Movies just watched - Theatre V1

[Gentian]

A few moment ago, Twi and I finished the director's cut of Alien (1979). A few days ago, after stumbling on the trailer for Alien: Covenant, we found ourselves on the AvP wiki. Twilers was fascinated by the depth of the lore surrounding the creatures and wanted to see the movies. I told her that there are currently 4, + Prometheus, and an assortment of alternate-universe works like the AvP franchise, but that in my opinion the first was the best.

We sat down, and both thoroughly enjoyed it. The feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and fear were expertly crafted. Neither the gore, nor the alien itself were used to excess, and I adore the aesthetic of the Alien series. The antiquated computers, enormous, blocky machinery, and neglected industrial look. It's the kind of thing you rarely find outside of Heavy Metal magazine, and it was good to immerse myself in it again. Twilight being here, and giving me the opportunity to experience it anew through her eyes made it even better.

Nevertheless, some questions were raised which nagged at me throughout the film. Why was the Nostromo so easily damaged by landing on a rock? What's with the jets of white gas constantly venting in to the enclosed crew spaces from unnamed pipes and valves? Why did the alien vessel have open ports right at ground level that lead in to it's habitable sections? Where did that winch come from? How did the facehugger eat through the helmet without dissolving Kane's face, or killing him with the atmospheric and temperature differences once it was breached? How did Kane know the egg room was "...like the bloody tropics in here," when he's wearing an environmental suit, and not looking at any readouts? Why were those same suits venting jets of gas out of their helmets instead of holding and recycling that air?

When the facehugger came off Kane and hid, why was everyone walking around and leaving doors wide open? Why didn't they put any kind of barrier outside the medical bay before they opened it up in case it tried to make a break for it? Why didn't they close the door behind them once they were in? Why were they poking around in there looking for it without any masks, helmets, nets, or any other kind of protection, when they had already seen it liked to rape faces, and had no problem going through the helmet of a space suit?

How the hell did the alien get so big without eating? Where did it get its energy? Not only that, but all that goo it excreted, all the mass difference between the cute lil' chestburster, and the adult had to come from somewhere. Where? If Ash's priority was to return the alien to Earth, then his best course of action would have been to encourage everyone to either return to sleep, before it emerged from Kane, or abandon the ship while offering to stay behind once it had, not sabotaging their efforts to kill it. If he had explained the order from the company, and told a lie like "Hey, just got a transmission from Earth, we're ordered to abandon the ship. They're sending a team to pick us up and get the critter," before everyone went all "It MUST DIE" he might have been able to do just that. Captain Dallas was a pushover for the company and almost certainly would have gone along with it.

Why did Ripley decide to destroy the Nostromo instead of setting its distress beacon - its has got to be stronger than the shuttle's, and they would have the option of turning off all life support and venting the atmosphere, probably killing it, or at least preserving the option of returning to get more supplies if necessary - and following it in the shuttle? Why didn't she separate the cargo from the ship before destroying it? Why did they split up to get coolant for the shuttle, and set the auto destruct at the same time instead of doing one after the other? Why was it so difficult to turn off the self destruct? Why did the Nostromo, a commercial towing vehicle, even have a self destruct in the first place?

Also, the posing gets to me. This alien is supposed to be the "perfect organism," yet even ignoring the ridiculousness of that statement - "The A2's always were a bit twitchy" - why did it spend so much time posing and snarling and putting up threat displays instead of pouncing? Lions don't roar at the gazelle, they just kill it. They roar at other lions. Why didn't Veronica Catwright's character get out of the damn way so Carter could torch the thing? Why didn't Ripley torch it when she met it in the corridor instead of dropping her cat and running away? If it was so damned important for the company to get an alien, and they already knew where it was - as evidenced by special order 937, and Ash's joining the crew - why didn't they send a dedicated exploration team, instead of a fully loaded freighter and hoping for the best? And really, they found an entire alien spacecraft, was the biological alien really so impressive that nobody thought recovering the technology of an advanced alien intelligence might be a good idea?

I dunno. All that aside, it is a really good movie. Right up there with 2001: A Space Odyssey, or A New Hope, and it's easy to see why it's captured the public imagination the way it has.