Alien (Alien (DVD))

Member Name: chris212

Product:	Alien (DVD)
Date:	12/08/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong characters and story

Disadvantages: Can be seen as low tech effects - But it is a late 70s film

Alien is one of the most iconic movies from the late seventies in the horror genre, although at the same time it is an intense suspense thriller, directed by Sir Ridley Scot, which focuses on the discovery of a new life form.

The movie starts with the introduction to the space craft that is travelling through space and the occupants have just been woken up by a distress message that has been received by the ship. This is the stage at which we are introduced the characters of the film, the iconic Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and John Hurt as Kane, among others.

The crew were originally just a crew on a towing craft between another planet and Earth, but haven been woken up by the ships computer, Mother. The crew are ordered by the company to investigate the mysterious signal, who are initially reluctant, but see the possibility of making money out of it, so decide to land on the unexplored planet. This is an important stage to point out that when we are introduced to the crew of the ship, they are in no way militarily trained and more akin to truckers.

There are only a couple member of the cast that are of real concern; these are Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, the third officer of the ship and the lead of the film. It was extremely unusual at the time of production for a woman to be a lead in the movie, but I believe that by giving Weaver the role it enabled the viewer to emphasize with character.

Next there is John Hurt in the role of second officer Kane, although we do not see too of the character throughout the whole film. Hurt is very much involved within the famous 'chest buster' scene.

The other major character within the film is Ian Holm as Science Officer Ash. Throughout the film he is shown as a mild manner character, that is examining the alien, but towards the end the viewer sees a dark side to the character and an ulterior motive, that you don't necessarily see coming.

There are other characters within the film but we do not engage as much with them as these three characters.

It is after the exploits of the crew on the planet that we are introduced to the 'Alien', at the time of release one of cinemas most haunting characters. Ridley Scot got the Alien character just right, as it is built up at each stage of the movie through its development stage, the egg, the face hugger, the chest buster scene and full sized alien, with only glimpses of the creature, leaving a lot to the imagination. At the time of release and I believe still now the alien character holds an eerie field and menace about it.

But it does not seem as menacing as when you see some of the pictures and design from the designer that inspired the alien design from H.R. Giger.

In terms of the effects of the film, after only just watching the film again, although the film does show some age, I believe that the film has not aged that bad. Although the viewer can tell that the film is not that recent has seen by the lack of CGI (mainly because it was not around at the time). But what this does mean is that the film is given a sense of reality that is somewhat lacking of the latter two movies in the franchise and when you learn from the how certain effects, such as how the movement within the egg and the 'space jockey' scenes were created, you will see how low tech the film was.

There are two versions of the film that are available, these are the originally cinema release and the directors cuts. The only major difference between the two is a scene that includes Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, but I won't give too much away. But I will say that the inclusion of the deleted scenes do add to the story of the film.

In terms of the extras that are on the DVD, on the rare occasion that I actually watched the extras, it shows interviews with all member of the main cast, the production crew and the director. But the extras was not really what I bought the DVD for.

Overall I would recommend the film as one of the iconic films that everyone at some point in their lives should watch.

Summary: One of the best in the genre