After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
In the distant future, the crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo are on their way home when they pick up a distress call from a distant moon. The crew are under obligation to investigate and the spaceship descends on the moon afterwards. After a rough landing, three crew members leave the spaceship to explore the area on the moon. At the same time as they discover a hive colony of some unknown creature, the ship's computer deciphers the message to be a warning, not a distress call. When one of the eggs is disturbed, the crew realizes that they are not alone on the spaceship and they must deal with the consequences.Written by
blazesnakes9
Shortly after the failed attempt to remove the facehugger from Kane, Ash is seen observing an embryo on a monitor. He immediately turns off the monitor when Ripley appears to question him, revealing that he knows Kane is impregnated and that he does not intend to disclose that knowledge. See more »
Goofs
When the Nostromo detonates, the close-up shots of Ripley show her and the escape pod violently shaking from the shock wave. Yet in the alternating shots looking out of its window, the escape pod is absolutely calm and rock steady. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Brett:
This is the worst shit I've ever seen, man.
Parker:
What you say? You got any biscuits over there?
Ripley:
Here's some cornbread.
Parker:
Cornbread. Yeah.
Lambert:
I am cold.
Parker:
Still with us, Brett?
Brett:
Right.
Kane:
Oh, I feel dead.
Parker:
Anybody ever tell you you look dead, man?
See more »
Crazy Credits
The title of the movie is slowly created one line at a time at the top of the screen during the opening credits, starting out with the I, then the slash in A and the backslash in N, and then the vertical lines in L and E (so it looks like / I I I \). After that, the ensuing lines of each letter are added slowly one at a time until the title is fully visible. See more »
Alternate Versions
Other changes in the Director's Cut: As in the Theatrical Version, Brett stops in the the landing strut chamber to wet his face during the sequence where he is searching for Jones the cat. In the Directors Cut, we see a shot looking up at the landing strut with the Alien rather unexpectedly in the foreground, head bowed, swaying from side to side. Another change concerning Jones the cat: when Ripley encounters the Alien in the corridor having just set the self-destruct sequence, instead of the Alien looking curiously at Jones in his cat box, it gives him a brief glance before violently swatting the box aside. (This explains why in both versions of the film the cat box is flipped on its side and not where Ripley left it when she returns to collect Jones.) See more »
The further we go in special effects, the more movies show us and ignore the unseen, the more people will return to dark horrors like this one.
It's hard to look at this film without considering the sequels and knowing the alien itself, however when made the alien was mostly unseen and a mystery. It's difficult to forget what you've seen, but it's important to approach this film first if possible rather than joining the series late.
It's amazing that this is over 20 years old - apart from the actors looking so young, the film doesn't feel dated at all. The sci-fi visions here are still bleak and futuristic as they were then - this is not the Star Trek vision of the future. The foreboding exists long before John Hurt spills his secret, Scott's direction is excellent throughout. Once the alien is "born" the tension is cranked up and the characters dispatched one by one (a formula we know oh-so well now!)
However here the characters are not merely alien-food but have some dimension to them. Weaver is excellent, while the support cast is full of great support actors (Stanton, Kotto, Hurt, Skerritt, Holm), but of course the real star is the one we see least of.
We barely see the alien in full detail, most of the time it is set in shadows, moving with deadly intent.The alien here is not simply a killing machine as seen in later films but is cruel with it. Witness the alien trap a female crew member and slowly rub up her leg, moving with slow seductive movements before moving with terrifying speed to kill another crew member sneaking up behind it. The slow movements betray the alien's pure cruelty.
The film is a study in terror. It may not be as action packed as the other films in the series but it brings the claustrophobia of being hunted to a new level.
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The further we go in special effects, the more movies show us and ignore the unseen, the more people will return to dark horrors like this one.
It's hard to look at this film without considering the sequels and knowing the alien itself, however when made the alien was mostly unseen and a mystery. It's difficult to forget what you've seen, but it's important to approach this film first if possible rather than joining the series late.
It's amazing that this is over 20 years old - apart from the actors looking so young, the film doesn't feel dated at all. The sci-fi visions here are still bleak and futuristic as they were then - this is not the Star Trek vision of the future. The foreboding exists long before John Hurt spills his secret, Scott's direction is excellent throughout. Once the alien is "born" the tension is cranked up and the characters dispatched one by one (a formula we know oh-so well now!)
However here the characters are not merely alien-food but have some dimension to them. Weaver is excellent, while the support cast is full of great support actors (Stanton, Kotto, Hurt, Skerritt, Holm), but of course the real star is the one we see least of.
We barely see the alien in full detail, most of the time it is set in shadows, moving with deadly intent.The alien here is not simply a killing machine as seen in later films but is cruel with it. Witness the alien trap a female crew member and slowly rub up her leg, moving with slow seductive movements before moving with terrifying speed to kill another crew member sneaking up behind it. The slow movements betray the alien's pure cruelty.
The film is a study in terror. It may not be as action packed as the other films in the series but it brings the claustrophobia of being hunted to a new level.