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So, I decided to finally watch the movie despite me knowing alot about the alien francise, but never watching anything but 4?
I all honesty. the sequel is better, it its a better horror and action movie. The original felt slow and just boring at times. And I didnt car for any of the chracters.
But 2 made it better and so much more fun to watch. more tense scences, when the alien queen comes out of the elevator, I was scared, Even though I knew the ending, I was scared they where not going to make it. And I feel it does the "Females can be both action heroes and nurturing at the same time" thing so much better, Newt at Ripley where great together.
Alien wasnt a bad film, it just wasnt fun.

It was also the first of its kind, kind of like how Star Wars made fantasy space opera explode. And, Alien is really a different genre than the sequel. Alien is pure horror, Aliens was an action movie.

I wasnt scared for much of Alien though.

I think Alien and Aliens are two very different kinds of movies. Alien is one of the most intense horror movies ever (especially in it's ability to actually terrify an audience as opposed to get some gag shocks out of them.

Aliens is less a horror film and more of a thriller to me. Of the two though, Aliens has aged better imo.

Alien has kind of become old hat in a way. Lots of the things it did, were still fresh at the time of it's release, but have since become staples of the genre (last woman standing, some member of the cast having an obsession with the creature killing them, corporate scheming behind the scenes). The movie was a much fresher film in 1979, so I can see how someone watching it today might be less impressed.

I mean, I still felt it was good on a technical standard and what it did.
But I can see, kinda how what star trek did with Sci-fi

It's like watching citizen kane. It invented half the conventions movies use today, but because those conventions have been done to death since then you've seen it all before and it doesn't seem special.

Most movies made in that era have not aged well.

Aliens is better, but Alien is still an excellent and groundbreaking film. If you can't see that for yourself, no one is going to be able to help you realize that.

I do like Aliens better (see the avatar), but they're both absolutely masterful genre-defining films...Alien starts slow, but it's great at building tension, and the acting is amazing. The scene where Dallas goes into the ducts makes me nervous every time, even though I know exactly what's going to happen (the scene in Aliens where the marines enter the hive gives me the same feeling...).

Of course, not every movie is for everyone!

 Grey Templar wrote:
Most movies made in that era have not aged well.

I'd say the area though that most films of that era have shown their age is in their olden times special effects. Alien, because of it's excellent set work and dark colors, I think has actually aged exceptionally well in this respect. Its still very good visually.

The area where its aged really, is in how much it's basic ideas have been copied and reiterated. So much so that I imagine people who've seen lots of horror films already and are just watching it for the first time, are already very familiar with the films elements and plot. About the only thing that really remains eternal is the Alien itself, which honestly, I don't think anyone can ever manage to recreate the same way again.

Its a generational thing. Young hipsters that are too cool for life aren't impressed by anything that's not completely CGI and they just won't get the point. Good money says you likely shrugged meh while watching Jaws.

Those movies are about the tension and getting into the viewers primordial headspace, which most current day films fail at horribly as they are focused on the dazzle and special effects.

The first time you see the chestburster it's borderline wee inducing, once you've seen it it's no longer nearly as terrifying. Watching the sequels first ruins the majesty of the original film as it waters down all the suspense elements of the unknown.

Um....no, I never said anything about effects, I'm not stupid.

Besides being a trend setter, it had the factor of turning the last girl trope on its head. Typically its a man who acts as the hero, and he's your A typical space marine. Ripley at first isn't penned as the star, she's just another member of the crew, and if you know that things are going to go bad you should fully expect her to die horribly soon on. Instead she winds up surviving and subverting the notion that well, that's a man's role ...youknow not dying horribly. Of course originally (IIRC) Ripley was supposed to be a guy, but having the role be acted by a woman certainly set the film aside.

The visuals certainly hold up too, as does the atmosphere. You've seen Star War's space ship sets, well here's a film entirely set on one. Hey let's fling you from that nice not quite white, and well a bit dingy set into some alien architecture and turn this film from being about the day to day lives of the crew to ...the day to day lives of the crew, but with everyone being hunted down (which if it hadn't we'd have Dark Star...). Sure the premise has come up since, but that film put a lot more effort in, and as they were breaking ground to an extent what they did doesn't feel nearly as cliche (it helps that its a genuinely good film, and not just phoned in). Oh, but yes, on the subject of the shift in visuals, the alien itself was a massive draw. Now that's a great design, come on. Sure its been overdone with all the sequels and the need to add variants, but the original is certainly striking.

That film's all about the atmosphere. Put down it for being too slow, but that allows it to build over time till we're at the point where Ripley's toting a flamethrower through the corridors and finally hunting the alien instead of being hunted. The start of the film builds the world and characters, after that you're in a state of confusion about what the hell's going on, and then suspense as people start to fall. When everyone else is dead though Ripley goes from being that "you're gonna die girl!" character to becoming an action hero, and at that point you're invested enough with her that the later half's a rather "hell yeah!" sequence.

The second movie's for the action tropers, however its rather the original movie in reverse in terms of developing from horror to action. See I liked that as it starts out with the typical world building, then we meet the marines and everyone thinks its going to be all about just murdering everything. ...Till most of them die, and then the remaining ones have some character development. They're a bunch of blowhards who fall apart when faced by the unknown. Ripley was a nobody, but she pulled herself up through her experiences. The marines think they know everything, but the results of that first encounter tell the viewer a lot about that.

But yes, besides being a worthy watch because of its genre setting credentials, it does actually hold up as a decent film. Heh, now go acquaint yourself Dark Star.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Of course originally (IIRC) Ripley was supposed to be a guy, but having the role be acted by a woman certainly set the film aside.

Originally the script did not call for any character to be male or female. Notice that throughout the film the characters tend to use their last names. That's literally how the script was written. Last names only. The sex of the characters wasn't really set till they finally did the casting.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I wasnt scared for much of Alien though.

You aren't thinking enough.

The Xenomorph is rape incarnate. Everything about its nature is sexual, it was designed to be sexual, the way it reproduces is sexually violent (a spider latches onto your face and pumps your throat with a proboscis that drops an egg into your stomach that latches onto your aorta and feeds upon it), hell even the way it kills people is sexually violent. You know how it killed Lambert right?

While ALIENS is a good movie, it's good for another reason as it breaks down the stereotypical action movie with the feth YEAH MUHRINES BRO-SKI characters charging in like it's any other action movie, then getting brutally murdered because of it.

Also, the original cut of ALIEN was going to be a lot more horrifying, unfortunately those elements removed. Originally the Xenomorph was fully implied to be sentient/sapient and a complete sadist that brutally murdered humans because it found it fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stanman wrote:
Its a generational thing. Young hipsters that are too cool for life aren't impressed by anything that's not completely CGI and they just won't get the point. Good money says you likely shrugged meh while watching Jaws.

Those movies are about the tension and getting into the viewers primordial headspace, which most current day films fail at horribly as they are focused on the dazzle and special effects.

The first time you see the chestburster it's borderline wee inducing, once you've seen it it's no longer nearly as terrifying. Watching the sequels first ruins the majesty of the original film as it waters down all the suspense elements of the unknown.

While I agree with the sentiment, ALIEN, and virtually all horror movies, are not horrifying. I saw the chestbuster scene when I was in my early teens and it was just meh.

If you want actually horrifying material, that's real war footage. Movies are entirely fictional, and thus there's no investment. Nothing is scary because it's all fake and can never hurt you.

I'm just wondering when younger audiences watch these older films are they sitting down and watching them and not using phones/tablets/laptops at the same time.

That'd be a mighty distraction in my book.

Perhaps "young people these days" have grown up with instant gratification from VOD and consequently have not learned the patience to sit through a film or play that takes a couple of hours to build its plot. I don't mean this as a pejorative, simply a possible result of the way modern culture is produced and consumed.

35 years ago, if you wanted to watch a TV drama series, you had to sit down at 9 p.m. every Wednesday night to watch each episode as it was broadcast. There was no +1 channel, no catch-up TV and probably not even a VHS release until a couple of years after first broadcast. The virtue of patience was forced upon the viewer.

However, to go back to the topic, here is part of what Roger Ebert said about Alien.

Roger Ebert wrote: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 ...").

A recent version of this story would have hurtled toward the part where the alien jumps on the crew members. Today's slasher movies, in the sci-fi genre and elsewhere, are all pay-off and no buildup. Consider the wretched remake of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which cheats its audience out of an explanation, an introduction of the chain-saw family, and even a proper ending. It isn't the slashing that we enjoy. It's the waiting for the slashing.

Hitchcock knew this, with his famous example of a bomb under a table. (It goes off -- that's action. It doesn't go off -- that's suspense.)

Full review here...

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/alien-2009

 Wyzilla wrote:

You aren't thinking enough.

The Xenomorph is rape incarnate.

Maybe for some people there's no fear of being penetrated by large black penis headed creatures?



btw the facehugger, isn't just a spider legged face rape, is a spider legged vagina that swallows your face before injecting it's face rape bits so it covers disturbing imagery for both sexes.

 Wyzilla wrote:
While I agree with the sentiment, ALIEN, and virtually all horror movies, are not horrifying. I saw the chestbuster scene when I was in my early teens and it was just meh.

If you want actually horrifying material, that's real war footage. Movies are entirely fictional, and thus there's no investment. Nothing is scary because it's all fake and can never hurt you.

This is entirely subjective. Different people get the heebie jeebies from different things.

Sci fi and fantasy horror really gets to me. That whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. When I first saw The Thing is absolutely terrified me, and I was in my late teens. When I saw Alien for the first time I was 15, and I was jumping at shadows all night. Those movies still make me uneasy, despite having seen them many, many times.

I can watch a slasher flick like Friday the 13th, Halloween or Scream and enjoy it, because the bad guy is a guy in a mask who is going to get his comeuppance eventually. There's nothing really unknown. By their nature they tend to telegraph their scares a long way off as well. Similarly, I can watch war movies and not feel a thing. I like watching the action, but I'm not really feeling horrified by the actions of other humans. The closest I came to feeling bad was during the episode of Band of Brothers when they find the concentration camp, and that was because it hit home due to my grandfather being kept in one during the war. Real war footage doesn't do much to me either, probably because I've been desentitised by military shooters over the years.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
While I agree with the sentiment, ALIEN, and virtually all horror movies, are not horrifying. I saw the chestbuster scene when I was in my early teens and it was just meh.

If you want actually horrifying material, that's real war footage. Movies are entirely fictional, and thus there's no investment. Nothing is scary because it's all fake and can never hurt you.

This is entirely subjective. Different people get the heebie jeebies from different things.

Sci fi and fantasy horror really gets to me. That whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. When I first saw The Thing is absolutely terrified me, and I was in my late teens. When I saw Alien for the first time I was 15, and I was jumping at shadows all night. Those movies still make me uneasy, despite having seen them many, many times.

I can watch a slasher flick like Friday the 13th, Halloween or Scream and enjoy it, because the bad guy is a guy in a mask. There's nothing really unknown. By their nature they tend to telegraph their scares a long way off as well. Similarly, I can watch war movies and not feel a thing. I like watching the action, but I'm not really feeling horrified by the actions of other humans. The closest I came to feeling bad was during the episode of Band of Brothers when they find the concentration camp, and that was because it hit home due to my grandfather being kept in one during the war. Real war footage doesn't do much to me either, probably because I've been desentitised by military shooters over the years.

But virtually nothing in any horror movie is physically possible unless it's just a generic real life serial killer like the Zodiac Killer. The Xenomorph, Thing, etc however all are physically impossible, and thus there is no reason to fear what cannon exist on Earth.

But I think that's exactly the point of Alien, The Thing and even Predator is that it isn't earth bound life that we know the rules to. Because they are completely extra terrestrial life forms they are not limited by what we assume to know, and are not bound by earth born evolutions that we understand. One can say that it's impossible with earth creatures, but with a truly alien life form all bets are off.

 stanman wrote:
But I think that's exactly the point of Alien, The Thing and even Predator is that it isn't earth bound life that we know the rules to. Because they are completely extra terrestrial life forms they are not limited by what we assume to know, and are bound by earth born evolutions that we understand.

It doesn't matter if they aren't bound by Earth's evolution, physics still apply to them. The Thing would combust in real life given the temperatures generated by its cellular regeneration and mutation. The Xenomorph meanwhile would die of a hyperactive metabolism and a lack of food to give it the compounds to molt constantly.

In short, it's fiction for a reason. It doesn't matter if it's alien life, radiation, genetic engineering, etc. It can't function. And there is no point being frightened of something that both does not exist and cannot exist.

Yet you have suspense movies that are borderline horror movies based off of real creatures, Jaws or Ghost in the Darkness. Granted Jaws is fictional supersized but even standard sized sharks can kill you dead without much effort, same with lions. Granted I've never been to Africa so I tend not to worry about killer lions, crocs or tigers, but even in fresh water where I know for certain there wouldn't be a shark there's a primal part of my brain that twinges thinking "shark!" at times. In the ocean it's a hundred fold.


Fear isn't something that resides in the logical part of the brain that understands rules and rationality, fear is buried deep in the primal and emotional parts of our brain and the things that set it off don't need to play on logic to make us frightened. Just because something is not real or impossible doesn't mean that elements of it's design doesn't trigger a reaction with deep underlying emotional response. Insects generally aren't something to be feared but there's tons of people with deep phobias about them as it's not a logic based response. Hitchcock often referenced that tricking the brains emotional response to fill in the unknown was far more effective at prompting a reaction than showing the act itself.

 Wyzilla wrote:
And there is no point being frightened of something that both does not exist and cannot exist.

Welcome to Earth, enjoy your stay!

 stanman wrote:
Yet you have suspense movies that are borderline horror movies based off of real creatures, Jaws or Ghost in the Darkness. Granted Jaws is fictional supersized but even standard sized sharks can kill you dead without much effort, same with lions. Granted I've never been to Africa so I tend not to worry about killer lions, crocs or tigers, but even in fresh water where I know for certain there wouldn't be a shark there's a primal part of my brain that twinges thinking "shark!" at times. In the ocean it's a hundred fold.

And you are more likely to die to cattle or a coconut falling on your head then dying to a shark attack (Seriously! Shark attacks are downright mundane statistically). Again, horror movies are fictional, sensationalized events that present a boogeyman that is either incapable of existing, or so highly unlikely to ever meet it's not worth wasting the brain cells to mull over the odds.

While as an irrational child/teenager horror movies could sometimes spook me, as an adult I simply am able to recognize the barrier between fiction and reality. And by rational deduction there simply is no point to even feel fear over something that can't hurt you.

What a bundle of joy...

Both we're awesome and completely different in their own right

If your anadult it's probably not going to scare you anyway

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Both we're awesome and completely different in their own right

If your anadult it's probably not going to scare you anyway

The hunt continues however. I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

If you want a terrifying experience watch anything by Micheal Bay, then realize he's still getting paid to make movies.

I haven't been able to sleep right since Transformers 4.

 paulson games wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I constantly try to find a horror movie that scares me so bad that I can't sleep at night, but it hasn't happened in over six years.

If you want a terrifying experience watch anything by Micheal Bay, then realize he's still getting paid to make movies.

I haven't been able to sleep right since Transformers 4.

If I wanted that kind of terror, I'd just watch a Sarah Palin interview and remind myself this woman could have ended up as President.