Alien 1979

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.

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