Alien (1979)
The commercial vessel Nostromo receives a distress call from an unexplored planetoid. After searching the alien wreckage where the distress call was emanating from, the crew heads home only to realize that a super evolved malevolent life form has joined them.
Let me tell you, this movie was so slow and so quiet that my mind couldn’t help but wander.
And then to make matters worse cinematically, the whole movie was anticlimactic! The movie kept having mini climaxes and then it’d just keep on chugging along…
Ultimately I don’t think the movie was particularly good and I feel that Sigourney Weaver’s semi nudity was a little gratuitous…
Yes she’s attractive and all… but seeing her cute butt didn’t add much to the film…
You know what Alien is though?
It’s the beginning…
It’s the beginning of a huge world of movies, a whole new artistic universe, that spans decades and what… dozens of movies now?
And as a piece of art I respect that.
The fact of the matter is that sometimes your vision as an artist doesn’t fully develop at first. You know you want to make something, you have the general idea, and you just try to make it work. That’s your first piece of art… from there you just keep chugging along as your vision morphs and fleshes out in each successive piece of art.
I feel that’s exactly what has happened in the Alien art universe over the decades.
Alien is a wonderful illustration not only of the business of art but of the persistence of artists.
I’m glad Alien exists but I will not be watching it again.