridges was to increase durability during action scenes. A fitting example of how Cameron's mind works in comparison to Scott's and Giger's.
Let us take a moment to analyze how the creature kills. Each of the deaths in Alien occur with the creature using a radically different approach than its previous attacks. First it kills as a parasite (Facehugger and Chestburster), once it begins attacking characters one by one: first using stealth to sneak behind a crew member, and then again as an ambush predator. It is here that it establishes the alien an opportunistic killer. But then it subverts this in the final act when instead of going after the solitary Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) it instead displays its physical capabilities in attacking two crew members at once.
How do the xenomorphs of Aliens kill? They swarm, and act as parasites. Very basic space insects without any sign of intelligence. People will always say (as the movie does itself) "But they cut the power". I have to ask: How? They show little to no intelligence outside of that and the Queen learning an elevator. The creature from the first film would never have run blindly into machine gun fire, especially after having several members of its kind already killed.
These masses who call themselves fans believe the ultimate Alien movie would be an Earth infestation or a visit to the alien home world. Why? Because both of those scenarios entail an abundance of alien killing time. People who want to Earth Infestation plot truly wish to push the franchise into becoming Space Zombies, which is something I am completely against.
The first one was scary because you never knew how much it knew. In fact, Ridley Scott's original ending was that it would kill Riley and then imitate her voice in a message. That sounds silly, but it does show that in the original the Alien was supposed to be more intelligent than the crew gave it credit. It is far more frightening to be stalked by a killer that doesn't have set rules.
For me that is what horror is all about: the unknown. It is frightening to not know everything about your foe, and to be incapable of predicting a pattern in its behavior. Alien is a great example of Lovecraftian horror wherein humans stumble across a being they don't comprehend. Aliens is all about having easy comprehension of the creature in order to skip to gun play.
That's all I have to say about that, for now.
What exactly is the Alien of Scott's film? An iconic movie monster for sure, but I don't think many truly grasp the creature as it was intended. In short I can describe the titular alien in two words: Beautiful Nightmare. From the moment it is born the Alien is a killer. In maturity the alien is a monster that preys on the lives of men and women, yet has such a striking appearance, and grace to its movements that one cannot look away from. It lies in wait at every dark corner, blending seamlessly into its surrounding, observing your every movement until the time is right and it emerges from its veil. The Alien of Ridley Scott's film is a seductive creature, never taking action unless it is required, never allowing itself to be revealed to its prey until it is too late for the crewmember(s) of The Nostromo to resist, at which point the creature takes its time with its kill.
Giger's creature design is a fascinating blend of organic and inorganic. A skeletal body lacking any traces of fat or muscle, pipe-like extensions sprouting from its back, and various ports and wire-like patterns tracing its body as if it had been attached to a machine, an elongated phallic shaped head without eyes with chrome fangs, with a secondary, flaccid set of jaws within its primary jaws which could stiffen and deliver killing blows like the piston of a machine, the xenomorph was unlike any monster ever seen on film before. It is as much at home in the vents and pipes of man's machinery as it would be in any natural environment.
By nature the xenomorph is similar to the opening title card of Alien where line segment by line segment the title of the film slowly is revealed. The entire movie's presentation relies heavily on the build-up to the startling events making what could be an otherwise standard sci-fi/horror movie into a real piece of art. First and foremost that is what the xenomorph is as a monster: Art. A creature that is both startlingly real in presentation due to the special effects team, yet also surreal in how Giger's design creeps into the viewer's mind, creeping into a deep part of the subconscious which Freud would have a field day with.
It is also a curious creature that toys with its prey, and observes things in detail. When encountering Jonesy – the crew's cat – the Alien does not attack the feline, but instead chooses to closely observe it. When alone in the escape pod with Ripley at the film's climax the creature hardly moves, blending into the pipes and machinery of the small spacecraft, observing Ripley. The Alien's mostly motionless moments with Ripley can be attributed to many interpretations of the story, but I believe the Alien knew Ripley had nowhere to go and chose to observe rather than to kill. Ultimately the "perfect organism" is overcame by one woman's resilience and bravery (I believe it was only fitting that a female character puts an end to a monster that embodies inner fears regarding sexuality).
Alien gave audiences a creature that was more than a simple shrieking beast that leaped from the shadows. Here the monster preyed as much on the crewmembers of the The Nostromo as it did on audience member's sexual insecurities. Ridley Scott wanted to emphasize the sexual aspects of the script, creating a creature who orally rapes victims before causing them to die in a perversion of childbirth. It was different both in execution, and visual design, as the monster was as much a symbol as it was something that goes bump in the night.
A sequel to Alien wouldn't come until 1986 with Aliens, a movie written and directed by James Cameron, who had just finished The Terminator and was also writing the script for Rambo First Blood Part 2. Aliens was met with universal praise and today is considered one of the definitive science-fiction movie, but how well does it fair as a sequel to Alien?
Aliens picks up decades after the events of Alien with the Nostromo's escape pod finally being found. Sigourney Weaver was back as Ellen Ripley (one of Weaver's Oscar nominated performance) and the plot concerned a return to the planet where the Nostromo first encountered the alien organism. A human colony has gone dark on that same planet and Ripley goes along with a crew of space marines to deal with it only to find that the colony has been overrun by xenomorphs. Ripley becomes a surrogate mother to a young girl who is the last survivor of the colony and ultimately becomes solely responsible for dealing with the xenomorph threat.
I consider Aliens to be one of the greatest action movies of all time, but for me it just isn't a true sequel to Alien. Symbolism, atmosphere, build-up, and mystery are exchanged for machine gunfire and explosions. Aliens has a lot of gunplay, and a lot of "aliens" but very little Alien in its DNA. Audiences embraced James Cameron's xenomorphs because their insect hierarchy was something any audience member could understand. The masses wanted more space marines, more of Sigourney Weaver dispatching aliens single handedly; Not a study of fear featuring a creature which was intelligent and not fully comprehensible by human minds (in short: a true alien).
The alien (the species became known as xenomorphs at this point in time due to an offhand piece of dialogue by one of the characters) who once was a figure shrouded by shadow and mystery became insects, grounding them in Earth logic, and biological reasoning. Now the xenomorphs were ruled over by a Queen, with the standard alien becoming a simple drone that would run mindlessly into hails of bullets, attacking with swarm tactics, and dying by the hundreds just trying to get to eight humans. All semblances of the first film's sexual overtones is removed in Cameron's sequel. The shimmering monster now was ridged in design, removing much of the sexuality of the design. The switch from dome to ridges was to increase durability during action scenes. A fitting example of how Cameron's mind works in comparison to Scott's and Giger's.
Let us take a moment to analyze how the creature kills. Each of the deaths in Alien occur with the creature using a radically different approach than its previous attacks. First it kills as a parasite (Facehugger and Chestburster), once it begins attacking characters one by one: first using stealth to sneak behind a crew member, and then again as an ambush predator. It is here that it establishes the alien an opportunistic killer. But then it subverts this in the final act when instead of going after the solitary Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) it instead displays its physical capabilities in attacking two crew members at once.
How do the xenomorphs of Aliens kill? They swarm, and act as parasites. Very basic space insects without any sign of intelligence. People will always say (as the movie does itself) "But they cut the power". I have to ask: How? They show little to no intelligence outside of that and the Queen learning an elevator. The creature from the first film would never have run blindly into machine gun fire, especially after having several members of its kind already killed.
These masses who call themselves fans believe the ultimate Alien movie would be an Earth infestation or a visit to the alien home world. Why? Because both of those scenarios entail an abundance of alien killing time. People who want to Earth Infestation plot truly wish to push the franchise into becoming Space Zombies, which is something I am completely against.
The first one was scary because you never knew how much it knew. In fact, Ridley Scott's original ending was that it would kill Riley and then imitate her voice in a message. That sounds silly, but it does show that in the original the Alien was supposed to be more intelligent than the crew gave it credit. It is far more frightening to be stalked by a killer that doesn't have set rules.
For me that is what horror is all about: the unknown. It is frightening to not know everything about your foe, and to be incapable of predicting a pattern in its behavior. Alien is a great example of Lovecraftian horror wherein humans stumble across a being they don't comprehend. Aliens is all about having easy comprehension of the creature in order to skip to gun play.
That's all I have to say about that, for now.
