Notes from First three Aliens movies
If there is a trilogy that I have tirelessly watched again and again till my eyes turned all red, it is “Aliens”.
I had the opportunity to catch up with Lieutenant Ripley and her AFB (Acid For Blood) adversaries lock themselves in conflict one more time and like any other great story, found little surprises and newer messages from their epic conflict. This is a non-technical recollection of the glorious Aliens.
Commonly occurring themes in the Alien trilogy (My sensibilities wont allow me to add the ‘Resurrection’ and the recent shams as a part of this glorious franchise) as I inferred are:
1. Feminism: Not just the fact that the chief protagonist is a woman, even the adversary is the most deadly “Queen”. Only difference being that the aliens for their boiling acid temper and “nastiness” acknowledge the power in the hands of the female, while their human adversaries stumble and die before accepting the importance of Ripley. Even setting aside the character of Ripley, the lone survivor of a colony after a devastating attack is a little girl (Newt), while the men barring Colonel Hicks(Michael Biehm) perish in defying Ripley’s prudent words. That his character and that of Newt was killed for lack of imagination(much to the chagrin of part 2 creator James Cameron and part 3 director David Fincher) is a reflection of discomfort of the male society in accepting stewardship from the fairer sex. Enough care has been taken by the makers of all the three movies to show the softer side of Ripley, her care and affection for Jonesey, her cat in the first film, her daughter figure Newt in the second film and the brief romantic encounter with Dr.Clemens.
2. Corporate Greed: Weyland Yutani corporation’s manipulations are the reason why Ripley is forced to meet the aliens not once or twice but 4 times. Surprising that she does not say even for once the much cliched ‘Oh no not again’. While in the first part the corporation did not make its face obvious, in the cracker jack sequel Alien, the whole bunch of board of directors make their on screen appearance and putting their ‘remarkable judgement’ by snubbing Ripley, only to beg her to join the rescue team. The first Alien movie made the most scathing characterisation of this corporate greed when the mother (a computer controlling the space ship Nostromo) receives a message from the corporation ‘Crew Expendable’. This is reinforced in the third movie when Ripley reinforces the same to disillusioned and forsaken prisoners, only difference this time being Ripley is not ‘expendable’ for she nests withing her an embryo of a ‘Queen’. The corporation uses as its agents Ash the android (more on this below) in the first part and Burke, the corporate lawyer who tries to cleverly influence Ripley initially and when he finds her a tough nut to crack decides to throw her and newt to the ‘face huggers’ (most scary larvae of any creature to be shown in screen) to give us the most scary moment in the three movies. In a study in contrast, even the aliens demonstrate sufficient kinship and concern towards their own kind when compared with the heartless nature of the corporation.
3. Leadership and Hierarchy: All the alien movies underscore in bold red one management mantra. In times of crisis that involves playing fields altered against the team, it is better not to reinforce the existing hierarchies, but allow alternate leadership to emerge and in a group of people invariably it emerges to triumph. In the first film , Ripley being second in line emerged on top, proving how ineffective the designated top man Dallas (Tom Skerrit) had become due to manipulations from the science officer android Ashe. In the second film, this aspect is totally reinforced, when Ripley, in the team in a consultative role decides to step in when the appointed in charge Gorman becomes incapacitated due to panic and assumes the leadership role. In the third part, in an irony of sorts, it is prisoner Dillon who assumes leadership of salvaging the situation while ripley herself is in an untenable position of being a host to the Alien queen. This recurring mockery and creative criticism of “hierarchy bound” structures of team in Aliens franchise is a subject matter fit to be discussed in management schools.
4. Androids and their significance: In all the three movies, androids or artificial humans play significant role not only as plot devices, but also as a significant exposition of scientific thought. However the influences of the creative teams that created the three movies leave distinctly different impressions. In the first film, androids/artificial humans are implementors of corporate will with total absence of conscience. The unsuccessful attempt by Ash to murder Ripley on Nostromo compares with any other bloody scary scene involving the chief villain the alien. In the second film however, Bishop, the Android(Lance Henriksen) is shown to be compassionate enough to humans, to the extent that he volunteers to undertake a potentially risky mission to safely ferry out the humans from witin the infested colony. While in the third part, Android Bishop makes a reentry to manipulate Ripley to give her ideas of destroying herlself with the parasite within. It is a contrast that James Cameron who had done the blockbuster that had an android for villain(terminator) shortly before directing Aliens chose to portray Androids in a positive and benevolent light.
While whatever I have detailed here has got nothing to do with the technical aspects of the film like the visual effects, sound effects, cinematography and set design that are so tastefully done in the movies, these aspects make Aliens a movie deeper than what the genre SciFi horror action would suggest. I personally felt that as the whole package had so many themes, and currents apart from the outwardly elements of script, it gave the actors playing characters to sketch a canvas that kept engaging the viewer at various levels till the first appearance of the creature. After which the whole roller coaster begins and whatever notes were being taken get torn to pieces in the mayhem and pulse pounding action.
Such deep layering of themes in a ‘creature feature’ helps the directors keep their audiences totally misdirected so that when the madness ensues, the pupeteer is totally in control. This also gives passioate audience like yours truly one more reason to play the movie once more and therein lies the power of pure cinema – an exercise in mind bending and willful subordination of senses and thoughts to the screen.
Tags: World Cinema
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Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
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nice read VPJ, there are tons of paperwork on Cameron, the alien trilogy and his visions for it on some site i visited recetly. forgot the site though
among my favorites. a one-two punch, by scott and cameron. read the screenplay for Alien (the first one). very sparse and cold. almost like the movie world the characters inhabit.
isn’t alien the movie satyajit ray wanted to make..or was it et..?y dont u or ur friends try to make a movie/tv series on the feluda stories..or something on the lines of a desi detective movie..with ur qualities,i m sure the movie would rock
@w12bot.
Ray wanted to do ET whic was later done by Spielberg.
Ray had the story written in his children’s comic book, but Hollywood was faster making it thanks to money they can spend on special effects.
As far as your second suggestion goes, I am not a film maker yet(hopefully someday) and just an aspiring writer trying to write something in the spare time i get from my work. Offcourse there are some worthy featured authors who can do that. However most of them are busy redirecting DevDas again and again.
Trust you for coming up with some supercool fanboy stuff! I have the original Ray script for ET. Not seen the trilogy, but its on my to-do.
Devdas! lol!