ALIEN.
I was nearly eight when it was released, but it hadn't come to my town yet. My older brother and I went on our summer visit to our father in another city in summer '79, and were raving about Jaws, which we'd just seen in a re-release. In particular, the gore.
"Have you seen Alien?" he asked us.
"No," we replied, wide-eyed. "Was it good?"
"It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. I wanted to walk out in the middle of the movie."
I was floored. This movie, this ALIEN, had rattled my DAD? My hero? My fascination began at that moment.
I grilled my (later to become) stepsisters (ages eleven & eight) about it. "It was great!" they told me and, interestingly, "Ripley and Dallas were totally in love, but they never said so."
Visit later concluded, my brother and I returned to our town. the movie wasn't due in for months, but the paperback was at the grocery store. I got a copy, and read it voraciously.
When the movie finally came to our town, my brother and I had eaten too many of the cookies or something, and as punishment we weren't allowed to go with our mother and her husband to see it. I was crushed.
But I kept reading the novel over and over again. And in so doing, the crew of the Nostromo became my role models. That may sound silly, but it's true. My mother and stepfather were a couple of violent, psychotic drunks, and even at that young age, I swore I would never be like them (I've been two-thirds successful in that regard). I didn't know any adults other than teachers (who couldn't be arsed to provide much of an example), so the Nostromo's crew became my definition of what adults
were. I began to recognize in myself Dallas-like qualities, Parker-like qualities, Ripley-like qualities, etc. Finally actually seeing the film on a friend's family's VHS player in 1983 only cemented things for me.
Yes, the crew of the Nostromo taught me how to be an adult. And every time I see their names flash by over Howard Hanson's 'The Romantic' I feel a sweet sense of gratitude.
