Movie Details
Theatrical Release:June 21st, 1979
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On DVD & Blu-ray:January 6th, 2004
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Movie Budget:$11,000,000
Movie Box Office Gross:$104,931,801 (Worldwide)
Original Language:English
Executive Producers:Ronald Shusett
Production Companies:Brandywine Productions, Twentieth Century-Fox Productions, Ronald Shusett Productions
Alien Quotes
Corporate Greed in Science Fiction Cinema
“Alien at 40: In space no one can hear your plea for workers’ rights” (26 February 2019):
Sci-fi cinema has a long history of ruthless and evil corporations, including the Tyrell Corporation in Scott’s subsequent Blade Runner (1982), Cyberdyne Systems in the Terminator films (1984-), Omni Consumer Products in RoboCop (1987) and the Soylent Corporation in Soylent Green (1973). The interests of these conglomerates, often inspired by real-life organisations, lie entirely in profit, operating with a total indifference towards the welfare of their employees. The companies at the heart of blue-collar science fiction such as Alien, Moon and Outland are similarly ruthless. Viewers watching Alien 40 years later may have little trouble recognizing the practices of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation; the way it controls its poorer workers with unfair and dangerous working conditions. Grounded in Scott’s gritty, blue-collar vision, it all seems both credible and familiar. As in 1979, 2019 and so in 2122, money is the ultimate goal, not worker’s rights or their well-being.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Workplace Fears in Ridley Scott's Alien
“Alien at 40: In space no one can hear your plea for workers’ rights” (26 February 2019):
Areas of the Nostromo are reminiscent of various blue-collar workplaces, a counterpoint to the sleek spaceships imagined in much science fiction before Alien. In his article ‘The set design of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Christopher Aguiar explains that this approach had rarely been seen in science fiction before 1979, which adds to the quality of trepidation: “Fear is built largely from the camera prowling around the empty spaces of the Nostromo ship – a battered, truly ugly spacecraft, unlike the Death Star or USS Enterprise… instead of being outside and exploring the world as sci-fi often wants us to do, we’re largely stuck inside the rundown, twisted corridors of a ship. That immediately works as a way of Scott installing fear and uneasiness.”
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Alien Movies
A science fiction horror film franchise, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and her battle with an extraterrestrial life-form, commonly referred to as "the Alien". Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started with the 1979 film Alien, then Aliens in 1986, Alien³ in 1992, and Alien: Resurrection in 1997.
