Alien

I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. ~ Ash (fig.3)

(fig.1) Film Poster Alien is a 1979 title directed by Ridley Scott. In contrast to the film Legend, Alien is a sci-fi horror, literally a"haunted house in space" ~Reelviews (fig.4). Running along the idea of contrast, Alien is a very dark film. This is true to it's writing and it's colour pallet. We will start with the writing and move onto the pallet after. The writing is linear and simplistic. This allows the viewer to not have to think very hard and so when there is a twist or a controversial statement the audience is given some wiggle room to ponder and question what is being said. Then the film will try to catch you while your off guard with a jump scare or will build tension so that the film can buy time while it finds the plot. The writing has a very philosophical side to it. At one point in the story you find out that one of the crew is an android and he really shakes the foundations by talking about not hate or fear but adoration for the creature. This is really interesting because this alien creature, that by no accident has a head that resembles a huge penis, displays different symbolic entities both physically and by it's characteristics.

fig.2 Film Still

Physically the alien references sexual fears and has an anatomy, designed by the uniquely twisted H.R.Giger, that represents these fears in an aspect of physicality. The Alien has a very animal like instinct for survival, which opens up the films moral questions. Morally this film questions if this creature is evil even though it kills of the cast and, though actions that symbolises the atrocity of rape, would later use them to reproduce. This creature is what we would class as amoral and pure according to Ash. So the question is just because some things are acceptable in the wild does that mean we have any right to tell it it's doing something wrong or even purge it because of it's nature? This question isn't very daunting because as surpassed in the film we, the humans, try and kill it. Now people may make an argument that this is just survival instinct causing us to retort in violence like the alien. This would be true if that was all there was to it. This film is incredible as it shows that objective moral values exist for humans because there are things that the animals will do that we out of humanity will not allow. Now this is a very vast subject and this is a film review not a doctrinal theses so let us move on. The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys, as well as three sequel and two prequel films. ~Wikipedia (fig.5) The This film was very well designed so it's only natural that it got such a good reception. The contrast from the bulky and block-like human space ship to the almost organic structure of the alien hive is black and white and even so the film doesn't try and blend together, rather setting them each aside and letting them compliment each other.

Bibliography Images Figure 1 Film Alien, Ridley Scott, USA, Brandywine Productions, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Alien_movie_poster.jpg/220pxAlien_movie_poster.jpg Figure 2 Film Concept, Alien, Ridley Scott, USA, Brandywine Productions, http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/photosizer/upload/hr-giger-necronom-iv121310.jpg Quotes Figure 3 Film, Quote, Alien, Ridley Scott, USA, Brandywine Productions, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/quotes Figure 4 Web, Reelviews, Alien, Ridley Scott, USA, Brandywine Productions, http://www.reelviews.net/movies/a/alien.html Figure 5 Web, Wikipedia, Alien, Ridley Scott, USA, Brandywine Productions, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)