The Nazi search for purity

Rating: 9/10 (19 August 2005)

When we come to know that Ash (is that the character?) is an android, then the essence of the film is revealed. It is a robot that doesn't respect the three famous laws (remember Asimov's _I, Robot_) and that has been programmed to get a unique objective: get hold of that strange creature which has been found in a distant planet. In order to do so, it is allowed to kill all the crew, who is declared expendable. But... what is that which is so important? It is, no more no less, what the robot considers to be the most perfect creature in the universe (and which to the rest of the viewers is just a vicious destroyer). The robot has been created by some kind of Nazi, obsessed with purity of race, with organism perfection. And that is what the creature stands for: perfection, a sort of Super-Man (a-la-nietzsche). But it comes under a monstrous, disgusting appearance, reflection of what it really is about to bring. In that sense, to me, Alien represents the dangers of looking for perfection. That quest implies fights among people, dilemmas, having to toy with life and death, paranoia... Had it not been for the robot's orders to get samples of that perfect creature (commands dictated by some humans on Earth who we never come to know), nothing would have happened and Nostromo would have come back to Earth.