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In the vast and silent universe, a spaceship is sailing alone. The cabin is dark and narrow, with only the occasional beeping of computers and the sound of air blowing from the ventilation pipes, as well as some inexplicably swaying phantoms. Outside the cabin is a dead space, which is vast but desolate and depressing, with no end in sight. This classic opening of the "Alien" series of films, which lasts for several minutes without dialogue, still evokes our deepest fears today - "In the deep space, no one can hear your cry." Whether you are alive or dead, in distress, escaping, or destroyed, the universe does not care.

Now, this fear has come again. On August 16, Alien: Revenge will be released in major theaters in mainland China simultaneously with North America. This is the orthodox sequel to the Alien series. The story takes place between Alien and Alien 2 and will expand the story line of the entire series. Fed Alvarez, the director of Don't Breathe, teamed up with Ridley Scott, the veteran of the Alien series. The most terrifying life form in the universe, the alien, and the disgusting facehugger have returned, and the prelude to the battle royale has been ruthlessly opened again.

Alien and Raines Carradine played by Carrie Spaeny in the movie Alien: Reaper. Image/Internet Movie Database

"Alien", the most terrifying alien creature in history, is endowed with a weird parasitic reproduction mode and a cold-blooded hunter image, which makes it stand out from many screen monsters and become an immortal classic horror symbol in the minds of science fiction fans. It has a profound impact on the entire film and television industry and the gaming industry.

For some viewers, it is an unforgettable nightmare, but in the eyes of other fans, it is like a work of art. The reason why this 45-year-long IP series is still talked about today is not only because of the terrifying alien creature, but also because the series of films itself is a perfect organism. Because of its excellent visual effects, chilling story atmosphere, and its inherent ambiguity, prophecy and philosophy, it has the power to transcend time.

The Birth of Alien

The timeline of Alien: Taken Flight is between 2123 and 2179. Remember at the end of Alien, the heroine Ripley thought she had killed all the aliens, but unexpectedly, another alien hid in the cabin? At that time, Ripley pushed it into space while it was not paying attention. Many people thought it was dead, but it was not dead... The story of Taken Flight is not long after this happened. A group of young space colonists, in order to escape the dull life of an alien mining colony, encountered an alien monster while adventuring to explore an abandoned space station.

This story setting reminds many "Alien" fans of the first film. Compared with the subsequent films that expanded on different dimensions such as "religion", "human origins" and "creation", "Alien: Reaper" is likely to return to the traditional thriller tone. This film is rated R in North America, and the introduction poster also has a reminder that "underage viewers are advised to choose to watch with caution."

Director Fede Alvarez on the set of the film "Alien: Taken".

The reason why "Alien" can bring the audience into a strange and terrifying new world is largely due to the most successful monster image in the history of these films. Its designer, HR Giger, a Swedish surrealist master known as the "Father of Alien", is indeed a genius.

When preparing to shoot "Alien", director Scott saw a book of Giger's paintings from screenwriter Dan Bannon. He felt that the paintings were quite consistent with the style of Alien, so he immediately persuaded the producers to hire Giger as the film's chief art designer. As a surrealist artist, Giger's works are always full of dark and terrifying elements such as Gothic culture, death, and machinery. Many years ago, Giger said in an interview that his imagination often came from nightmares. Gradually, he developed a unique painting style that combined organic biological flesh with metal mechanical structures, and it was an obvious reproductive theme, which made his works controversial at the time. His painting "Dead Soul IV" is the design prototype of the alien. The first version of the alien originally had eyes, but in the end, the eyes were removed at the suggestion of director Scott, because "eyes will betray the soul, and without eyes, others will not know what it will do next." In the end, the alien became a fusion of human body, snake, insect, skeleton, machinery and no eyes, which made people feel extremely uncomfortable, but also because of its mysterious and decadent aura, it has become an aesthetic object that movie fans have been constantly analyzing for thirty years.

In addition to the adult and larval forms of the aliens, the abandoned spacecraft, the fluttering alien eggs and the ferociously dressed astronauts in the movie are all Giger's masterpieces. When talking about Giger's artistic style in the movie "Alien", the producer of the film described it as "disgusting". There is no doubt that this is the real psychological reaction of the viewer. It is precisely because of this weird and extreme art design that Giger won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for "Alien" in 1980.

With a terrifying and weird appearance, director Scott created an extremely cruel and cold-blooded reproduction and existence mode for the alien in the movie: egg-face hugger body-broken chest body-adult alien. Zuo Heng, director and researcher of the Film Culture Research Department of the China Film Art Research Center, told China News Weekly that the unique appearance and behavior mode of the alien shattered people's conventional understanding of life at that time. "It is a completely irrational existence, a creature with pure killing and reproduction instincts."

The scene where a larva of the alien bursts out of a crew member's chest is undoubtedly the bloodiest and most horrifying scene in the film. During the filming, the actors knew about this scene, but didn't know the details. Therefore, the fear and screams of everyone in the film were all real reactions, and the actors were truly frightened.

Due to Fox's strong public relations ability at the time, while the film was being heavily promoted, no one knew in advance what the aliens in the publicity were like. There was no information about this creature in the promotional materials and trailers. In the 1970s, the space science fiction films that dominated the theaters were "Star Wars" and "Star Trek". The greatest horror people had ever felt on the screen came from "Jaws" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with human skin masks. Compared with that realistic and understandable fear, you can imagine how shocked people of that era would feel when they first saw an alien whose blood could corrode metal in a movie theater. From then on, the vast space added a thick atmosphere of horror, and a new nightmare was born.

In fact, in this two-hour science fiction film, the alien only appears for less than four minutes, which is about 3% of the entire film. Because the director always uses light and shadow to cover most of its body, the audience's imagination has left a deeper impression on the alien, which has fully aroused the urge to be both afraid and unable to spy, and finally made it a classic of a generation of popular culture. Compared with horror films such as "Midnight Ring", the helplessness and despair created by "Alien" in the silent universe seems to be more able to arouse the "horror resonance" across cultures, regions, ages, and races around the world.

Because it pioneered space science fiction horror and parasitic mutant creatures, "Alien" won the 7th Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Director. On the IMDb website, it is currently ranked 53rd on the Top 250 list - there are nine science fiction movies ahead of it, but none of them are science fiction horror monster movies.

On July 26, at the 2024 International Comic-Con Film Exhibition held in San Diego, audience members dressed in Cosplay costumes visited the "Alien: Death Stranding" booth.

Alien full of sexual metaphors

As a concrete expression of human fear, monster movies have always had their unique appeal. In the more than 40 years since the emergence of "Alien", all kinds of aliens, alien creatures, and horror monsters have emerged in an endless stream, but the status of the alien has never been shaken.

Alien fans know that both art designer Giger and director Scott added many metaphors when creating the film. Just looking at the design of the alien, it is self-evident what kind of associations it gives people. Unlike the bite of ordinary monsters, the attack mode of the alien sticking out a small mouth like a tongue from the mouth and inserting it into the prey is even more peculiar and highly aggressive. The alien larvae breaking out of the chest also make people feel full of reproductive fear. Zuo Heng feels that from the perspective of Jung's psychology, the alien has completely awakened the fear of sexual violence and reproduction in the collective subconscious of human beings.

Other monsters feed on humans, but the alien uses the human body as a host for reproduction. When the concept of the alien is full of images of sex, fertility and death, and transcends the ordinary perspective of life, the alien and humans have a deep bond, which reflects the evolutionary history of human beings themselves. Therefore, the alien has gradually evolved into a symbol, leaving a very large space for interpretation, which can be continuously explored.

It is precisely the complex and ambiguous interpretation space that has led to three other famous film directors directing three sequels in the following 20 years, all of which have achieved widespread social influence and impressive box office returns. Interestingly, although the four directors all filmed stories around the same monster and even the heroine was played by the same actress, the styles of the four films switched in a leap-forward manner, and each one has a very distinctive personal style of the director.

When James Cameron filmed Alien 2 in 1986, with more mature technology, he chose a different direction, allowing the alien creatures to show their faces more, so that the aliens had a more specific image. Unlike the suffocating claustrophobic space in the first film, the battle between the marines and the aliens in the second film made it a tense and exciting action film. At the end, the heroine Ripley drove a huge mecha to fight the alien queen in order to protect a little girl, which became a classic shot in film history.

Alien is a space thriller, and Alien 2 is a heroic action film, but the temperament of these two films is still consistent and inherited, but there is a huge difference in the scenes. Alien 3, directed by David Fincher, subverted the entire series. He no longer worked hard on how to scare the audience and seek excitement, but tried to make the film into an art film that combines religious and human thinking. Many elements in the film, such as the choice of the alien host, the protagonist Ripley's strong sense of ritual death, and the whole story corresponding to the Book of Revelation, are full of the desolation of the end of the world and the meaning of redemption in religion.

Alien 4: Reverse Species is even more different from its predecessor. Director Jean-Pierre Ge is the director of the light and romantic Amelie, so Alien 4 has some more grotesques and black humor. In addition, Winona Ryder, who is at the peak of her beauty, joined the filming. Many critics regard this work as a fan film. The aliens are not so scary anymore, especially the "Reverse Species Alien" at the end of the movie. As the ultimate monster, it is not only related to the protagonist but also has a pair of cute big eyes. When it is finally destroyed, its sad and desperate eyes look a bit pitiful.

In 2012, Ridley Scott returned to his old work and filmed the prequel to Alien, Prometheus, and began to trace back a question that existed in Alien: where did the alien come from? This made the story of the Alien series enter a more grand narrative field and began to build a complete world for this series of horror monster movies. This movie and its own sequel, Alien: Covenant, the second prequel to Alien, greatly improved the worldview of the "Alien Universe" in terms of plot, making it jump out of the monster horror film pattern and begin to explore philosophical propositions such as the origin of mankind, human nature and biological evolution, like a journey to find roots.

In Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Scott expressed another imagination of humans about the Creator - "they" are not from the earth, humans are products created by "them", and they are all imperfect and defective. What is the relationship between the Creator and the Creator? David, a cyborg created by humans in the film, once asked humans why they created him. Humans arrogantly replied: We created you because we can. David asked back: If your Creator said the same thing, would you feel disappointed?

From gender to race, from tracing back to origins to thinking about the future, the world of the Alien series shows human fear, confusion and contradiction, and also depicts the vastness, depth and unknowability of the universe. Perhaps the deepest fear in the human heart is not only violence and the unknown, but also a sentence printed on the final version of the Alien script, which is quoted from the novel Heart of Darkness by writer Joseph Conrad: "We live alone, just as we dream alone."

Starring Carrie Spaeny (left) and David Johnson spoke during the "Alien: Taken" panel at the 2024 Comic-Con International Film Festival when an actor was suddenly shown being attacked by an alien with his chest broken.

Extension of Super IP

I don't know if you have ever played "Contra", this single-player game that was popular throughout Asia in the 1990s is a top IP on the same level as Super Mario. Many of its levels are deeply rooted in people's hearts because they absorbed elements of "Alien". The environment design of the last level is like the alien's nest, and the big boss "Ultra-King Ghost Dragon God" is basically the "alien in its original form"... As a cultural symbol and a milestone in the "space thriller" genre, the influence of "Alien" involves many aspects - the emergence of a series of movies, the innovation of similar movie shooting techniques, and even in many classic games and classic animations, people can find the figure of alien.

In addition to Contra, another well-known game of the same era, Metroid, also paid tribute to the game in terms of aesthetics. It also followed Alien to create a strong female hero, Samus Aran, the first female protagonist in the history of games. Later, the Zerg in StarCraft was inspired by the Alien Queen. Among the more than 100 heroes in Dota2, the hero model of the source of chaos also paid tribute to Alien.

In fact, many artists have publicly admitted that they are fans of "Alien" and draw inspiration from it. The most well-known one is Akira Toriyama. When he was serializing "Arale", he often drew aliens to make a cameo appearance. In the "Dragon Ball" era, there are more shadows of aliens, such as the famous cosmic emperor Frieza, whose second transformation form is almost the same as the famous "banana head" of the alien. In the early Red Ribbon Army chapter of "Dragon Ball", there is also a "banana head" skeleton robot. The main nest of "Diablo" written by another Japanese comic master Kazuchi Ogiwara is full of alien style; Junji Ito's comic work "Fish" directly uses the design of face huggers, and the way mutant fish attack and use humans is also very similar to aliens.

From games to comics, from the West to the East, the Alien has become a cultural phenomenon with its huge influence. Even the high-level bosses in "Pokemon" have the shadow of the Alien Queen. Before "Alien", the universe was a romantic future fantasy and a magnificent epic. After "Alien" opened up a unique dark aesthetic and profound philosophical thinking, more creators began to explore the dark side of the universe, which opened up a new direction for science fiction films and TV series. "The Thing", "Predator" series, "Pitch Black" series... The later ones inspired by "Alien" together with it constitute the sub-genre of science fiction thriller.

Another very important breakthrough is that Alien brought the first real female hero to the history of world cinema. In the 1970s, Hollywood was full of macho men like Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and the screen was filled with all kinds of lone heroes. The most popular films were Rocky, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Star Wars.

When Scott decided to make a female protagonist fighting against aliens, many people said he was "crazy". Opposing voices such as "How can a woman be a hero" arose one after another. However, Scott ignored the doubts and instead invited Sigourney Weaver, who is 1.82 meters tall, to play Ripley. As it turned out, Sigourney became the most indispensable highlight in the movie.

Without the success of Ripley in Alien, I wonder if we would have seen the strong Sarah Connor in Terminator and a series of science fiction movies with women as the protagonists. After all, in science fiction and horror movies before Alien, female characters were often just sex symbols and objects to be saved. For example, in the 1933 version of King Kong, Fay Wray, who played Ann Darrow, made the greatest contribution to the film by screaming in pajamas and waiting to be saved. At that time, revealingly dressed blonde beauties (mostly with low IQ) almost became the standard configuration of horror and monster movies.

Ripley's appearance inspired several generations of actresses and also influenced the model of female heroes in Hollywood films. Jennifer Lawrence was once asked about the inspiration for her fighting spirit in "The Hunger Games". "Big Cousin" said it was Ripley in "Alien". Charlize Theron, who played the queen in "Mad Max: Fury Road", also said: "It is movies like "Alien" that broke the glass ceiling." She said that "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the role she played in it were deeply influenced by "Alien" and Ripley.

Many actresses who have played heroic roles regard Sigourney Weaver as their "godmother". When Cameron, who filmed "Alien 2", made "Avatar: The Way of Water", he asked the 73-year-old Sigourney to play the 14-year-old girl Qili. Many people said that the great director was thanking and paying tribute to the first generation of Hollywood heroine, who created a new "heroine era".

In many dimensions, Alien has created a new era. It has successfully awakened the fear hidden in your heart, and in the process of achieving this goal, it has set off a cultural trend that continues to this day. Compared with those science fiction films full of routines and gimmicks, Alien seems to show what a science fiction film should look like. Therefore, 45 years have passed since its birth, and the citation, reference and re-creation of it by later generations have not stopped. Like the monster it created, Alien itself has become a mother body, continuing to breed many fruits and branches.

References:

"Alien: The Final Dossier of the Classic Tetralogy" by Mark Salisbury

Documentary Memory: The Origins of Alien Director: Alexander O. Philip

Published in the 1153th issue of China Newsweek magazine on August 19, 2024

Magazine title: Alien: A 45-year-long nightmare

Reporter: Li Jing

Editor: Yang Shiyang