Alien [Blu-ray]

40 years after release and after becoming one of the most iconic scifi/horror franchises during that time, do I really need to tell you what the movie Alien is about? A deep space refining starship intercepts a mysterious beacon and is rerouted to investigate its origin. When they reach the planet it is emanating from, one of the crew is impregnated by an alien, whose progeny proceeds to kill off the crew one by one. Yeah, not the most complex of plots. In fact, I admire its purity.It's the execution of the movie and the acting that elevate it to another level of filmmaking, that of a masterpiece. The filmmakers and the actors were at the top of their games.Alien in some ways reminded me of the original Star Wars. What you had were two hungry directors who, technically, at least were virtuosos, in terms of framing and setting up scenes. You could tell the directors knew exactly what they wanted. Unfortunately for Lucas, the original Star Wars film was his last great one, whereas Scott moved on to do Blade Runner right after this.All the actors are great, and I think it would have been a lesser picture if any of the cast had been played by anyone else. They just all seemed to fit the roles so well. I can't even imagine seeing Sigourney Weaver in this first film role back in the day. I mean she explodes off the screen with magnetism and sexiness and toughness. At a time when those kind of female roles were sadly lacking in any kind of action terms.The visual designs of the aliens and their tech was done by HR Giger. Nobody can say that guy thought along the same visual and conceptual lines of regular human beings. He was so original that his designs SEEM alien but at the same time familiar to humanoid life.The atmosphere of the film was greatly aided by the lighting and sound design, along with Jerry Goldsmith's score.Scott used a lot of natural light, in the sense that when it's dark, the corridor is dark. It doesn't feel like he wanted any light that didn't belong there. For instance, when Dallas is trying to flush the alien out of the air shafts, the only lighting is from his flamethrower. Or when part of the crew visits the alien derelict, the light is only coming from the lamps on top of their helmets. There are lots of dark corners and spaces that make it more suspenseful.The sound design also makes the film more tense. I don't know if most people notice but I can't remember a scene of the movie where I did not hear breathing. Whether it was wind travelling through the ship, or when the face hugger is on Kaine's face, or when the crew interfaces with the ship's computer, there is always the sound of some kind of respiration. And not in a zen like way. Almost in a sense that there is always something "out there", watching you, hunting you.Of course, what needs to be said about Jerry Goldsmith, who is one of the greats, even 40 years ago, he was already a legend. Like HR Giger, in his soundscapes, Goldsmith was able to use the orchestra to make its instruments sound otherworldly and somehow instill dread, terror, beauty, and yes, even WONDER into the context of the film. It was just spot on the whole way through without EVER going over the top.After watching the film, the next night I rewatched it with the commentary by the cast and crew and enjoyed just the same. They had almost everyone that worked on the film, except Yaphet Kotto, who played Parker. The director, the editor, the writers, and all of the actors chimed in on the making of the movie and its most classic scenes. Oh, Ian Holm wasn't on it. Weaver, Skerritt, Stanton, and Cartwright were though.I think its incredible that one director in two movies made two of my favorite and critically lauded scifi films of all time. Both Alien and Blade Runner were movies I watched over and over on my dad's laserdisc player back in the 80s. Even that young, I could sense how special they were.This blu-ray features both the original 1979 theatrical release and the 2003 directors cut with Jerry Goldsmith's eerie score possible to isolate on both. Ridley Scott added in about 12 minutes of new footage to the directors cut.The great thing about Alien is that everyone knew they were making a monster movie. But somewhere along the way, the entire cast and crew realized they were so good that they elevated it subconsciously or consciously into a great work of art.

(First I'd like to talk about the way Alien was filmed; It must be a somewhat different technique. I have the Oppo 103 DVD player and the LG PM 6700 Plasma THX 3DTV, and I use Dimensional Optics Active Shutter glasses. With great anticipation I put the Blu-ray of Alien in, opted for the Director's cut and hit play. With Ridley Scott talking about Alien being 25 years later, he was in excellent 3D.Then the movie started with no apparent 3D affect. I set the Oppo to maximum, went into the TV and set its 3D to maximum, and point of view to the maximum plus number. Only then did I get a barely minimal 3D affect.[ I had just watched the 1937 version of, "The Last of The Mohicans" in black and white with Randolph Scott. and the 3D affect was almost as good as Avatar, filmed in 3D.] It would be interesting to get feedback from people with other types of 3D TV's).I think it being the first serious and promoted sci-fi horror movie people didn't know what to expect and had a hard time resolving in what category to place it. The sci-fi crowd were not accustomed to the horror element, and the horror crowd had no idea of what to think of science fiction being a major part of the plot-to the horror crowd if you didn't have vampires, werewolves, demons, devil worship and the Frankenstein monster, you pretty much had nothing. Look at the 1972 "Kolchak The Night Stalker," a made for TV movie that rated a 54, meaning 1/2 the people in the country were watching it and that unheard of record stood for many years.Yes there were some B movies like you saw as part of a two movie double feature on Saturday, like "It The Terror From Beyond Space," or "20 million miles to Earth." Ray Harryhausen was a very busy special effects man. But nothing special.(Alien has been out since 1979 so I think its alright to talk about the various exploits of the movie. And I've owned a copy since it first became available on VHS.)A movie, something very different with a good story and great special effects, a budget, and a director who was not like everybody else, Ridley Scott. He paid attention to details; the scene where they find the seated alien pilot cost 1-million dollars alone ; he said he felt it was that essential in setting up as a clue what was to come and adding to the mystery. The Ship picks up a transmission and they are required to investigate it. They land and find a ship, enter and find a fossilized pilot In exploring they find a cavern full of pods/eggs and when Kane gets close one opens ejecting a scorpion like creature that wraps around his helmet and he has to be carried back. Ripley says Mother had deciphered part of the message and it appeared to be a warning not a distress signal. She refuses to let them in, but Ash the medical officer opens the door. They can't remove it because it bleeds acid, only to find later it has removed itself from him and its dead.The biggest surprise of the movie was where they are eating before going back into hypersleep and the chestburster scene where an alien creature comes out Kane's chest spraying everyone with blood, and Ash, "don't kill it" (wonder why?) .Brett and Parker rig up some motion trackers, electric prods, and flame throwers, to go after a creature they are unaware has grown over eight feet. After it kills Brett and takes his body up an air shaft they realize it is huge; Dallas is the next to die in an air shaft. (What works so well to make the movie scary is you only get glimpses of it; you don't really know what it looks like, what makes it vulnerable, or when you might run into it-once the Alien is loose there is a sense of claustrophobia that never leaves. After Dallas is dead Ripley takes over and finds out from Mother that Ash has been ordered by Nostromo's corporate employers to return the creature to their weapon's division-crew expendable.( I always wondered if the company knew of the signal from a probe and had the Nostromo follow a certain course so it would have to investigate.) There is a fight between Ripley and Ash and the remaining crew decapitates Ash, finding him to be an android; Ash's final words are that they will not survive, then they burn him. In the Director's Cut you see in Ash's quarters pornographic pictures taped to the wall and porn magazines. The fact he had them would lead one to suspect it was in his [deviant] programming-he brought them aboard before the Nostromo left Earth. Ridley Scott opened a whole can of worms here.Parker and Lambert are killed gathering cooling supplies, and Ripley initiates self destruct of the Nostromo. She manages to get aboard the escape pod with her cat Jones, only to find the Alien hidden there. This begs the question, Is the Alien intelligent?She seals Jones in a chamber, herself in a space suit, seated at the controls she gets the creature out by releasing coolant on it. As it comes out and stands behind her, she opens the door and explosive decompression blows it to the doorway where it grasps each side of the opening. She shoots it with a grappling hook which knocks it out into space. The door closes but the rope from the gun has the creature attached and attempting to crawl into an engine, but she fires them up blasting it free into space. The creature seems to be able to survive in space, but evolved from us and we can't, interesting. On LV 426 where they landed to explore the source of the signal and found all the eggs where was the queen? The pilot was there so long he was fossilized, but the eggs were alive? Was Mother correct that the signal was a warning, and as this was an alien race with no prior contact, how was she able to decipher any of it, and it such a short time? Did the company know something thereby placing an android aboard with a separate agenda than getting the ore to Earth? (Nostromo is Italian for "our meat," I wonder what the joke in that means?)Alien spawned literally a flood of movies where some creature made physical contact with man then morphed hidden in theguise of a human. Many did not try anything new, or even being clever, some were so shameless as to have creatures that looked very, very similar. If it is true that copying is the best form of compliment, Ridley Scott sits alone atop a mountain.I think Alien is one of the two scariest movies ever made, the other being The Exorcist. I rate it "a two bagger" (of microwave popcorn.) Just grab the biggest container of your favorite soft drink, sit back, and enjoy.