Alien 1979
Alien is an iconic sci-fi movie, making the future look everyday and realistic even if it all takes place on a spaceship and a foreign moon. Ridley Scott as the director applies a great blend of technology, fog, darkness, and dripping water that he would use again to such great effect in Blade Runner. Taking place in the confines of a ship with a crew of only six, he is able to serve up a lot of drama with a fairly small budget. The computers are really just dumb, but maybe that shows how ahead of its time Alien was on everything else, like a great movie that has those really giant cell phones.
A big part of the movie is the way the cast interacts, making the setting seem natural even if they are very much out of this world. Not at all glamorous, the crew feels very blue collar as they work the ship, land on a planet, and deal with a hostile alien. Scott borrows from Jaws by showing as little of the alien as possible and still probably overplaying his hand a little since the monster has a tendency to look fake. Not seeing the monster is really more frightening than seeing it, though he makes sure you jump when that thing attacks out of the darkness. Watching it again for the first time in a long time, I didn’t remember everything, but at the same time I was able to focus a little more on how things look or the performances and the movie really succeeds on those. I wish the blu-ray had more extras, but about all they have is a director’s commentary which I did not watch yet. I am not sure if other editions have better extras similar to what Blade Runner got. However, I was glad to watch a 4K version of the movie, at least according to the menu in the Apple TV app just released on Roku.
Written: 20 Oct 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital