Still a very fine movie despite some minor annoyances that were always present

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2018)

This movie "Alien" is certainly one of my very favourite movies. I am quite serious when I say I have just finished watching it for probably the 20th time. This most recently viewing was prompted by my having watched "Prometheus" a couple of days ago. I was interested to see "Alien" yet again because of the way Prometheus put the earlier movie into context. I must add my view that, despite the popularity of the whole Alien set of movies, the original Alien from 1979 is still the only one that is worth the time it takes to watch it. All of the sequels were crap in my opinion.
I showed Alien to my younger wife a few years ago and I have to say she was underwhelmed, she says because of the unsophisticated special effects compared to those in many modern movies. True enough.
There are also some issues with the movie that ever so slightly detract from even my enjoyment of it.
I am a cat person but why for example would anyone blowing up a space ship with ten minutes to organize everything spend at least half of that time searching for the bloody cat? I found myself yelling at Ripley to forget the cat.
And why didn't Ripley close the door to the escape pod when she went looking for the cat? Unless of course the Alien was able to open the hatch to the escape pod so he/she could surprise Ripley later?
And there is one major good in my opinion. The final 10 minute countdown from setting the auto destruct function to operate is in fact only 8 minutes and 20 seconds until the actual detonation. If anyone wants to check this, I'm talking about the Director's cut, not the original 1979 theatrical release of the movie. Is it too much to ask for a real-time countdown in such a situation? I don't think so.
These are only small niggles and don't greatly affect my respect for or continuing enjoyment of the movie that Alien is still and has always been. It has survived the nearly 40 years since it was made much better than many other movies from around that time. It is still a very fine movie indeed and I will probably watch it yet again in a year or two.