Alien

"You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility."

―Ash

Alien
Credits
Title:	Alien
Directed by:	Ridley Scott
Written by:	Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett
Produced by:	Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill Ivor Powell Ronald Shusett
Music by:	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography:	Derek Vanlint
Edited by:	Terry Rawlings Peter Weatherley David Crowther
Production
Distributors:	Brandywine Productions 20th Century Fox Productions
Released:	May 25th, 1979
Rating:	R
Running time:	117 min.
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Budget:	$11,000,000
Gross:	$60,150,933
Navigation
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Alien is a 1979 sci-fi/horror film directed by Ridley Scott. It was releaased theatrically in the United States on May 25th. Alien proved popular enough to spawn a franchise including multiple sequels, comic books, video games, novels as well as several crossover project with the Predator franchise. A special director's cut of the film was released and included on the Aliens Quadrology DVD set, which included a special introduction by Ridley Scott.

Plot

The Nostromo

The USCSS Nostromo

Somewhere in the Zeta II Reticuli system, the commercial towing vehicle the USCSS Nostromo edges through space. The onboard computer system activates and awakens the ship's crew members from their hypersleep. The crew consists of Captain Dallas, First officer Kane, Science Officer Ash, Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, navigator Lambert and engineers Parker and Brett. They sit around a meeting table sharing food and coffee. Parker and Brett complain about their wages and make a point of noting that they are not receiving the same shares as the rest of the crew. Dallas goes to the computer mainframe to check on "Mother". He discovers that the crew has been awakened early due to an ambiguous distress beacon that Mother picked up. The rest of the crew try to get their bearings and they find that they are still in the Outer Rim - a long way from Earth. Ripley tries to send a message to Antarctica Traffic Control, but receives nothing. Dallas joins them on the bridge of the ship and tells them that Mother intercepted a transmission of "unknown origin". As per her programming, she awakened the crew so that they can investigate. They analyze the signal and find that it is an acoustical beacon originating from a planetoid some distance away.

The Nostromo crew approach one of the moons orbiting the planetoid and descend to the surface using one of their drop-ships. Intense winds buffet the ship and they make an extremely shaky landing that sends shockwaves throughout the craft. The ship suffers some structural support and the engineering crew estimate that it will take some seventeen to twenty-five hours to affect repairs.

They determine that the source of the beacon originates some 2,000 meters away from their location. Brett and Parker stay on the ship to make repairs as do Ripley and Ash. Dallas leads Kane and Lambert onto the surface in survival suits. They track the signal to a partially buried derelict ship, which they imagine has been here for thousands of years. They descend into a tunnel running beneath the ship's hull and find a vast corridor with walls that look the vertebrae of some gigantic monster. Upon finding the bridge of the ship, they find the fossilized remains of an alien pilot. The creature is more than fifteen feet in height and seems as if his body is literally growing from his seat. Dallas observes an open chest cavity with its ribs protruding outward as if he were attacked from within or from behind by a large object.

Man down

Kane and the Face Hugger

Kane investigates the lower cargo hold of the ship and comes upon a cavern containing a bed of large, leathery eggs. The eggs are set up side by side inside this de facto nursery and a thin, illuminated layer of mist covers them like a blanket. The mist reacts to Kane's presence, but he continues to inspect the eggs. Once he is within close proximity, an aperture on an egg opens and a small, spider-like creature leaps forward and attaches itself to Kane's helmet. Dallas and Lambert hear Kane's screams over their com system and rush to get him back aboard the ship.

Dallas orders Ripley to open the air lock to admit them, but Ripley refuses to do so. She cites quarantine procedures and warns Dallas that she risks endangering the entire crew if she lets Kane on board. Science officer Ash countermands Ripley's directive and lets the crew into the ship. Kane is immediately taken to the infirmary.

Dallas and Ash analyze the organism which is still attached to Kane's helmet. Kane himself has lapsed into a coma. Outside the infirmary, Parker, Brett and Lambert observe Dallas and Ash's work with great concern. When Ripley enters the corridor, Lambert slaps her - enraged that she was willing to let Kane die. From over intercom, Captain Dallas likewise admonishes Ripley's actions, but she stands by her decision.

Inside the room, Ash determines that the alien has somehow eaten through the helmet and attached itself to Kane's face. It has inserted a proboscis of sorts into Kane's mouth, feeding him oxygen and keeping him alive albeit comatose. Ash attempts to cut one of the alien phalanges off of Kane's face. As soon as he does so, acidic blood squirts out of the incision and begins melting through the infirmary floor. Fearful that the acid might eat through the hull of the ship, Dallas and the others race down to the lower decks to see how far down it burns. It stops after three levels.

To keep their minds off Kane, the rest of the crew attempt to keep busy with their chores. Parker and Brett continue working on ship repairs while Ash studies Kane's condition. Ripley comes into the med-lab and voices her displeasure at Ash for countermanding her orders. She reminds him that she holds rank over him and is third in command on the ship. Ash appears unimpressed with Ripley's concerns.

Time passes and the "face hugger" entity disappears from Kane's body. The crew begins scouring the ship for the entity when suddenly it falls from the ceiling down onto Ripley. They recover it and Ash wants to take it back to Earth for further study.

Parker and Brett complete their repairs on the drop ship and they all return to the Nostromo. They are still ten months away from Earth.

Alien birth

Ash calls the crew down to the infirmary for a surprising development - Kane is awake. Although tired, he appears completely healthy, but possesses little memory of what happened down on the planet's surface. The crew decides to have one last meal before going into hypersleep. During the meal, the crew converses and carries on, but something seems to be bothering Kane. He begins choking and gagging and Parker quips that it must be the ship's food. The rest of them quickly realize that something is seriously wrong however and Kane begins convulsing. They restrain him to the table when suddenly his chest explodes outward, spraying the others with blood. A small alien creature, different from the one that originally attacked him, exits his chest cavity and runs across the floor of the ship. They try to capture it, but the alien is fast and disappears into the air ducts. Captain Dallas has Kane's body jettisoned into space.

The search

Surprise visitor

The others prepare equipment to help them seek out the alien. Brett makes a suitable cattle prod while Ash puts together a scanner that keys off of micro changes in air density. Ripley, Parker and Brett begin to check out the cargo hold. Parker has a net so he can capture the beast after they stun it. They get a lock on the signal and the three of them grow intense. When they track it down however, they discover that it is only Jones, Ripley's cat. The cat runs off scared and they breathe a sigh of relief. Brett begins chuckling, but Parker and Ripley remind him that they need to get the cat or else it will continue to set off false signals.

Jones goes off in search of the cat. He begins checking out the maintenance bay and finds a patch of shedded skin on the floor. He grows concerned and begins calling out for Jonesy. He eventually finds the cat tucked in behind some crates. The animal is skittish and hisses at him. Brett calls out to him again, but the cat runs off. From behind him, the alien appears. It is now fully grown, black and standing more than seven feet tall. It opens up its elongated mandible and a secondary jaw juts outward spearing Brett. It then wraps its long, skeletal tale around his body and drags him up into the cooling ducts.

The rest of the crew regroup on the bridge to discuss their strategy. Determining that the alien is using the air shafts in order to move about the ship, Captain Dallas recommends flushing it out by sealing off specific ducts, channeling the creature into the main air lock where they can then safely jettison it into outer space. Dallas volunteers to track the alien down. Ripley monitors his movements while Ash tries to keep a trace on the alien. They track it to the third junction and attempt to seal it off, but the alien emerges and attacks Dallas. His com signal goes blank. Parker goes up to investigate and recovers Dallas' rifle. However there is absolutely not sign of Dallas at all - not even blood.

The group convenes for a meeting to discuss a new strategy. Lambert begins to grow hysterical and recommends taking the shuttle and blowing the ship. Ripley reminds her that the shuttle cannot accomodate four people. She takes command of the rest of the crew and says that they will move in pairs to find the creature and blast it out the air lock.

Betrayal

"Its a robot! Ash is a goddamn robot!"

―J.T. Parker

The remains of Ash

The group breaks up and Ripley goes to the computer mainframe chamber to speak with Mother. She asks Mother the most efficient means of neutralizing the alien threat. Mother is unable to clarify, stating that mission parameters are sealed under Special Order 937 and only the ship's science officer can access it. Ripley initiates an emergency command override and opens up Special Order 937. She is horrified to discover that the "company" knew about the alien beacon all along and programmed mother to reroute the crew to the planet to recover the organism. Science officer orders require them to bring it back to Earth for analysis. The remainder of the crew is completely expendable. Ash enters the room and says, "There is an explanation for all this."

Ripley flies into a rage and pushes Ash against the wall. She runs off into an adjacent corridor to warn the others, but Ash seals off the corridor. She turns to confront him and notices a strange, white fluid dripping down the side of his face. Ash attacks Ripley and slams her against the bulkhead of the ship. He presses her down onto a counter and tries suffocating her by shoving a rolled up magazine into her mouth. Parker and Lambert rush into the room and find Ash choking Ripley. They try to restrain him, but Ash flies into a fit of hysteria, spinning around in circles and bouncing off the walls. Parker picks up a metal pipe and bashes Ash across the head. His head cocks backwards, partially tearing itself from his neck and it becomes clear now that Ash is actually an android and not a human being. Parker continues to batter the android until it is no longer operative. Once things settle down, they separate Ash's head from his body and reboot him so they can learn more about his true mission parameters. Ash reiterates what Ripley learned from mother and appears to admire the purity of the alien creature they recovered. Ripley asks him how to kill the alien and Ash responds, "You can’t'". Deciding that he has heard enough, Parker incinerates the rest of the android's remains. Ripley decides to default to Lambert's original idea and blow up the ship and take their chances in the shuttle.

Escape plan

"The emergency destruct system is now activated. The ship will detonate in t-minus ten minutes."

―Mother

Alien attack!

While Ripley begins to prep the shuttle for take-off, Parker and Lambert go to get coolant canisters. Ripley hears Jonesy meowing and goes off to look for him. Meanwhile, the alien appears in the maintenance bay and attacks Lambert and Parker. Ripley can hear their cries of distress coming over the intercom and runs off to help them. Lambert is frozen with fear, unable to move. Parker runs up behind the alien, but it swats him away with one swipe from its tale. It then turns its attention on Parker and bites him with its interior jaw. It then spins about and kills Lambert. Ripley arrives on the scene moments later and finds their bleeding bodies. Tearfully, she runs out of the bay and goes to the bridge of the Nostromo. She activates the countdown sequence for the ship's self-destruct protocols.

Ripley arms herself with an incinerator and climbs back down the lower decks of the ship on her way back to the shuttle. She finds the walls of one of the chambers completely covered in a slimy, gelatinous substance. Attached to the walls and encased in this substance, she finds Dallas and Brett. Dallas is still alive, but in great pain. He begs Ripley to kill him. Ripley turns up the incinerator and turns it on Dallas and Brett, putting them out of their misery.

She runs to get to shuttle, but realizes that she is running short on time. The alien has discovered her presence and begins pursuing her through the corridors. She gets to the bridge and tries to override the ship's detonation procedure, but she is too late. Panic and anger overtake her. She grabs Jonesy and makes her way to the shuttle. She manages to strap herself in and launch the shuttle with enough time to avoid the explosion of the Nostromo.

Stowaway

Ripley fights back.

Ripley watches the Nostromo explode, confidant that she destroyed the alien along with it. She un-straps herself from the cockpit and lets Jones out of his pet carrier. She prepares the hypersleep chamber for its long voyage back towards Earth. While setting a few switches, Ripley discovers to her horror that the alien has managed to make it onto the shuttle and is sleeping inside a niche above the computer banks. The creature stirs and uncoils it's body slightly, but still appears to be in a state of hibernation. Ripley dons a space suit and straps herself into a chair. She arms herself with a harpoon gun and begins venting steam, hoping that this will kill the alien. The monster shrieks in discomfort, but it is still alive. It comes after her so Ripley slams a button that opens the airlock. The alien flies towards the portal, but latches on to the docking flaps. Ripley fires the harpoon, forcing the creature into the depths of space. Its body is caught inside one of the shuttle's engines where it is incinerated.

Satisfied that the alien is now finally dead, Ripley records the final log for the USCSS Nostromo. She places herself and Jones in stasis and goes to sleep for the six-week journey back towards Earth.

Cast

Actor	Role
Tom Skerritt	Captain Dallas
Sigourney Weaver	Ellen Ripley
Veronica Cartwright	J.M. Lambert
Harry Dean Stanton	S.E. Brett
John Hurt	Kane
Ian Holm	Ash
Yaphet Kotto	J.T. Parker
Bolaji Badejo	The alien
Helen Horton	Mother
Eddie Powell	The alien

Notes & Trivia

• The original working title for this film was Star Beast.
• Body Count: 6

• Rated R for sci-fi violence/gore and language.

• The tagline for this film is "In space no one can hear you scream... ".

• The crew members of the Nostromo are identified only by their last names in this movie. Brett, Parker and Lambert's first initials are revealed on their dossiers in Aliens. Ripley's first name, Ellen, is also revealed in Aliens.

• The name of the alien species featured in this film is never identified by a proper name, but is referred to by the generic term Xenomorph beginning with Aliens.

• The design of the alien as well as that of the space jockey and his derelict ship was inspired by the works of Swiss surrealists artist H.R. Giger. Giger won the Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on the film.

• The Nostromo's registry number is revealed in the beginning of the film when the computer screen first activates.

• The only reference to Weyland-Yutani is on the computer monitor when the automatic pilot disengages in the beginning of the film. On the screen, the company's name is spelled Weylan Yutani.

• While filming Alien, Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright were made to wear white surgical tape across their nipples during scenes where they wore sheer clothing.

• The original title design for the film was going to show the Alien logo made out of bone and bits of flesh. The producers decided that this would be too gruesome of an opening and changed it to a slow dissolve title sequence, which resembles a form of hieroglyphs.

• Most of the interior set design for the Nostromo was constructed from the remains of old aircraft found at an "aircraft graveyard".

• Actor John Hurt parodied his character of Kane in the 1987 comedy Spaceballs. In his scene, Hurt begins convulsing in a restaurant until a chest burster explodes from his body and begins singing. Afterward, he looks at the camera and says, "Not again."

• The death of Lambert takes place off-screen and it is never detrmined exactly how she dies. According to Ridley Scott and actress Veronica Cartwright, Lambert crawls away from the alien and hides inside a locker where she dies of fright.

• Dan O'Bannon's original script treatment for Alien did not include the character of Science Officier Ash. Producers Walter Hill and Ronald Shusett felt that the film needed a secondary story element, so they added the sub-plot of Ash, the android spy who ultimately betrays the crew. O'Bannon was displeased with this, feeling that it was a cheap gag and disingenuous to his original vision. He referred to the new material as suffering from "Russian Spy" syndrome.

• The first shot of the alien embryo inside the egg was actually Ridley Scott's hand wriggling around inside a rubber glove.

• The interior of the alien egg was constructed out of steamed sheep and cattle parts from a slaughterhouse.

• The underside of the dead face hugger that Ash examines was made out of oysters.

• On the director's commentary for the Alien special edition DVD, Ridley Scott attempts to ratonalize the scene where Ash tries to kill Ripley. Scott ascribes a Freudian sexual conflict to the character of Ash, noting that as an Android, Ash is not anatomically correct, and vents his sexual frustration upon Ripley when he forces her to fellate a rolled-up pornographic magazine.

Special Edition

"Necronom IV" by H.R. Giger; Inspiration for the alien.

• A special edition of Alien was released in 2003 and packaged as a single DVD as well as being included in the nine-disc Alien Quadrology collection. The special edition included an introduction by director Ridley Scott as well as twelve-minutes of previously deleted footage that were re-inserted back into the film.

• The first deleted scene takes place early in the film and is a longer sequence showing Lambert determining the Nostromo's location in the Zeta II Reticuli system. The next deleted scene takes place on the surface of the planetoid when Kane first comes upon the egg farm. In the scene, he is seen holding a futuristic firearm. Another cut scene takes place shortly thereafter when the crew are back on the drop-ship. In the scene, Lambert slaps Ripley across the face for failing to let the crew back inside the ship. The first shot of the adult xenomorph is also cut from the original film. Moments before Brett is killed, the alien can be seen lurking in the background as if it were being suspended by chains. Like many shots in the film, the alien is barely distinguishible from the various pipes and tubes decorated throughout the ship. One of the more infamous cut scenes is one that reveals the final fates of Dallas and Brett. Ripley finds them cocooned inside a membrane if gelatinous ooze on one of the lower decks. Dallas is still alive and begs Ripley to kill him, at which point, she turns her weapon upon them and incinerates them as an act of mercy. The final cut scene from the film is a bit where the alien, while chasing Ripley, comes upon Jones the cat in his pet carrier. The alien swipes the carrier out of his way and resumes his attack.

Casting

• Director Ridley Scott discovered Sigourney Weaver (Ripley) while she was working theater in New York City. Upon seeing her, he immediately decided that she would be the perfect choice to play his heroine, Ripley. During Weaver's audition, Scott had several female employees from the offices of 20th Century Fox sit in to observe her. Nearly all of them felt that Weaver was more than capable of playing a strong, heroic female lead, with one of them even comparing her to actress Jane Fonda.

• Actor John Hurt, who plays the role of Kane, was the last actor to be cast for the film. Originally, the part of Kane was to be played by British actor Jon Finch. On the first day of shooting however, Finch had a severe attack of diabetes and had to be taken to the hospital. In a rush to replace him, Ridley Scott sought out actor John Hurt. Hurt was initially unavailable due to a project that he was scheduled to work on in South Africa. As it turned out, Hurt was denied entrance into South Africa because the South African authorities had mistaken him for a political activist named "John Hurd", who had developed a reputation for his outspoken views against Apartheid. Unable to work in South Africa, Hurt then became available to work on Alien.

Body Count

In chronological order

Name	Method
Kane	Impregnated by Xenomorph, then killed by chest burster
Captain Dallas	Cocooned by Xenomorph; later incinerated by Ripley
S.E. Brett	Body punctured by Xenomorph's interior jaw; later incinerated by Ripley
Ash	Damaged and subsequently incinerated by Parker
J.T. Parker	Body punctured by Xenomorph's secondary jaw
J.M. Lambert	Killed by Xenomorph; method unrevealed

External Links

Alien at AMG Alien at IMDB Alien at Wikipedia

Alien at Metacritic Alien at Xenopedia Alien at Themoviedb.org

References

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Film Series This article relates to the films within the Aliens franchise. This template will categorize articles that include it into the Aliens Films category. Original Series Alien • Aliens • Alien3 • Alien: Resurrection Crossover Series Alien vs. Predator • Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Reboot Series Prometheus • Alien: Covenant • Alien: Romulus