Very well-paced and plenty of action, but completely devoid of suspense. I have a real problem with "horror" movies which achieve the horror by scaring the audience with abrupt loud noises following extended periods of silence or low grumbling. It feels so cheap, and the constant heart-beat sound effect didn't help. It was like I was being pounded on the head by someone saying "this is tense, OK? I just want to make sure you know that this bit is tense".
I really loved Geiger's overall set designs and the face-hugger and chest-burster aliens, but as is too often the case in sci-fi the main alien itself looked too humanoid: two arms, one head, it even had fucking fingernails. Fingernails! What does an alien like that need with fingernails? Do we humans lack the imagination to create aliens that look like anything other than humans with different skin and heads? Why don't any aliens ever look like cows? Or creatures completely different to anything living on Earth?
While I loved the general feel of the spaceship sets, a lot of little things annoyed me about them, too. I know I'll sound like one of those retards who picks irrelevant faults in fantasy films (and I probably already do), but, honestly, am I supposed to believe that someone can read a computer screen full of binary code and understand it? Or read a raw feed of numerical data streaming down a screen at high speed and understand the chemical make-up of a planet's atmosphere and surface? What's wrong with a nice, user-friendly interface that clearly communicates the required information? If I was NASA and was sending human beings far out into space, I'd want to make it as difficult as humanly possible to make a mistake or misunderstand critical mission data. "Fuckloads of numbers trailing down the screen" would probably be near the bottom of my UI prototype list.
And if I were to design an emergency self-destruct sequence for a vehicle, I sure wouldn't choose a sequence that takes 15 minutes to complete and involves the screwing of four cylinders into four techno-looking slots. The slots had hoses surrounding them that weren't attached to anything; what purpose did they fulfil? In a spaceship there is nothing superfluous. The little off-white decorations in the corridors looked awesome, sure, but one feature of every spaceship ever designed in real life is that there is very little decoration. Decoration is unecessary and can add mass, the sworn enemy of space travel.
And as my brother (whom I watched the movie with) pointed out, wouldn't you make the command to cancel the self-destruct sequence a big fucking red button that's impossible to miss, just in case by some freakishly unlikely accident the sequence is started by mistake? In Alien, the sequence to cancel the self-destruct order is just as drawn-out and ridiculous as the self-destruct command itself. Predictably, Ripley was unable to perform the complicated dance required within the short time limit, and as a result was trapped on her spaceship with a murderous alien on her heels, and only five minutes to escape. Obviously that design feature was a great success.
But anyway, now that I've channelled my inner Comic Book Guy, I will say that I actually enjoyed watching it and will keenly see Aliens. I do like the odd bit of mindless action, even though I can't help but pick ridiculous faults in it, and while not up there with the best, Alien wasn't quite as horrible as I thought it would be.
(I found a better review of it on The Auteurs.)
Joel
Posted March 6, 2010.Starship Troopers had some non-humanoid aliens - but other than that all I can think of is Futurama.
Yeah - I've heard Aliens is better than the first one - we'll have to watch that next.
Joel
Posted March 6, 2010.Ah - I found out why the Science Officer (android) looked familiar, to me anyway.
He's Ian Holm - the priest from The Fifth Element.. Probably in some other stuff as well.
Nick
Posted March 7, 2010.The reason they look humanoid is because they use the host DNA when the embryo is growing, in alien 3 a facehugger gets on a dog and there is a 4 leg alien
Aliens is just as good, maybe a bit better
Bradley Dixon
Posted March 7, 2010.Interesting, I didn't pick that up. Was it actually mentioned in Alien or is it explained later on? That actually makes it less annoying haha.
Milly
Posted March 12, 2010.My thoughts about humanoid aliens are that perhaps something about the humanoid form makes bulding vehicles, travel and communication possible - opposable thumbs to start with. The physical characteristics of creatures of other forms - cows, kangaroos, eagles, centipedes, dogs for example don't allow for the sophistication of leaving their planet. Hence they are the most likely alien creatures we'd meet. Movie makers could create a completely new form with similar strengths but the audience would have difficulty identifying with it and wouldn't be an effective character in a movie.
Bradley Dixon
Posted March 13, 2010.Oh yeah, cow aliens standing around eating space grass would make for a SHIT horror movie haha. I understand why it's done, but I generally can't watch a movie without that kind of thing annoying me.