Alien 1979 Review

 Alien 1979 Review 

Alien 1979

Science Fiction is about merging technology with any given aspect of humanity. In the case of Alien, it’s a merging of technology with horror. Horror has three major conventions. Confrontation with evil, the uncanny, and a final sublime moment when the evil is defeated. Science can be fun, but science has a dark side and can be used for evil. People have used science before to make deadly gasses and to make malware. We see evil merged with technology this in the film as the evil Company Weyland Yutani assigns an android to front as an on board doctor with orders to capture and retrieve an alien lifeform. Their goals are unclear, but they want the most dangerous alien they can find and are willing to see the crew killed off to bring him home. The android facilitates the birth of the alien and even protects him. We see the uncanny merged with technology when the crew finds the ruin of an ancient spaceship helmed by an alien skeleton. We see the sublime merged with technology as Ripley escapes in a lifepod and enters cyrosleep after defeating the alien.

The horror of extraterrestial life is merged by sci fi in the film Alien. The alien is a powerful creature that turns our strengths into weaknesses and thrives where we are most vulnerable like air ducts and vent shafts. Emotions are one of the things that make our brains so powerful over the millennia. Lambert freezes, overcome by her emotions, when she sees the sheer power of the alien. Before that, the crew gets so worked up after bringing the injured Kane aboard, that they begin fighting because Ripley was going to leave him quarantined outside the ship. We think we are ready to meet aliens until their blood turns out to be acid. The spaceships that once inspired hope and wonder become moist, greasy, poorly lit tombs. What we discovered out there doesn’t bring us love, it ushers in our doom.

Science has a dark side, and it can be very beautiful and scary. In the time of HP Lovecraft scientists were making huge discoveries that challenged how humans had seen the world. We thought the whole universe was one big galaxy, but we discovered different stars of different shaped galaxies, young galaxies, growing galaxies... dead galaxies. Black holes. Dead stars. We began exploring the bottom of the ocean because of the advent of the submarine and diving suits. We discovered amphibious predators of the deep sea where it's so dark that the lack of light deprives the human brain of its senses and causes permeant damage to the nerves of the mind. Anthropologist also discovered enemies of ancient hominids when they  disinterred the extinct breeds of human. We would identify these creatures as monsters, not human. They had cone shaped skulls because their brains were so small, or teeth so giant they couldn't close their  seething mouths, or thick ridges on top of their skulls which held together an extra layer of muscle around the face. Anthropologists considered these some kind of human, but agree that these species were cruel, stupid, and ugly. They cannibalized their own young, and terrorized the early humans by sneaking into their caves until the humans finally had the power and intent to destroy them.... or interbreed with them. HP Lovecraft was inspired by these terrible discoveries. 

The real question of the day: What terrible thing will we discover next? And do you really want to know? If you said "ew" when you read my introduction, then you are not ready to confront the Cosmic Horrors. In HP Lovecraft's view, humans are weak, small, defenseless, self centered, and ready to be eaten by bigger, smarter, cooler, more interesting, more powerful... and wiser entities. 

The best quote in Alien is in the scene when they receive the mysterious signal. Ripley asks if it is human, captain Dallas says "Unknown". This movie is Cosmic Horror manifested in its most perfect form. HR Giger created a wondrous monster who embodies everything we fear about the "Unknown". We don't know where the Xenomorph came from, it's history, how it breeds or how it eats. It seems to be an animal only interested in killing, but at some point these thing were flying around in spaceships. We don't know what it is feeling, we don't know what it's thinking. We assume it has no emotions or conscience because of its hostility, but with an elongated head like that- its possible that the Xenomorph is actually capable of thoughts and feelings that our minds can not even fathom. 

The thing about horror that people who aren't fans of the genre don't understand is that it's not just about thrills and danger and violence. You can get that from a spy movie. It's about the confrontation of the very real threat of evil, the ensuing battle, and the final sublime moment when the viewer overcomes their fears, and the evil is destroyed. It's scary because we don't start off strong and equipped to deal with this. It's a process. In this movie, we see the Cosmic Horror challenged and defeated by Ellen Ripley. Ripley is the first true female hero in any film up to this point. In most old movies, the roles of women are limited. They are either running away from a monster or running into the arms of the male protagonist.  It's a shame that the "cinema as high art" crowd of the 70s didn't embrace the ground breaking Sigourney Weaver who did not get enough attention for her role. The irony is that at the same time the Government was trying to pass the ERA *equal rights amendment* which even Richard Nixon wanted to see passed. It's a shame because of all the Cosmic Horror this film projects, it is countered by the very existence of this woman and her cat. 

If I have one more thing to offer in this discussion, it's that the human emotions in this movie overwhelms and dooms the crew of the Nostromo. Emotions on Earth helped us survive and evolve over the millennia but they are useless in the cold darkness of outer space. Emotions are our greatest strength, our empathy, our compassion, our fear, our curiosity, but they are also our most fatal weaknesses. 

"The Perfect Organism" The Xenomorph