WE are the aliens.

    The film Alien was…interesting, to say the least (still trying to get rid of the mental image of the baby robot coming out of Kane’s stomach). The film presents a multitude of components that are more often than not found in sci-fi movies such as robots, outer space, space ships, and aliens. This Ridley Scott film represents the curiosity about extra- terrestrial life forms that existed in the late 1970s. Taking into consideration that we went to the moon merely one decade before this film was made, it makes perfect sense that Alien explores the potential dangers that lay beyond Earth.

    This film successfully projects the popular idea that alien life forms seek to harm human beings in some type of way. Many science fiction films portray a plot in which aliens seek to steal our resources, settle on our planet, or just downright destroy us. In Alien, at face value we see nothing more than a giant alien creature, single-handedly murdering the crew one by one. However, with a further interpretation we can come to understand that the alien isn’t so bad after all. How do I come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, in reality the alien was just minding its own business until a bunch of greedy humans came along and took one of its eggs. Just like a mother bear here on Earth, the alien was only seeking to protect her offspring from an unknown danger. As an audience, there’s really no way for us to fully know if the alien is truly evil or not. For example, here on Earth if one was to mess with a wild Tiger then they would surely get ripped to pieces because it’s in the Tiger’s nature to respond that way; we know better than to provoke Tigers. Likewise, in the film, we should not blame the alien for clearly doing what is in its nature when provoked.

    Additionally, in many films where extra-terrestrials pose as a threat to humans, the setting is almost always on Earth. The interesting thing that this film does is to switch the situation to make us the threatening creature on a foreign planet. If the alien came to Earth and acted destructively, that would be a whole different story, but the fact of the matter is that in Alien, humans are the invasive creatures. The movie seems to depict the humans as the victims when in reality they got what they asked for by disturbing a foreign species. Since the humans were on the alien’s territory, and assuming my definition of “alien” is correct, ultimately it would seem as though WE are the aliens in this film after all.