The One to Aspire too.

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2006)

The 1970's were a dead decade, where it concerned the Science-Fiction cum Horror movie genre; we did have Sci-Fi movies that entertained as such, like 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Planet of the Apes franchise that started in '68 and continued well into the '70s. Then there was the heart warming Eco' friendly Silent Running from 1972. The year of the Science-Fiction movie and its quantum leap into mass subconscious was 1977, and the crossover movie of Star Wars. It was going to be the movie that now put Sci-Fi back on the moviegoers and makers map. Apart from Star Wars of course, other movies did their jobs respectively well, but in comparison, felt a little lukewarm and were not too taxing altogether as sci-fi movies.
As for horror, we had the battle for Good and Evil that was the 1973 classic The Exorcist, and 1974 had us running for cover from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
All this was well and good, but this was until Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett came along, with an interesting new idea that in the end, no one was too bothered to play with. In fact, the only reason Alien got the green light was simply, and literally, that it was the nearest script on the table of a major 20th Century Fox money-man. They were so desperate to keep this new cash-cow of the Sci-Fi ball rolling, in the wake that was Star Wars, they said okay, it was quite simply, in the right place at the right time, and the rest is history.
Having the then newly British director Ridley Scott, his only role of directorship was two years hence, with The Duellists, perform the part was a very fortunate choice indeed. With an eye for microscopic detail, his perfectionist attitude toward realism and the grandiose of the Alien World around him, he and his team, has created one of the most astonishing and completely original sets seen in Sci-Fi Horror. The internals of the seven space truckers' ship, the Nostromo, has such fine and well structured detail that it is so very hard to remember that it is a life size model. This detailed work had never been seen on a grand scale as this, maybe it had with Star Wars and Space Odyssey, in a fashion, but not, remember, in a Sci-Fi Horror movie, this was setting the standards for future movies to aspire too, Alien was to open up a completely new genre itself.
Where as the Nostromo is minute and precise in detail, the planet in which the unlucky seven encounter, and particularly the alien spacecraft that unwittingly draws them in, is off immense size. To behold on the Silver Screen, with amazing perfection too, on this design, Alien not only draws you in, it also gives you, within a change of a single frame, a sharp in take of breath. Visually powerful stuff.
Alien starts of with a deliberately slow and meaningful character build up that draws us to each personality, in fact, we do not see anything of the Alien until the first hour of this movie. To witness their environment and the life that they have to endure while travelling across space has been done with a pace that delivers us a group of characters that we feel we have known for an age. We have to know who these unfortunate soles are; there is no rush here, for all individuals introduce themselves well enough for us to feel for their loss.
Alien turns full circle as the threat becomes more apparent, as each crew-member is slaughtered, the pace then becomes more frantic and chaotic. With the build up off visual suspense and the delivery of an atmosphere of extreme fear, Alien is on the point of no return, your anxiety has no where to channel itself, you too are on the roller coaster ride of fear that Alien has brought you.
You have seen nothing like this before, you're in shock, and if you survive the ride, you may not want to again.
Or just maybe