 Thank you for checking out this movie review. So I went to see the 40th anniversary theatrical re-release of alien the original alien film from 1979 Done directed by Ridley Scott and written by I believe Dan O'Bannon, I think was a guy who read the script which by the way the script is great So there will be spoilers and what I'm talking about So if you have not seen the film yet within the 40 years that's been out Go watch it first then come back and watch this so because I will be doing spoilers with that The other thing is I didn't take notes for this because since I was in the theater I'm not gonna be that person who's got my phone out with that bright screen You know taking notes while people behind me are getting distracted by the brightness on my screen I hate it when people do that So everything I'm gonna talk about is just off the top of my head what I remember since I just saw the film So I may miss some things that I want to say, but you know, I'll do the best I can I am wearing my alien shirt that I got from my freight crate, which is amazing Watch that unboxing it wasn't this past one, but I think it was like The one before that or before that one. I don't know you'll see Anyway, so alien for everyone who's seen it knows. This is a highly revered sci-fi horror film I think I think it's you know appropriately called a sci-fi horror film Actually a lot of times it's mainly just called a sci-fi film But it's definitely more horror than people will give it credit for and I think a large part of that just being the industry Consistently not wanting to recognize horror as being as legitimate as it is as a genre So they kind of tend to sanitize the horror aspect from it, which speaking of sanitize Watching this film again on the big screen It's one of those moments where you you think you remember the film being a lot more gory than it actually is And that's something that I've seen talked about on some documentaries and and in some writings about horror And how people experience horror movies is that your mind will just naturally fill stuff in So if you see a film from some time ago If you see a film and then some time passes like your your brain will just fill in the gore Like you think it was there, but it wasn't actually there and a lot of times when it's just alluded to and rewatching Alien I had that situation going on where I was just like I swore there was more gore in this But no, it's things that are just alluded to like when the little extra mouth comes out of the aliens mouth And like gets people it doesn't actually show it It just shows it coming out and it kind of like shows a quick flash of something Eluding to the fact that someone got it. So there really is I don't even think there's any actual blood in this Other than the chest bursters bursters scene, which is obviously iconic. Everyone knows about that. It was spoofed in space balls Marvelously by the way, I loved it and when I was watching this right now when I just watched it today I was like when the chest bursters scene happened It just made me think of the version in space balls and I was just like, yeah, they did a great job Paradying it. It was pretty awesome. So Let's talk about some main themes of this. Well, actually, you know Off the first let's talk about the technical stuff So directed extremely well Ridley Scott did an amazing job with this acting awesome. Sigourney Weaver Yaffa Koto John Hurt Harry Dean Stanton Ian home Can't remember everyone else in it, but that's a pretty good Smattering of people. Yeah, great performances and one of the things is the dialogue in it. It feels real You know, there are a lot of times where I watch movies and the dialogue seems like Someone wrote it not like it feels natural within this and within the situation that people are in The dialogue going on feels natural and there's actually a lot of like Conversational laid-back stuff that said that just feels natural and feels real and part of that is how it's written But part of it's also how it's acted and that's where those two things really come together Super strong in this film The music is wonderful. It's this kind of Really like it gives you the sci-fi feel of like being out in space and it's very kind of like mysterious But it also has these like notes here and there that are That are kind of like a horror note They're kind of dark and kind of gives you an idea That there's something bad about to happen at least early on And then it obviously gets a lot more heavy on the horror aspects and darkness as the film goes on So the music is amazing The sound design is outstanding because there are a lot of times where you know, you're in space So you're not going to hear a lot of background noise So they just put in these Like the the necessary noises which a lot of it's just coming from like the ship and the people Doing what they're doing and it's just this cool This cool thing when you when you kind of step back from it and really experience What's going on there that It's basically silent and all the noises that are being created are being created by this crew from the nostromo It's either the actual mechanic mechanical aspect of the ship or it's the human organic people or the alien So and the cat jones, you know So um, yeah, so that's great The other really big thing with this and I knew this going into the film from when I watched the movie the last time A bunch of years ago. It has been a while Uh, but it becomes even more apparent when you see it in in a theater because it's so much larger of a screen You can see a lot more the set design for this film is unbelievably amazing And when it's on a theater screen, you can just see Much more detail and when they usually do these they'll kind of like clean it up They'll remaster it. They make it look brighter and clearer and it's just It looks unbelievable. My buddy who I went with rich smith shout out to rich He even said after we watched the film. He was just like The way that looked was unbelievable I didn't remember remember it being like that crisp and it just looking that good There was a wonderful use of kind of like lights and shadows in the film The set design is just unbelievably cool because not only does it make you believe that it's like a futuristic space setting with how the spaceship is designed But it also just looks sleek and it also looks sterile Which is really interesting because when the alien itself is introduced It is it's meant to be a sterile environment Like they they even talk about how they have protocol for quarantine Because when the guy gets the initial face face hugger after going into the old ship that had well that planet and the old ship that had um That had been left there and destroyed and had all the eggs the alien eggs in it and was sending out the warning signal Which they found out was a warning signal, which at first I was just like When they were like, oh, we're deciphering this and it's not actually an sos It's a it's a warning signal actually and I was like, why wouldn't you have taken the time to decipher that first? And then go check it out like that seems to not jive But when you go further on and you realize that the character ash It is that um is an android basically and he had the secret mission of like who cares about the human beings We're going to find a alien life form You understand why that was the case but from the humans on board It doesn't make sense that they would just kind of go along with it. They're just like but um But when the When they have that moment where you know, the guy gets uh, kane is the character He gets the face hugger and they're going they're having a struggle and they're just like, you know ripply So growing weaver's character is like no the protocol is we need quarantine. They're not coming in. I'm not letting you in Well, who lets him in is ash because he's the android. He has a secret motive But everyone else is is is kind of gunning for it. We're well advocating for it I should say just saying let him in let him in let him in and that's this this moment this issue of like procedural and smarts and intelligence versus reactionary and emotional and it's the difference between human and You know humanity doing logical things devoid of emotion So usually and this this is a big theme within this usually if you take the emotions out of it And sometimes have to take the morality out of it. What makes the most sense to for making decisions Is not what's most humane or most emotionally acceptable it is Kind of cold honestly, and that's why it's It's interesting that when ash lets kane and everyone in with the infected creature Well with the infection which is the creature who's laying its egg basically inside the guy at the moment kane It's seen as he's being the compassionate one, but he's not the compassionate one you end up finding out later It's because he has a secret directive because he's supposed to get that creature and it you definitely see at that moment that he's very much It seems that he's driven by Being inquisitive and it seems like one of those. Oh, this is going to go poorly. It's like Curiosity killed the cat as he's just like I have to take a look at this I have to see what this is about and that's what it seems like is he's very like science driven like It's his curiosity in trying to figure out what this thing is that's going to get everyone killed But then like I said, excuse me and like I said eventually you find out No, it's because this was his directive and this is what he's supposed to be doing Is getting this as he calls it perfect being which he like it's interesting because he Is envious of it And the portion it feels like he's envious of is the being devoid of emotion Because he does kind of talk about how it's like kind of like physically perfect because you know, it's got acid blood Which is a crazy idea for this film and good job on the writer of the script who I I said, I think is dana bannon That's a really cool concept. So like with things like that He's just looking at this and being like oh physically it's like evolved. It's perfect. It's got this defense mechanism Its body is like amazingly made and you know all this stuff. But then when he's talking about how He envies it It it seems like it's more from the aspect of it not having emotions And it mainly acting like being physically perfect but acting Without emotion and without morals and more from an animal instinct aspect of things Which ties in with um one of the the The main survivor from the film who is not actually ripply really it's the cat jones Who was doing just fine all by itself was able to get away from The creature because it's animal instinct versus animal instinct versus animal instinct versus humans who could go by instinct But then get let emotions get involved and you know They're not doing things logically the cat's doing things logically. That's something that's a problem I'm going away from it. Whereas the people are like that's something that's a problem We have to go look at it and study it and see what's going on with it And that's what you know, obviously creates the big issue there. So, um, yeah So you can't really talk about this film though without talking about the fact that ripply is a female and ripply is the main character And ripply is the hero or heroine of this Now initially when this film was made ripply was supposed to be a male And I can't remember why it ended up changing but it did change at some point obviously And it became very revolutionary Because this was the first time that people were seeing. Oh the hero of this thing is a woman That's amazing and you see kind of the the male female tension throughout the entire film where You know, she's saying technically i'm in charge right now and you need to listen to me But all these males are like, okay I think we should do this instead and she's like Shut up. I'm the one who's technically in charge if we're going by the rules You should be listening to me right now And it's important to point out if you look at the film as my buddy rich said the film would have been over within the first bunch of minutes um Or he just said the film would have been over really fast if everyone actually listened to her like they were supposed to because they wouldn't have let the creature on board and then Things wouldn't have gone to crap like they totally did and the ship ended up needing to be blown up and rippley had to abscond Well not abscond had to escape into deep space with jones So literally the only people who the only existing Crew members at the end are the animal jones who acted surely off of Animal instinct with some help from rippley at the end and rippley Who was trying to follow the rules and take human emotion and morality out of things And go buy the book and the rules that were set to follow in their scenarios And no one else wanted to listen to it Those are the two who make it so it's basically has this big theme of human emotion and human morality Getting in the way of survival a lot of the time at least that's what comes through on this film for me um I really think the script is is outstandingly well written. It's For nowadays if they were to make this film it would be A lot shorter a lot more condensed there wouldn't be as long as shots and takes Of scenes as there are in it But based off the substance and how good it looks And how good the practical effects are in the music and everything The slow pacing for what it is now Is still really effective because the tension stays because there's this consistent like what's going to happen next What's going to happen next and there's a lot of exploration that goes along with it as they're kind of going through the guts of the of the uh ship Because they know where they're going within the ship, but you as a viewer don't know you haven't seen it So it's just more of an exploration of that amazing set design That is just very very visually pleasing Another thing is I really like how they used Um kind of the environment inside of of the ship with you know when things are going wrong like the flashing lights which Caution epileptics that'll that could set you off at some point There's a lot of like flashing with which I think adds some extra horror aspects When the flashing is going on and the actual alien creature shows up The xenomorph which is another thing that's really important to talk about the xenomorph itself and the design of it done by hr geiger Amazing artist unfortunately isn't around anymore if you want to see a really good documentary about him There's a documentary called dark star and it's just a whole documentary about hr geiger So he's most well known obviously for his design of the xenomorph and working with You know the set and everything for For the movie alien, but I think he also A bunch of his drawings were referenced for Oh, why am I blanking on it? It was the prequel Can't remember it right now pain. No I can't remember people hated it. So it doesn't matter that I can't remember the name at the moment at the moment Um, yeah, but I saw it. I didn't think it was that bad But but anyway, so the the design is key in this because it's this it looks amazing Especially for being in the 70s. It seems kind of ahead of its time It's this melding that geiger would always do in his work between mechanical and human And that plays really well with the theme of the film like I was talking about, you know You know taking human emotion and taking morality out of things that's the mechanical aspect of things And then fusing it with the human portion of things which is the emotion and the morality and when you put those two things together You know, what do you get so? The design goes really well with a lot of themes in the film. Plus it just looks amazing. It is unbelievable How good that creature looks and holds up today, but it's not just there. It's also in that ship that was Downed on that planet where they originally find the alien eggs You see all of his his influence in the whole design of that as well And it still holds up like it still looks amazing right now Like just the way they shot this I can't say it enough the set design in this is Ridiculous ridiculous and it it holds up. That's the thing And that's a problem with like nowadays when people Want to make films and they want to make things so cg the problem is that cg is not going to hold up Because cg will continually get better and it will look better and it's always been like that so You know some of these cg marvel movies that you're seeing right now In 10 years or so you're going to look back and you'll be like, oh that doesn't look nearly as good as it does nowadays When they do cg for these marvel films because I assume they'll still be making them at that point But when you look at a practical effects film that's very well pulled off like alien It still holds up you can look at it and you don't even need to think from the aspect of Oh, well, I need to keep in mind that this was shot in the 70s No, it still looks great for now Because it's practical because it was physically there and it's not computer graphics. So And that's another thing speaking of computers with this film the whole thing where they where they're consistently going and checking in with the computer and it just seems like They want the computer to tell them what to do because it's like purely analytical And it's taking the emotion out of decision-making But it's also not helping Because it's just being like need more information can't verify need more information like And it just made it seem like all these people they just keep going to them Well, it's like well, this is where I get my answers And then they can't get an answer. So then they're just kind of clueless except for Ripley Being the hero who's like, I know how we do this We think we put our brains together or since you guys don't want to put your brains together I'll I'll tell you what to do. This is how we make it out of here And then jones acting off animal instinct doing just fine, but Anyway, um I'm sure there are some other things I I had thought about talking about and then Can't remember at the moment, but I think I talked a bunch about it. I'm almost at the 20 minute mark So I'm gonna leave it at that and I'm gonna say if People have the chance when I'm putting this up. There is an opportunity There are at least I think two more showings available Of alien in the theater if you can find a theater that's doing it. It's through fathom events So you can just check out fathom events.com Um, I think the next one is the 13th Which is wednesday, I believe but look into it I would highly recommend it, especially if you like the movie alien or think you might like the movie alien Definitely check it out. It is totally worth the experience. Like I said You can feel like you can get lost in that ship. You can get lost in the set design There's so much to look at and it's very visually pleasing So it's it's a relaxing film which seems weird to say Because it's uh not relaxing like it's unsettling the subject matter, but from a visual standpoint It is very relaxing and the way the camera work like very slowly pans over all the beautifully crafted Environment there and set so highly recommend it definitely check it out in the theater totally worth it Anyway, thanks everyone for checking this out. Please do me a solid really quick If you like any of the videos I do please hit that subscribe button It takes you like a second and it's totally painless But it means a lot to me and it keeps me moving keeps me going and it motivates me to do more things like this You know go to the theater see a special screening of something and then come and tell you guys how it is So uh, but thanks once again for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal