It rounded out the 1970s as one of the big hits – and had one of the all-time iconic tag-lines to terrify audiences.
Ridley Scott’s ALIEN, along with its’ sequel ALIENS (1986) remain the films that all subsequent ALIEN creators aspire to. Originally titled STARBEAST by co-writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the script was picked up by independent production company Brandywine (THE WARRIORS director Walter Hill is one of the co-owners) and O’Bannon liked the title ALIEN.
The commercial ship Nostromo, an oil rig in space of sorts, is returning home to Earth, when the computer, Mother, intercepts a transmission on a seemingly-uninhabitable planet.
The crew, Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt), Ash (Ian Holm), Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) are contracted to investigate under penalty the source of the transmission, so they land, where the ship suffers damage.
Dallas, Kane and Lambert don pressure suits and head towards the source of the signal, where they discover an abandoned giant spacecraft. Going inside, they discover an alien sitting beneath a strange telescopic device and a hole which leads into another chamber.
Kane is lowered down and discovers hundreds of eggs. When one of them opens, Kane looks closer….
It is well-known by now as a film and has been spoofed countless times, so my review is for the benefit of those who have avoided it since its’ initial release forty years before. Scott’s direction and design have also become, as it did with BLADE RUNNER (1982), arguably the most influential of recent decades.
The more recent offerings, PROMETHEUS and ALIEN: COVENANT, have attempted to tap into the backstory of the alien discovered on the spacecraft in the 1979 film, but audiences have been demanding the same level of scare and thrills that both the Scott and Cameron films have given.
One hopes that there will be more to come if the right writer creates.