The movie I chose to review is Alien directed by Ridley Scott. The film stars Tom Skerrit, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. I chose this movie because Alien was the first of its kind in the horror sci-fi genre. The movie is about a crew of 7 aboard a towing space craft named the Nostromo which is returning to earth with minerals aboard. In transit the ship receives a transmission thus awakening the crew to go and assess the situation. Upon receiving the signal, the crew is ordered that it needs to investigate the signal as it is there lawful duty to figure out whether this is a distress code.
The crew tracks the signal from a nearby planetoid. Officer Ripley (Weaver) believes the code to be a warning signal and is reluctant in discovering the origin of the signal. On orders from her superiors they investigate only to find an alien spacecraft with alien remains. Executive officer Kane is attacked by an alien species which molds to his face. Against Ripley’s orders Kane is brought on the ship without being quarantined. The result is the spread of the Alien aboard the spacecraft causing havoc to the crew.
The crew must then fight off the Alien species off the ship. While doing so Ripley discovers that the primary mission all along was to bring the alien species back to earth alive for research. Science Officer Ash is more concerned about preserving the alien species then killing it and saving the crew. Ripley also realizes that Ash is actually a robot and not a human. Ripley along with the rest of the crew fight to kill the alien species, in the end Ripley is the only survivor left.
The movie won an Academy Award for best visual effects. Despite being shot in 1979, the movie has incredible visual effects. The definition of the movie had to be ahead of its time as it still looks great today. The majority of the movie except for the part where they visit the planetoid takes place aboard the Nostromo spaceship. The camera tends to focus up close on the characters throughout the whole movie using a high definition shot.
The movie is basically shot under two different lighting’s. Aboard the ship it is usually very dark with dim lights showing the structure of a spaceship with wires and metal in the surroundings. In the shots where they are in the control rooms, labs, or common rooms the background is white and very bright. This is done to perceive a modern simple look. The control room is composed of all illuminated buttons portraying a highly technological atmosphere.
When the Alien species is filmed, it is always filmed in the low light scenes such as the vents. The Alien looks very detailed despite the low lighting, and this was probably done purposely to prevent any flaws from showing. In the scene where engineer Parker goes looking for the cat, Jones, the camera focuses on his face to show his fearful expression as he reluctantly searches for the cat. The movie does a good job of building up the scene by having the cat jump out of nowhere making the character jump back. The scene is followed with Parker entering a dark room with water or rain pouring down. The Alien ends up creeping down, and the cat’s expressions in the background let us viewers know that the Alien is in the room. I thought the cat’s expressions in the scene were perfect. At the conclusion of this scene Parker is killed by the Alien.
In other notable scenes, there is the camera which zooms in on Science Officer Ash after he is exposed as being a robot. The crew attacks Ash after Ash attempted to kill Ripley. In this scene where Ash is dismantled by Brett the crew engineer, the camera focuses in on Ash and the wires and goo which pour out of his head. This scene again had to be the first of its kind in this era. The camera and special effects in this scene have a decapitated Ash continue acting. I thought it the effects looked good for even today.
All in all although it seems that the camera angles and scenes were all shot the same, the quality and special effects used were remarkable for a movie made in 1979. Even after 30 years the movie remains one of the best sci-fi movies ever. This is largely due in part to the detail used in the background, special effects, and realistic like plot. The movie does a good job of being as realistic as possible for being a sci-fi film.
derekd9 