The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys, as well as three sequel and two prequel films. It also launched Weaver's acting career by providing her with her first lead role, and the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the Alien creatures became the thematic thread that ran through the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997).[11] The subsequent prequels Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) abandoned this theme in favor of a crossover with the Predator franchise.
The commercial towing spaceship Nostromo is on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineral ore and carrying its seven-member crew in stasis. Upon receiving a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer awakens the crew.[12] Acting on orders from their corporate employers, the crew detaches the Nostromo from the refinery and lands on the planetoid, resulting in some damage to the ship. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), and Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) set out to investigate the signal's source while Warrant OfficerRipley (Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Engineers Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) stay behind to monitor their progress and make repairs.
Dallas, Kane, and Lambert discover that the signal is coming from a
derelict alien spacecraft. Inside it they find the remains of a large
alien creature whose ribs appear to have been exploded outward from the
inside. Meanwhile, the Nostromo's computer partially deciphers
the signal transmission, which Ripley determines to be some type of
warning. Kane discovers a vast chamber containing numerous eggs, one of
which releases a creature that attaches itself to his face. Dallas and
Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo, where Ash allows them inside against Ripley's orders to follow the ship's quarantine
protocol. They unsuccessfully attempt to remove the creature from
Kane's face, discovering that its blood is an extremely corrosive acid.
Eventually the creature detaches on its own and is found dead. With the
ship repaired, the crew resume their trip back to Earth.
Kane awakens seemingly unharmed, but during a meal before
re-entering stasis he begins to choke and convulse until an alien
creature bursts from his chest, killing him and escaping into the ship.
Lacking conventional weapons, the crew attempt to locate and capture
the creature by fashioning motion trackers, electric prods, and flamethrowers. Brett follows the crew's cat into a large room where the now-fully-grown Alien
attacks him and disappears with his body into the ship's air shafts.
Dallas enters the shafts intending to force the Alien into an airlock
where it can be expelled into space, but it ambushes him. Lambert
implores the remaining crew members to escape in the ship's shuttle,
but Ripley, now in command, explains that the shuttle will not support
four people.
Accessing the ship's computer, Ripley discovers that Ash has been ordered to return the Alien to the Nostromo's
corporate employers even at the expense of the crew. Ash attacks her,
but Parker intervenes and decapitates him with a blow from a fire extinguisher, revealing Ash to be an android.
Before Parker incinerates him, Ash predicts that the other crew members
will not survive. The remaining three crew members plan to arm the Nostromo's
self-destruct mechanism and escape in the shuttle, but Parker and
Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering the necessary supplies.
Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence and heads for the shuttle
with the cat, but finds the Alien blocking her way. She unsuccessfully
attempts to abort the self-destruct, then returns to find the Alien
gone and narrowly escapes in the shuttle as the Nostromo explodes.
As she prepares to enter stasis, Ripley discovers that the Alien is
aboard the shuttle. She puts on a space suit and opens the hatch,
causing explosive decompression which forces the Alien to the open doorway. She shoots it with a grappling gun
which propels it out, but the gun is yanked from her hands and catches
in the closing door, tethering the Alien to the shuttle. It attempts to
crawl into one of the engines, but Ripley activates them and blasts the
Alien into space. She then puts herself and the cat into stasis for the
return trip to Earth.
While studying cinema at the University of Southern California, Dan O'Bannon had made a science fiction comedy film with director John Carpenter and concept artistRon Cobb entitled Dark Star.[13] The film included an alien which had been created using a spray-painted beach ball, and the experience left O'Bannon "really wanting to do an alien that looked real."[13][14]
A few years later he began working on a similar story that would focus
more on horror: "I knew I wanted to do a scary movie on a spaceship
with a small number of astronauts", he later recalled, "Dark Star as a horror movie instead of a comedy."[13]Ronald Shusett, meanwhile, was working on an early version of what would eventually become Total Recall.[13][14] Impressed by Dark Star,
he contacted O'Bannon and the two agreed to collaborate on their
projects, choosing to work on O'Bannon's film first as they believed it
would be less costly to produce.[13][14] O'Bannon had written twenty-nine pages of a script entitled Memory
comprising what would become the film's opening scenes: a crew of
astronauts awaken to find that their voyage has been interrupted
because they are receiving a signal from a mysterious planetoid. They
investigate and their ship breaks down on the surface.[14][15] He did not yet, however, have a clear idea as to what the alien antagonist of the story would be.[13]
O'Bannon soon accepted an offer to work on a film adaptation of Dune, a project which took him to Paris for six months.[13][16]
Though the project ultimately fell through, it introduced him to
several artists whose works gave him ideas for his science fiction
story including Chris Foss, H. R. Giger, and Jean "Moebius" Giraud.[15] O'Bannon was impressed by Foss' covers for science fiction books, while he found Giger's work "disturbing":[13]
"His paintings had a profound effect on me. I had never seen anything
that was quite as horrible and at the same time as beautiful as his
work. And so I ended up writing a script about a Giger monster."[15] After the Dune project collapsed O'Bannon returned to Los Angeles to live with Shusett and the two revived his Memory script. Shusett suggested that O'Bannon use one of his other film ideas, about gremlins infiltrating a B-17 bomber during World War II, and set it on the spaceship as the second half of the story.[15][16] The working title of the project was now Star Beast, but O'Bannon disliked this and changed it to Alien
after noting the number of times that the word appeared in the script.
He and Shusett liked the new title's simplicity and its double meaning
as both a noun and adjective.[13][15][17]
Shusett came up with the idea that one of the crew members could be
implanted with an alien embryo that would later burst out of him,
feeling that this was an interesting plot device by which the alien creature could get onboard the ship.[13][16]
In writing the script O'Bannon drew inspiration from many previous
works of science fiction and horror. He later stated that "I didn't
steal Alien from anybody. I stole it from everybody!"[18]The Thing from Another World (1951) inspired the idea of professional men being pursued by a deadly alien creature through a claustrophobic environment.[18]Forbidden Planet
(1956) gave O'Bannon the idea of a ship being warned not to land, and
then the crew being killed one by one by a mysterious creature when
they defy the warning.[18]Planet of the Vampires (1965) contains a scene in which the heroes discover a giant alien skeleton; this influenced the Nostromo crew's discovery of the alien creature in the derelict spacecraft.[18] O'Bannon has also noted the influence of "Junkyard" (1953), a short story by Clifford D. Simak in which a crew lands on an asteroid and discovers a chamber full of eggs.[14] He has also cited as influences Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer (1960), which covers alien reproduction, and various EC Comics horror titles carrying stories in which monsters eat their way out of people.[14]
With roughly eighty-five percent of the plot completed, Shusett and O'Bannon presented their initial script to several studios,[13] pitching it as "Jaws in space."[19] They were on the verge of signing a deal with Roger Corman's studio when a friend offered to find them a better deal and passed the script on to Walter Hill, David Giler, and Gordon Carroll, who had formed a production company called Brandywine with ties to 20th Century Fox.[13][20]
O'Bannon and Shusett signed a deal with Brandywine, but Hill and Giler
were not satisfied with the script and made numerous rewrites and
revisions to it.[13][21]
This caused tension with O'Bannon and Shusett, since Hill and Giler had
very little experience with science fiction and according to Shusett:
"They weren't good at making it better, or in fact at not making it
even worse."[13] O'Bannon believed that they were attempting to justify taking his name off of the script and claiming it as their own.[13] Hill and Giler did add some substantial elements to the story, however, including the android character Ash which O'Bannon felt was an unnecessary subplot,[22] but which Shusett later described as "one of the best things in the movie...That whole idea and scenario was theirs."[13]
In total Hill and Giler went through eight different drafts of the
script, mostly concentrating on the Ash subplot but also making the
dialogue more natural and trimming some sequences set on the alien
planetoid.[23]
Despite the multiple rewrites, 20th Century Fox did not express
confidence in financing a science fiction film. However, after the
success of Star Wars in 1977 the studio's interest in the genre rose substantially. According to Carroll: "When Star Wars
came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science
fiction became the hot genre." O'Bannon recalled that "They wanted to
follow through on Star Wars, and they wanted to follow through fast, and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was Alien".[13]Alien was greenlit by 20th Century Fox at an initial budget of $4.2 million.[13][23]
H. R. Giger designed and worked on the Alien and its accompanying elements.
O'Bannon had originally assumed that he would direct Alien, but 20th Century Fox instead asked Hill to direct.[23][24]
Hill declined due to other film commitments as well as not being
comfortable with the level of visual effects that would be required.[25]Peter Yates, Jack Clayton, and Robert Aldrich
were considered for the task, but O'Bannon, Shusett, and the Brandywine
team felt that these directors would not take the film seriously and
would instead treat it as a B monster movie.[24][26] Giler, Hill, and Carroll had been impressed by Ridley Scott's debut feature film The Duellists (1977) and made an offer to him to direct Alien, which Scott quickly accepted.[15][26] Scott created detailed storyboards for the film in London, which impressed 20th Century Fox enough to double the film's budget from $4.2 million to $8.4 million.[24][27] His storyboards included designs for the spaceship and space suits, drawing influences from films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.[27] However, he was keen on emphasizing horror in Alien rather than fantasy, describing the film as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction".[24][26]
O'Bannon introduced Scott to the artwork of H. R. Giger; both of them felt that his painting Necronom IV was the type of representation they wanted for the film's antagonist and began asking the studio to hire him as a designer.[24][26]
20th Century Fox initially believed Giger's work was too ghastly for
audiences, but the Brandywine team were persistent and eventually won
out.[26]
According to Gordon Carroll: "The first second that Ridley saw Giger's
work, he knew that the biggest single design problem, maybe the biggest
problem in the film, had been solved."[24] Scott flew to Zürich
to meet Giger and recruited him to work on all aspects of the Alien and
its environment including the surface of the planetoid, the derelict
spacecraft, and all four forms of the Alien from the egg to the adult.[24][26]
I resent films that are so shallow they rely entirely on their
visual effects, and of course science fiction films are notorious for
this. I've always felt that there's another way to do it: a lot of
effort should be expended toward rendering the environment of the
spaceship, or space travel, whatever the fantastic setting of your
story should be–as convincingly as possible, but always in the
background. That way the story and the characters emerge and they become more real.[15]
–Ron Cobb on his designs for Alien.
O'Bannon brought in artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss (with whom he had worked on Dark Star and Dune, respectively) to work on designs for the human aspects of the film such as the spaceship and space suits.[24][28]
Cobb created hundreds of preliminary sketches of the interiors and
exteriors of the ship, which went through many design concepts and
possible names such as Leviathan and Snark as the script continued to develop. The final name of the ship was derived from the title of Joseph Conrad's 1904 novel Nostromo, while the escape shuttle, called Narcissus in the script, was named after Conrad's 1897 novellaThe Nigger of the 'Narcissus'.[29]
The production team particularly praised Cobb's ability to depict the
interior settings of the ship in a realistic and believable manner.
Under Ridley Scott's direction the design of the Nostromo shifted towards an 800-foot (240 m)-long tug towing a refining platform 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide.[15] Cobb also created some conceptual drawings of the Alien, but these were not used.[24][28]
Moebius was attached to the project for a few days as well, and his
costume renderings served as the basis for the final space suits
created by costume designer John Mollo.[15][28]
Casting calls and auditions for Alien were held in both New York and London.[27]
With only seven human characters in the story, Scott sought to hire
strong actors so that he could focus most of his energy on the film's
visual style.[27] He employed casting director Mary Selway, who had worked with him on The Duellists, to head the casting in the United Kingdom, while Mary Goldberg handled casting in the United States.[30][31]
In developing the story O'Bannon had focused on writing the Alien
first, putting off developing the characters for a later draft.[24]
He and Shusett had therefore written all of the roles as generic males
with a note in the script explicitly stating that "The crew is unisex
and all parts are interchangeable for men or women."[30][32] This left Scott, Selway, and Goldberg free to interpret the characters as they liked and to cast accordingly. They wanted the Nostromo's crew to resemble working astronauts in a realistic environment, a concept summed up as "truckers in space".[27][30] Scott has stated that this concept was inspired partly by Star Wars, which deviated from the pristine future often depicted in science fiction films of the time.[33]
The principal cast members of Alien. Left to right: Holm, Stanton, Weaver, Kotto, Skerritt, Cartwright, and Hurt.
The principal cast members of Alien were:
Bolaji Badejo as The Alien. A Nigerian design student, Badejo was discovered in a bar by a member of the casting team, who put him in touch with Ridley Scott.[34][35]
Scott believed that Badejo, at 7 feet 2 inches (218 cm) and with a
slender frame, could portray the Alien and look as if his arms and legs
were too long to be real, creating the illusion that there could not
possibly be a human being inside the costume.[15][34][35]StuntmenEddie Powell and Roy Scammell also portrayed the Alien in some scenes.[15][36]
Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, the Nostromo's navigator. Cartwright had previous experience in horror and science fiction films, having acted in The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).[37]
She originally read for the role of Ripley, and was not informed that
she had instead been cast as Lambert until she arrived in London for
wardrobe.[30][38] She disliked the character's emotional weakness,[35]
but nevertheless accepted the role: "They convinced me that I was the
audience's fears; I was a reflection of what the audience is feeling."[30] Cartwright won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.[5][6]
Ian Holm as Ash, the ship's Science Officer who is revealed to be an android under orders to bring the Alien back to the Nostromo's
corporate employers. Holm, a character actor who in 1979 had already
been in twenty films, was the most experienced actor cast for Alien.[22]
John Hurt as Kane, the Executive Officer
who becomes the host for the Alien. Hurt was Scott's first choice for
the role but was contracted on a film in South Africa during Alien's filming dates, so Jon Finch was cast as Kane instead.[35] However, Finch became ill during the first day of shooting and was diagnosed with severe diabetes, which had also exacerbated a case of bronchitis.[39] By this point, Hurt was in London, his South African project having fallen through, and he quickly replaced Finch.[30][39] His performance earned him a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[6]
Yaphet Kotto as Parker, the Chief Engineer. Kotto was chosen partly to add diversity to the cast and give the Nostromo crew an international flavor.[30]
Tom Skerritt as Dallas, the Captain of the Nostromo.
Skerritt had been approached early in the film's development but
declined as it did not yet have a director and had a very low budget.
Later, when Scott was attached as director and the budget had been
doubled, Skerritt accepted the role of Dallas.[27][30]
Harry Dean Stanton
as Brett, the Engineering Technician. Stanton's first words to Scott
during his audition were "I don't like sci fi or monster movies."[27] Scott was amused and convinced Stanton to take the role after reassuring him that Alien would actually be a thriller more akin to Ten Little Indians.[27]
Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the Warrant Officer onboard the Nostromo. The decision to make the lead character a woman was made by Giler and Hill, who felt that this would help Alien stand out in the otherwise male-dominated genre of science fiction.[30]
Weaver, who had Broadway experience but was relatively unknown in film,
impressed Scott, Giler, and Hill with her audition. She was the last
actor to be cast for the film, and performed most of her screen tests in-studio as the sets were being built.[30][35] The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture, and earned her nominations for a Saturn Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role.[6]
To assist the actors in preparing for their roles, Ridley Scott
wrote several pages of backstory for each character explaining their
histories.[23][40]
He filmed many of their rehearsals in order to capture spontaneity and
improvisation, and tensions between some of the cast members,
particularly towards the less-experienced Weaver, translated
convincingly on film as tension between their respective characters.[40]
Film critic Roger Ebert has noted that the actors in Alien were older than was typical in thriller films at the time, and that this helped make the characters more convincing:
[N]one of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain,
was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton
was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and
Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many
recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles
or sidekicks, but by skewing older, Alien achieves a certain
texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers
but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to
Earth.[11]
David McIntee, author of Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films, has praised the acting and characterizations in Alien.
He notes that part of the film's effectiveness in frightening viewers
"comes from the fact that the audience can all identify with the
characters...Everyone aboard the Nostromo is a normal, everyday, working Joe just like the rest of us. They just happen to live and work in the future."[41]
Alien was filmed over fourteen weeks from July 5 to October 21, 1978. Principal photography took place at Shepperton Studios in London, while model and miniature filming was done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley.[31] Production time was short due to the film's low budget and pressure from 20th Century Fox to finish on schedule.[40]
A crew of over 200 workmen and technicians constructed the three
principal sets: The surface of the alien planetoid and the interiors of
the Nostromo and derelict spacecraft.[15]
Art Director Les Dilley created 1/24th scale miniatures of the
planetoid's surface and derelict spacecraft based on Giger's designs,
then made moulds and casts and scaled them up as diagrams for the wood and fiberglass forms of the sets.[27]
Tons of sand, plaster, fiberglass, rock, and gravel were shipped into
the studio to sculpt a desert landscape for the planetoid's surface,
which the actors would walk across wearing space suit costumes.[15] The suits themselves were thick, bulky, and lined with nylon, had no cooling systems and, initially, no venting for their exhaled carbon dioxide to escape.[42] Combined with a heat wave,
these conditions nearly caused the actors to pass out and nurses had to
be kept on-hand with oxygen tanks to help keep them going.[40][42] For scenes showing the exterior of the Nostromo
a 58-foot (18 m) landing leg was constructed to give a sense of the
ship's size. Ridley Scott still did not think that it looked large
enough, so he had his two sons and the son of one of the cameramen
stand in for the regular actors, wearing smaller space suits in order
to make the set pieces seem larger.[42][43]
The same technique was used for the scene in which the crew members
encounter the dead alien creature in the derelict spacecraft. The
children nearly collapsed due to the heat of the suits, and eventually
oxygen systems were added to assist the actors in breathing.[40][42]
The sets of the Nostromo's three decks were each created
almost entirely in one piece, with each deck occupying a separate stage
and the various rooms connected via corridors. To move around the sets
the actors had to navigate through the hallways of the ship, adding to
the film's sense of claustrophobia and realism.[15][40][44] The sets used large transistors
and low-resolution computer screens to give the ship a "used",
industrial look and make it appear as though it was constructed of
"retrofitted old technology".[43] Ron Cobb created industrial-style symbols and color-coded signs for various areas and aspects of the ship.[43] The company that owns the Nostromo
is not named in the film, and is referred to by the characters as "the
company". However, the name and logo of "Weylan-Yutani" appears on
several set pieces and props such as computer monitors and beer cans.[29] Cobb created the name to imply a business alliance between Britain and Japan, deriving "Weylan" from the British Leyland Motor Corporation and "Yutani" from the name of his Japanese neighbor.[28][45] The 1986 sequel Aliens named the company as "Weyland-Yutani",[28][46] and it has remained a central aspect of the film franchise.
Art Director Roger Christian used scrap metal and parts to create set pieces and props in order to save money, a technique he had used while working on Star Wars.[43][47] Some of the Nostromo's
corridors were created from portions of scrapped bomber aircraft, and a
mirror was used to create the illusion of longer corridors in the
below-deck area.[43]
Special effects supervisors Brian Johnson and Nick Allder made many of
the set pieces and props actually function, including moving chairs,
computer monitors, motion trackers, and flamethrowers.[15][39] Four matching cats were used to portray Jones, the Nostromo crew's pet.[31] During filming Sigourney Weaver discovered that she was allergic to the combination of cat hair and the glycerin placed on the actors' skin to make them appear sweaty. By removing the glycerin she was able to continue working with the cats.[39][40]
Giger airbrushed the "space jockey" set by hand. Children stood in for the regular actors to make the set seem larger on screen.[43][48] It was redressed to double as the egg chamber.[15]
H.R. Giger designed and worked on all of the alien aspects of the film, which he designed to appear organic and biomechanical in contrast to the industrial look of the Nostromo and its human elements.[15][43] For the interior of the derelict spacecraft and egg chamber he used dried bones together with plaster to sculpt much of the scenery and elements.[15][43] Veronica Cartwright described Giger's sets as "so erotic...it's big vaginas and penises...the whole thing is like you're going inside of some sort of womb or whatever...it's sort of visceral".[43]
The set with the deceased alien creature, which the production team
nicknamed the "space jockey", proved problematic as 20th Century Fox
did not want to spend the money for such an expensive set that would
only be used for one scene. Ridley Scott described the set as the cockpit
or driving deck of the mysterious ship, and the production team was
able to convince the studio that the scene was important to impress the
audience and make them aware that this was not a B movie.[43][48]
To save money only one wall of the set was created, and the "space
jockey" sat atop a disc that could be rotated to facilitate shots from
different angles in relation to the actors.[15][48] Giger airbrushed the entire set and the "space jockey" by hand.[43][48]
The origin of the jockey creature was not explored in the film, but
Scott later theorized that it might have been the ship's pilot, and
that the ship might have been a weapons carrier capable of dropping
Alien eggs onto a planet so that the Aliens could use the local
lifeforms as hosts.[22] In early versions of the script the eggs were to be located in a separate pyramid structure which would be found later by the Nostromo crew and would contain statues and hieroglyphs depicting the Alien reproductive cycle, offering a contrast of the human, Alien, and space jockey cultures.[16]
Cobb, Foss, and Giger each created concept artwork for these sequences,
but they were eventually discarded due to budgetary concerns and the
need to trim the length of the film.[15]
Instead the egg chamber was set inside the derelict ship and was filmed
on the same set as the space jockey scene; the entire disc piece
supporting the jockey and its chair were removed and the set was
redressed to create the egg chamber.[15]
Alien originally was to conclude with the destruction of the Nostromo while Ripley escapes in the shuttle Narcissus.
However, Ridley Scott conceived of a "fourth act" to the film in which
the Alien appears on the shuttle and Ripley is forced to confront it.
He pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox and negotiated an increase in
the budget in order to film the scene over several extra days.[22][49]
Scott had wanted the Alien to bite off Ripley's head and then make the
final log entry in her voice, but the producers vetoed this idea as
they believed that the Alien had to die at the end of the film.[49]
Ridley Scott filming model shots of the Nostromo and its attached ore refinery. He made slow passes filming at 2½ frames per second to give the models the appearance of motion.[15]
The spaceships and planets for the film were shot using models and miniatures. These included models of the Nostromo, its attached mineral refinery, the escape shuttle Narcissus,
the alien planetoid, and the exterior and interior of the derelict
spacecraft. Visual Effects Supervisor Brian Johnson, supervising
modelmaker Martin Bower, and their team worked at Bray Studios, roughly
30 miles (48 km) from Shepperton Studios where principal filming was
taking place.[50][51] The designs of the Nostromo and its attachments were based on combinations of Ridley Scott's storyboards and Ron Cobb's conceptual drawings.[50] The basic outlines of the models were made of wood and plastic, and most of the fine details were added from model kits of battleships, tanks, and World War II bombers. Three models of the Nostromo
were made: a 12-inch (30 cm) version for medium and long shots, a
4-foot (1.2 m) version for rear shots, and a 12-foot (3.7 m),
7-short-ton (6.4 t) rig for the undocking and planetoid surface
sequences.[15][51]
Scott insisted on numerous changes to the models even as filming was
taking place, leading to conflicts with the modeling and filming teams.
The Nostromo was originally yellow, and the team filmed shots of the models for six weeks before Johnson left to work on The Empire Strikes Back. Scott then ordered it changed to gray, and the team had to begin shooting again from scratch.[50][51]
He ordered more and more pieces added to the model until the final
large version with the refinery required a metal framework so that it
could be lifted by a forklift.
He also took a hammer and chisel to sections of the refinery, knocking
off many of its spires which Bower had spent weeks creating. Scott also
had disagreements with lighting technician Denny Ayling over how to
light the models.[50]
A separate model, approximately 40 feet (12 m) long, was created for the Nostromo's underside from which the Narcissus would detach and from which Kane's body would be launched during the funeral scene. Bower carved Kane's burial shroud out of wood and it was launched through the hatch using a small catapult and filmed at high speed, then slowed down in editing.[50][52] Only one shot was filmed using blue screen compositing: that of the shuttle racing past the Nostromo. The other shots were simply filmed against black backdrops, with stars added via double exposure.[51] Though motion control photography
technology was available at the time, the film's budget would not allow
for it. The team therefore used a camera with wide-angle lenses mounted
on a drive mechanism to make slow passes over and around the models
filming at 2½ per second,[15] giving them the appearance of motion. Scott added smoke and wind effects to enhance the illusion.[50] For the scene in which the Nostromo detaches from the refinery, a 30-foot (9.1 m) docking arm was created using pieces from model railway kits. The Nostromo
was pushed away from the refinery by the forklift, which was covered in
black velvet, causing the arm to extend out from the refinery. This
created the illusion that the arm was pushing the ship forward.[50][51]
Shots from outside the ship in which the characters are seen through
windows moving around inside were filmed using larger models which
contained projection screens showing pre-recorded footage.[50]
A separate model was created for the exterior of the derelict alien spacecraft. Matte paintings were used to fill in areas of the ship's interior as well as exterior shots of the planetoid's surface.[50] The surface as seen from space during the landing sequence was created by painting a globe white, then mixing chemicals and dyes onto transparencies and projecting them onto it.[15][51] The planetoid was not named in the film, but some drafts of the script gave it the name Acheron[35] after the river which in Greek mythology is described as the "stream of woe", a branch of the river Styx, and which forms the border of Hell in Dante's Inferno. The 1986 sequel Aliens named the planetoid as "LV-426",[46] and both names have been used for it in subsequent expanded universe media such as comic books and video games. In Alien the planetoid is said to be located somewhere in the Zeta2 Reticuli system.[53]
The "facehugger" was the first creature Giger designed for the film, giving it human-like fingers and a long tail.[34][44]
The scene of Kane inspecting the egg was shot during post-production. A fiberglass
egg was used so that actor John Hurt could shine his light on it and
see movement inside, which was provided by Ridley Scott fluttering his
hands inside the egg while wearing rubber gloves.[48] The top of the egg opened via hydraulics, and the innards were made of a cow's stomach and tripe.[34][48]
Initial test shots of the eggs were filmed using hen's eggs, and this
footage was used in early teaser trailers. For this reason a hen's egg
was used as the primary image for the film's advertising poster, and
became a lasting image for the series as a whole rather than the Alien
egg that actually appears in the film.[48]
The "facehugger" and its proboscis, which was made of a sheep's intestine,
were shot out of the egg using high-pressure air hoses. The shot was
acted out and filmed in reverse, then reversed and slowed down in
editing to prolong the effect and show more detail.[34][48]
The facehugger itself was the first creature that Giger designed for
the film, going through several versions in different sizes before
deciding on a small creature with humanlike fingers and a long tail.[34][44] Dan O'Bannon drew his own version based on Giger's design, with help from Ron Cobb, which became the final version.[22][44]
Cobb came up with the idea that the creature could have a powerful acid
for blood, a characteristic that would carry over to the adult Alien
and would make it impossible for the crew to kill it by conventional
means such as guns or explosives, since the acid would burn through the
ship's hull.[16][22] For the scene in which the dead facehugger is examined, Scott used pieces of fish and shellfish to create its viscera.[34][48]
The "chestburster" was shoved up through the table and false torso by a puppeteer.[34] The scene has been recognized as one of the film's most memorable.
The design of the "chestburster" was inspired by Francis Bacon's 1944 painting Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion.[34] Giger's original design resembled a plucked chicken, which was redesigned and refined into the final version seen onscreen.[34]
For the filming of the chestburster scene the cast members knew that
the creature would be bursting out of Hurt, and had seen the
chestburster puppet, but they had not been told that fake blood would
also be bursting out in every direction from high-pressure pumps and squibs.[39][54]
The scene was shot in one take using an artificial torso filled with
blood and viscera, with Hurt's head and arms coming up from underneath
the table. The chestburster was shoved up through the torso by a
puppeteer who held it on a stick. When the creature burst through the
chest a stream of blood shot directly at Veronica Cartwright, shocking
her enough that she fell over and went into hysterics.[15][34][39]
According to Tom Skerritt: "What you saw on camera was the real
response. She had no idea what the hell happened. All of a sudden this
thing just came up."[34]
The creature then runs off-camera, an effect accomplished by cutting a
slit in the table for the puppeteer's stick to go through and passing
an air hose through the puppet's tail to make it whip about.[34]
The real-life surprise of the actors gave the scene an intense sense
of realism and made it one of the film's most memorable moments. During
preview screenings the crew noticed that some viewers would move
towards the back of the theater so as not to be too close to the screen
during the sequence.[55] In subsequent years the chestburster scene has often been voted as one of the most memorable moments in film.[56] In 2007 the British film magazine Empire named it as the greatest 18-rated moment in film as part of its "18th birthday" issue, ranking it above the decapitation scene in The Omen (1976) and the transformation sequence in An American Werewolf in London (1981).[57]
Bolaji Badejo in costume as the Alien. The suit was made of latex, with the head as a separate piece housing the moving parts which controlled the second mouth.
Giger made several conceptual paintings of the adult Alien before
crafting the final version. He sculpted the creature's body using plasticine, incorporating pieces such as vertebrae from snakes and cooling tubes from a Rolls-Royce.[34][35] The creature's head was manufactured separately by Carlo Rambaldi, who had worked on the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[52]
Rambaldi followed Giger's designs closely, making some modifications in
order to incorporate the moving parts which would animate the jaw and
inner mouth.[34]
A system of hinges and cables was used to operate the creature's rigid
tongue, which protruded from the main mouth and had a second mouth at
the tip of it with its own set of movable teeth.[34] The final head had about nine hundred moving parts and points of articulation.[34] Part of a human skull was used as the "face", and was hidden under the smooth, translucent cover of the head.[35] Rambaldi's original Alien jaw is now on display in the Smithsonian Institution,[49] while in April 2007 the original Alien suit was sold at auction.[58] Copious amounts of K-Y Jelly were used to simulate saliva and to give the Alien an overall slimy appearance.[34][44] The creature's vocalizations were provided by Percy Edwards, a voice artist famous for providing bird sounds for British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s as well as the whale sounds for Orca: Killer Whale (1977).[59][60]
For most of the film's scenes the Alien was portrayed by Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian design student. A latex
costume was specifically made to fit Badejo's 7-foot-2-inch (218 cm)
slender frame, made by taking a full-body plaster cast of him.[15][34]
Scott later commented that "It's a man in a suit, but then it would be,
wouldn't it? It takes on elements of the host – in this case, a man."[26] Badejo attended tai chi and mime classes in order to create convincing movements for the Alien.[34][35]
For some scenes, such as when the Alien lowers itself from the ceiling
to kill Brett, the creature was portrayed by stuntmen Eddie Powell and
Roy Scammell;[15][36] in that scene a costumed Powell was suspended on wires and then lowered in an unfurling motion.[34][48]
I've never liked horror films before, because in the end it's always
been a man in a rubber suit. Well, there's one way to deal with that.
The most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see,
but the effect of what you think you saw.[15]
–Ridley Scott
Scott chose not to show the Alien in full through most of the film,
showing only pieces of it while keeping most of its body in shadow in
order to heighten the sense of terror and suspense. The audience could
thus project their own fears into imagining what the rest of the
creature might look like:[34]
"Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the Alien
will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like."[15]
The Alien has been referred to as "one of the most iconic movie
monsters in film history" in the decades since the film's release,
being noted for its biomechanical appearance and sexual overtones.[61]Roger Ebert has remarked that "Alien
uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It
evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know
quite what it looks like or what it can do...The first time we get a
good look at the alien, as it bursts from the chest of poor Kane (John
Hurt). It is unmistakably phallic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirks
mentions its 'open, dripping vaginal mouth.'"[11]
For the scene in which Ash is revealed to be an android
and has his head knocked off, a puppet was created of the character's
torso and upper body which was operated from underneath by a small
puppeteer.[40] During a preview screening of the film this scene caused a female usher to faint.[55][62] In the following scene Ash's head is placed on a table and re-activated; for portions of this scene an animatronic head was made using a face cast of actor Ian Holm.[49] However the latex of the head shrank while drying and the result was not entirely convincing.[40] For the bulk of the scene Holm knelt under the table with his head coming up through a hole and milk, caviar, pasta, and glass marbles were used to show the android's inner workings and fluids.[40][49]
The musical score for Alien was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, conducted by Lionel Newman, and performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Ridley Scott had originally wanted the film to be scored by Isao Tomita, but 20th Century Fox wanted a more familiar composer and Goldsmith was recommended by then-President of Fox Alan Ladd, Jr.[60]
Goldsmith wanted to create a sense of romanticism and lyrical mystery
in the film's opening scenes, which would build throughout the film to
suspense and fear.[63]
Scott did not like Goldsmith's original main title piece, however, so
Goldsmith rewrote it as "the obvious thing: weird and strange, and
which everybody loved."[60][63] Another source of tension was editor Terry Rawlings' choice to use pieces of Goldsmith's music from previous films, including a piece from Freud: The Secret Passion, and to use the andante from Howard Hanson's Symphony No.2 ("Romantic") for the end credits.[60][63][64][65]
Scott and Rawlings had also become attached to several of the
musical cues they had used for the temporary score while editing the
film, and re-edited some of Goldsmith's cues and re-scored several
sequences to match these cues and even left the temporary score in
place in some parts of the finished film.[63]
Goldsmith later remarked that "you can see that I was sort of like
going at opposite ends of the pole with the filmmakers of the picture."[63] Nevertheless, Scott praised Goldsmith's score as "full of dark beauty"[60] and "seriously threatening, but beautiful."[63] It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album, and a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.[6] The score has been released as a soundtrack album in several versions with different tracks and sequences.[66]
Editing and post-production work on Alien took roughly twenty weeks to complete.[63] Terry Rawlings served as Editor, having previously worked with Scott on editing sound for The Duellists.[63]
Scott and Rawlings edited much of the film to have a slow pace in order
to build suspense for the more tense and frightening moments. According
to Rawlings: "I think the way we did get it right was by keeping it
slow, funny enough, which is completely different from what they do
today. And I think the slowness of it made the moments that you wanted
people to be sort of scared...then we could go as fast as we liked
because you've sucked people into a corner and then attacked them, so
to speak. And I think that's how it worked."[63] The first cut of the film was over three hours long; further editing trimmed the final version to just under two hours.[55][63]
One scene that was cut from the film occurred during Ripley's final escape from the Nostromo: she encounters Dallas and Brett who have been partially cocooned
by the Alien. O'Bannon had intended the scene to indicate that Brett
was becoming an Alien egg while Dallas was held nearby to be implanted
by the resulting facehugger.[20] Production Designer Michael Seymour later suggested that Dallas had "become sort of food for the alien creature",[43] while Ivor Powell suggested that "Dallas is found in the ship as an egg, still alive."[63] Scott remarked that "they're morphing, metamorphosing, they are changing into...being consumed, I guess, by whatever the Alien's organism is...into an egg."[22] The scene was cut partly because it did not look realistic enough and partly because it slowed the pace of the escape sequence.[20][49]
Tom Skerritt remarked that "The picture had to have that pace. Her
trying to get the hell out of there, we're all rooting for her to get
out of there, and for her to slow up and have a conversation with
Dallas was not appropriate."[63] The footage was included amongst other deleted scenes as a special feature on the Laserdisc release of Alien, and a shortened version of it was re-inserted into the 2003 "Director's Cut" which was re-released in theaters and on DVD.[20][67]
It was the most incredible preview I've ever been in. I mean, people were screaming and running out of the theater.[62]
–Editor Terry Rawlings describing the film's screening in Dallas.
An initial screening of Alien for 20th Century Fox representatives in St. Louis suffered from poor sound in the theater. A subsequent screening in a newer theater in Dallas went significantly better, eliciting genuine fright from the audience.[62] Two theatrical trailers
were shown to the public. The first consisted of rapidly-changing still
images set to some of Jerry Goldsmith's electronic music from Logan's Run. The second used test footage of a hen's egg set to part of Goldsmith's Alien score.[55] The film was previewed in various American cities in the spring of 1979[55] and was promoted by the tagline "In space no one can hear you scream."[62][68]
Alien opened in theaters on May 25, 1979.[68] It was rated "R" in the United States, "X" in the United Kingdom, and "M" in Australia.[31] The film had no official premier in the United States, yet moviegoers lined up for blocks to see it at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood where a number of models, sets, and props were displayed outside to promote it during its first run.[55][62] Religious zealots set fire to the model of the space jockey, believing it to be the work of the devil.[55]Alien did have a formal premiere in the United Kingdom at the Odeon Leicester Square on September 6, 1979, but it did not open widely in Britain until January 13, 1980.[55]
Critical reaction to the film was initially mixed. Some critics who were not usually favorable towards science fiction, such as Barry Norman of the BBC's Film series, were positive about the film's merits.[55] Others, however, were not: Reviews by Variety, Sight and Sound, Vincent Canby and Leonard Maltin were mixed or negative.[69] A review by Time Out said the film was an "empty bag of tricks whose production values and expensive trickery cannot disguise imaginative poverty".[70]
The film was a commercial success, making $78,900,000 in the United States and £7,886,000 in the United Kingdom during its first run.[55]
It ultimately grossed $80,931,801 in the United States and $24,000,000
internationally, bringing its total worldwide gross to $104,931,801.[3]
Around and shortly after Alien's release in theaters, a
number of merchandise items and media were released and sold to
coincide with the film. These included a novelization by Alan Dean Foster, in both adult and "junior" versions, which was adapted from the film's shooting script.[60]Heavy Metal magazine published a comic strip adaptation of the film entitled Alien: The Illustrated Story, as well as a 1980 Aliencalendar.[60] Two behind-the-scenes books were released in 1979 to accompany the film: The Book of Alien contained many production photographs and details on the making of the film, while Giger's Alien contained much of H.R. Giger's concept artwork for the movie.[60] A soundtrack album was released as an LP featuring selections of Goldsmith's score, and a single of the main theme was released in 1980.[66] A twelve-inch tall model kit of the Alien was released by the Model Products Corporation in the United States and by Airfix in the United Kingdom.[53]Kenner
also produced a larger-scale Alien action figure, as well as a board
game in which players raced to be first to reach the shuttle pod while
Aliens roamed the Nostromo's corridors and air shafts.[53] Official Halloween costumes of the Alien were released for October 1979.[53] Several computer games based on the film were released, but not until several years after its theatrical run.[53]
Sigourney Weaver became the star of the Alien films, reprising her role as Ripley in three sequels between 1986 and 1997. She did not appear in either of the Alien vs. Predator crossovers of the 2000s, but has expressed interest in doing a fifth Alien film.
The success of Alien led 20th Century Fox to finance three direct sequels over the next eighteen years, each by different writers and directors. Sigourney Weaver remained the only recurring actor through all four films, and the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the Aliens became the thematic thread running through the series.[11]James Cameron's Aliens (1986) focused more on action and involved Ripley returning to the planetoid accompanied by marines to confront hordes of Aliens.[46]David Fincher's Alien 3 (1992) had nihilistic tones[41]
and found her on a prison planet battling another Alien, ultimately
sacrificing herself to prevent her employers from acquiring the
creatures.[71]Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien Resurrection (1997) saw Ripley resurrected through cloning to battle more Aliens even further in the future.[72]
Despite not appearing in either prequel, Sigourney Weaver has expressed interest in reuniting with Ridley Scott to revive her character for another Alien film. In the 2003 commentary track for the Alien DVD included in the Alien Quadrilogy
set, she and Scott both speculated on the possibility, with Weaver
stating: "There is an appetite for a fifth one, which is something I
never expected...it's really hard to come up with a fifth story that's
new and fresh...but I have wanted to go back into space...I think outer
space adventure is a good thing for us right now, 'cause Earth is so
grim...so we've been talking about it, but very generally."[22]
Scott remarked that, if the series were to continue, the most logical
course would be to explore the origins of the space jockey and the
Aliens.[76]
Weaver supported this idea, stating that "I think it would be great to
go back, because I'm asked that question so many times: 'Where did the
Alien come from?' People really want to know in a very visceral way."[22]David Giler stated that he, Walter Hill,
and Gordon Carroll, the producers of the first five films in the
series, would not be willing to produce another unless it was about the
Aliens' homeworld and Weaver was on board (although Hill did return to
produce Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem). Weaver, in turn, indicated that she would only return to the franchise if either Scott or James Cameron were directing.[77] Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth Alien film which would explore the origins of the creatures, but ceased work on it when he learned that Fox was pursuing Alien vs. Predator, which he felt would "kill the validity of the franchise".[78][79]
Weaver has continued to express interest in another installment,
stating in 2008 that "I would definitely do another if I had a director
like Ridley Scott and we had a good idea. Ridley is enthusiastic about
it."[80] In July 2009 20th Century Fox announced that Jon Spaihts had been hired to write a prequel to Alien, with Scott attached to direct.[81]
Alien has been released in many home video formats and packages over the years. The first of these was a seventeen-minute Super-8 version for home projectionists.[53] It was also released on both VHS and Betamax for rental, which grossed it an additional $40,300,000 in the United States alone.[55] Several VHS releases were subsequently sold both singly and as boxed sets. Laserdisc and Videodisc versions followed, including deleted scenes and director commentary as bonus features.[53][82] A VHS box set containing Alien and the sequels Aliens and Alien 3 was released in facehugger-shaped boxes, including some of the deleted scenes from the Laserdisc editions.[82] When Alien Resurrection premiered in theaters, another set of the first three films was released including a Making of Alien Resurrection tape. A few months later the set was re-released with the full version of Alien Resurrection taking the place of the making-of video.[82]Alien was released on DVD in 1999, both singly and packaged with Aliens and Alien 3 as The Alien Legacy.[53][82] This set was also released in a VHS version and included a commentary track by Ridley Scott.[53][82] The first three films of the series have also been packaged as the Alien Triple Pack.
The traditional definition of the term "Director's Cut" suggests the
restoration of a director's original vision, free of any creative
limitations. It suggests that the filmmaker has finally overcome the
interference of heavy-handed studio executives, and that the film has
been restored to its original, untampered form. Such is not the case
with Alien: The Director's Cut. It's a completely different beast.[83]
–Ridley Scott
In 2003 20th Century Fox was preparing the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, which would include Alien
and its three sequels. In addition, the set would also include
alternate versions of all four films in the form of "special editions"
and "director's cuts". Fox approached Ridley Scott to digitally restore and remasterAlien, and to restore several scenes which had been cut during the editing process for inclusion in an expanded version of the film.[83]
Upon viewing the expanded version, Scott felt that it was too long and
chose to recut it into a more streamlined alternate version:
Upon viewing the proposed expanded version of the film, I felt that
the cut was simply too long and the pacing completely thrown off. After
all, I cut those scenes out for a reason back in 1979. However, in the
interest of giving the fans a new experience with Alien, I
figured there had to be an appropriate middle ground. I chose to go in
and recut that proposed long version into a more streamlined and
polished alternate version of the film. For marketing purposes, this
version is being called "The Director's Cut."[83]
The "Director's Cut" restored roughly four minutes of deleted
footage while cutting about five minutes of other material, leaving it
about a minute shorter than the theatrical cut.[55]
Many of the changes were minor, such as altered sound effects, while
the restored footage included the scene in which Ripley discovers the
cocooned Dallas and Brett during her escape of the Nostromo. Fox decided to release the Director's Cut in theaters, and it premiered on October 31, 2003.[55] The Alien Quadrilogy
box set was released December 2, 2003, with both versions of the film
included along with a new commentary track featuring many of the film's
actors, writers, and production staff, as well as other special
features and a documentary entitled The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
Each film was also released separately as a DVD with both versions of
the film included. Scott noted that he was very pleased with the
original theatrical cut of Alien, saying that "For all intents and purposes, I felt that the original cut of Alien was perfect. I still feel that way", and that the original 1979 theatrical version "remains my version of choice".[83]
He has since stated that he considers both versions "director's cuts",
as he feels that the 1979 version was the best he could possibly have
made it at the time.[83]
The Alien Quadrilogy set earned Alien a number of new
awards and nominations. It won DVDX Exclusive Awards for Best Audio
Commentary and Best Overall DVD, Classic Movie, and was also nominated
for Best Behind-the-Scenes Program and Best Menu Design.[6] It also won a Sierra Award for Best DVD, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best DVD Collection and Golden Satellite Awards for Best DVD Extras and Best Overall DVD.[6] In 2010 both the theatrical version and Director's Cut of Alien were released on Blu-ray Disc as part of the Alien Anthology set.
The 1979 Alien is a much more cerebral movie than its
sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in
curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms...Unfortunately, the films
it influenced studied its thrills but not its thinking.[11]
–Film critic Roger Ebert on Alien's cinematic impact.
Alien had both an immediate and long-term impact on the science fiction and horror genres. Shortly after its debut, Dan O'Bannon was sued by another writer named Jack Hammer for allegedly plagiarising a script entitled Black Space. However, O'Bannon was able to prove that he had written his Alien script first.[84] In the wake of Alien's
success a number of other filmmakers imitated or adapted some of its
elements, sometimes by copying its title. One of the first was The Alien Dead (1979), which was titled at the last minute to cash in on Alien's popularity.[85]Contamination (1980) was initially going to be titled Alien 2 until 20th Century Fox's lawyers contacted writer/director Luigi Cozzi and made him change it, and it built on press coverage of Alien's
chestburster scene by having many similar creatures, which originated
from large, slimy eggs, bursting from characters' chests.[85] An unauthorized Italian sequel to Alien, titled Alien 2,
was released in 1980 and included alien creatures which incubate inside
human hosts. Other science fiction films of the time that exploited
elements of Alien included Inseminoid (1981) and Xtro (1982).[85]
In the decades since its original release critics have analyzed and acknowledged Alien's
roots in earlier works of fiction. It has been noted as sharing
thematic similarities with earlier science fiction films such as The Thing from Another World (1951)[11][86] and It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958),[18][61] as well as a kinship with other 1970s horror films such as Jaws (1975) and Halloween (1978).[11] Literary connections have also been suggested, including thematic comparisons to And Then There Were None (1939).[86] Many critics have also suggested that the film derives in part from A. E. van Vogt's The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950), particularly the stories The Black Destroyer, in which a cat-like alien infiltrates the ship and hunts the crew, and Discord in Scarlet, in which an alien implants parasitic eggs inside crew members which then hatch and eat their way out.[87] O'Bannon, however, denies that this was a source of his inspiration for Alien's story.[14] Van Vogt actually initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox over the similarities, but Fox settled out of court.[88] Writer David McIntee has also noted similarities to the Doctor Who episode "The Ark in Space" (1975), in which an insectoid queen alien lays larvae inside humans which later eat their way out, a life cycle inspired by that of the ichneumons wasp.[14] He has also noted similarities between the first half of the film, particularly in early versions of the script, to H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, "not in storyline, but in dread-building mystery",[14]
and calls the finished film "the best Lovecraftian movie ever made,
without being a Lovecraft adaptation", due to its similarities in tone
and atmosphere to Lovecraft's works.[41]
Alien has continued to receive critical praise over the years, particularly for its realism and unique environment.[61] It has a 97% approval rating at the online review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes based on 71 reviews,[89] while Metacritic gives the Director's Cut an 83% approval rating based on 22 reviews.[90]
Critical interest in the film was re-ignited in part by the theatrical
release of the "Director's Cut" in 2003. In his "Great Movies" column
that year, critic Roger Ebert ranked it among "the most influential of
modern action pictures", praising its pacing, atmosphere, and settings:
One of the great strengths of Alien is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith
with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the
enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps:
The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?).
The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and
Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The
masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move,
their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of
the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command
chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ...
leathery eggs ...").[11]
McIntee praises Alien as "possibly the definitive combination of horror thriller with [science fiction] trappings."[41]
He notes, however, that it is a horror film first and a science fiction
film second, since science fiction normally explores issues of how
humanity will develop under other circumstances. Alien, on the
other hand, focuses on the plight of people being attacked by a
monster: "It's set on a spaceship in the future, but it's about people
trying not to get eaten by a drooling monstrous animal. Worse, it's
about them trying not to get raped by said drooling monstrous animal."[41] Along with Halloween and Friday the 13th (1980), he describes it as a prototype for the slasher film
genre: "The reason it's such a good movie, and wowed both the critics,
who normally frown on the genre, and the casual cinema-goer, is that it
is a distillation of everything that scares us in the movies."[41] He also describes how the film appeals to a variety of audiences: "Fans of Hitchcockian
thrillers like it because it's moody and dark. Gorehounds like it for
the chest-burster. [Science fiction] fans love the hard [science
fiction] trappings and hardware. Men love the battle-for-survival
element, and women love not being cast as the helpless victim."[91]
Almost every horror film since Alien has ripped it off in
some way, but most of the imitations have focused on details — a slimy
killing-machine monster that is both vaginal and penile; the dripping,
cavernous interiors of the Nostromo; those immensely influential H.R. Giger "biomechanical" designs — and missed what you might call the overall Zeitgeist of the film.[92]
–Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir notes that Alien "has a profoundly existentialist undertow that makes it feel like a film noir"[92] and praises it over its "increasingly baroque" sequels as "a film about human loneliness amid the emptiness and amorality of creation. It's a cynical '70s-leftist vision of the future in which none of the problems plaguing 20th century Earth—class divisions, capitalist
exploitation, the subjugation of humanity to technology—have been
improved in the slightest by mankind's forays into outer space."[92]
In 2002, Alien was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the National Film Preservation Board of the United States,[8] and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for historical preservation alongside other films of 1979 including All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, The Black Stallion, and Manhattan.[7] In 2008 the American Film Institute ranked Alien as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre as part of AFI's 10 Top 10, a CBS television special ranking the ten greatest movies in ten classic American film genres. The ranks were based on a poll of over 1,500 film artists, critics, and historians, with Alien ranking just above Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and just below Ridley Scott's other science fiction film Blade Runner (1982).[9] The same year, Empire
magazine ranked it thirty-third on its list of the five hundred
greatest movies of all time, based on a poll of 10,200 readers,
critics, and members of the film industry.[10]
Critics have also analyzed Alien's sexual overtones. Adrian Mackinder compares the facehugger's attack on Kane to a male rape and the chestburster scene to a form of violent birth, noting that the Alien's phallic head and method of killing the crew members add to the sexual imagery.[61]
Dan O'Bannon has argued that the scene is a metaphor for the male fear
of penetration, and that the "oral invasion" of Kane by the facehugger
functions as "payback" for the many horror films in which sexually
vulnerable women are attacked by male monsters.[93] McIntee claims that "Alien is a rape movie as much as Straw Dogs (1971) or I Spit on Your Grave (1978), or The Accused (1988). On one level it's about an intriguing alien threat. On one level it's about parasitism
and disease. And on the level that was most important to the writers
and director, it's about sex, and reproduction by non-consensual means.
And it's about this happening to a man."[94]
He notes how the film plays on men's fear and misunderstanding of
pregnancy and childbirth, while also giving women a glimpse into these
fears.[95] Film analyst Lina Badley has written that the Alien's design, with strong Freudian sexual undertones, multiple phallic symbols, and overall feminine figure, provides an androgynous image conforming to archetypal mappings and imageries in horror films that often redraw gender lines.[96]
^ The cinematic release of the film ran 119 minutes, while later video and DVD versions ran 116 minutes due to the different frame rates between film and video. McIntee, 14.
^ Official documentation for the film states that the budget was $11 million, but other sources give different numbers. Sigourney Weaver has stated that it was $14 million, while Ridley Scott, Ivor Powell, and Tom Skerritt have each recalled it being closer to $8.4 million. McIntee, 14–15.
^ In the script and film the computer is referred to by the crew members as "Mother". An October 1979 issue of Fantastic Films
magazine, as well as the back of the 1980 Fox videodisk of the film,
explain that "Mother" is an abbreviation for "MU/TH/UR 6000", the model
of the computer. The chapter list for Alien in the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD set also lists it as "MU/TH/UR". The 1997 sequel Alien Resurrection, the fourth film in the series, echoed this element by having the crew of the Auriga refer to the ship's onboard computer as "Father." McIntee, 25, 119.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqr "Star Beast: Developing the Story", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
^Scott, Ridley. (2004) (Star Wars Trilogy). The Force Is With Them: The Legacy of Star Wars. [DVD box set, audio commentary track]. Los Angeles: Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. "Within the context of that fantasy [George Lucas] said people still have to wash behind their ears at night. That was another wonderful touch. It influenced me when I did Alien. I thought I better push it a bit further and make them truck drivers."
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv "The Eighth Passenger: Creature Design", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien
^Mollo, John; Ron Cobb. The Authorized Portfolio of Crew Insignias from the United States Commercial Spaceship Nostromo, Designs and Realizations.
"I wanted to imply that poor old England is back on its feet and has
united with the Japanese, who have taken over the building of
spaceships the same way they have now with cars and supertankers. In
coming up with a strange company name I thought of British Leyland and Toyota,
but we couldn't use "Leyland-Toyota" in the film. Changing one letter
gave me "Weylan," and "Yutani" was a Japanese neighbor of mine."
^ The date in which the events of Alien are set is not revealed in the film itself, but the first draft of the script gave the year as 2087. McIntee, 23.
^Ridley Scott (Director). (2003). Alien. [DVD (audio commentary track)]. 20th Century Fox
Home Entertainment, Inc.. "It's a tough one, particularly with the
success of four. I think if you close the lid it should be the end of
the first chapter, and I think very simply what no one's done is simply
gone back to re-visit 'what was it?' No one's ever said 'who's the
space jockey?' He wasn't an Alien. What was that battleship? Is it a
battleship? Is it an aircraft carrier? Is it a bio-mechanoid weapon
carrier?...Why did it land? Did it crash-land, or did it settle there
because it had engine trouble?...And how long ago? 'Cause those eggs
would sit there."
