Alien (1979)
A benchmark science fiction film, Alien is a simple premise but given profound and complex treatment. It’s also one of the scariest horror films of it (or any) era, and though its Oscar-winning visual effects have been eclipsed many times over, it remains one of the few made in the 1970s that stands up as well today as it had in the year it was released.
The story begins in the year 2122, onboard the commercial towing vessel, the Nostromo. Its mostly blue-collar crew, five men and two women, are awakened prematurely while still in deep space from their cryogenic slumber en route back to Earth. The reason for their early disturbance has to do with the company’s policy to investigate potential alien life forms, so when what appears to be an SOS signal is being transmitted from a moon in their relative vicinity, their overriding primary mission is changed to checking out the situation. Upon landing on the desolate planet, the scientists discover what appears to be eggs containing another form of life, one of which hatches and latches itself to one of the crew. Unable to remove the creature, it is brought back on board the Nostromo, where it grows at a rapid pace to become one of the deadliest killing machines humankind has ever faced.
The idea for Alien came from the mind of screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, along with his friend Ronald Shusett, combining elements of a screenplay he was working on for some time about gremlins attacking the crew onboard a B-17 Flying Fortress, with another story idea-in-progress, initially called Memory, which contained horror-based narrative ideas he had concocted but didn’t use for his mostly comedic prior effort, a film school project turned feature film for then-friend John Carpenter that he helped to write, edit, design, and star in called Dark Star (the unused idea: a spaceship answering a strange distress signal on a mysterious planet and an alien being that attaches to one of the rescue party’s face and later escapes his body, notably – inspired by O’Bannon’s own experience with Crohn’s Disease, which he compared to the feeling of having a beast inside him). The new screenplay had the initial title of Star Beast, eventually changing to Alien due to its more ambiguous connotations in the various meanings, as well as seeming less silly (despite this, the film’s title would be translated in most non-English speaking parts of the world at the time to The Eighth Passenger). It was to be an homage to the sci-fi and horror films of the 1950s, especially 1958’s It! The Terror from Beyond Space, combining space exploration with a “monster in the house” atmosphere.
After it was completed, O’Bannon found no takers, with 20th Century Fox initially deeming the story too grim and violent, and several other studios also passed as well for similar reasons. There were no takers other than b-movie outfits like Roger Corman’s New World Pictures (who offered O’Bannon the chance to create his own effort on a shoestring budget, but Shusett wisely encouraged to not accept due to the sci-fi craze in the wake of Star Wars), until the screenplay found its way to Brandywine Studios, a small studio with ties to Fox run by the production team of Walter Hill, David Giler, and Gordon Carroll, who bought the option to make into a movie for the low, low cost of $1,000.
Hill ended up overhauling the script over several days after securing the deal, with creative input from David Giler, adding more suspense and less out-and-out horror, repitching it to Fox with the stipulation that he was likely going to be the one to direct. The studio’s president, Alan Ladd Jr., was sold on the idea of this new script, especially with its ending that he felt echoed the show scene in Psycho, feeling like audiences would absolutely go for the mix of shock and suspense. They felt that it would be a combination of the two most successful films of the era, Jaws and Star Wars, which had been running up unheard-of box office numbers for Fox at that time, increasing the desire to green-light more space adventures.
As the production would start to get up to speed, Walter Hill would become unavailable due to his production on The Warriors. Respected veteran director Robert Aldrich was consulted as a possibility but was subsequently passed over because he didn’t seem to share the same vision for the film, regarding it as just a paycheck project. Several other directors passed on it as well, which led Ladd to give the reins to relative newcomer Ridley Scott, a veteran television commercial director who had made a nice critical debut for the 1977 film, The Duellists. which Ladd particularly enjoyed. Despite eventually making two masterworks of the genre (he followed up Alien with Blade Runner), Scott was not at all a fan of science fiction going into the films. He decided not to dwell on the whiz-bang nature of space travel and instead keep everything grounded, preferring to set the tone by building up tension to mount the story as a suspense thriller.
The first order of business for Scott was to make an alien that audiences would find truly frightening, which few filmmakers had tended to do, making their films border on laughable over time. Inspired by a viewing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scott wanted audiences to grip their armrests in apprehension and fright every time they suspected the alien might show its ugly visage on the screen. As he was going over models and designs, O’Bannon handed him a book by the work of Swiss artist H.R. Giger he was introduced to while working on the never-completed Dune project for Alejandro Jodorowski. Scott found the surreal “biomechanical” art to be truly unnerving yet captivating, and he keyed into one particular phallus-inspired illustration called “Necronom IV” as the one that he wanted his creature to be modeled after. He secured Giger to come up with other storyboarded designs, which led to other nightmarish aspects within the film, from the embryonic nature of the creature’s origin to its impregnation and “birth”, to the design of artifacts on the alien planet, and to the look of the interior of the ship. To get some of the more science fiction aspects, they consulted with other futuristic artists O’Bannon had gotten familiar with while they worked in Paris on Dune, like Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Ron Cobb, and Chris Foss, especially in the design of the spacesuits and the technology aboard the Nostromo.
Despite Fox and Brandywine’s push to give Hill and Giler screenwriting credit and O’Bannon a “story by” credit, arbitration with the Writers Guild proved unsuccessful, awarding O’Bannon with the sole credit for the script they felt was too elementary and unsophisticated without the ideas they brought into it during the rewrite phase, changing the names of the characters (and the ship from “Snark” to “Nostromo”, in an homage to a Joseph Conrad novel about mining, as the spaceship is a space-bound mining vessel). They also developed the inclusion and the surprise nature of Ash and his conspiratorial connection to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (an aspect O’Bannon hated and continues to think unnecessary), the flipping of two characters as female (this was Fox head Alan Ladd’s suggestion; O’Bannon, who wrote them as men but said they could be unisex roles, stated that the only character that he felt should absolutely be male was the one who would come to be known as Kane, so as to not change the nature of the character’s metamorphosis to a perverse and sexualized metaphor), turning one of the female characters into the lead, and the introduction of a cat onboard the vessel . They also changed the tone of the story from 50s pastiche to the more grittier and edgier tone of earlier, darker cinema, but with more realistic and natural dialogue.
To fill the lead female character of Ripley, Meryl Streep was Scott’s top choice, but it was an inopportune time to approach her with such a bleak picture, as she was still mourning the loss of her then romantic partner, John Cazale, to cancer. Subsequently, at the suggestion of Warren Beatty to David Giler after seeing her do a little work as a stage actress, the producers took a look at Sigourney Weaver, a relative unknown to films, who, purely coincidentally, had been a classmate of Streep’s at Yale Drama School. Weaver was called in a number of times before they were sure she was the one they wanted to go with for the role, originally slotted for Veronica Cartwright, who moved into the Lambert role once Weaver accepted. Unlike some of the others in the cast, Weaver’s box office appeal was absolute zero, which prompted her to accept the offer for the part for only $30,000. Contrast this to the “xenomorph” suit, which cost $250,000 to make (including an additional suit to be used by a stuntman), despite only being used in a few moments of screen time in the end. A very thin, approximately seven-foot-tall Nigerian named Bolaji Badejo, graphic art student discovered by one of the casting directors while in a London pub one night, inhabited the full-body xenomorph suit, who was promptly trained with tai chi and pantomime techniques to play the part convincingly.
Due to the success of Star Wars, Fox decided to put more money into the sets and effects work than they would in securing big-name stars to sell the picture. However, it would become clear that they were going to have to take a chance with its release, as Scott’s conceptual push for the film would mean investing more money into the effort. Due to the widening scale of the undertaking, especially after Giger’s designs were brought on board, the initial $3 million budget grew to $5 million, then $8 million, finally settling on just under $11 million, with an additional $16 million given to pushing out the advertisement and promotion prior to its release. Because of the investment and the Star Wars swing to more optimistic adventures, Ridley Scott’s originally intended bleaker ending was altered significantly at the behest of the studio.
Although much of the formula that Alien would popularize has been lifted many times in science fiction over the years, there is still an intangible quality of Ridley Scott’s direction that keeps this one head and shoulders above all of the imitators. Unlike other science fiction films, Alien is decidedly grimy and low-tech, showcasing not only the relative boredom of space travel but also the terror of its infinite isolation. Set design is definitely a strength, as the ship they are all on feels like a freighter, with its hulking size and cluttered denseness that provide plenty of shelter for a man-eating creature to camouflage. For such a horrific suspense film, there is a quiet beauty to the build-up, taking a deliberate amount of time setting up the struggles, while the desolation of space is always apparent, even when you can’t see it.
One thing that the film should get credit for that viewers often forget given how ingrained in popular culture the series has become is its revelatory narrative. We all know today that Sigourney Weaver would become known for her portrayal as the hero of the Alien franchise, but at the time of filming, she was the least well-known among the cast, with Tom Skerritt getting top billing (reportedly, Harrison Ford was briefly considered for the Dallas role but declined because he didn’t want to follow up one big sci-fi picture set in space with another; he would team up with Scott on his next picture, however).
Weaver’s character becoming the lynchpin by the end of the film would be a surprise for those seeing the film for the first time. Also, the nature of Ash (who was not in the O’Bannon’s original script, but a character added shortly before production began to give a more sinister backstory to their mission and provide that futuristic twist), given no build-up at all in the story, is a truly shocking moment, perhaps just as shocking as the moment where Kane reveals why he isn’t feeling good. Add to this, most people going into the film for the first time in 1979 had no idea what the alien would look like, and would be mortified at its nature and the body horror elements incurred by its predatory activities. Although it’s hard to put it out of your mind given how we take for granted these things’ it might seem tame today, but for its era, it was a true shocker in the world of cinema.
The rapport among this fine set of character actors is particularly impressive. Although all of them have relatively few lines of dialogue, you instantly recognize that these are people that have known each other intimately for a very long time. The conversations have a naturalistic flow, where typical blue-collar working stiffs talk over each other, and wink to one another as if inside jokes are commonplace. The actors grew bored during the long delays necessary in getting the technical nature of each scene up to Scott’s standards, so they would engage in some improvisation beyond their scripted dialogue, which Kotto and Stanton did whenever possible, sometimes to the deliberate annoyance of the rest of the cast, though it fits in with the nature of a crew acting as a family who’ve grown to both love and annoy one another through the closeness of their environment. Scott encouraged this, choosing actors who knew what would work best on their own, as he needed most of his time to be sure the technical parts were all moving as they should. It is this sense of realism, not only in its dialogue but also their reactions during the terrifying chain of events, that makes the horrific moments that much more effective.
Bleak and isolated, the terror starts immediately when you realize that these people are all alone in the middle of nowhere. No means of escape, no chance of rescue — hence the immortal tagline, “In space, no one can hear you scream…”. An unstoppable killer is on board and there seems to be no way to contain it. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is sparse, only coming into play on rare occasions, making the silence during some of the more intense scenes all the more effective in eliciting tension. H.R. Giger’s techno-sexual, insecto-reptilian xenomorph designs are grotesquely horrific, yet wholly intriguing — and the stuff of nightmares among many a viewer. It’s one of few cinematic monsters that are as truly frightening in full light as we imagine it to be in shadows.
But the real star is Ridley Scott himself, a veteran director of television commercials, in only his second effort as a feature film director, and his first in the science fiction genre. His sense of tone and build-up, where not much horrific happens, but when it does, it leaves such an indelible impression that you’re scared, even when nothing is going on, is the mark of a brilliant filmmaker. Along with his next film, Blade Runner, Scott would prove to be one of the most influential science fiction visionaries of all time, though, despite his success, he would stay away from the genre he had mastered so quickly for the next 30 years.
The promotion for the film targeted the science fiction community who came out in droves for Star Wars, and it would be released in the same month of the year (May) to hope lightning could strike twice. Of course, Star Wars was an optimistic, all-ages fantasy-adventure, and Alien a hard-R rated bleak horror film that didn’t inspire repeat viewings, so expectations of a blockbuster might have been a bit on the ambitious side, even though the film did do remarkably well, racking up nearly $60 million in the summer of 1979 in the United States, and over $100 million if its worldwide haul is included, and placing it firmly as a top 10 performer for the year.
Although considered a masterwork today, reviews of the film ran somewhere between mixed and generally good, with many critics at the time seeing the film as little more than a standard haunted house film set in space. While undeniably tense and scary, with award-winning visual effects work, they felt that the characters lacked sufficient development and the plot ran on the thin side. It was dismissed as a rather inconsequential b-movie at its core.
Despite these initial takes, the film would go on to become a staple of the rental market and on cable, eventually drawing out enough interest to give the story a sequel in 1986 with Aliens, which would cement the film’s status as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, along with Ripley as arguably the best female hero in a horror franchise. Ridley Scott would return to the franchise again in 2012 for a prequel of a sort, Prometheus, as well as its follow-up that ties much more into the backstory of the xenomorph origins, Alien: Covenant.
Although ahead of its time, Alien is also horror from the old school, never letting you really get a good glimpse of the object of everyone’s fears until the time is just right. By this time, we are so mortified by what it can do that true terror is achieved with certitude. With each passing year, its status as a classic becomes more secured. Absolutely essential viewing for anyone into science fiction/horror.
- Note: There is a 2003 director’s cut which shortens some scenes and adds some others, put together by the request of many fans who wanted to see what the film would be like with some of their favorite deleted scenes found in a studio vault years later were placed into the movie. They are interesting, but the differences aren’t significant to the overall impact of the film. Ridley Scott has subsequently come out to state that he considers the theatrical cut to be his truest vision for the film and that the “Director’s Cut” title was only done by the studio for marketing purposes.
Qwipster’s rating: A+
MPAA Rated: R for gore, scary moments, violence, and language
Running Time: 117 min.
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenplay: Dan O’Bannon