What was your first experience with each film?

[Prez]

Alien:
Reading through my elder brothers' Book of Alien and Alien: Photo Novel in 1979/80 as an 8 year old. Eventually saw the film on TV a couple of years later. The sheer terror wasn't that hard hitting as the books had given me the whole story inside out.

I now forever regret reading the Anobile photo book and the comic book adaptation one year in advance of seeing the film.

The film's many surprises were ruined for me. However, I still greatly enjoyed the film when I finally did see it.

Yer I'm with you on that one. I did the same with Aliens too! Had the making of book and it has the whole story in it.

FWIW ... it's a sci-fi horror. My 2 cents. 

[Kradan]

This reminds me of the whole "Star Wars isn't sci-fi" thing

[Agoddamnpercentage]

The film doesn't even ask any of these questions and they don't really influence the plot at all.

I think the film encourages these questions. It makes him an inscrutable figure, with an unclear relationship with MUTHUR, and Holm absolutely puts these issues into the centre of his portrayal, in his tics, moments of thought, and so on.

Plus, Ash's attack, reveal and destruction are sci fi horror. It's part of the horror that he's relentless, that he's full of milk and that his head keeps talking. That's not just horror full stop, it's sci fi horror.

I didn't say to make it magical. Biology is science; a dragon is as much a work of science fiction in that regard as the Alien.

I guess my thought was that putting it in a fantasy realm opens the possibility of a magical origin even if it's not explained. That changes the context of the creature and what it could be, which suggests that the sci fi setting is not incidental. Sci fi's hard to define, of course - your dragon comment shows that. But I can't help but think that any film, whether set in the future or not, that includes a creature that makes you rethink what an organism is, and melds organic and tech elements, is a sci fi.

[SiL]

I think the film encourages these questions. It makes him an inscrutable figure, with an unclear relationship with MUTHUR, and Holm absolutely puts these issues into the centre of his portrayal, in his tics, moments of thought, and so on.

This is dressing, not plot.

[TC]

FWIW ... it's a sci-fi horror. My 2 cents. 

Yeah, but that's cheating! The fun part of the argument is when you force yourself to choose one or the other!

For me, the most interesting way to answer the question is subjectively:

One day i questioned myself about why I liked and admired Alien so much and Event Horizon not so much. They both have futuristic sci-fi settings, set onboard a spaceship, good acting, good VFX, good art direction, and both of them sci-fi/horror. But i distinctly remember losing interest in Event Horizon the moment they started talking about hyperspace being the hell dimension and something about evil being imbued in the fabric of the ship. The story was letting the sci-fi shrink away so only the horror was left, and for me horror needs some other ingredient mixed in to really hold my attention. For example, The Exorcist is clearly horror, but it's also a fantastic character-based human drama. The same with The Shining (although that's also Kubrick so gets an automatic pass).

This reminds me of the whole "Star Wars isn't sci-fi" thing

At the risk of veering off-topic: Star Wars is a good example of fantasy cloaking itself in the trappings of sci-fi (essentially; spaceships, robots and aliens). The first movie (A New Hope) starts out well, but as Lucas went along it gradually became more and more about space wizards and magical force powers, i.e. fantasy. And don't get me started on the sequels.

But to return to Alien:

When it comes to sci-fi, far more important than setting is the premise.

e.g. What if there was an alien predator that parasitised humans as live hosts in order to further its life cycle? That's the premise that's at the heart of the story. And i don't think you could put that in anything other than sci-fi. Sure, you could turn the monster into a rabid St. Bernard dog terrorising some people trapped in a stuck car, or a pair of lions stalking workers trying to build a railway line in East Africa late nineteenth century. But those versions really don't hold the same appeal. Not to me, anyway.

TC

[Elmazalman]

Alien:
Reading through my elder brothers' Book of Alien and Alien: Photo Novel in 1979/80 as an 8 year old. Eventually saw the film on TV a couple of years later. The sheer terror wasn't that hard hitting as the books had given me the whole story inside out.

I now forever regret reading the Anobile photo book and the comic book adaptation one year in advance of seeing the film.

The film's many surprises were ruined for me. However, I still greatly enjoyed the film when I finally did see it.

Yer I'm with you on that one. I did the same with Aliens too! Had the making of book and it has the whole story in it.

FWIW ... it's a sci-fi horror. My 2 cents. 

Same thing happened to me. I owned the ALIENS Official Movie Magazine before seeing the film.

If you remove the horror elements you remove the plot. You need to write an entirely new story, with new drama.

If you remove the sci fi elements, you remove the setting. You just need to write a new setting, but with the same drama.

If you remove the sci-fi elements, you remove more than just the setting, you also remove the subplot with the android and the Company wanting to gather a specimen for its weapons/research.

[SiL]

If you remove the sci-fi elements, you remove more than just the setting, you also remove the subplot with the android and the Company wanting to gather a specimen for its weapons/research.

Ash being an Android isn't relevant to the plot, just that he's a saboteur. What the company wants the Alien for isn't relevant to the plot, just that they're willing to risk the lives of the crew to do it.

Both of these things can be transposed to another time, place and setting.

[BeeHooKoo]

If you remove the sci-fi elements, you remove more than just the setting, you also remove the subplot with the android and the Company wanting to gather a specimen for its weapons/research.

Ash being an Android isn't relevant to the plot, just that he's a saboteur. What the company wants the Alien for isn't relevant to the plot, just that they're willing to risk the lives of the crew to do it.

Without Ash, Kane and Alien wouldn't have made it to the ship, the quarantine regulations would have worked and Alien would have been left out. In fact, Ash did his part earlier by provoking and pushing to investigate the signal.

[SiL]

Without Ash, Kane and Alien wouldn't have made it to the ship, the quarantine regulations would have worked and Alien would have been left out. In fact, Ash did his part earlier by provoking and pushing to investigate the signal.

I didn't say to remove Ash. I said that him being an Android isn't relevant to this -- him being a saboteur is.

Maybe this should be its own thread.

[Prez]

Yer I'm with you on that one. I did the same with Aliens too! Had the making of book and it has the whole story in it.

Same thing happened to me. I owned the ALIENS Official Movie Magazine before seeing the film.

Haha. Twins removed by time and distance!!!

[Neila]

ALIEN: first seen on TV. I thought it was nice, but I was too young to understand its genius.

ALIENS: seen on VHS for the video release. here too the same as the first. It was a cool film for me at the time but I wasn't a real fan yet.

ALIEN3: Cinema Release.
I didn't like it at first, but there was still something about it that kept me busy and made me think.
It had the darkest and bleakest mood of all, which I somehow really liked.
I loved the dog alien.
I then saw it several times in the cinema (probably 5 times)
and at some point I was just in there.
From then on I started collecting everything about Alien. Merch was still manageable at the time.
It was Alien3 that made me a fan. I then appreciated the predecessors much more than when I first saw them. For me, the first 3 films are a total work of art. The first film is of course a bit above everything.

ALIEN RESURRECTION:
2x cinema release. I thought it was good at the time but still wished that A3 had been the actual ending. Today I see A4 as a bizarre comic book film.
It's actually unnecessary but I don't hate it and I can watch it every now and then.

PROMETHEUS:
1x cinema.
Visually powerful and confusing.
Still, I celebrated it, if only because it erased AvP from the canon. For me, Scott wasn't the destroyer of the franchise but rather the savior.

ALIEN COVENANT:
2x Cinema.
I really liked it and I still do today.
I wished that David wasn't the creator of the aliens, but I can accept that without crying.

ALIEN ROMULUS:
Cinema, of course, and multiple times.
70% great
30% half-baked and confusing.
All in all, I like it a lot, but at the moment I still see it as a comic story, like with A4.

Of course, all films from the franchise have their problem areas, some more, others less.
Even the first.
But each of these films has more than enough moments that blow me away and still give me goosebumps even today.
so many talented people who worked on it.
It's simply incredible that we can still talk about it today and (mostly) share this enthusiasm.

[Oasis Nadrama]

A killer monster that came from a wrecked spaceship on an alien world. The science-fiction elements are just as important.

The story stills works of they find it in a cave or a shipwreck on a mysterious island.

The sci fi is just dressing to Alien.

Absolutely not.

This dark future is important thematically. The creature is the expression of the movie's dystopian depiction of a slow, heavy, crushing industrial machine in the future, the deshumanization of society. Both Ash and Kane's Son aren't biomechanical by mere chance, they entirely express the themes of the movie, they are the incarnation of the cold and destructive capitalist machine.

Another element which makes the science fiction key to the horror is the permanent threat of the acid blood, which conditions the very way in which they approach confrontation with the various forms of the creature - they don't destroy the facehugger, they try to catch the chestburster with a net and they rely on flamethrowers once they know Big Chap's healthy growth spurt. Even the final fight is entirely conditioned by the scifi setting.

I could go on, hell, books have been written about the importance of the science fiction component.

Alien is not a story with a "demon", even if it does have obvious, and deliberate, Lovecraftian, Hammer cinema and ancient mythology undertones.

Alien is a story about processes (bureaucratic, mechanical and, in the end, biological) and how these processes make us all meat for the grinder. Its rationality, a key element of science fiction, is fundamental to its horror. It is a tragedy of cogwheels.

[SiL]

The creature is the expression of the movie's dystopian depiction of a slow, heavy, crushing industrial machine in the future, the deshumanization of society. Both Ash and Kane's Son aren't biomechanical by mere chance, they entirely express the themes of the movie, they are the incarnation of the cold and destructive capitalist machine.

This same theme can be expressed in our very own modern day soul crushing capitalist world without the sci fi trappings.

Another element which makes the science fiction key to the horror is the permanent threat of the acid blood, which conditions the very way in which they approach confrontation with the various forms of the creature - they don't destroy the facehugger, they try to catch the chestburster with a net and they rely on flamethrowers once they know Big Chap's healthy growth spurt. Even the final fight is entirely conditioned by the scifi setting.

Where did I say to remove the acid blood? What does acid blood have to do with sci fi specifically?

Alien is a story about processes (bureaucratic, mechanical and, in the end, biological) and how these processes make us all meat for the grinder. Its rationality, a key element of science fiction, is fundamental to its horror. It is a tragedy of cogwheels.

None of what you just wrote requires science fiction to exist in a story. You are, if anything, proving my point.

The core themes and drama of Alien are not drawn from science fiction and can exist without it. They cannot exist without horror.

[SiL]

Just to clarify once again:

I'm not arguing sci fi isn't important to the presentation of the final movie, I'm just saying the story is a horror one. The sci fi can be replaced, the horror can't.

[SM]

It's confusing that people are struggling with this.