Alien (1979) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | MOVIE REACTION

Hey friends!! Hope you enjoy this reaction to Alien! Just a reminder that Back to the Future 2 will be uploaded next Wednesday 6/26 The following week will be Aliens!! Hope you all have an awesome week and please came those recommendations coming!!!

"In space no one can hear you scream." The best tagline in film history.

3:03 "So does that mean they're basically space truckers?" Yes. Ridley Scott, the director, said that exact thing when explaining why this movie worked - they're not an elite team of space explorers, armed to the teeth and trained to handle anything. Just truckers in space, towing a giant refinery back to earth, in over their heads and doing the best they can. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact quote, but he did say "truckers in space". Very observant of you to catch that right away.

Star Wars in 1977, and then Alien in 1979. Gosh this film is a masterpiece, and one of the truly great Horror/Sci-Fi films.

You're right about the oysters. They used oysters and clams for the facehugger. They used haggis, or sheep innards for the inside of the alien eggs. The character design and art direction was created by HR Giger, a surrealist horror artist who chronically suffered from night terrors.

"Listen to Ripley!" "People don't take Ripley seriously enough." "I think she's under-appreciated." All correct. But! This is also good writing. She's young. She's a junior officer, middle management on a space tugboat with less experience than anybody else on board. She's not a scientist, an explorer, a military person, or even a ranking officer. She has no expertise in anything that's happening. Dallas should hear her advice but make his own decisions; that's what captains do. His decision to save his best friend was a risky one, but understandable - what would you do for your best friend? Ash doesn't have to listen to anybody on this ship regarding science (Dallas tells us this is true) so he has no reason to listen to Ripley, and we find out that he has secret reasons to do what he does. Parker, Brett, and Lambert are not officers, but they have a captain and first officer aboard and don't need to listen to Ripley, a junior warrant officer, unless Dallas and Kane are not around. Later in the movie, this is exactly what happens and Ripley becomes the senior officer and guess what? The three crew members begin to listen to her. This is EXCELLENT writing. This crew treats Ripley like real ship crews on earth's oceans treat new young junior officers.

A lot of people will say that the actors had no idea what was going to happen during the chest bursting scene, and so their reactions of shock were real. But this simply isn't true as it was clearly in the script (and yes it said that the alien comes out of Kane's chest and quickly scurries away). The day of shooting the actors arrived on set to find the crew behind plastic shields, and actor John Hurt (Kane) with his head attached to a prosthetic body on top of the table. What actually happened was- the actors (especially Veronica Cartwright who played "Lambert") didn't know how much blood was going to spray out and that it was literally going to cover everything and everyone. So yes the reactions were somewhat genuine, but the Mandela Effect has altered the reason why.

What's interesting about this, and many other stories, is the real enemy wasn't the alien itself. It was dangerous, yes, but the real enemy in this entire series is the unfortunate corporate individuals who put lives at risk for money and opportunity. It's a theme that's pretty prevalent in this entire series. I mean, it's kind of the case in real life too. But I remember thinking when I was younger that the alien was the ultimate evil. In fact, it was whoever sent them out there in the first place.

"Is the guy in the blue shIrt like HR?" Oh the irony of that statement later in the movie

RIP to a great actor, Harry Dean Stanton. I recently watched his last movie, Lucky, which was released shortly after his passing.

Predator (1987) is a mandatory watch. And I quote, "Come on! Come on! Do it! Do it now!" You will get the reference once you watch the film.

"He gives me, like, uncanny-valley..." That's really on point! Good catch 😊

When you said Ashe gave you 'uncanny valley' vibes, it was such a compliment to his acting. At that point, we don't know he's an android but those are exact words we use to describe humanistic robots.

No CGI back then. It was all models, paintings and practical effects. A vector can be many things, but it's usually connected to motion somehow. In virus investigation, a vector is a carrier, that carries the virus from one point to another. In regular navigation, a vector is usually a direction and speed. In this case it sounds plausible, but it could be many things. The fact that you felt Ash was kind of "off" or strange in some way, but you didn't realize he was a robot until his head came off, only shows the acting quality of Ian Holm. From Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings movies, and Priest Cornelius in The Fifth Element, and a sociopathic robot in this movie, he is very diverse and always nailing it. But then again, they were all great actors in this movie. Aliens can NOT be recommended enough (together with Terminator 2, it is the top of sequels you'll ever find). MAKE SURE it's the extended version or directors cut, though! I know a few recommends the theatrical, and afterwards the extended version, but since you'll probably only make one First Time Watching of Aliens, there is a lot of background and lore in the extended cut that A LOT of us will want to see your reaction to (as well as putting more perspective to your experience).

Yup no CGI in this one, it's all practical i.e. models, miniatures, matte paintings, alien suits and animatronics. Oh and some real animal parts including oysters for the gooey stuff. :)

This one is great not just being the beginning of the Alien franchise, but also the origins of Sigourney Weaver as the beginning of one of the greatest action stars to come out of Hollyweird. Yeah, space trucker, or Merchant Marine. They were loaded, but who's gonna streal it? Yeah, no CGI in this. Yes, Prometheus was a prequel. Thisncrew gets beat up a lot for questionable decisions, but, as you say, they're just space truckers. Finally someone caught that a mask wouldn't matter....it went thru a space suit helmet. Altering the vector means she was transitioning from lifting off straight up and moving to a forward motion with nose angling upward to begin climbout. And the ending sets you up for Aliens.

35:51 You can thank the director Ridley Scott for that. If I remember correctly, the actors didn't know what was happening. They were not fully informed about the scene, they were just instructed to play along to what ever was going to happen, so the reactions are largely genuine confusion.

7:00 "I can't tell if they like each other or not." Here's a breakdown. Dallas is the captain, Kane is the first officer. They've been friends for a long time. Parker and Brett are the two mechanics and Lambert is the navigator and they've all been with Dallas and Kane for a few trips. They all know each other like employees who live and work together for a couple years. Ripley is the new kid, a warrant officer (3rd in command) on her first trip with this crew. As far as these two mechanics, she's the new jr. manager sticking her nose into their jobs when she has no idea even how to do their jobs, so in this scene they just think she's being bossy and useless. Like a lot of middle management. And Ash is brand new, a replacement science officer at the last moment before launch. Nobody knows why. He's not HR, but he's the smartest and most educated crew member - they all work on space ships which requires a lot of education and intelligence, but the science officer is all that and a Ph.D. in science, too. Which is why Dallas is happy to let the brainy crew member explain company policy. So 5 members of the crew all know each other, two are good friends, and none of them really know Ash or Ripley very well yet. An example of how brilliantly this script is written is that the writers capture all of this in a few lines of dialogue but you see these relationships all throughout the movie.

The intricate set designs of the Nostromo are stunning. The amount of thought and care that went into the design of every room of the ship is astounding. All the switches, screens, access panels, conduits, air ducts…I could spend an entire viewing of the film ignoring the plot and just focusing on the sets design.

Fun Fact : @7:07 these are actually kids in space suits. Ridley Scott did this, so that the Space Ship and Space Hangar looks bigger.