Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Strega! I finally saw
Alien.
Though I think
Aliens
is the one you're always quoting.
Alien
takes an almost unnecessarily slow time getting started, but once we get some hardcore alien action, it's pretty good. What was the state of alien movies before, that this was so remarkable, though? I mean, really, all it is is a movie about an alien picking off the members of a crew one by one. And the protagonist happens to be female, though she doesn't really have any character besides "tough" and "loves her fucking cat." There might be some deeper meaning there, but I often wonder why some classics are, well, classics. What did Ridley Scott do to get himself a place in the canon?
Alien takes an almost unnecessarily slow time getting started
Like other early horror and thriller films, it's a bit of a byproduct of its time. The pacing made it unnerving and intense at the time. The pacing was part of what made it so good. It's definitely slow by today's standards, though.
Well, it was one of the first (if not the first) sci-fi film to treat the future as a complex, messy place, rather than a sterile jump-suited pristine environment. The ship looks like people actually live there and work there. And the monster does not look like a guy in a suit or a series of light effects-thanks to HR Giger, it not only looks genuinely alien--it has many lifestages which all look unique yet work together.
Alien was all "atmospheric" and "claustrophobic." It's most famous for the scene of the alien bursting from the guy's chest--back then it freaked people out. Now of course it happens all the time.
Let's see... there also were class issues--the giant corportation sending poor working stiffs to their certain deaths. The alien effects were groundbreaking, in that (for the most part) the alien did not move like the typical '50s horror movie "guy in a rubber suit."
Also, the designs of the alien and the alien ship were done by H R Geiger, who has a very... distinctive style.
edit: semi-x-posty....
Well, it was one of the first (if not the first) sci-fi film to treat the future as a complex, messy place,
I loved the size of the Nostromo, and that there were rooms large enough to have "weather".
The pacing was part of what made it so good. It's definitely slow by today's standards, though.
Yeah, it's hard to watch the original after having seen everything that's been influenced by it.
The ship looks like people actually live there and work there.
That was pretty awesome. I said out loud, "Dude, they had one hell of a set."
Alien was all "atmospheric" and "claustrophobic." It's most famous for the scene of the alien bursting from the guy's chest--back then it freaked people out. Now of course it happens all the time.
And I can finally appreciate the scene in
Spaceballs
! The actor did look familiar, and I checked, and they
did
get John Hurt for the parody, which is awesome. "Oh no...not again."
Also, the designs of the alien and the alien ship were done by H R Geiger, who has a very... distinctive style.
Oh, yeah. I definitely appreciated the design of things. Impressive for 1979.
(sneaking in, because I had a personal stake in Alien, and then sneaking out)
What Robin said. Also, hard to go wrong with the basic tactic: people in enclosed place with something that wants to kill them, and they can't leave.
Also? His characters weren't pretty. His actors weren't pretty. They looked like people. They looked rough and three-day-bearded and funky and they could be unpleasant to each other, and yet...
It's one of my favourite films on earth, for several reasons.
(slips back out)
I think the big thing was that Alien was for grown-ups. An R-rated horror/SF movie, 2 years after Star Wars solidified the impression that SF was childish escapism. And then Alien comes along with actual adult motives and conflicts and lots of paranoia.
Plus: scary.
It's (barely) worth seeing It! The Terror from Beyond Space just to see that there is occasionally some value in remakes. I mean, Alien is much better, but it's funny to see a cheesy '50's version of the same story.
And the monster does not look like a guy in a suit
Well, except for the big reveal at the end, which is such a let-down.
we don't get to see that city featured too often onscreen, unfortunately
What,
The Whole Nine Yards
didn't scratch that itch for you?
I just saw Hellbent. A pretty fun example of the horror genre, plus gay! I had figured "shocks, but no visual/impression to linger"
But then there was the thing.
If you have an eye squick, stay away. Otherwise, it's good fun, and the leads are all charismatic, and mostly pretty.
