The beginning of a franchise - Alien

10/12/13 Alien, Best Visual Effects, 1979

At one point in my move-watching life I loved scary movies, my friends and I saw Poltergeist five times in the theater, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, and had the crap scared out of us. But in 1979 I was too young to see Alien on the big screen, and I guess by the time VCRs and DVDs were the norm, not only had I outgrown the scary movie period, but I ran from it like a little girl. So, if there's any hint that a movie is scary, I usually pass, which is why I haven't watched Alien or its sequels. And I generally don't like following the crowd, and if everyone says a movie is fabulous, it may take me a few months, or thirty-five years to catch up. I can finally say that I have seen Alien and I liked it. I didn't love it, but perhaps when this whole project is over, I would watch it again. It did not frighten me, and I would have to guess that some of the scare factor was dulled by the fact that I watched the movie with the sun shining during the middle of the day and while I didn't know everything that was going to happen, I did know something was going to happen. And honestly, I'm okay with that, screaming while I am alone in the house seems silly. One of the benefits of watching a movie so long after it was released is that you can look at the actors and have an idea of there careers from that movie to the current day. Alien has one of the most recognizable casts, starting Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Tom Skerrit, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto.

I would guess that a lot of people are familiar with the plot of Alien, but I'll give quick recap. Truly, it's not that complicated, although I was reading some of the stuff online and it got into Freudian interpretations of what the aliens meant, blah blah blah. I don't mind a deep dive into a movie occasionally, but for me, this wasn't one of those times. Nostromo is a commercial towing ship in deep space and it's supposed to be returning home when it gets orders via Mother, the ship's computer/voice of the company, to stop and check out another ship. A small search party goes aboard and encounter a strange being and Kane (John Hurt) is attacked. Warrant Officer Ripley (soon to be feminist icon played by Sigourney Weaver) is reluctant to bring Kane back on board without following the proper quarantine procedures but she is overruled by Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) and Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt). This might also qualify as an "I told you so" movie, big time. Gradually the crew is killed off by the mostly hidden alien, quite graphically on occasion, until the remaining members try to get on the shuttle. There are quite a few surprises and it would not be fair to spoil them for you, so you'll have to watch it on your own. Ripley is a strong character (male or female), but also has her moments of being frightened. The ability of Weaver to demonstrate Ripley's strengths and weaknesses may be why she resonated so strongly with audiences, and why the franchise was so successful.

Alien won for Best Visual Effects and it won out over some pretty visually heavy movies that year, including The Black Hole, which I did see and was pretty spectacular in the visual arena, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which I think I saw. The effects are definitely pretty amazing, especially considering it was made over thirty years ago. Ridley Scott directed Alien, and he's known for some pretty big scale movies, including Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Prometheus (which is part of the Alien series, parts of Prometheus are very reminiscent of Alien), and a lot of others. I liked the movie, and I am kind of kicking myself that I waited so long because I was a scaredy cat. Definitely not a family movie (the R rating may have given that away), but get some grown up friends together and see who screams the loudest (screaming with other people in the is okay), just remember, in space they can't hear you scream.