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.

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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.

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Janet Jason Leigh

This error is taking me to some strange places. That would be "Jennifer" not "Janet". Heh.

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Oh, another notable thing about Alien is that we were all surprised by how long the Token Black Guy survived. Brother outlived the captain.

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What I like is how different Alien and Aliens are from each other, and yet still both good.

Concerning Ripley, keep in mind that this was the 1970s. Women did not have anything like social equality. The "women's lib" movement was still caught between "women who want equality with men want to BE men (the word dyke was used a lot)" and "hhheeyyy, the fillies want to have sex...."

Women's roles in movies had just started moving away from the helpless bystander/victim, but only in the non-genre movies. And then, the female characters were mostly portrayed as hysterical, neurotic, incapable. In sci-fi and horror, women were still the ones that screamed a lot and had to be protected. For all Lucas' other faults, Princess Leia actually gave a new type of female character to the sci-fi/fantasy world.

I mean, for other movies that came out in 1979, you've got 10, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It was only the year before that An Unmarried Woman came out, which showed (*gasp!*) a woman actually able to live without being married.

So yeah, Ripley's maybe not the most three-dimensional character ever, but props for the time.

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What I like is how different Alien and Aliens are from each other, and yet still both good.

Yeah. I'm really anxious to see Aliens now, because I know I've seen parts of it at least (I have faint memories of Newt, and Bishop, and Ripley's final fight with the mother alien), but it was so long ago it hardly counts. I saw Alien³ in a dollar theater back in the day, and I recall liking it more than everyone else does. Alien: Resurrection doesn't even feel like an Alien movie, when compared to the other three.

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This error is taking me to some strange places. That would be "Jennifer" not "Janet". Heh.

D'oh! Thanks for catching that, Frank. I clearly wasn't paying attention, and was in the middle of like my third or fourth game of Literati.

I saw Alien³ in a dollar theater back in the day, and I recall liking it more than everyone else does. Alien: Resurrection doesn't even feel like an Alien movie, when compared to the other three.

I actually like Alien3 a lot, because it's Fincher's first film (or became his first film, about half way through) He inherited a mess, and did okay with it. I would have liked to have seen what he could have done with the franchise without the additional problems that came along with it.

I despise Alien: Resurrection. It's a horrible, horrible film, despite the fact that Joss wrote the script. Frankly, I think it's a franchise that wouldn't have benefitted from Joss' touch.

In particular, I don't know if the bit about the alien queen getting human DNA, and giving birth to that "humanoid" alien was Joss' idea, but if it was, that was the stupidest part of that movie.

One of the primary components that made aliens scary was the queen reproduced like an insect, laying hundreds or thousands of eggs at a time. Changing that so she gives birth to one dumb, slow, ugly one was LAME!

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In particular, I don't know if the bit about the alien queen getting human DNA, and giving birth to that "humanoid" alien was Joss' idea, but if it was, that was the stupidest part of that movie.

I think that's trumped by the ressurection of Ripley as part-alien, if only because of my dad's comment, "If I choked to death on a sandwich, and they cloned me to bring me back to life, I wouldn't come back part-sandwich!"

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I actually like Alien3 a lot, because it's Fincher's first film (or became his first film, about half way through)

You a Fincher fan too? Rock.

From IMDb:

Whedon originally scripted the Newborn creature as a four-legged, eyeless, bone-white creature with red veins running along the sides of its head. It had an inner jaw, similar to the all the other aliens. It also had a pair of pincers on the sides of his head. These pincers were used to hold its prey still as it drained the prey of blood with its inner jaw. The creature was also larger, nearly the size of the queen alien. In later script revisions, the creature was changed into a "more believable" hybrid of human and alien.

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I wasn't a big Alien3 fan. I should give it another shot; I've only seen it the once. I really hated the ending.

In total agreement with Sean about Resurrection. Gah.

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