Ridley Scott Alien (1979)

Alien is 1979 sci-fi thriller directed by Ridley Scott. It follows a group of crew members as the encounter a message from a planet. When the Nostromo, a cargo ship carrying mineral ore encounters a message from a planet, the ships mother wakes the crew from a cryo sleep and on orders they land on the planet damaging the ship. Dallas, Kane and Lambert all go out to explore and find out the planets structure and find the origin of the message. While on the surface Kane is attacked on the inside of a ship, which is where they discovered the signal coming from. They take Kane back to the cargo ship where Ripley, the second in command refuses them entry because she doesnt want to endanger the rest of the crew. Back on the ship, the science officer attempts to remove the alien from Kanes face to no end, and they find it has a highly corrosive acid for blood, which burns through 3 decks of the ship.

Fig 1

Eventually they find the creature detached from Kane, dead. Kane however seems to be fine, and has a meal with the rest of the crew, but halfway through the meal he starts to choke and from his stomach bursts a worm like alien. This is an incredibly famous scene because John Kurt who plays Kane was the only cast member Fig 2 to know what was happening, the rest of the crew were given vague script lines, All it said in the script was, "This thing emerges." (Weaver. 2009) This helps the other actors to maintain a good sense of fear to make the audience really feel for the characters rather than make it seem like watching a rehearsed scene where all the emotions are obviously fake. The newly born alien escapes into the depth of the ship and the crew go after it. This is followed by quite a big plot hole, within the space of minutes, maybe an hour the alien grows from a baby to adult size. It continues to evade the ship killing the entire crew except for Ripley, including the science officer who is revealed to be a robot who is trying to protect the alien above all other priorities, including the crew.

Ripley sets the ship to self-destruct and gets on an escaoe vessel. The final scene has caused a huge controversy with women because the whole film portrays her as a tough character (the character with intended for a male actor) and unlike Barbarella she is the dominant character with no need to being saved. Therefore this scene shows the opposite, objectifying her to the male audience. Afterwards she finds the alien on the escape pod and puts on a spacesuit ad opens the doors and blasts it out with a grapple gun.

Fig 2

Possibly the greatest science fiction horror film of all time; Alien is a masterpiece (Film Geek, 2011) this refers to the set design; this film was before the age of CG and therefore the sets are all real and this creates the illusion that they are really on a space vessel.

Illustrations Figure 01 Alien (1979) Dir. Ridley Scott [Film Poster] http://www.impawards.com/1979/posters/alien.jpg Figure 02 Alien (1979) Dir. Ridley Scott [Film Still] http://blogs.abc.net.au/.a/6a00e0097e4e6888330133f5f5fa2b970b-350wi Figure 03 Alien (1979) Dir. Ridley Scott [Film Still] http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?num=10&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1TEUA_enGB478GB478& biw=613&bih=281&tbm=isch&tbnid=69BCMx2nsnIHNM:&imgrefurl=http://jordanbuckner.blogspot. com/2009/11/alien.html&docid=PpZuTeAGJdGUDM&imgurl=http://www.comicbookmovie.com/im ages/users/uploads/8475/Sigourney_1979_alien_009.jpg&w=400&h=431&ei=gJWIUI2JEqq40QWE5 4CIDQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=110&vpy=87&dur=316&hovh=163&hovw=169&tx=143&ty=229&sig=106415739948786886770&sqi=2&page= 2&tbnh=163&tbnw=168&start=4&ndsp=7&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0,i:87

Bibliography Weaver, S (The Guardian, 2009)[Online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/13/making-ofalien-chestburster Film Geek (Film Guy, 2011) [Online] http://www.thatfilmguy.net/alien-1979/