One of the most famous science fiction movies in history is Sir Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Remember this guy? He directed Gladiator! Alien won one Oscar for Best Effects-Visual Effects (H.R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, Dennis Ayling) and secured 17 additional wins from 1979-2021. In 2021, Sigourney Weaver's character, Ellen Ripley, was added to the OFTA Film Hall of Fame. The inspiration for the story came from every single piece of science fiction and horror movies in circulation at the time. The writer, O'Bannon cited Another World (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956), Planet of the Vampires (1965), "Junkyard" by Clifford D. Simak (1953), and "Strange Relations" by Philip José Farmer (1960) as primary influences of different aspects of the movie. The film stands on the 53rd spot on IMDb's Top 250 Films.
Alien features an ensemble cast starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture and earned her nominations for a Saturn Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role. Principal photography took place at Shepperton Studios near London, while model and miniature filming were done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley, Berkshire. Alien tells the story of the crew of a commercial spacecraft who encounters a deadly lifeform after investigating an unknown transmission. The reason for the crew's delayed arrival to Earth is because of the Mother system onboard the Nostromo. How does the Mother computer system represent motherhood and humanity to the crew?
Space is a dangerous place for humans. We are not made for a cold vacuum, and technology is the only thing that can keep humanity safe while traveling around it. No technology, no space travel. The Mother system represents that technology. "Mother" is the name given to Nostromo's computer mainframe. It provides the crew instructions from the Company (something that wasn't explained in the film) and keeps the crew safe by regulating the ship's systems. Something pretty important when you're in space and don't want to die. Its name, Mother, is meant to elicit feelings of comfort and safety. The crew is coddled and nurtured by her, protected from the world outside, like a baby. Without Mother, they're just a bunch of babies unable to survive space on their own.
The coddling, nurturing element of Mother is further emphasized by the room the crew uses to communicate with it. The brightly lit room contrasts the darkness of the parts of the ship where the crew interacts with the alien and the alien's home planet. The Mother-room is shaped like an egg, suggesting it serves as a safe womb. Unlike the alien's organic egg, Mother provides a teched-out womb that opposes the dangers of nature against the safety of technology. Just like children, the crew places their undying trust in Mother. The ship's captain, Dallas, is complacent around Mother. When explaining to the crew why Mother changed their course, he simply answers with, "She's programmed to do that should certain conditions arise. They have." He has no idea why Mother reprogramed the ship. He just goes along with it like a child going to the store in the backseat of a car. Dallas assumes that a computer created to protect the crew can't lie or conspire.
The irony of Dallas' complacency becomes ironic when it turns out that the Company programmed Mother to help them retrieve organic life from space. Mother might take care of the crew, but it doesn't care about them. At the end of the day, Mother is a computer: unfeeling, impersonal, preprogrammed, and a tool. Mother isn't actively trying to harm the crew, but it could be used for that purpose (like when Robot-Ash retrieves information about his personal mission). On the plus side, Mother can also be used for good, like when Ripley uses Mother to discover Robot-Ash's mission and save the remaining crew (even though they all die except for her). Throughout the whole massacre, Mother continues her tasks as before: cold and impersonal calculations. This is especially seen at the end when Mother is "unable" to shut down the self-destruct system, even though it means killing the remaining crew. When the commands are inputted, Mother carries through.
Mother and the Alien have more in common than one might think at the end of the day. One represents technology, and the other represents nature; they act in the way their programming tells them. Whether that programming is code and programming or nature and genes. Overall, this movie was entertaining. It had the right attributes of a science-fiction, and it balanced the message of nature vs. technology to a perfect degree. Like the Matrix, we can see the true intentions of the filmmaker if we wish to. If we don't, then it's still a great movie to watch.
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