“In space, no one can hear you scream.” That is the famous
tagline of the 1979 film Alien, which,
in addition to being a cat classic, is a sci-fi horror classic that has an
enduring place in modern popular culture. Alien
was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Sigourney Weaver as tough heroine
Ripley, who also featured in three subsequent related films: Aliens (1986), Aliens 3 (1992), and Alien
Resurrection (1997).
The plot (contains spoilers)
The crew of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo are on their way back to Earth
when they’re suddenly awakened from hypersleep. They pick up a mystery signal
coming from a strange planet, and they make a detour to investigate. While on the surface of the planet, one of
the crew (Kane, played by John Hurt) discovers a group of large egg-like
things. Turns out they are in fact eggs, and Kane ends up with a, um, creature
attached to his face. This is a problem. Kane, alive but unconscious, is taken back aboard the Nostromo, but there seems to be no way to remove the creature from his face. He does wake up eventually,
after the creature detaches itself. It now appears to be dead and Kane seems no
worse for wear, but we’re left wondering just what that thing was doing to him.
All of this has been a setup for one of the most famous
scenes in sci-fi film. Even if you have never seen Alien, you probably have some familiarity with the scene in which
the crew members are sharing a large meal when suddenly Kane starts coughing
and choking, and then a whole new creature bursts through his chest, looks around,
and jumps down and runs off, leaving Kane dead. At least now we know what that
original creature was doing to him.
Things get even more horrific when another crew member,
Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), goes searching for the ship’s cat, an orange tabby
named Jones (more on him later). Brett finds Jones, but when the cat hisses at
something over his shoulder, Brett turns around and finds himself face-to-face
with the newly born creature, which has suddenly become much, much larger.
Brett is killed, but Jones escapes.
There follows a lot of searching for the creature.
Unfortunately, each time the search succeeds, someone else ends up dead.
Eventually, only third officer Ripley and Jones are left. Knowing she has to destroy
the alien, Ripley gets Jones into what looks like an industrial-strength cat
carrier, and she sets the ship to self-destruct and heads for the escape shuttle.
After some suspenseful moments with the alien as the destruct sequence counts down,
Ripley and Jones get into the shuttle and they blast away from the main ship moments
before it explodes. Safe, right? Well, no…because the alien has secreted itself
in the shuttle. Hey, why would it want to stay on the exploding ship?
Ripley does get rid of the alien (there’s a pretty great
alien-getting-sucked-into-space sequence), and now she and Jones are safe. Before
she puts herself into hypersleep, Ripley records a log entry saying she is the
only survivor of the Nostromo, but of
course that is not true, because Jones survived too.
 |
| Jonesy the cat, at the moment Brett is attacked by the alien. |
The cat
Jones, or Jonesy, is a pretty tough kitty cat. We see quite
a lot of him throughout the film: hanging out with the crew, running to hide in
inconvenient places so the crew can chase him and thus encounter the alien, being
banged around in that industrial cat carrier. While he’s in the carrier, Jones
also has a rather harrowing up-close encounter with the alien, and he does not
flinch away (he survives, obviously). The film’s credits list Animals Unlimited
as the cat actor’s trainer, but of course the actual cat (or cats—there were
four of them, according to Cinema Cats)
is uncredited. This is a shame, because those cats did an excellent job. Jones
also appears in the follow-up Aliens
(1986).
Our verdict
If you are not into sci-fi and horror things, Alien is probably not for you, even
though there’s a cat in it. We don’t find it too terribly frightening, but
there is something just creepy about
this alien. And of course there is violence and blood—and alien slime. But it
is all part of what we think is a pretty good story. There are parts we didn’t
go into in the plot outline—such as, just why did these people knowingly bring the
creature on board the Nostromo? (For
the record, Ripley was against this, but she was overruled.) The answer to that
question does come out as you get deeper into the movie and learn a few things
about the science officer. The alien itself is quite a creation in every way,
from its physical appearance to its life cycle. We like that Ripley is a smart,
strong, and resourceful character. And of course we love Jonesy, the ship’s cat
who faces down a horrific alien.
A
note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up.
One paw is for a good movie; two paws is for a great movie. She never gives
three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss
C does
not do
that!
The
link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the movie through this
link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!
