----ALIEN(1979)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Release Year 1979 Director Ridley Scott Starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean

ean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian

Holm .

Subgenre Alien Contact/Hard SF/Parallel Future Plot- The commercial towing spaceship Nostromo is on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineralore, and carrying its seven-member crew in stasis. Upon receiving a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer awakens the crew. Acting on standing orders from their corporate employers, the crew detaches the Nostromo from the refinery and lands on the planetoid, resulting in some damage to the ship. Kane discovers a vast chamber containing numerous eggs, one of which releases a creature that attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo. Eventually the creature detaches on its own and is found dead. Kane awakens seemingly unharmed, but during a meal before re-entering stasis he begins to choke and convulse until an alien creature bursts from his chest, killing him and escaping into the ship. With a deadly creature on board , the life on Nostromo becomes a game for survival for its crew members. Setting The movie builds upon the concepts of space voyages . A movie hailed for its visuals and settings, the Alien is set inside the spaceship Nostromo ,(except for a sequence that takes place on an unknown planet) commercial towing spaceship on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineral ore, and carrying its seven-member crew . The ship is very descriptively portrayed . The ship has a bulky inside , small rooms , minimal lighting and forms a pressurized environment, which creates an intense claustrophobia.It has towers covered with intricate filigree detail like Notre Dame Cathedral. Inside, the corridors are gloomy and labyrinthine, representing a technological version of the subterranean tunnels from gothic horror films. It serves as a perfect setting for a film in which a dangerous alien creature decides to go on a killing rampage. The sequence on the alien planet is also beautifully filmed . The dark planet with a characteristic blue metallic glow to it reveals a crashed alien spaceship with a dead alien ,which is assumed to be killed the creature. The architecture of the spaceship is very un-earthly like and huge .Minimum lighting was used to film the shots on the planet . Most of the shots of the crashed spaceship and the planets surface are long takes . Novel Technology and Concept - The movie was much appreciated for the logic it used while portraying novel technology. The ship itself is thinking. This clear from the shot when the computer has

intercepted a signal from a barren moon. It wakes the crew up, who are in a hyper-sleep and sends them down to investigate.The ship was designed as an industrial design challenge and all of his designs look as if they could actually work. As the film progress ,it is revealed that one of the crew members was an android (a humanoid robot) who was programmed to bring the creature back to the home base. The Alien has been referred to as "one of the most iconic movie monsters in film history" in the decades since the film release, being noted for its biomechanics and sexual overtones. American Film Critic and Screenwriter, Roger Ebert has remarked that "Alien uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know quite what it looks like or what it can do...The alien creature of the film is derived from the works of Swiss artist Hans Rudi Giger in his book Necronomicon..The alien creature has no fixed form . The lifecycle of the alien includes two broad stages . The first involves another alien of the same species(called as face hugger in pop culture) to insert an egg inside a living organism . This creature is born out of an egg which is hideously visceral, with pulsating flesh.The main alien creature then grows inside the living organism and bursts out when ready . However, it continues to grow and evolve even after that . Analysis Alien plays on unconscious fears of birth trauma and the unsettling mechanical aspects of human reproduction. These factors were very original in Alien and are as important to its success as the convincing visual designs and storyline. The planet where the Alien resides, most of the ship, and even the escape pod is shot using low key lighting. This is to symbolize the Aliens presence in that area, or symbolically, the presence of evil. Most of the scenes where an alien attack takes place are shot in dark and unrevealed parts of the spaceship . This adds to the horror that the director wanted to portray. Well lit areas such as the stasis room, mothers central control room, and the kitchen corresponded with the sanctity or safety of the area. The pace of the movie is kept in accordance with the sequence . The starting scene of the movie is slow and proper introduction of the crews using close ups and elements of conversation is given. The ending sequence when only a crew member and the alien is left is fast paced and uses short takes . Most of the scenes are shot using stationary(fixed) cameras . The movie relies on claustrophobic sets and heavy music along with the creature to create the distressing mood of the film. Significance While Alien seems like a straight forward science fiction movie , it raises several issues though the main focus is always on hard science fiction part of it . The movie reveals the fragilities of being a human in an unknown environment . The movie shows that human beings are not the ultimate high of the food chain and that many untamed and dangerous creatures reside within the realms of the universe. The discovery of the alien life ultimately becomes a game of survival for the crew members and even when the creature is defeated , the only option left for the survivor is to go back to hyper sleep . Thus , not a lot of hope is shown for the human race.

Another issue upon this movie works is the capitalist policy of the corporates , who want the alien species alive and have even sent an android with the humans to make sure that the task is completed . Like Moon , the human life in Alien is expendable. The birth of the alien , which is accompanied by the death of a crew member portrays trauma and death associated with the child birth . Reception- Alien garnered both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Cartwright, and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, along with numerous other award nominations. It has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002 for historical preservation as a film which is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".In 2008 it was ranked as the seventhbest film in the science fiction genre by the American Film Institute, and as the thirty-third greatest movie of all time by Empire magazine.