The first film in an increasingly extensive series Stranger The saga remains, at least in my opinion, the best. While Ridley Scott’s more recent entries have continued to expand the franchise’s lore with varying degrees of success, what remains most compelling to me is what he did so well in the very beginning. When we meet Ripley, Dallas, Brett, Parker, and the rest of the Nostromo crew, what immediately comes to mind is the mundane reality of their lives as employees in the service of a company that is already exploiting them for pennies and will happily screw them over in a heartbeat if it sees a profit in it. The alien that stalks the crew and takes them out one by one is terrifying, but what really makes it resonate is that larger theme of capitalist fuckery, so economically and effectively communicated by the wonderful line: “Priority one — Ensure return of organism for analysis. All other considerations secondary. Crew expendable.”
But the themes, no matter how well done, are not enough to give a film soul. No, which makes Stranger What is so special is the way in which his characters are so naturally embodied by an outstanding cast—Sigourney Weaver, of course, in a starring role, but also people like Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, and the wonderful Yaphet Kotto—who, when we meet them in the opening scenes of the film, so well directed by Scott, interrupt each other and talk in such a natural, believable way, something rarely seen in American cinema after the 1970s. Also, like Spielberg Jaws four years earlier, StrangerThe power so often lies in what is unseen, left to our imagination. Nostromo, more than many film settings, feels credibly lived and created, and naturally lends itself to providing the xenomorph stalking its hapless crew with plenty of places to hide. Later films in the series were more intense, more elaborate, and more exorbitant, but the tightly focused humanity and horror of the series’ forebears remain, one might say, the best the series has ever been.
—Carolyn Petit
