I think you could argue that Alien definitely yoinked ideas from other stories. I went out and bought planet of the vampires just because of how close I heard Alien followed it thinking, "thats bs no almost 80's movie is going to borrow from a 60s foreign language movie." And boy was I mistaken. The first half of Alien is almost identical to POV first half.
From there it supposedly takes its cues from IT! The Terror from beyond space.
Alien really only revolutionized the creature design, and it's lifecycle. The lifecycle actually allowed the crew to bring the monster on the ship vs it just snuck in trope. Even the used future was done before in SW. The realistic dialogue also helps it. Alien was just filmed better than those other movies, had a better monster, better set design, more realistic dialogue.