A Confession

I often put myself forward as a Sci-Fi fan. There is a lot to of evidence to back up this assertion: I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek, one of my favourite films is Blade Runner, I have a collection of Isaac Asimov books on my shelf. Hell I have a selection of flipping Larry Niven books on my shelf. This would seem to be all the evidence to prove that I am both a massive Sci-Fi dork and a boring person to talk to at a party. While the later is certainly true the former is not for one simple reason: I have never seen Alien.

I myself find this pretty extraordinary so I can’t help but wonder what you are thinking right now Dear Reader, but it is the truth. I have even seen the sequel Aliens but I have never seen the original. It may be because I have never been much of a fan of horror films and in a lot of ways Alien seemed to fit just as much in that category what with the bodyshocks, creepy hallways, monsters jumping out at people, and so forth, although I have seen plenty of horror films (enough to know I'm not a fan) so it doesn't seem like that great of an excuse.

Whatever the cause it marks me out as a phoney and as such I have taken it upon myself to finally get round to watching Alien at some point in the near future. I imagine it’ll probably be on TV or if not I will just borrow it of a friend, as a very last resort I might even buy it. Before I watch it though I intend to take up a challenge; a friend has mentioned to me a few times about how he has gotten people to write a synopsis to famous films they haven’t seen based only on information they have gained via cultural osmosis. I mean the fact is I have seen all the main bits of Alien via clip shows, homages, rip-offs, and references so I should have a fairly good handle on the plot… right? Well let’s find out.

Alien

There is a space ship called the Nostromo, I think it is being used to mine an asteroid. On the ship there are a bunch of guys, a lady, and a robot only he hasn't told anyone he’s a robot because he’s sort of like the robots in Blade Runner. They also have a ship’s dog. The lady is called Ripley and she is the main character, the other characters almost certainly have names as well and one of them is played by John Hurt.

While mining an asteroid they find this big dead alien guy in a chair. He isn't the Alien though; he’s just some other kind of alien. Anyway he’s in this chair and there are a bunch of eggs all around him and one of the guys picks up an egg to check it out and it starts hatching. The egg is like black and has all this green goo in it and also a big horseshoe crab thing which sort of sticks itself onto his helmet. The horseshoe crab isn't the Alien either. Everyone is freaked out and runs back to the ship and they decide to go home because they were done in the asteroid anyway.

They get back to the ship and Ripley is all like “we shouldn't let him in because that horseshoe crab thing might have put an alien in him” but everyone else is like “no it’s fine he was wearing a helmet”. He feels a bit ill though so they go to the doctor and then an alien does jump out of him because it turns out it could get through his helmet (I am not sure how). This kills the chap and the alien runs away before they can catch it. The person who died was John Hurt. Anyway they are pretty freaked out but not too much because the Alien is really small and they have these massive guns which they strap to their chests for no reason. Oh also the little Alien is totally the Alien.

I guess the Alien grew really fast though because by before long it stops being little and white and becomes this massive black thing and is like picking off all the guys because it is hard to use their big chest guns in the ship which is pretty small and cramped. One of the guys manages to get a tracking device on it though and chases it into the air duct and then he crawls after it. Everyone else is sat in a room with a little map showing where the Alien is and are trying to give the guy in the air duct directions but the Alien finds him first and eats him.

It is eating more and more dudes and in the end it tries to eat the robot but spits out its head and the survivors are all “woah you a robot?” The head of the robot is still alive and explains how he betrayed them all. I don’t know how he betrayed them though. If I was writing this movie I think he would betray them by self destructing the ship to kill the Alien but I have a feeling that actually he sent them to the asteroid even though he knew the Alien was going to be there although that doesn't make much sense. The robot is almost certainly a metaphor about what it means to be human.

Once the robot dies the only person alive is Ripley. Oh wait I think the dog is also alive? Ripley is cornered by the alien who sticks a little alien out of its mouth to put inside of Ripley like the crab thing did to John Hurt right at the start but then the dog barks and distracts the alien. Ripley uses this chance to run away and gets to the escape pod just as the ship blows up. THE END… or is it? I think in the final shot the alien is like holding on to the escape pod which explains how there are more aliens for the sequels to work.

I look forward to finally watching Alien in the weeks to come so I can see how accurate I was. In the meantime I hope that everyone who has already seen the film enjoys my version.