{"id":3709,"date":"2018-07-23T13:37:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T17:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2018-07-30T11:56:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T15:56:34","slug":"lauren-finally-watches-alien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/?p=3709","title":{"rendered":"Lauren (finally) watches: ALIEN"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years back, I was chatting with a guy I\u2019d just met a few hours earlier at a writing conference, and he told me that he bet he could guess my favorite movie. I told him to give it a whirl — after all, most of the discussion at writing conferences is based around stories, both the ones we love in pop culture and the ones we\u2019re trying to tell in our own work, so I figured that, based on that, he had a decent chance of at least hitting one of my top five.*<\/span><\/p>\n

He pondered for a second, then took a shot. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/i>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I shook my head, and told him that I\u2019d actually never seen <\/span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/i>, and therefore had no opinion on it whatsoever. Once he got over his initial shock (which is fair — I was a baby when the original <\/span>Blade Runner <\/span><\/i>came out, but as a \u201890s teenager, I really should have watched it on VHS at a sleepover or something), he assured me that once I <\/span>did <\/span><\/i>get around to watching it, I\u2019d love it. And I thought he was probably right. After all, <\/span>Blade Runner <\/span><\/i>has morally complex robots, a futuristic noir premise, and a young Harrison Ford, all of which are things I like.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Harrison Ford in Blade Runner<\/em> (1982). Photo credit: Warner Bros.<\/p><\/div>\n

But when I did finally watch <\/span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/i>\u2026 I was not a fan. <\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that Writing Conference Guy had me pegged entirely wrong. I think that if I\u2019d seen <\/span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/i> as a teenager, I might have loved it, and that nostalgia factor might have been strong enough to last me well into adulthood. But watching it for the\u00a0<\/span>first <\/span><\/i>time as an adult, I found myself so troubled by <\/span>certain elements<\/span><\/a>** of the movie that I found myself unable to emotionally invest in the rest. <\/span><\/p>\n

It was disappointing, to be honest. I\u2019d really looked forward to finally getting to experience Ridley Scott\u2019s sci-fi masterpiece, and to be so underwhelmed by it was like finally opening that big present you\u2019d been eyeing under the Christmas tree and finding it was filled with socks. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not even good socks (I\u2026 have been known to ask for good socks for Christmas). Old, used socks. The kind you wouldn\u2019t want to wear, even if they\u2019d been washed and had cool designs on them, because they\u2019d always make you feel just a little bit gross. <\/span><\/p>\n

Which got me wondering about that <\/span>other <\/span><\/i>critically acclaimed Ridley Scott sci-fi movie that I never got around to seeing as a teenager: <\/span>Alien<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

(Right now, you may be wondering what I was even <\/span>doing <\/span><\/i>as a teenager to miss out on not one but <\/span>two <\/span><\/i>of these formative classics. Which is why now feels like the time to also admit that I hadn\u2019t seen <\/span>Point Break <\/span><\/i>until last week. It was great.) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been curious about <\/span>Alien,<\/span><\/i> but for one reason or another, have never gotten around to actually watching any of them. Honestly, lately, I’ve been a little nervous. Ever since watching\u00a0Blade Runner<\/em>, I’ve wondered whether I’d even be capable of loving the\u00a0Alien\u00a0<\/em>series as an adult first-time watcher, or if I missed my window, and wouldn’t be able to enjoy it without the nostalgia-colored lenses. It’s such a beloved classic; did I even want\u00a0<\/i>to risk not liking it? Was it better to remain blissfully ignorant?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I recently discovered that every <\/span>Alien <\/span><\/i>movie except <\/span>Prometheus <\/span><\/i>is available on HBO, and it felt like it was finally time to pull the trigger. <\/span><\/p>\n

So I\u2019m going to fling myself headfirst into the <\/span>Alien <\/span><\/i>franchise, watching one a night (ish — I\u2019m unwilling to cancel my life for this and also I\u2019m an adult who cannot watch movies until 2 a.m. like I did in college) until I\u2019ve gotten through every single one, and will chronicle my journey here, one movie at a time. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here we go.<\/span><\/p>\n

ALIEN (1979)<\/span><\/h1>\n

My expectations: <\/span><\/h2>\n

Ever since I read <\/span>Film Crit Hulk\u2019s deep-dive on the career of Ridley Scott<\/span><\/a> (which is an excellent piece and I highly recommend it), I\u2019ve had my own Ridley Scott theory sort of percolating quietly in the back of my mind, which only solidified more after listening to the entire Director\u2019s Commentary for <\/span>Legend<\/span><\/i>, which I wound up tweeting about as I was watching it because it\u2019s just\u2026 so\u2026 weird.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Final figures on the Ridley Scott LEGEND director\u2019s cut commentary:<\/p>\n

40% set design
\n25% Jerry Goldsmith > Tangerine Dream
\n20 % \u201cshe would\u2019ve been a cat here\u201d
\n10% Ridley Scott\u2019s personal headcanon that never made it into the film
\n5% what\u2019s actually happening on screen<\/p>\n

\u2014 Lauren Thoman (@LaurenTHCW) January 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n