Alien was released in 1979, and was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt. The film was a smash hit, making $184.7 million at the box office with a $11 million budget. Its success led to it becoming a massive franchise that still has reverence amongst film buffs and movie fans to this day. Despite the mixed quality of some of its sequels, the fact that the original film and its direct sequel Aliens (1986) have become such pop culture phenomena has allowed for there to be a continued interest in the franchise, spawning multiple reboot attempts, including one that is coming out this year. In order to understand the film and the hype surrounding it, we must first revisit the film that started it all to decide if it’s an exciting adventure worth bursting your chest open or if we’d rather go into stasis and sleep through it all.

The sci-fi horror classic depicts the crew of the Nostromo commercial cargo spaceship led by Captain Dallas (Skerritt) and Warrant Officer Ripley (Weaver) slowly being overtaken by a savage alien creature that is accidentally brought on board the ship. The alien hunts down and kills each member of the crew until Ripley is the only one left to face it one on one, where she eventually succeeds against it. The conflict between the crew and the alien is tense and well-written, giving us the differing motivations of the crew members and the exact circumstances that allowed such a tragic incident to occur. The characters are all believable in the roles, feeling like real people stuck in a bad situation. Any time they make mistakes that may seem obvious to the audience, we learn later on their exact motivations why they made those mistakes in the way that they did, further contributing to the depth and believability in them as characters. This is something that later Alien films failed to accomplish, as characters in those films are written to be purposely clueless so that the plot can happen and they can be cannon fodder for the creatures preying on them. Meanwhile the characters in the original all feel extremely grounded and have logical reasons for acting the ways they do. The only downside is that there are quite a few characters that take up screen time but are not all given equal attention and development. However, this is probably for the best because they are all as developed as they need to be for the plot to move along at a reasonable pace.

Sigourney Weaver as Ripley is the standout performance of the film, and it isn’t surprising that she went on to be the main star in many of the subsequent sequels after this film. Her performance is a realistic blend between someone who is logical, intelligent, and capable of achieving their goals, while also being vulnerable and relatable in a way that makes the audience automatically sympathize with her plight. We don’t know as much about her in this film as we do in later films, but Weaver is able to effectively communicate her character’s personality in a compelling way despite the limitations of personal information written about her in the script. She starts off the film relatively mysterious and cold, but shows so much perseverance and ingenuity throughout the runtime that she instantly becomes someone that the audience loves to root for. After only one film, it is fair to say she is one of the most iconic sci-fi protagonists of all-time, and only further earns that title in later installments.

Above all else, the greatest strength of the film is its commitment to atmosphere. The film is dark, moody, isolating, and unsettling from beginning to end. This atmosphere is achieved through an excellent score that is always setting the mood through its deliberately slow and creepy nature, mixed with visual elements that compliment that mood perfectly. It is a technical miracle that the sets look as visually-impressive and advanced as they do for a relatively small budget film from the late-’70s. The high-contrast lighting fits with these other elements perfectly, as its darker shots and usage of shadows fits the atmosphere established while also being used to hide any imperfections or budgetary limitations of the set and art design. The contrast in design between the human world and its creations and that of the alien creature and its planet are brilliant conceptually, establishing a universe that feels properly fleshed-out and makes the two species feel as distinct and different from one another as they should. All of these excellent elements mixed together result in a film that can truly be considered a near-perfect masterpiece.

However, the brilliance of the original Alien film was absent in its most recent installment. The prequel film, Alien: Covenant, released in 2017 and was severely lacking in the vision, quality, and passion that defined the original film despite also being directed by Ridley Scott. Since then, the franchise has laid dormant for 7 years, until now. The newest film in the franchise, Alien: Romulus is set to release in August of this year. Not much is known about it other than it is a soft reboot that takes place between the first 2 films and is about an entirely new cast of characters. Perhaps a fresh start is exactly what this franchise needs after several missteps over the decades. Here’s hoping that the new film is reflective of the earlier films’ greatest elements and doesn’t result in the franchise being put back into stasis for another 7 years.