They sure grow up quickly...

I saw Alien3 when I was about 7. I saw Aliens on October 14th, 2000. Somehow it took a further 7 years for me to get around to watching the original. I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised. I would probably place it as the best film we watched this semester (excluding the Matrix since I had already seen it). The whole atmosphere of the film was absolutely phenomenal. The opening sequence of slowly moving across empty space and then through the dead corridors of the ship was truly brilliant. Right away the tone of the entire film is set.

I have read that Alien was a slowly paced film, but I would have to disagree. I would say that it was perfectly paced. It is slow, but it needs to be. Life IS slow for these people as they are essentially prisoners aboard this lonely old ship. No matter how good a mood they may be in, there always that sense of dread at being aboard this dark, steampunk-esque vessel with nowhere to turn. Unlike Blade Runner, I felt like the darkness worked perfectly.

The Alien itself is truly a classic creature of horror. Within moments of the little bastard tearing its way into the world, it ceases being just another Sci-Fi beast and becomes a nightmarish demon. This is where I really felt like the film succeeded. It was sci-fi with reminding the audience constantly that this is the future and things are totally different. Instead, it tells you upfront that this is the future and leaves it at that. From then on, these are just people like you and me that just happen to be in slightly different circumstances. So when they find themselves in a situation where they are being picked off one by one, I don't question the setting or situation, I just buckle in and go for the ride.

As I don't have the reader with me at this moment, I cannot quote or even remember the name of the article, but I really do want to discuss the whole "femininity" issue at stake. Ripley never felt like a "classical Hollywood woman" to me throughout the film. Perhaps I am too detached from said society, but I did not have any issue with accepting her as a heroic lead. Williams, Clover, and other have written in detail about the place of the woman in the horror film. Clover, for example, has a term called the "final girl." In your typical slasher flick, this is the girl who manager to survive the serial killing due to intelligence and cunning. Clover argues that this turns her into a masculine character and possibly defeats the idea of a female hero all together. In Alien, I don't really feel like Ripley could be placed in this category. I don't see her as a strong-female-type. I see her as a person who has seen a whole lot of shit in her time and has been built into the heroic, strong person that she is. She is a badass who happens to be a woman, not a woman who happens to be a badass.

I must be honest, the final scene of the movie really through this all on its head. In a stroke of true cinematic genius, Ripley becomes a stereotypical woman for all of 10 minutes at the end. When she is in the shuttle prior to discovering the presence of the Alien, she somehow manages to shrug off the ridiculous amount of terrible shit that has happened to her. She starts to strip down and walk around the small space in just a tattered tank-top and her underwear. Her mannerisms all transform into those of a beautiful, half-naked woman. It feels like Scott was going "yeah, she was this fierce, manly badass... but take a look now... she's a sexy, innocent little girl." It really is quite shocking. Weaver really pulls this off. She looks completely comfortable, albeit terribly out of place.

Then, bam, the Alien is back. After my first screening I really wished that the film had ended on the note of Ripley just lounging around without a care in the world. Now, after re-seeing the scene, I feel it was necessary to put her back into her prior role for the closure of the film. It almost transforms from earlier. Now she is a woman who happens to be a badass. Quite a shocking little twist, really.