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Alien (1979)

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, and John Hurt.  Cinematography by Derek Vanlint. Editing by Terry Rawlings and Peter Weatherley.  Produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill. Written by Dan O’Bannon. Directed by Ridley Scott.

Halfway home and still deep in cryo-sleep, the crew of the commercial mining ship Nostromo is awakened by a distress call coming from a nearby planet.  After the personnel are fully revived and briefed, they set their ship down on the planet’s turbulent surface to investigate.  They soon find a derelict ship that has apparently crash landed there many years ago. 

Further evaluation reveals strange eggs scattered along the ship’s interior. Suddenly one of the creatures inside an egg latches itself on to a Nostromo crew member and despite quarantine regulations he is brought back on board. This sets off a chain of events that eventually leads to the deaths of most of the team.

Very shortly after finishing post-production on The Duellists, Ridley Scott was ready to jump back up on the filmmaking horse again.  He planned his next picture to be a retelling of the ancient Celtic legend of Tristan and Isolde.  But instead of placing his story within the confines of its medieval setting, Scott planned on infusing his story with the futuristic style he had seen in the mature comic book series, Heavy Metal. 

Tristan and Isolde was well into pre-production when the project received a devastating blow.  After seeing George Lucas’ Star Wars, Scott realized that Lucas had used the same “ancient story meets futuristic setting” that he had planed for his movie. Not wanting to look like a spin-off, Scott pulled the plug.  Meanwhile, due to the success of Star Wars, Twentieth Century Fox was in a scramble to get some of their own science fiction up on the screen. 

The only sci-fi script that they had in development at the time was Dan O’Bannon’s Alien.  Sandy Leiberson, the head of Twentieth Century Fox’s United Kingdom division, had seen The Duellists at the Cannes Film Festival and wanted to work with its director. Leiberson sent the script over to Scott who was immediately taken with its possibilities and agreed to do the picture.

Alien was revolutionary in a number of ways.  First of all, rarely had there ever been such a perfect blend of science fiction and horror in a movie before.  The film was so intense in fact that it wasn’t uncommon for theaters to complain that their patrons were fainting and vomiting in the lobby.

Also, it was unusual to see a female protagonist hold such a masculine roll. The Ripley character was actually originally written to be a man, but was given a sex change when producers David Giler and Walter Hill came on board.  The film was also unique in that it did not paint a sterile and optimistic alien world like those seen in 2001:  A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Alien was cast with real, everyday, working class people who were easy to identify and sympathize with.  When Alien was released it became the unexpected “event film” of the summer.

Scott had his first Hollywood picture in the can and it couldn’t have been a bigger hit.

Budget: $11,000,000

Total US Gross: $60,200,000

Genre: Science Fiction

Runtime: 117 Minutes

US Release Date: 5/25/79

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Awards:

Academy Awards: 
Won for best visual effects.
Nominated for best art direction/set decoration.

Golden Globes: 
Nominated for best original score.

American Film Institute’s Top 100 Lists: 
100 Years… 100 Thrills (#6)
100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains (#14 Villain – The Alien).

Tagline: In Space No One Can Hear You Scream.

Quote: “Some of you may have figured out that we’re not home yet.”