It Could Be a True Story
How the world reacted to Alien in 1979
Hello and welcome back to Popped! A newsletter about the history and culture of cinema.
With the release of Alien: Romulus, this week I’m looking back to the release of the original back in 1979.
Enjoy! And if you do, please share!
Two families step out of their local cinema into the warm Texan air after finishing their first watch of Alien. Though a horror made for an older audience, these unassuming parents took their children anyway. Standing outside was local reporter, Bobbie Wygant, fresh from interviewing the likes of Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott. Wygant was there waiting to get the reaction from these terrorised families.1
Wygant: Did you know this was an r-rated movie when you brought him?
Parent: Yes we did.
Wygant: Are you sorry you brought him?
Parent: Yes I am.
The sci-fi world had been changed forever two years previously with the release of Star Wars. The dirty, old and clunky space ships along with the lore building of the original was a completely new take to the clean and optimistic look of space travel on screen that we had been used to. We also had 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the idea of things going completely wrong in space was a new terror, in a world that was getting used to the idea of travel beyond our atmosphere.
Science fiction was in demand, and the writer Dan O’Bannon had already worked on something a little different,
“They wanted to follow through on Star Wars, and follow through fast.. the only science fiction film they had sitting on their desk was Alien, and so they green-lighted it”
Dan O'Bannon
Through extensive rewriting and a change of name (it was originally titled Star Beast), Alien was ready for the next stage. It needed a director.
“I’d finished my first film…I was going to do Tristan & Isolde next. I mean, how artistic can you go?,” explains Ridley Scott. “I came here to see the opening night of Star Wars…I was depressed for three months. How can I be doing Tristan & Isolde when this guy was doing this”. A few weeks later, Scott was offered the job of directing Alien and brought with him a fresh take on the science fiction genre.
This movie propelled his career. From directing over 2000 commercials, including this famous one for Hovis, “the bearded 40-year-old Scott has guaranteed himself a spot among the world’s top half dozen directors” according to the Daily Mirror at the time. They weren’t wrong!.2
A new kind of alien
Although sci-fi is routed in horror and our own fears, no one had done a space horror quite like this before. American critics, Siskel & Evert, said of Alien, “Strip away the beautiful scenery, what we have here is the haunted house film…this is not the greatest science fiction movie ever made", there was also a fear of how Alien was going to affect the younger generation: “a lot of younger people are going to see this picture, but it’s pretty bloody”.
But where was this fear coming from? Yes, there is one gory moment, but like the greatest horrors, the terror and blood is mostly suggested rather than shown.
The horror comes from the disturbing design of H.R Giger.
Rather than curious beings from another planet, Alien introduced a monster-like beast, not interested in communicating, but rather in spreading their species as widely as possible. H.R Giger’s art was dark and gothic; rooted in our fears of post-atomic disaster. He’s a fascinating person; his life and work is worth reading about. Here’s an article to get started if you’re interested.
Parent: It's something he needs to know, it's something that could happen in life. It could be a true story..based on science. We never know what's going on in the outside world.
Wyatt: Did the picture scare you at all?
Child: Yes it did.
Sigourney Weaver - The new kid on the block
“This is not something I had in mind when moving into film, I thought I would start in smaller roles”. Sigourney Weaver had been making her name on Broadway before taking on the role of Ellen Ripley. Like countless other female actors before her, she did not expect to be offered a protagonist role on a thriller/horror like this.
Weaver was the new kid on the block, and tensions would arise when even her cast mates weren’t sure of her abilities during shooting, “that manifested itself in the movie and it was very convincing,” explains the producer Ronald Shusset.
Though we know the trajectory this movie gave Weaver, from what I have seen, she did receive a positive, but maybe not quite raving reception in the press at the time. Variety states that “she carries it off well”, while The New York Times calls her performance “impressive and funny”. In the U.K., the tabloid coverage I've seen (take a guess which ones) go down the typical line of it being unbelievable that a woman is the protagonist! Imagine!
Ridley Scott: You felt that this [film] was hazardous to your health?
Bobbie Wygant: Indeed!
Scott: Well in a sense that's what the doctor ordered. We set out do a thriller.
Towards the end of Bobbie Wygant’s time at her local picture house, she summarises Alien with her own views on its horror status, which she also hammers home repeatedly when she interviews the stars of the film. This idea that, with young people watching, that “we Americans are becoming more and more immune to excessive behaviour”.
I see it a lot when looking back at the reception of classics upon their initial release. Conservative voices, unsure of what modern culture is doing to the youth of their day. Luckily for all of us, there was no real increase in xenamorphes busting out of people’s chests as a result of this picture. What we did get though, is a new standard for the sci-fi horror, and what I think is a true masterpiece.
Alien is available to watch on Disney+ & on disc.
Here is my Further Viewing post for paid subscribers. It includes a list of recommendations for you to watch if you like Alien, or enjoyed this post and want to find out more!
A paid subscription is no more than a price of a fairly cheap coffee, but instead of a caffeine boost, you get a dose of feel-good, safe in the knowledge that you’re supporting someone in their writing dream.
Until next time!
Gareth
Daily Mirror, Tuesday 12 June 1979 - Article “Cutting a big slice of the action”
My parents may have regretted taking me in 1979, but I sure didn’t! My favorite film of all-time. The 45th anniversary restoration earlier this year was amazing, probably my first big screen viewing since ‘79 (though many other times on cassette, DVD, and streaming).
Really enjoyed this.
"Alien" is perhaps my favourite film - tussling with "Blade Runner" and a few others for the top spot, but probably well ahead of them if I really think about it.
But what I loved most about it, what was so deliciously unsettling, were the unknowns. A bunch of space truckers land on a colony world, find something terrifying that they don't understand, the mysteries abound, people start dying, one person gets out alive, and everything is left behind, unexplained - at least at the time. Humanity dips a toe in the infinite ocean of mysteries that outer space contains, and instantly has its foot torn off.
(As much as I enjoy "Aliens", I wish Scott had left the story there, with nothing resolved or unpacked. A mystery box that nobody wants to open for fear of what's inside is a really haunting idea for a film.)
For me, this is one of the scariest ideas about humans heading out into the wider universe: what if we are not the tiniest bit ready for what's really out there? Not in a "evil aliens coming to Earth to enslave us all" way that acknowledges us as a threat to be extinguished, but in the way a mountain is terrifying? What if it's less a wagon-train to the stars and more like stepping out an airlock without a spacesuit?
Magnificent film. 10/10 would endure a lifetime of sleepless nights again.