One of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time! Not!

Rating: 3/10 (8 January 2012)

I remember seeing this sci-fi "classic" as a young lad, and thought I'd see it again, now that I'm older. I must admit that the experience is very different from what I remember. I was dumbfounded by the shocking idiocy of the plot.
Nevertheless, the film definitely deserves the recognition it received for awesome visual effects. The 3 is for the special effects. The rest contribute to exactly 0.
The experience started going downhill, about 16 minutes in, when the ship lands on the alien planet and stuff starts to short out and smoke starts bellowing out of unseen orifices. One wonders how the crew got into space with that kind of build quality.
Then there is captain Dallas who orders Ridley to open the airlock when there's a unknown alien organism attached to officer Kane's face, and that too against sensible quarantine protocol.
This is the trigger at which point the typical big-budget film stereotype for such situations emerges, with warrant officer Ripley (could be anyone really) refusing to obey the captain's (Dallas') orders while some other character takes the captain's side, to set in motion the chain of events that lead to "the disaster". Unfortunately, this is the typical formula that's been tried, rehashed, and regurgitated time and again in big-budget movies out of Hollywood.
All the characters except Ripley's are just there as objects for "The Alien" to poke at, for fun. They are all hollow and seemingly serve no purpose at all.
The only redeeming side of the whole plot is warrant officer Ripley. Its quite unfortunate that she's the one who's got to play Marge Simpson and clean up the mess the other seemingly mentally retarded characters created.
Compare this to, for example, 2001 A Space Odyssey, or Solaris, or District 9, and you'll know why this franchise does not deserve to be in the list of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. To do that is ridiculous!