Alien (1979) - Somewhat Disappointed

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2011)

Alien is the sort of movie I should like, as in really like. There's something about the combination of science fiction with horror that is appealing to me. After getting the client-side stuff out of the way (plugging in earphones, turning up the volume, emptying my desk to put my legs on), I found myself ready for the experience.
So how did the experience turn out? I'm just going to drop in the middle of things.
We pick up things after the away team comes back to the Nostromo.
The screenwriter probably thought it would be weak of a plot if someone opened the bay doors because they felt sorry for the away team. After all, if the problem of the Alien on board the ship was caused by a side character feeling pity for a side character, that would not be terrifically compelling. Instead, a subplot was worked out where one of the crew were a robot working for the guys at home base, meant to bring back the Alien. There's a few problems I have with this. I'm going to list two.
First, the presence of another villain wasn't needed. A movie with a well-depicted villain like Alien should not require a sub-villain to get the story going. The Alien is interesting enough, and should have been able to represent everything malevolent. Second, the robot is just kind of far-fetched. How does this robot even work? It seems to have an intelligence of itself, but it's also controlled by home base. At least that's what the movie tells us. But it seems forced and ultimately never got me buying it. I mean did they know they would have a use for this robot from the start? Why didn't any of the crew know about the robot being on the ship?
The scene where Ripley is getting the ship ready for self-destruct is a beauty from a technical point of view. The cinematography offers fantastic lighting, ear-deafening sound effects and a fantastic claustrophobic atmosphere. What this scene misses, is the sense of Ripley being chased. There's just not much urgency, despite what the countdown tries to tell us. During her preparations she does meet the Alien, but it's an awkward scene, where it seems the writer didn't know how to create an interesting situation. The Alien's just standing there, clueless, and Ripley's gasping, panting and ultimately just moving away without a hitch.
Finally, this is exactly the problem with the movie's climax. Again we get to see the Alien in an awkward situation where the script doesn't seem to know how to make the face-off between protagonist and antagonist exciting or interesting. The solution to this scene leaves the viewer somewhat unsatisfied as a result.
The movie attempts to bring life to the rest of the crew and it seems like it's succeeding from the first few shots. We get crew members laughing, making intelligible comments and caring for each other. Eventually however, it leads to nothing because the script does not follow through. The seemingly clear-minded and trustworthy commander of the ship dies from poor decision making and he started making obviously bad decisions too early in the film with nothing to counterbalance that. As a result, we can't really care for the crew as they get slaughtered.
Generally, the Alien itself is cool, mostly. It's cool and interesting like a light saber. It's imaginative, there's some kind of fun to it, and all in all you just want to see it get used in the film. The problem I have with the Alien is that as Scott has interpreted it, it lacks too much traits to really be a valid villain. Conceptually, it can easily carry itself over into other films and merchandise and still be appealing and fun at first sight. But, in this movie, being the antagonist, it's critically lacking. It doesn't seem to be intelligent - it doesn't seem to really have a plan, apart from destroying whatever life-form it can get its claws on (except cats). We never get the feeling that it'll create a plan, or that it's making use of its instinct or its outstanding physical abilities. The crew just seems to make bad decisions and the Alien just seems to be in the right place at the right time, typically, which also takes away a lot of the immersion.
So while I would subscribe to the notion that the Alien is a cool concept and that its imaginativeness and attraction are there (regardless of what happens in this movie), it just falls short and has the movie lacking a villain that could have really carried the movie to greater heights. It's somewhat hard to describe the issue accurately, but even when compared to Freddy Krueger, who is able to haunt his victims in a variety of ways, or Predator, of which we really get a feel of the way it hunts tactically, what its limitations and physical traits are, and which we even get intimate with as we gaze with it through its thermal vision, the Alien can't inject that kind of perspective into the movie. I guess that's the main reason a few key scenes in this movie aren't that fulfilling.
Still, it's definitely not a bad movie. The cinematography is awesome at times. The brooding exterior shots of the imposing Nostromo have a great eeriness to them and add perfectly to the movie's tone. The shots of the away team exploring the Alien vessel offer some beautiful lighting and there's some great switching around of camera angles. The opening sequence is very methodical and pitch perfect. It sets the mood, it toys with the decor, it uses brilliant lighting; it's great.
All in all however, I'm disappointed, although it's still lightyears ahead of all the sequels.