The night after seeing "Prometheus" we sat down, turned off all the lights and fired up the original 1979 Ridley Scott film, ALIEN. This is classic sci-fi at its best, with excellent production design, special effects, superb music and so many now-classic sequences, they become hard to count.
I remember seeing ALIEN at the Cine Capri in Phoenix opening weekend and being blown away. At the time, the first chest bursting scene was the biggest shock on the big screen since Janet Leigh's shower murder in the first act of Hitchcock's "Psycho".
Director Ridley Scott had made one well respected film, "The Duellists" in 1977 when he helmed ALIEN. His take on a space bound horror thriller was shocking. Deliberate, character driven and mysterious, every moment was a discovery of a world we had never seen.
Many of us live and breathe the Alien universe now, but on a Friday night in 1979, it was a revelation of scares, amazing creatures we had never seen and to this day, a damn near perfect blend of practical and special effects.
The cast is perfect. Sigourney Weaver blew up as Ripley, kicking ass here in a style she would take to even greater heights in James Cameron's brilliant sequel seven years later.
Tom Skerritt (Top Gun, M*A*S*H*) is Dallas, the laid back skipper of the massive Nostromo mining vessel. No one does "everyman" like Skerritt. Harry Dean Stanton (The Green Mile) and Yaphet Kotto (Live and Let Die) are Brett and Parker, our comedy relief as two grunts just wanting their fair share.
John Hurt (Heaven's Gate, The Elephant Man) is unforgettable as Kane, the first victim of a face hugger. The famous dinner scene was shot with the actors not knowing what to expect when Kane comes down with the worst case of heartburn on record. The look of shock on Veronica Cartwright's face as Lambert is real, accented by a LOT of unexpected stage blood.
When that moment happened in the theater opening night in 1979, the crowd screamed and then fell into a shocked silence, followed by one guy the row ahead of me muttering, "Holy Shit.." which bust the entire audience up. We all needed a laugh to find our footing.
From that moment forward, Ridley grabs you by the throat and never lets go.
Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings, Brazil) completes the cast as Ash, the only crew member who seems unrattled by the carnage around him. I wonder why.......
Jerry Goldsmith delivers one of his all time best music scores. From the atonal, haunting violins over the main title to the full orchestra meltdown during "The Recovery", his music has a starring role in elevating the scares.
Did you know that casting Ripley came down to two actresses and the other one was Meryl Streep? Hard to picture anyone but Sigourney in the role. Harrison Ford turned down Skerritt's role as Captain Dallas as well.
The alien design by HR Giger is flawless. The way that Scott and the set designers made the Alien part of the set design is incredible. Only on second and third viewings do you see the Alien, right there, waiting for its moment.
Many of the scenes take on new meaning after seeing Prometheus. The only draw back is wondering why all the hardware, spacesuits and surroundings are SO low tech here, when it takes place years after the events in the slick, fantastic digital world of Prometheus. Of course the answer is that the movie making tools Ridley had to play with in 2012 dwarf what he had to create Alien in 1979.
Make sure and check out the Director's Cut of Alien for some great new scenes and subtle effects by Scott.
An all-time favorite, ALIEN gets an A, only because James Cameron's sequel ALIENS is an all time top 10 favorite and emerges as slightly superior to the original.
Check out the original, legendary trailer below, from the summer of 1979.
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