I just saw this too. I've seen Alien about 10 or 15 times, but never on the big screen. What a blast! There are scenes I've never really seen before (the TV doesn't do a very good job of representing the dark and murky scenes down on the planet ). Here's a snippet from an email I sent a friend about the movie:
The motherhood stuff that got blown up large in the sequels is on a much more radical axis here. The ship is called 'mother' and its womblike envelope and over-riding agenda (ie: the corporate agenda) is
baaaaad news. Yet Sigourney Weaver herself is about as unmotherly a figure as a girl can be. Which brings me to this - it's the first story I remember of a girlhero with a gun, blasting away. Nowadays its a post-feminist thing. When Alien came out it was just a shock! And to me a relief. And also very canny in its exploration of the struggles a powerful woman makes to both buck authority and assume authority, to fight the 'mother', to put her own survival first _without_ it being a fierce maternal instinct to protect her own child. There's no Camille Paglia in this. Ripley is not strong cause
she's sexy (although of course she IS sexy), she's strong cause she's strong. And all this with a pretty expendable cat in tow. The film doesn't turn her into a monster, she isn't a freak of nature, she carries these
strengths within her and maintains her tenderness at the same time. So much tension!
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The motherhood stuff that got blown up large in the sequels is on a much more radical axis here. The ship is called 'mother' and its womblike envelope and over-riding agenda (ie: the corporate agenda) is
baaaaad news. Yet Sigourney Weaver herself is about as unmotherly a figure as a girl can be. Which brings me to this - it's the first story I remember of a girlhero with a gun, blasting away. Nowadays its a post-feminist thing. When Alien came out it was just a shock! And to me a relief. And also very canny in its exploration of the struggles a powerful woman makes to both buck authority and assume authority, to fight the 'mother', to put her own survival first _without_ it being a fierce maternal instinct to protect her own child. There's no Camille Paglia in this. Ripley is not strong cause
she's sexy (although of course she IS sexy), she's strong cause she's strong. And all this with a pretty expendable cat in tow. The film doesn't turn her into a monster, she isn't a freak of nature, she carries these
strengths within her and maintains her tenderness at the same time. So much tension!
- sally 11-10-2003 8:27 pm