I have always loved this film; I’ve watched this film again,
again and again, countless times. In fact I think it’s fair to say that I know
every detail about this movie, all the characters, all the deleted scenes, not
being big headed, but basically everything that a viewer could know.
The movie starts off quite well I thought, beginning with
the commercial towing vehicle “The Nostromo” slowly moving through the dense
blackness of space entirely on autopilot carrying 20,000,000 tons of mineral
ore back to Earth whilst her crew sleep in their hyper sleep chambers.
This ships computer receives a message that it could not
translate, it was unable to make a determination of its meaning so immediately
arose the crew from their sleep.
The crew of course upon awakening, believe they have woken
because they have neared their destination of Earth but sadly this is not the
case, as they themselves find out when they try to reach Antarctica traffic
control, and Lambert notices that she does not recognize the system that they
are in, and tries to locate Earth, only to find its along way away and they
hadn’t reached the “outer rim”.
The crew of course gather in the mess hall and Dallas explains that the
message caused the ship to wake them up, because it was programmed to should
the need arise.
The movie starts to take shape after this, as the crew are
forced to intercept the message despite the inability to ascertain its meaning,
as its strictly company policy and they’d all forfeit their salaries should they
ignore it.
As The Nostromo nears the planet in which the signal
originates, the crew prepare the separation sequence and disconnect the ship
from its mass cargo so that they can land on the planets surface and begin
investigating.
Once on the ground they quickly do checks and discover that
the planet appears to be in a state of deep cold, and is not habitable by
humans.
Luckily they managed to set down not far from the ship
sending the signal, and are able to walk to the downed ship though they are met
with harsh atmospheric conditions, making it very difficult to move around
easily.
The away team spot the craft and are somewhat mystified by
it, or so I thought, they manage to find an opening and look inside.
After looking about and seeing a space jockey dead in his
pilot seat, Kane discovers an opening in the floor and proceeds with help from
the other away team members to climb down, only to discover a large, well very
large room, filled with organic eggs.
These said eggs seem to be covered by a thin layer of blue
mist, that Kane unfortunately disturbs when he loses his balance and falls in,
somewhat intrigued by one of the eggs apparent movement, he looks closer and
ends up with a spider looking organism breaking through his faceplate and
attaching itself to his face, inserting a tube I guess into this throat.
Eventually after much hostile feelings from the crew aboard
the “Nostromo” about quarantine procedures etc, Kane’s mysterious creature
detaches itself from its host, and dies. The crew of course do not witness this
event because they were busy piloting the “Nostromo” back their ships
counterpart in space.
After Ash’s call over the intercom, 3 of them hurry to the
infirmary.
Indeed the guest has vanished, but is subsequently found by
Ripley moments later to be dead, it had hidden in a duct on the ceiling of the
infirmary.
Kane regains consciousness and immediately wants something
to eat, at the dining table he begins to have what appear to be convulsions,
but a small creature bursts through his rib cage and eye the stunned and
shocked crew.
The creature remains unfound for a short period and the crew
come up with various ways to locate their unwanted visitor, sadly, many deaths
are to ensue because the creature has become quite large and cunning.
Brett is the next person to die, in a mining room full of
mining equipment, he becomes distracted by the cat, which is letting out very
clear hissing sounds; he whirls around to find that he’s being towered by a
less than friendly looking alien which grabs him and kills him.
In the directors cut of this, Parker and Ripley hear his
screams and rush into the same room only for parker to be showered with his
friends blood from above.
In the original however, there is no such scene, the next
scene takes us back to the mess hall where Parker explains that this alien has
become an obvious real threat.
Why Dallas
the captain chooses to pursue it through the air duct tunnels is beyond me, the
creature just killed a man of equal size, and he decides to go after it in the
tunnels by himself.
Obviously that ended badly, because he inadvertently
scrambles down a set of ladders right into the arms of the alien.
This was probably not helped by Lambert at the time, because
she was becoming hysterical and yelling at an already panicked man tell him to
get out of there because they could see movement headed toward him on their
devised technology, I think Dallas knew right at that moment he had made a big
mistake going it alone.
After his death the crew decide to abandon ship, and whilst
Lambert and Parker this time are gathering supplies, Ripley discovers that Ash
is an android who has been protecting the alien creature all along, she finds
that the computer has sent Ash a special order which states basically that the
creature is to be returned to the company all crew expendable.
Ripley jostles with Ash in the computer room and leaves
promptly, only to be pursued by Ash, she looks at him and notices white blood
on his head.
Now Ash has been caught he tries to kill Ripley himself but
is interrupted by Parker and Lambert how zap him with a cattle prod contraption
that Brett had devised before his death.
Cutting a long story short, Lambert and Parker are next to
die by the alien, Lambert notices a shadow behind her and when she looks it’s
the creature, Parker too sees this and unable to prepare his flame unit in
time, he decides to tackle the creature hand to hand, which fails, and both
Lambert and Parker die.
Ripley who heard the commotion over the intercom races into
the room only to see the 2 dead bodies, in a panic she races through the dark
gangways and into a heat exchanger room, she shuts down the coolant system
prompting an autodestruct sequence.
She scrambles through the tunnels quietly this time and does
see the alien, but is lucky enough to escape before the alien see her, however
she dropped the cats carrier and the alien looks eagerly at the cat in the box
but does nothing.
Ripley runs back to disable the autodestruct but the system
fails to respond and the timer continues, in a rage she smashes some equipment
in the room and returns to where she had dropped the cat.
She grabs the cat and heads to the EEV, preps for immediate
departure, and escapes moments before the “Nostromo” explodes.
Sadly when she is preparing to go into hyper sleep, a hand,
camouflaged by the walls appears, and Ripley realizes the alien has followed
her.
In a panic she races to a locker room and climbs into a
space suit, while watching the alien through the screen on the door.
She sneaks back into the cockpit with the alien and slides
close to a control panel which regulates gases. She presses a few buttons and
watching gas vapor escape close to the alien, she hits the next button and the
gas clouds the alien infuriating it, it climbs to its feet and Ripley turns
slowly to look away, only to catch a glimpse of the creature in the corner of
her eye about to attack, in a panic she hits the door release button and the
alien is sucked to the door, it grabs on though an Ripley shoots it with a harpoon
gun and slams the door.
Inadvertently the door closes before the harpoon gun has a
chance to pass through, meaning the alien was tethered to the ship, Ripley
notices it trying to scramble into one of the thrusters and immediately
activates them, and the alien is destroyed.
Ripley was the only human survivor and goes into hyper
sleep, in the hope that the network would pick her up.
The End.
My thoughts and views
To Follow!
