Alien. The chest buster scene. Plus Sigourney Weaver. Though it was a bit offputting that there was gravity in the ship.
I dig your description, but for me, the scene that evokes that notion most perfectly is this one, from The Thing. But I’m a sucker for “Buried in the Ice” tropes.
I didn’t see either film until ~15 years after their release, so something like RivkahChaya’s point about the kill order was not in effect for me. Though in both cases, I was largely in the dark about the content of both films.
I found Alien to be dull, really. It wasn’t scary and the pace just felt slow. The special effects around the android looked fake and detracted from its believability. The costume design and hairstyles looked distinctly 70s/80s and, again, took me out of it. I don’t remember the end.
The Thing has a little bit of hammy acting, but the special effects hold up and there’s more scare-factor (for me) because the monster could be anyone or anything. You never know what’s going to happen when. And then it ends with a sleek, haunting last scene where you’re both left with no answer AND two men who are left to die, staring at each other.
I give it to The Thing. And I’d be curious how many of the votes in its favor are from people who saw it when it was released.
I think Alien is the far more influential film and RivkahChaya makes a good point about the importance those initial impressions back in 79 made. And having space populated by working class stiffs had a very lived-in feeling to it that made the future seem very present and not all slick & shiny. I also take Don Draper’s point about the space jockey and the sense of alien mystery that that sequence represented (plus, the chest-burster scene is beyond iconic).
But I far prefer The Thing. Partly because the sense of menace, suspicion, and paranoia are very real and palpable. Also, the Nostromo crew do what every idiot group in a haunted house movie do when the plot requires it, while for the most part, the guys in the research camp take common sense precautions and are all professionals, but still find themselves over their head. And the effects may be from the analog era, but they’re still incredibly creepy in a way that the original (as finely crafted as it is) simply lacks.
They were both excellent, but I voted for ***The Thing. *** Partly because it stayed much more faithful to John W. Campbell’s story than the more acclaimed, highly overreated Howard Hawks movie, and partly because I liked the cast interaction.
I think highly of both movies; both have been quite influential. I’m happy to sit down and watch either. For me there aren’t any slow or dull parts in either.
I voted for “Alien” because for me it has a bit more depth, in terms of commentary on human nature. (‘The Monster’ is the major problem in both films. But it’s only in Alien that we have the secondary villain that puts The Monster on the ship. This secondary villain is, of course, the one created and placed on the ship because of that very human trait: our willingness to exploit fellow-humans to advantage ourselves.)
The Thing, hands down. Bill Lancaster’s script was faithful to John Campbell’s original story without being slavish. And the characters actually considered possible didges the Thing might use, and tried to avoid them. The method of determining who was a “thing” was, as in Campbell’s story, a piece of logical deduction.
Alien, on the other hand, has people acting in irrational ways, going off on their own into dark places when they know there’s a creepicrawlie around. They come up with a Monster Detector that, even though the explanation is gobbledegook (“micro-changes in air pressure” my butt. The damned thing ought to be going off all the time) that they immediately proceed to misuse, then promptly ignore, even though you’d think it’d be a good idea to use.
Watch Jerome Bixby’s It! The Terror from Beyond Space instead. Despite being dated, the plot is a helluva lot more rational. And it’s where Alien plundered its plot from in the first place.
I chose The Thing just because, well, I like it more. There is a case to be made for either film. Both are, IMHO, great but have a number of flaws.
But if I and the future Mrs. RickJay had to watch one or the other we’d both choose The Thing, hands down. It’s fun.
Alien because of the following reasons:
- The Thing had great acting and believable dialogue, I think Alien was still better because it recreated a realistic work environment. Serious and yet casual. You really did believe these people were in outer space and they had believable actions and interactions. Ripley following procedure by the books, making tough decisions that made her unpopular, but she wasn’t made to look overbearing or a jerk. Professional and yet relatable. MacReady was awesome but he was in some ways the stereotypical male hero. Ripley seems like someone you would know in real life.
2)As good as The Thing effects were, Giger’s design and the effects were better. Plus the derelict ship looked so much more alien than the ship in The Thing.
3)Alien got your mind running more. In The Thing the paranoid suspicion of who was who was excellent and I liked the initial mystery of what happened to the Swedish group, briefly seeing part of the gigantic alien ship in the ice. In Alien though we got to see and wonder about the derelict ship, the pilot, why he was transporting or carrying all those eggs. The mystery of the alien itself, was it weapon, a species? The revelation of the company’s motives, Ash’s true mission. It just seemed more complex.
That said The Thing is a classic and one of my favorites.
I had heard a lot of things about Alien before I saw it as an adult and I was vaguely disappointed; I thought it was slow and the special effects were more puppet-y than I expected.
I knew almost nothing about The Thing when I saw it as a kid, and I thought it was awesome. I agree with stpauler; growing up in a place with cold winters definitely gave the movie a sense of claustrophobia.
Setting aside the mismatched circumstances of how I watched those two movies, I still maintain that the ending of The Thing is a hundred times more satisfying than the end of Alien.
I liked them both, but the slow pacing of Alien puts me off. I prefer John Carpenter’s "The Thing"
I would also rate Predator and Aliens as slightly more enjoyable than the two in the poll.
The original The Thing From Another Planet still holds up well for my tastes.
I don’t vote in public polls, but I remember preferring The Thing. Not seen either in decades though.
I dunno-- I was only 12 when I saw Alien in the theater, and I didn’t perceive it as slow as in plodding, or badly edited. I perceived it as tense. But I saw it on a big screen with no distractions. I don’t know what it would be like seeing it at home for the first time. There isn’t much dialogue in the first half hour or so, so you really have to watch it. If you are trying to fold laundry, or check your email, or you have pets, and the phone ringing to distract you, you probably lose track of what’s happening.
The ending for Carpenter’s film was better than Alien though.
I saw both of these in the theater on release, and you really hit the nail on the head for me in terms of how people behave, and how sensibly the men at the research camp try to act under an increasing pall of paranoia (which definitely has a Cold War feel). Alien on the other hand really is just a slick horror movie, whose best virtue is that the hero is, for once, a kick-ass woman.
Plus, The Thing has that dog.
I love The Thing, but Alien is one of my all time favorite movies in any genre.
One of the things I find compelling about the creature in alien is that it’s essentially just an animal. Most movies with aliens necessarily portray them as unimaginably smart. They have to be technologically advanced enough to have built some version of faster than light travel, otherwise we wouldn’t be in contact with them. And I think it’s just inherently hard to imagine what a creature that much smarter than you would be like. But the alien is just some mean-ass stowaway the Nostromo was unlucky enough to run across.
Or if you buy the Prometheus retcon, the aliens were designed as revenge on mankind because we were mean to Jesus.
While poking around on the internets I learned that Dan O’Bannon, who wrote Alien, attended USC with John Carpenter, where they made a short film together.
I re-watch The Thing on at least an annual basis. I haven’t watched Alien in over 10 years and have no interest in doing so any time soon. Aliens, now…that movie I can watch almost any time.
That’s it for me. Neither movie would make it into my top 10 SF movies, but The Thing’s ending makes it into my top movie endings, no question: it’s perfect.
As a kid watching the Alien movie the monster was always out there somewhere.
Watching The Thing the monster could be the dude right next to you. That freaked me out…and then that damned head-spider alien. Fuck that shit!