Alien

Rating: 8/10 (24 July 2014)

Title: Alien
Condensed Storyline: A space vessel receives a signal coming from a planet, they investigate only to find that an alien parasite has bonded to one of their crew.
Notable Acting: The group of characters is a mix of stereotypes, boring characters and good characters. The boring ones are those who will die very early on and the stereotypes such as the guy who does everything by the book and the guy who wants to do as little work as possible will survive along with the good characters until the end.
Noticeable Camera work: Establishing shots of the spaceship for the first couple of minutes before we are shown the human actors. Followed by a 180ยบ turn around to table with them all eating and foreshadowing. But apart from that there aren't too many other noticeable shots, they are good at showing scale of object compared to people, but you would expect more variation from a movie that is trying to build suspense. But it was made in the late 70's so I can't complain too much
Costume: Just like the Predator costume, the Xenomorph is a timeless classic. Created by using practical effects only, it is one of the most recognizable fictional aliens there is.
Incorrect Science: The ship informs them that they have received an acoustic beacon. Acoustics is the science of sound. Sound requires a form of matter to pass through, such as solid, liquid or gas. Sound cannot travel through a vacuum, which space is. Apart from this, there is very little to comment on as the alien's method of reproducing isn't alien in any respect, as there are insects on our own planet which plant their eggs inside another living being until they are ready to hatch. But the size growth of the alien would indicate that they have short lifespans or high metabolisms as they grow insanely quickly.
Overall Feel: One ending of this movie had Ripley escaping into the ejection pod, only to find that the alien is already in there and she dies in the end of the movie. That is an ending I would have preferred as it would have prevented the travesty of it's sequels (3&4) which ruined the franchise. The who idea of the Alien is based around insects, it reproduces by planting eggs in a host and having them grow inside the host. They have a hive mind set and they are all male bar the queen who calls the shots. Sadly none of this can be seen in this movie, only in 'Aliens'. The movie takes a while to get interesting, and this is around the 25 minute mark and is because you need time to set up and establish everything, but you won't miss much if you just skip to 25 minutes, only the reason for them being on the planet. Some parts of the movie have stood up great for a 70's movie, and some parts are cheesy and don't work, but it is still a great movie all together and a sci-fi and horror classic.