Alien
This review will be a little less formal than the reviews I have done before. Alien is directed by Ridley Scott and was one of the first films to ever incorporate science fiction and horror. The story is about a outer space mining ship called the Nostromo that
receives an SOS message. The crew lands on the a distant planet and discovers some strange creatures as strange and horrific events begin to happen. Filmed just after the success of Star Wars and just before Star Trek: The Motion Picture Alien was a Mark said it once, the film effectively blends science fiction and horror into one film. And to agree with Mark, it really does work.
For 2003 there is a brand new director's cut by Ridley Scott. For the most part it really does work. There are a handful of new shots that are added into the film and there are a few shots that are edited out. Overall the film is very similar to the original theatrical release.
What I liked about Alien is that it slowly builds up tension like John Carpenters Halloween while making you think what might happen next. Ridley Scott uses a lot of visual images at the
beginning of the film to set the mood and pace of the film. The very first line of
dialogue does not happen until about 6 minutes into the movie. The early sets and shots create a distinctive atmosphere and mood and give an overall
claustrophobic feel to what it would be like inside the Nostromo. I also liked the visuals of the Saturn like planet complete with moons and
satellites. As the Nostromo lands on the planet, we get a glimpse of what the planet's climate is like complete with windstorms and smoke flying around all over the place.
The crew led by Tom Skerritt exits the spacecraft and the begin to explore the planet. The discover the is giant alien lair with all these little eggs inside. This is where the first real jump of the movie comes when the alien parasite I call in breaks through the astronauts front glass and attaches to his face. The next few scenes of the movies are pretty disturbing as this parasite attaches to his face and won't let go. If I was in this situation, I would freak out.
The storyline is well developed. Scott really does a great job of building the tension when we first see the alien kill the first person. Scott uses a cat, then the characters finds the shedded skin of the alien, he uses an
aerial shot, a background heartbeat, chains dangling above, water hitting the head of the character and final we know the alien is there when the cat starts to hiss uncontrollably alerting our character that death is soon approaching. It is in this scene that Ridley Scott has added the first bit of added footage. The first is a shot of the alien hiding in the dangling chains while intercutting between the water falling on the characters face. The second shot is Ripley and Parker entering the scene as they find blood dripping from the roof. The cat then looks towards where the alien has
disappeared to above giving the scene a better overall feel than the original. Later on I watched the original version of the scene and I must say that the director's cut of that scene is much more effective.
I also have to note that Alien is one of the first movies that has a female act as the main character or hero. We really have no idea that Ripley will become the heroine until the later stages of the film, furthermore, there was a very good
surprise involving Ash midway through the film. What I also really liked was the premise. A company discovers that there is an alien
life form and sends this crew to capture it, the only thing that the company wants is this alien form to be brought
back so they can clone it into the perfect weapon as it is believed that this alien is a so called "perfect" organism.
The effects of the film are first rate. I have never ever really like computer generated imagery at all as I much prefer models and sets. Watching the special features really gives a great overall impression of how they made the film and also how challenging the
filmmaking process is.
Near conclusion of the film we finally have Scott next added sequence. It involves Ripley
descending some stairs after she has just set the alarm to for the spacecraft to self destruct. The added sequence shows where the alien has taken the other characters to and gives shows the characters put into some sort of nest like in James Cameron's Aliens. I didn't think that this scene was that
necessary to be included into the film, but nonetheless it doesn't distract or take anything away from the overall feel of the movie. When watching the
original scene you can clear see how it is seamlessly integrated into the scene because the scene ends with Ripley looking out from the stairs that originally
descended down.
The final shot that is added is a shot where the alien looks down upon the cat that is in the cage and then knocks the cat over. It wasn't bad of a shot which makes you want the cat to survive a little more.
Overall, the director's cut of Alien worked very well. The film is actually shorter by one minutes which
truly can be called a director's cut. The film as a whole is a very good science fiction film that includes the element of horror. I thought that the alien for all four of the movies is the best representation of what an alien may be like and out of all the movies that have addresses the genre, I think the alien film are the best at representing the genre.
There are a few things that I did not like about Alien but they are minor. I really thought that Ridley Scott could have made Alien a little more accurate to real scientific space exploration. The tagline "in space, no one can hear you scream" is catchy and was originally used for the 1979 theatrical release. I thought that Scott could have used no sound for the exterior space shots as there would be no sound if you were really there, also, when landing on the planet, there should have been no wind and noise (it did add to the film) when they landed because there was no atmosphere. Watching the special features show that Scott had to add in the wind and smoke to make the scene work as the original way would not of worked as well.
Runtime: 115mins
DvD Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen
THX Digitally Mastered
Dolby Digital EX 6.1
DTS Digital ES 6.1
20th Century Fox Home Video
Rated: R
DvD Picture Quality:5
DvD Sound Quality:5
DvD Extras :5++
Special features:
The special features of this movie are amazing. The special features are divided into three categories Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production. Each
category has 4-5 menus and sometimes up to 8 menus.
I have watch the documentary of the Audience Reaction to the film and viewed the artwork and posters form the marketing aspect of the film. I also have watch how they released it at the premiere and viewed the pictures of the giant lineups that were blocks long when they released the movie.
The teaser trailer is made the way a teaser trailer is supposed to be and what I found very interesting is that the actual theatrical trailer is really like a teaser of today's standards. I then watched the
teaser for "Aliens" and they give way to much plot away especially with Ripley and the robot fork lift at the end of the movie appears right at the end of the trailers.
One of the best features of the disc is that you can set it that a little pop up comes up and tells you that there is directors stuff added to the scene. Basically,
every time a new scene emerges, the directors cut title appears and then disappears when the shot is gone and the appears when the shot is then added again. I think all special editions should have this feature.
More to come as I watch the extra stuff.
