Alien

Rating:
Summary: RIDLEY SCOTT'S ALIEN: THE TERRIFYING FIRST CHAPTER!
Review: SIMPLE: A HUGE COMMERCIAL FREIGHTER IS DISPATCHED TO A DARK PLANET. THREE CREW MEMBERS GO OUT ONTO THE SURFACE TO INVESTIGATE IF IT IS AN S.O.S. THEY FIND GIGANTIC ALIEN CRAFT AND GO INSIDE. BACK ON THE SHIP, IT IS DISCOVERED THAT THE DISPATCH WAS IN FACT A WARNING. WHILE THE THREE CREW MEMBERS ARE INVESTIGATING THE ALIEN VESSEL, ONE OF THEM GETS ATTACKED BY A PARASITE THAT ATTACHES ITSELF ONTO HIS FACE. AN ALIEN THEREFORE SPAWNS THROUGH HIS BODY, POPS OUT OF HIS CHEST IN A BLOODY DINNER SCENE, RUNS AROUND AND KILLS OFF THE CREW ONE BY ONE. MADE IN 1979, THE SPECIAL EFFECTS ARE SUPRISINGLY EFFECTIVE.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie!
Review: This movie has good effects,good acting,and a cool title monster.The only thing is that the story is pretty basic.There isn't much depth because it basically is about one alien going around killing crew members on a commercial freighter and the heroine Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has to escape.but the alien ends up in her escape shuttle and she ends up launching the beast into space.There isn't much else except of course the android Ash who is on a secret mission to capture some aliens to learn more about them.That becomes important later on in the series.Still very good and a great start to a cool Sci-fi series.

Rating:
Summary: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD is EXCELLENT treat!
Review: For those that love the ALIEN series, this DVD is well-worth the money. The extras make this worth getting on DVD, even if you have it on video, already.

You get a dozen outtakes and deleted scenes; tons of production art work by H. R. Giger, Ridley Scott, Moebius, (among other artists also used during the 1978 making of the film); two separate music soundtracks if you want them, (one is the official soundtrack, the other is a little more lively, but not used); you can choose to listen to it dubbed with French dialogue (like a cheesy, fun Godzilla film); and it's all widescreen!

This is the one of the scariest monster/horror/sci-fi films of all-time, especially if you don't know what will happen already. This is also the best of the ALIEN series of movies.

If you already are an ALIEN fan, please do yourself a favor and get this one.

Rating:
Summary: Alien Endures as a Pioneer Film
Review: I have just finished scrolling through over 150 reviews of this movie. And a wide range of opinions ----from Groundbreaking and much more innovative than Star Wars, to boring and not as good as sequels such as "Aliens." I have watched the movie over and over through the years and believe it marks a real turning point in Science Fiction. Not quite as much as "2001" perhaps, but much more than "Star Wars." and a lot of that has to do with settings, music, a realistic ship and crew, etc. Do we really think our future ships will be shining stainless steel with colorful designs, piloted by highly-made-up, California=type crews, or rather kind of old rust buckets with real, down-to-earth folks just trying to make a living? I go with the second alternative, and so do the makers of Alien. I do have a few questions after watching it so many times? "Why not send the shuttle down to the planet, rather than the whole ship, and why wouldn't Capt. Dallas enforce the anti-quarantine measures and back up Ripley? But these are minor---the film is a major one in both the mystery and science fiction modes. buy it, rent it, borrow it, but most of all---enjoy! Earl Finkler

Rating:
Summary: One of the most effective sci-fi thrillers out there!
Review: Now, the film I'm going to give 5 stars, but the DVD extras, I'd give around 3 1/2 or 4. I'll explain why later, but first, here's the plot if you don't know already:

The spaceship Nostromo is awakened to respond to what seems to be a rescue signal. The crew goes down to the planet the transmission's coming from to investigate. While exploring a bizarre-looking ship that crash-landed on the planet, one of the crew members gets attacked by an alien lifeform that attaches itself to the guy's face. To save myself from revealing spoilers, I'll stop there. You'll probably find the rest of the premise somewhere else on this site.

Anyway, on to the DVD. The picture and sound quality for "Alien" is absolutley clean and clear. The interactive menus are really cool-looking. But, even though the DVD is full of extras, it could've done without some of them. First, the deleted scenes are cool to look at (especially the cocoon sequence) but some of them were pointless and it seemed like they were added just because 20th Century Fox wanted to use them for something. What's really weird is the Isolated Music Score option which allows you to watch the film...and only hear the score. No dialogue. I mean, the score's great, but you can't see this film without hearing what the actors are saying. No sound effects either. What would've been better is if you could put the DVD in an audio CD player and heard the score through that!

Now, don't get me wrong here. Some of the DVD stuff is superb. I loved listening to Ridley Scott's commentary. He revealed some very interesting (and very funny) things about the making of "Alien". And the Alternate Music Track allows you to watch the film with a different music score and on-set dialouge (dialogue taped on the set, not re-dubbed). It also included some additional dialouge not in the original.

As for the PC screensaver, no biggie. Basically just a replay of the DVD menu. Well, bottom line is, if you can live with these minor annoyances, or if you want the DVD just for the film, get it. I'm just a major nit-picker when it comes to DVD extras.

As for the film, it is one of the scariest and most suspenseful sci-fi thrillers out there. I don't really like it when people say that "Aliens" was better. I mean, "Aliens" was great, but I think that both films are on an equal level. I can't really rate "Alien 3" or "Resurrection" because I've only seen them once.

The entire cast delivers great performances, the special effects are first-rate (for the 1970s), and H. R. Giger's sets and Alien designs are some of the most bizarre and disturbing images in the history of film-making.

Rating:
Summary: Superb, just superb
Review: This is an excellent film. Right from the start the atmosphere that is generated is bleak and empty, the stars don't shine very well here, they are indistinct and faint, the music which starts the film is desolate like a cold, cold wind blowing over an empty ice ridden tundra without the comfort of the midnight sun, totally lifeless and hopeless. The viewer feels very uncomfortable right from the start. The spacehsip is a huge mineral transport, probably miles across from the size of the thing. Its black and industrial looking. The inside of the ship is lit by fluorescent tubes some of which don't work properly flickering in the bad lighting, the whole thing is very functional, no extras just like it would be in the real thing. The colours are muted and empty of joy, suffused with a putrid green. The crew is waken from stasis by a distress signal being emitted from a planet whose solar system hasn't been charted. You also get a look at the crew who are real people not cardboard cutouts, completely anti-star wars here. Tom Skerritt is the grizzled Captain, Sigourney Weaver is simply gorgeous and intelligent, her debut in a big budget film. Supporting casts include the always superb John Hurt and Ian Holm. If the score isn't enough one meets the sublime alien artwork of H.R. Giger which really exceeds all expectations, if I didn't know better I'd think he had drawn it while completely insane. As they attempt to locate the source of the beacon they discover an ancient alien spaceship also enormous and strangely shaped with amazing structure inside, almost organic like support structures and vast empty cavernous corridors until they locate a large area containing eggs which are covered in a blue mist no doubt some sort of signaling system, dinner has arrived or thereabouts. One of the crew is attacked by a creature inside one of the eggs and the tension really mounts.

The whole film is slow paced but this is intentional with a slow build up and continuous tension and humanity in the cast. Ridley Scott directs this film with his usual style, this being one of his first, this was followed later but such films as "Black Rain", "Blade Runner" and "Gladiator". This is by far the best of the Alien series although each one of them has its own atmosphere associated with it, such as the almost Shakespearean mood of the third one.

Superb, just superb.

Rating:
Summary: Just perfect for this genre
Review: This movie defines gothic outer space horror. The script is solid, the acting brilliant, and the direction is incredible. The sets, lighting, and use of camerawork give this movie a sense of realism and paranoid clostrophobia. Even the different phases of alien growth attack different areas of your psychology (fear of suffocation, fear of spiders, fear of snakes, fear of the dark, knowledge of impending doom). Twenty-one years later and this movie hasn't aged a day.

Rating:
Summary: Classic sci-fi!!!!!! An excellent film!!!!!
Review: Alien is deffinetly on my classic movie list. Alien tells the story of a space mining crew who are currently returning to Earth. While in hypersleep they are woken up to answer a distress signal from a nearby desolate planet. So they go investigate and find a whole alien ship. One of the crew memembers is infected and the alien is borught on board to the ship as they return home. Among our heros are Captain Dallas(Tom Skerrit) and Lt. Ripley(Sigourney Weaver). This is an extremly fun action packed film. It was still very influential! The Alien Legacy Pack is worth buying which contains all 4 Alien films. Alien is followed by the even better sequel Aliens. Rated R for violence, profanity, and some alien gore

Rating:
Summary: A nightmare of a movie (I mean that in a good way)
Review: I rented Alien and Aliens on video several weeks ago and went out the next day and bought them both. The first movie in particular was incredibly scary. The effects are incredible even now, but that's not what made this movie so good. It is the superb acting of all seven of the doomed crewmembers onboard the gigantic Nostromo, especially Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the sole survivor who is strong and smart enough to tackle the ultimate monster. Even the alien itself has it's own personality. It lends a sort of "unstoppable enemy" feel to the movie, similar to Terminator, Predator, and the Raptors in Jurassic Park. Every scene in the movie has a dark tone to it, even scenes where the room is bright white (i.e. the dining room). See this movie and all the sequels (but drop Resurrection). And play the last few seconds of Dallas' death scene in slow motion if you never want to walk through a dark room without wetting yourself again.

Rating:
Summary: Simply overrated
Review: Alien. Loved by many. And certianly pioneering in its own way. Yet it has recieved a level of praise it doesn't deserve. And while there is a certian technical beauty to the film, Alien is too slow. Its pace drags, it crawls. And the suspense suffers because of it. With tighter direction and sharper editing, it would have been a truly great film. And then there are the characters. Typical horror film fodder. They are predictable and uninteresting. Such unstable personalities would not be entrusted to such an important ship. As such, the story not only loses credibility, but commits an error of the genre: if the people are not believable -- the horror isn't either. While Alien scores high marks for its aesthetics, its script and direction are low grade. And that is why, kids, Jimmy Camerons Aliens is a far superior film. Like it or not.