Alien 1979 Special Edition By John Gugie on Oct 21, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

A space mining ship investigates a signal from a planet and find an alien ship. An alien gets onto their ship and a battle begins.

The story is simple but it feels deeper, mostly due to a lot of things left open to speculation.

The atmosphere is very eerie with many small, dark sets, fog, crew tension, and attacks from every direction. It all adds up to horror atmosphere.

Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley in one of her first movies but performed like a veteran. She starts out weak until she takes charge. By the end, she's a tough, female Rambo!

Tom Skerritt plays Dallas the captain of the ship. Veteran actor, Harry Dean Stanton, plays crewmember Brett. His character is very quiet. John Hurt plays crewmember Kane. His character dies the most disturbing death. Ian Holm plays crew doctor Ash. He does a great job. Yaphet Kotto plays crewmember Parker, the only black man. His character is very gungho.

The Alien is played by 7'2" Bolaji Badejo, wearing a skin-tight rubber suit. He makes the perfect lizard-like movements.

The cinematography uses the concept of seeing less is better. Everything is dark, foggy, and filled with shadows, which is scarier than if everything was clearly seen.

The SFX are superb. The best effects are the many guises of the aliens. H. R. Giger's aliens are fantastic.

The music is intense which adds to the suspense.

This is set in space but it plays like a classic horror. Rent or buy the DVD today!

This is part of the Special Edition 9-Disc Alien Quadrilogy set. It contains one disc for each of the four Alien movies, one disc of extras for each movie, and one bonus disc. The jam-packed extras for this movie are below.

Audio Commentary by Director, Ridley Scott, and Technical Crew

1979 Theatrical Version

2003 Director's Cut

Introduction by Ridley Scott

Pre-Production

STAR BEAST: Developing the Story

FIRST DRAFT OF SCREENPLAY by Dan O'Bannon

THE VISUALISTS: Direction and Design

RIDLEYGRAMS: Original Thumbnails & Notes

STORYBOARD ARCHIVE

ART OF ALIEN

TRUCKERS IN SPACE: Casting

Sigourney Weaver's Screentest with Commentary by Ridley Scott

CAST PORTRAIT GALLERY

Production

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN: Shepperton Studios, 1978

PRODUCTION GALLERY

THE DARKEST REACHES: Nostromo and Alien Planet

THE SETS OF ALIEN

THE EIGHTH PASSENGER: Creature Design

THE CHESTBURSTER: Creature Design

Post-Production

FUTURE TENSE: Music and Editing

8 DELETED SCENES

VISUAL EFFECTS GALLERY: Photo Archive

A NIGHTMARE FULFILLED: Reaction to the Film

POSTER EXPLORATIONS

SPECIAL SHOOT