<span class="SFPTagline">
From SCIFIPEDIA
</span>
Alien (1979) is the first of four movies which pit Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) against a deadly extraterrestrial creature discovered on the moon LV-426.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
Ripley and the crew of the towing ship Nostromo are diverted to the moon by their employer, the Weyland-Yutani Company, where they find a derelict spaceship; inside are what turn out to be eggs. An alien embryo hatches, attaching itself to the face of one of the crewmen, Kane, and infecting him with a parasitic future version of itself. Kane, played by John Hurt, soon becomes the first human actor to suffer the terrible fate of an alien-infected host: when the creature reaches the next stage of its growth, it kills him by forcing its way out through his chest.
Ripley and the crew fight the creature, hindered in their efforts by the ship's android science officer, Ash. As an additional complication, the creature's blood is acidic . . . so the humans cannot shoot it without the risk of breaching the hull of their ship.
Though the story plays out on conventional horror-film lines—with characters meeting horrible deaths, one at a time, until only one remains—the high quality of the performances, direction, and screenwriting made the movie an enduring SF classic.
Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien is remembered for its dark and claustrophobic visuals, the striking H. R. Giger creature designs, and the creation of Ripley, one of SF's first truly kick-butt heroines. The sole human survivor of the encounter with the creature, Ripley manages to save the ship's cat, Jones, when she finally blows the alien out of the Nostromo's space shuttle airlock.
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.
