ALIEN (1979) Breakdown | Easter Eggs, Hidden Details & Things You Missed

Something that never gets explored is how the alien was able to grow to such a large size so soon. What was it eating to gain all that mass? I think it was consuming parts of the Nostromo. Ash said its cells are silicon-based so it doesn't need to eat organic food, and the characters talk about how things on the ship are breaking down that were working before ("I thought we fixed 12 module" - "We did, I don't understand it.") The Nostromo was like a "Mother" to the alien, suckling it so it could grow. This fits in with HR Giger's art style that merges life with machinery.

I like how, when Kane wakes up after the face hugger is no longer on his face, Ash comes over to give him more water to drink. Ash never shows any concern for the wellbeing of the crew or any acts of kindness towards them, so this looks out of character. However, he is really nurturing the creature inside of Kane.

Don't think I have ever seen another movie that has such realistic dialogue as Alien. Just feels so natural and adds to the horror.

One thing I wanted to point out: They did not land "the shuttle" on LV426 (there was no shuttle other than the Narcissus), they landed with the Nostromo itself. Because the Nostromo is essentially just a small tug, dragging this huge refinery behind it, which they detached from before landing.

The scene in the director's cut where Ripley finds a coccooned Dallas and she has to mercifully kill him was one of the most horrific scenes in the movie.

The science officer that Ash replaced dodged a bullet

I don't consider the Brett-coccoon scene as contradictory to the Queen/egg lore. It's reasonable to assume that under the right conditions, a solitary Alien can attempt to reproduce in this way as a species-based secondary method of creating a new hive, especially if a Queen dies. To me, it makes the Aliens more terrifying, that all it takes is one Alien to survive to start a new colony, and it also adds to the body-horror themes of the first movie.

The scene where Ripley finds the crew members cocooned is terrifying, and explains why, in the second movie, she tells hicks “They don’t kill you” when newt gets caught. IMO, it adds a lot to the horror, because of the worse than death fate of the Alien’s prey, and could be explained as a survival mechanism of the Alien when alone with no queen.

I love all the acting in this but I think a special shout out is deserved for Ian Holm. Such a subtle performance that could so easily have been hammy. He played it so well….I love watching his performance for clues to his betrayal. Everyone does fantastic but for me Holm underplays so well.

It's amazing you only see the Alien (or parts of it) for like 5 minutes in the film. Scott and the people making this film understand true horror comes from within. And I think that's why the scene of the point-of-view shot of Ripley running through the halls as the Alien attacks Lambert is one of the best shots in horror. You hear the screams and then silence.

"Cain's son" can also be seen as a Bible Reference. Cain's offspring were seen as "monstrous" and disconnected from God. That was always what I looked at Ash saying when he mentioned it

I was 11 years old in 1979. I remember it very well. My good friend Mark had talked his dad into bringing him to see Alien at the theater. It blew him and his dad's minds!! They came back telling everyone how scary the movie was. There was nothing like it in 1979. They told us we had to see it. So, I talked my mom into taking me and my cousin to see it. I loved it, and it's still one of my all time favorite sci-fi movies ever made!!

Two things. How amazing does this film look after all this time since it was made? Some films age badly for one reason or another, but Alien looks like it's just been made everytime I watch it. Secondly, symphony no. 2 will always be remembered as the piece of music played as Ripley blasts the alien into space. That whole scene with the music gives it such a feeling of catharsis, which for me is so much better than the present day post-modern cliché of "everyone dies". Alien is definitely one of my top ten movies of all time.

Still one of my all-time favorite horror movies. Alien & Event Horizon are still the best space horror movies ever made.

One thing you forgot to mention that's just a neat little moment, you can see the Alien walking past the windows on the shuttle when Ripley is trying to turn the cooling system back on. Also, another small thing I noticed, when they're talking to Ash after he's been decapitated, he almost never blinks. I like to think that he doesn't bother trying to blend in with the humans anymore, and it reminds me of the actor that played the T-1000 in T2 training himself to not flinch and close his eyes when firing his weapons.

Just because the Queen is introduced in Aliens, it does not mean that that drones can not make eggs out of captured humans. It makes sense that this is why the xenomorh is attacking the crew. Not just to kill them senselessly, but to perpetuate the species. I think this is part of Ash saying it is a perfect creature. It does not need another xenomorh to reproduce.

This was the first horror movie my dad showed me when I was 5 and used me as an excuse to buy all his toys and alien memorabilia. Still to this day these movies hold up so well and are something I hold near and dear to my heart ❤️ thank you for such an amazing breakdown on one of my favorite movies!

Couple of points that almost nobody seems to pick up on: 1. A lot of people pick up that Ripley and Dallas are attracted to each other, but there are clues that Lambert and Parker are also either a couple or want to be. Watch the way they move: Lambert is the the only one who Parker isn't confrontational with at some point, and he's the first to rush to comfort her when she's losing it. He even puts his arm around her as they go off to get the supplies for the shuttle. In the second mess table scene, before Kane kicks off, Parker makes a joke: "I'd rather be eating something else, but right now, food will do." Everybody else makes faces and noises to indicate they're grossed out, but the camera lingers on Lambert who smiles and drops her head as though she's the only one who _really_ gets the joke. In an earlier version of the script, two 'lovers' are having an assignation in an observation bubble on the ship when a body floats past. People assume this would have been Ripley and Dallas, but I suspect it would have been Lambert and Parker. 2. The reason the dead face-hugger drops on Ripley in the infirmary is because Ash does it as a sick joke. He first stops Dallas from poking into a corner over the medical desk, and then pokes into the very same space, with a tray ready, in a manner that suggests intent, not exploration: he's retrieving the dead face-hugger from where he stashed it, not looking for it. His first reaction after it drops on Ripley is to offer an excuse too quickly, "I didn't see it! It was in the overhead!", when, given that he was in a distant corner of the room, nobody could have expected him to see it. My theory is that he pulled it out of the corner, then threw it into the area above where Ripley was standing so that it seemed to drop on her. We know that his conflicting programming makes him behave oddly in the scene where he assaults Ripley: maybe this is an early sign of his 'android psychosis'.

This and Aliens are some of the best films ever. Top notch Sci-Fi Horror. Weaver deserved a Oscar for this and Aliens.

The most disappointing thing about the Engineers to me was their almost psychotic hostility. The cast of Alien are known to have felt that the corpse of the Space Jockey was not unsettling despite its size and strangeness, but rather struck them as benevolent and tragic.