Now that I’ve seen all of them, I’d rank the trilogy Aliens, Alien, Alien: Resurrection, and Alien 3. I can appreciate all the things that Alien brought to the genre, but it was less entertaining than the second. Watching it in the middle of the day probably didn’t help things out. It’s a space horror but it wasn’t all that scary. Really, though, the film can’t be blamed.
This was my first time watching Alien, and I’ve already seen these things shredded by rifles, turned inside out and sent through space, drowned in molten lead, and speared by a vicious alien race that breeds them strictly to hunt them and turn boys into men.
When it was in theaters, nobody had seen anything like the alien before. It probably seemed like some sort of nightmare creature. I didn’t get that feeling. I was watching a movie where I knew everything that would happen–everyone has seen the chest-burster scene and the second movie touches upon how Ash was a robot.
Other than that, the set looks good, the mood is fantastic, and the characters are memorable. It holds up well, but I wish I could have seen it 1979.