When Ridley Scott was given the script for all the roles were written as unisex, so it was up to the casting team to decide who would be male and who would be female. Through these discussions, the only survivor and killer of the xenomorph, Ripley, was made female as Ellen Ripley. As a result, Alien unwittingly broke new ground for female protagonists in action-oriented movies.
Three sequels and two prequels later, it’s fair to say that Alien has made a huge impact on both sci-fi cinema and horror cinema. Ripley is ed as a quintessential protagonist of either genre, while the xenomorph itself is in the lexicon of classic movie monsters alongside King Kong and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
Ripley: The Audience Has Time To Get To Know Her
One of Ridley Scott’s greatest accomplishments with Alien is its pacing. In the first half of the movie, he takes a long time to introduce the characters and their world. Dallas and Kane and, indeed, Ripley all get to develop into well-rounded characters before the monster is introduced. And even then, the facehugger’s impregnation doesn’t take effect until later that night.
The audience has plenty of time to get to know Ripley, so her desperate fight for survival in the final act is much more impactful than the average scary movie that introduces its monster in the opening minutes.
Xenomorph: It’s Full Of Surprises
Most movie monsters can only truly surprise the audience on their first appearance because once they’ve seen the monster, they know the score. But the xenomorph in Alien is full of surprises. For starters, the first big jump scare is the facehugger, which isn’t the monster; it’s the monster that creates the monster.
Then, there’s the iconic terror of the chest-burster, where the xenomorph is seen scuttling away as a baby. Then, there’s the shocking reveal of its adult form towering over Brett, just moments after it was a tiny baby.
Ripley: Sigourney Weaver’s Performance Is Magnificent
Sigourney Weaver gives a fantastic performance as Ellen Ripley in Alien. It’s not just a great performance for a horror movie; it’s a great performance by any metric. Every emotion is tangible, ratcheting up the tension of a fantastical crisis and keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
She would go on to knock it out of the park again in 1986’s Aliens, which relies thematically on Ripley’s maternal instincts as she looks after a young orphan named Newt.
Xenomorph: Its Only Goal Is Self-Preservation
What set the xenomorph apart from other depictions of extra-terrestrials like Klingons and Cybermen is that it’s not very intelligent. It’s a primal, predatory creature incapable of higher thought.
The only thing on the xenomorph’s mind is self-preservation, which means eating any meat in sight (i.e. living, breathing human beings) and eliminating any perceived threats. It’s a relentless killing machine.
Ripley: She’s A Relatable Everywoman
The problem with the “chosen one” narrative is that it tells audiences that only a select few people are handpicked to be the heroes of the world. More relatable stories follow a nobody who is thrust into a dangerous situation by chance and uses it as an opportunity to prove their grit.
That’s what happens to Ellen Ripley in Alien. The whole Nostromo crew is introduced on equal footing with each other. Ripley is just an everywoman who only becomes the main character by the fact that all the other characters get killed.
Xenomorph: It Has No Eyes
The most terrifying thing about the xenomorph is that it has no eyes (well, technically, in the canon, its eyes are hidden under a visor and it uses electrical impulses to see) because H.R. Giger decided it would be scarier if people couldn’t tell if it was looking at them, and he was right.
When the xenomorph comes face-to-face with a person it’s about to eat, they can’t look it in the eye, symbolizing that this thing is just a remorseless, unstoppable force of intergalactic nature.
Ripley: She Broke New Ground
Ellen Ripley is regarded as one of the most significant female protagonists ever created – not just in movies, but in storytelling in general – and is credited with proving to Hollywood studios that women could lead action movies.
It would be many years before female-led action movies would really take off, but they may not have taken off at all without Ripley’s groundbreaking debut in Alien.
Xenomorph: It Only Appears On-Screen For Four Minutes
Throughout Alien’s two-hour runtime, the xenomorph only has a collective four minutes of screen time, and it doesn’t appear until an hour into the movie. All the most terrifying movie monsters are terrifying because the audience only ever gets brief glimpses of them.
The shark in Jaws also only appears on-screen for four minutes. If the audience saw too much of the xenomorph – which they did in the sequels – then it would lose its impact.
Ripley: She’s Easy To Root For
The protagonist of a story is supposed to be someone the audience roots for. Audiences want Frodo to reach Mordor, Indiana Jones to get the Ark, and Atticus Finch to win the case. Since it’s a given, some filmmakers don’t bother to go out of their way to make the audience root for their hero – they just expect it.
Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver didn’t take that chance with Alien, making Ripley one of the first and fiercest “final girls” in horror movie history.
Xenomorph: H.R. Giger’s Designs Are Unforgettable
Ultimately, what makes the xenomorph from Alien the quintessential movie monster is its look. It’s terrifying on its own, without a movie around it, and that’s thanks to the legendary H.R. Giger’s unforgettable designs. The aesthetic of the xenomorph is entirely unique to Giger.
The alien’s biology is recognizably humanoid, but by making little changes to distort the human form like extending the head and adding a couple of feet of height and putting a second mouth inside the main mouth, and turning the saliva into acid, Giger created something hauntingly inhuman.
