Thursday, April 15, 2010

An Introduction To The Motion Picture Alien

By Sharron Kramer

If you are looking into a particular piece such as this, than you are likely looking to learn a little more about one of the most impressive science fiction films to ever hit the screens, "Alien". Surely, there is a good bit that you might want to know and understand to truly appreciate the film, and most of this as well as a plot synopsis is what you could expect from this article.

This was by no means the first extraterrestrial based film to be released, so people were fairly familiar with what they thought an alien should look like on screen. However, this movie gave audiences an outer worldly being unlike anything that they had ever seen before. To say the least, there were several differences between these creatures in earlier interpretations to what the minds behind this film brought.

One of the first and most noteworthy differences between the predecessors and the new revamped ones, would be that these creatures were not just slow moving awkward beings. Rather, they were highly intelligent, terrifying to look at, and even deadlier to be around than anything that might have hit the screen before it.

These were beasts of prey and terror. They had long tails and often walked on all fours. They had rows of teeth and heavily salivate a toxic substance. This was not what people think they saw at Roswell, this is far more sinister and terrifying than that. Not to mention, they are all just peons that work for the much larger, and much scarier queen alien. You don't learn about these until some of the sequels, though.

It is this crew that the story centers around. They are on a mining expedition to take minerals back to Earth when they are hailed from a nearby planet with a distress signal. But it doesn't take the crew members Dallas and Kane long to learn that they are not in the midst of anything friendly when they stumble upon a nest of eggs. One hatches and a little alien leaps out and attaches to Kane's face and refuses to release the hold.

But unbeknown to them at first, the crew later learns that they were meant to land on the planet and retrieve one of these creatures, whether they themselves actually made it back to Earth alive or not. They try many different ways to escape, and many of the crew is killed in the chaos. Ripley manages to escape on a shuttle after hitting the self destruct button on the ship, but not without an alien clinging to the outside portion of her craft trying to get in. When the creature attempts to enter through the thruster vents, she fires them on which kills the creature and she is able to make the trip back to Earth.

This movie would not be nearly as good if it weren't for the incredible acting involved. Performances from Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas) and John Hurt (Kane) really made this movie remarkable.

So if you cared to learn a little more about the "Alien" franchise, this should have been a help to that end. There is a lot to know, but if you haven't seen the film you should start there, and then you might consider renting the sequels just so that you are completely up to speed.

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