Alien - The Director's Cut - 11/04/03

Written by: Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto

Official Site

I saw Alien when it first came out in 1979. I don't remember seeing it... I was six. My dad took me to see it. If I remember correctly, I hid behind my shirt the entire time.

There are a lot of frightening elements to the Alien movie, and I'm sure that one of the most frightening to me, back then, was the sound effects and the incredible music by Jerry Goldsmith. A lot of the time, those two elements help make the atmosphere of the movie what it is. In this film, they were almost half the movie.

Ridley Scott is a goddamn genius. I've loved his work since I became intersted in film, and found his movies incredibly entertaining, when I was just watching movies for movies. His last few films certainly haven't been bad, but with the exception of Gladiator, they haven't been of the same caliber as Blade Runner, Alien, The Duellists, Black Rain, or even Thelma and Louise. Hannibal, Black Hawk Down and Matchstick Men all have their place, but they are not up in the top three of his films.

One of the most important points in this film to bring up, when it comes to Scott's direction, is his use of anticipation. There are a few forms of this, in my mind. One is his use of the ship... taking us through different deserted parts, showing us that (in the initial viewing) the Alien could be anywhere. Once you've seen the film two or three times, you'll know that Scott wouldn't bother showing us the Alien, because that is another form of his use of anticipation.

Not until close to the very end of the film, do we actually see the entire Alien. We see bits and pieces, we even see the entire front portion of the Alien when it captures Dallas... but only for a split second. Enough for anyone to cover his/her eyes... and then the scene is over.

In the directors cut, I was impressed by how much more footage was added of the ship, with Scott taking us through bridges and hallways. I thought these moments were perfect, because in the quiet of these hallways, it offset the violent moments when, say, Parker and Lambert are killed. Ridley is off on her own, prepping the shuttle... and we're taken through the corridors... not knowing when or where the Alien is going to strike.

Well, if you've seen the film, you know, but that's not the point. The atmosphere in this film is so important... if it wasn't handled as masterfully as Scott had done, this film might well have been one of the crap facsimilies we were inundated with in the 1980's.

Dan O'Bannon is a wonderful writer. His first feature, Dark Star, was directed by his college friend (and one of my favorite directors), John Carpenter. O'Bannon would go on to work on Star Wars as a computer graphics artist. He would write Dead & Buried, Heavy Metal, Blue Thunder, write/direct one of the funniest spoofs based on the Night of the Living Dead series, The Return of the Living Dead, Lifeforce, Invaders from Mars and then, in 1990 he would join up, again, with Ron Shusett to write Total Recall. In 1995 he would adapt another Philip K. Dick story, Screamers. There are a few cult films in here, with a well respected following.

Shusett, after Alien, would go on to help write and produce Dead & Buried with O'Bannon. He would also write the only really decent Steven Seagal film, Above the Law. Shusett would produce Total Recall, write and produce Freejack and would executive produce Minority Report. Not too shabby... Their work on Alien helped spawn one of the best known heroines in film, creating what looks to be four sequels... an Alien 5 is in the works.

It's very important to note H.R. Giger's work on this film. His designs on the Alien creature, along with the alien ship were brilliant, and earned the film its only Oscar, for Best Effects. This award was won by Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder and Denys Ayling. All of them helped make this film all the more brilliant.

Originally written in as a man, the character of Ripley was changed to a woman. One of the problems was that, in 1979, the people at Fox were curious (and worried) to know if a female hero would be taken positively by audiences.

At this point in her career, Weaver had been in Annie Hall, the television series Somerset and The Best of Families, and the film Madman, which I've never heard of. Alien is her first starring role, and she did such an incredible job with it. I think her work, and the work of the entire cast (especially Ian Holm) was so right on, that when people say a large part of the dialog in the film was improvised, I believe it. All of the scenes were seamless in their transitions, and each characters personality fit within the confines of the ship and its crew.

Skerritt, Cartwright, Stanton, Hurt and Kotto were all brilliant. I think that their characters, as victims of the Alien, are the most memorable, when you take a look at the entire series of films. I don't remember anyone, save maybe Vasquez and Hudson in Aliens, who made as large an impact.

Some of the scenes in the film that were added for this directors cut... well, they weren't necessary. I don't think the whole cocooning of Dallas and Brett was necessary. It slowed the film down somewhat, and Ripley didn't act accordingly. Her reactions during the film just didn't gel with that moment.

As I said earlier, the additions of the scenes inside the Nostromo were perfect. I loved watching the camera move through the ship... the production on this film was just incredible, and it was a blast to see all the hard work up on the screen, adding to the affect of the film.

One scene that I thought was pretty incredible, was when Brett is looking for the cat, Jones. In a large hanger type area, with water coming down from the rafters, Brett is letting some of the water hit him on the face, cooling him down. Well, the camera takes a look up in those rafters... briefly... and you can see, hanging from the chains, the Alien. It's huge... and it's only for a second or two, but you see it. I thought that was so clever, and wondered why they took that part out of the original film.

As director's cuts go, this one isn't bad. To be honest, for it's 25th anniversary (coming up), if they would have re-released the film without the additional scenes, I would have seen this one in the theaters. Its scope is much grander than most of the science-fiction films we're given today. No explosions, no kung-fu... just suspense. I think that this would have been a film that Hitchcock would have been proud of, had he been around to see it.

(He was alive, but he was 79... not sure if he got to the theaters much at the end...)