Alien

Screenplay by Dan O'Bannon - Directed by Ridley Scott

LOGLINE

During a business trip in some faraway galaxy, the commercial starship Nostromo is ordered to go and investigate an SOS signal on an unexplored planetoid. When the rescue team comes back, they bring an alien organism on board, which proves to be "a tough son of a bitch."


STEP OUTLINE

ACT I

A. The SOS Transmission

Space, in the distant future. Commercial spaceship "Nostromo," owned and operated by "The Company," is returning to Earth, after a business journey. The computer system (called "Mother") wakes up the crew from suspended animation.

Parker to Kane: "Anybody told you you look dead, man?" He will soon be, though.

During breakfast, mechanics Brett and Parker bring forth a request for a bonus payment. Dallas, the ship's captain dismisses their claim, telling them that they will get what they have been contracted for. “Mother” calls Dallas for a confidential briefing.

"Dallas, Mother wants to talk to you." Ash, the spaceship nerd. What hides behind his disciplined manners?

Dallas sits before Mother, waiting for orders.

Ash, Ripley, Kane, and Lambert realise that they have strayed off course and Earth is nowhere in sight. They try to contact Earth's traffic control centre.

Brett and Parker argue about their reduced salary, as they walk inside the belly of the ship's machinery, going towards the crew meeting.

Film's catalyst: Dallas announces that Mother has stopped their return to Earth, in order to investigate an SOS transmission. Parker complains, bringing up the bonus subject again, but Ash says they are obliged to investigate, according to their contract; otherwise, they will receive no payment at all. The crew agrees to get on with the orders.

Sequence A sets up the ordinary world inside "Nostromo," until the film's catalyst: the Mother's request for the crew to respond to the SOS signal. Up to that point, the sequence is relaxed; the crew can't wait for the trip to be over and for their arrival to Earth. There is a minor dramatic tension about Parker's and Brett's bonus payment, who clash about it with Dallas, but the real tension starts when the crew realises that they have strayed off course and, moreover, they are asked to respond to an SOS signal of unknown origin. The sequence ends when they agree to respond to that signal, even if they don't like it.

The crew's payment issue serves two purposes:  a. it is the reason they get involved in the rescue mission (as Ash warns them of total forfeiture of shares if they don't) and b. it resonates the reason that the alien creature is brought on board in the first place, thus relating to the film's theme: the Company's greedy desire to study the perfect killing organism. But this is to be revealed later.


B. The Alien Organism

Lambert analyses the signal; it doesn't sound like anything they have heard before. They locate its source on a planetoid.

Nostromo approaches the planetoid, disengaging and sending a small raft towards it. They land with a bump, which causes minor damage to the raft. Parker and Brett say that they have to do about 25 hours of repairs. They nag, hearing that Ripley is coming down to check on them.

I may be missing something, but I still haven't understood what dramatic purpose this delay, due to repairing the damage, serves. Kane and the alien are brought inside anyway. The film's main tension -the alien visitor- is irrelevant to the damaged raft.

Kane, Second Officer and the team's member most willing to explore and expose himself to danger. And the person who gets killed first.

Dallas and the others debate walking to the signal's source. Ash analyses the atmosphere. They form a team and decide to walk.

"The sun is coming up in twenty minutes. And it's walking distance." Ash does his best to encourage his colleagues into responding to the signal.

Dallas, Kane, and Lambert wear their spacesuits and walk on the planetoid's surface, while Ash observes from the control room.

Brett and Parker pester Ripley about the payment again; she tells them to fuck off.

The crude male mechanics hit on the tough lady. An attempt of sexual harassment in the workplace and one of the subtlest of the many sexual references in the film.

Dallas and the others approach, as Ripley sits in front of Mother.

The team discovers an extraterrestrial spaceship wreck. Inside it, they find a gigantic alien corpse, fossilised on its ship's cockpit. Something has burst out of its chest. Kane discovers a hole in the floor and calls the others.

Ripley tells Ash that Mother has deciphered part of the signal; it has turned out to be not an SOS, but a warning. She tells Ash that she wants to follow the team, but Ash discourages her.

Kane gets into a huge cavernous vault full of alien eggs. One of them opens, and a crab-like organism hurls itself out of it and sticks onto Kane's mask. [-]

Dallas and Lambert bring Kane back to the raft. When Ripley hears about Kane's parasite she refuses access to Dallas's team, suggesting quarantine. Without Ripley's permission, Ash opens the hatch, letting everyone in and starting a rivalry between Ripley and himself [-].

Sequence B deals with the team's response to the SOS signal. Protagonists: the Nostromo crew. Objective: to find out what the signal is. Antagonism: the unknown planetoid's environment, as well as the mystery of the extraterrestrial shipwreck. Climax: Kane gets attacked by an alien organism and brought back to the ship. At that moment, Ripley shows a character perceived by the others as cold and cruel, but it is her loyal commitment to the procedures that could have saved them. She refuses access on board to the organism, but she is ignored. Ash bypasses her authority, granting the organism access on board, turning the crew's world upside down, and leading the story into its second act.


ACT II

C. Getting It Off Kane's Face

Ash and Dallas cut through Kane's mask. They see that the organism has eaten into the mask and attached itself onto Kane's face. [-]

Lambert slaps Ripley on the face, for refusing letting them in. The mechanics separate the two women. Dallas reprimands Ripley for disobeying his orders, "even if they are against the law." Parker takes Ripley's side.

Sequence C's dramatic tension: “How are we going to get this off, now?”

When Ash grabs one of its legs with a pair of pincers, the organism wraps its tail tighter around Kane's neck. Ash stops and performs a scan of Kane's body. The organism seems to be feeding Kane oxygen. Dallas wants to get it off, but Ash says that this may kill Kane. Dallas, however, orders him to cut the organism and release Kane.

They do a little cut on one off the organism's legs, making it bleed acid! The liquid eats through two or three of the floors below. [-]

Parker and Brett continue struggling with repairing the engine.

Ripley reprimands Ash for letting the organism on the ship. "When Dallas and Kane are off the ship, I'm senior officer," she says. Ash defends his decision and asks Ripley not to get involved with his scientific job.

Sequence C shows the crew's futile efforts to free Kane from the alien organism attached on his face. Protagonist: Dallas, who, mostly through Ash, tries to cut the creature off of Kane's face. Antagonism: the creature's unknown capacities (namely the fact that it is smothering Kane and its acidic blood). The sequence ends with an evolution of the hate subplot between Ash and Ripley.

Following the archetypical story structure, the Ash & Ripley hate subplot is no other than the usual "love subplot" or "B-story" contained in most films, which evolves throughout Act II, and results to an inner transformation or a major realisation, just before breaking into Act III.


D. It Gets Off Kane's Face Itself

Ash calls Dallas into the infirmary. The organism has detached itself from Kane's face. Ripley, Ash, and Dallas look for the organism around the room. It drops on Ripley, but it's dead [+].

Sequence D's main tension: “What are we going to do with it?”

Ash, Ripley, and Dallas examine the dead organism. Ripley wants them to ditch it, but Ash wants to take it to Earth for tests. Dallas leaves the decision to Ash, infuriating Ripley. [-]

Ripley complains to Dallas for letting Ash decide. "This is what the Company wants," says Dallas, washing his hands [-]. Ripley reports that the repairs are almost over; Dallas orders take-off.

This scene looks like a couple's quarrel about taking the wrong turn in a countryside road. "My dear, that's what the Company wants to happen," says Dallas. Is there love tension between them? Maybe. Whatever the case, this is the scene where Ripley stops relying on Dallas. She will keep obeying his orders, but she will expect nothing more than his blind obeisance to the Company's demands.

Take-off sequence. The shuttle leaves the planetoid, heading back to the main spaceship.

Tough sailor Parker with his Hawaiian-shirted parrot, Brett.

Parker insists on freezing Kane and Brett agrees. Ripley makes fun of Brett for always agreeing with his supervisor, like a parrot. Dallas decides that Kane must go into quarantine. Lambert tells the crew that they are 10 months away from Earth. [-] Ash calls them to see Kane.

Ripley comments on Brett's lack of opinion, which the same thing that infuriates her about Dallas. One after one, the starship's male crew members are proven worthless.

The spirits get higher, as the crew finds out that Kane has recovered [+], having only the memory of a horrible dream about smothering.

"I'd rather be eating something else, but right now I'm thinking food." More crude sexual remarks by tough guy Parker; everything seems to have returned to normal. But it is only a false victory before the film's midpoint twist: something worse  is about to burst from inside Kane's stomach.

As the crew has a meal, Kane's chest bursts and a tiny alien breaks out of it. Ash urges them not to touch it, as the little monster ("Kane's son!") escapes. Kane dies [-].

An aftermath scene: Kane's funeral. They cast his body from the airlock out to space and continue their journey.

In Sequence D, their situation seems to improve: the crab-like alien is dead and, moreover, Kane comes back from his coma. The main tension relates to Ripley's clash with Dallas's incapacity to lead, resulting to unlikable Ash taking the most serious decisions. At the sequence's climax comes the film's midpoint twist: the terror isn't over. In fact, they ain't seen nothing yet.


E. Catching The Chest-Burster

Brett has prepared and demonstrates an electric weapon, while Ash offers a motion detector of his. Dallas orders the team to lead the organism into Parker's net and send it straight in the airlock. [+]

Ripley, Parker, and Brett look for the creature. Ripley's motion detector shows something. They think they get it cornered, but it is only Jones, the spaceship's cat, which runs away in panic. They send Brett to catch the cat, so that it doesn't affect the motion detector again.

As Brett searches for the cat, he discovers what looks like a rejected layer of alien snake-skin. Following the cat, he comes across the alien organism, which has grown into an enormous size. The alien kills Brett. Ripley and Parker hear his cry and follow, finding only his blood [-].

Sequence E deals with catching the little alien. Protagonists: the crew. Antagonist: the little chest-burster. Complications: the little chest-burster is not little anymore.


F. Burning It

Ripley and Parker report to the others that the creature that has killed Brett uses the air shafts to move around the ship. Ash proposes to try to burn it until it retreats to the airlock. Dallas will go himself, while the others cover him.

Ripley volunteers first, but Dallas orders her to stay with Ash, instead. Dallas's ego has received a lot of blows from Ripley's dynamic personality and he now wants to prove he is a man.

They proceed with this plan. Dallas crawls in an air shaft, holding his flame thrower. Lambert warns Dallas that she has just spotted a movement on the motion detector. As Dallas goes lower, Lambert loses the creature's signal on the detector, while Dallas finds some of the creature's slimy saliva. Then, the second signal reappears, moving towards Dallas's. The alien gets him [-].

Considering this film's abundance of sexual innuendos, as it is, I have resisted naming this sequence "Alien Does Dallas."

The four left discuss what to do. Ripley, being in charge, proposes to proceed with Dallas's plan. Lambert disagrees and proposes to abandon the ship, but Ripley tells her that the shuttle doesn't take four persons.

As Parker goes to refuel the flame thrower. Ripley asks Ash about Mother. She tells him that since she now has access to Mother, she doesn't need his useless interference.

"Ash, any suggestions from you or Mother?" Ripley doesn't tolerate the awkward scientist's hide-and-seek.

Ripley accesses Mother. She finds out that the whole journey to the planetoid has been a secret mission with the goal to bring back the alien life for analysis, while the ship's crew has been considered "expendable” [-]. Ash appears and fights Ripley, almost killing her by forcing a rolled porno magazine inside her mouth [-]. Parker and Lambert come and rescue her. As Parker knocks Ash out, they realise that their scientist is an android robot, bleeding white goo.

In Sequence F, Dallas decides to burn the alien, but fails. After his death, Ripley takes over, deciding to stick to the plan. At the end of the sequence, the Ripley & Ash hate subplot is resolved, when Ash  reveals his true self: he turns out to be a traitor and a robot serving the Company's greedy scientific researches.

A note about sex on board of Nostromo: It is obvious that Kane and Lambert have something going on. We have, also, seen the mechanics hitting on Ripley, and Dallas having some understated crush on her. Throughout the story, Ash is the only man on board who seems to be lacking sexuality, altogether. By the end of this sequence, however, we see that he has simply been restraining himself in all aspects of his behaviour, including his emotions towards the dynamic female officer Ripley. Moreover, he becomes the man who, most openly, tries to sexually abuse her, even if this abuse is a little robotic and consists in forcing an artificial phallus inside her mouth.


ACT III

G. Escaping With The Shuttle

They plug Ash's remains and ask him how to kill the alien. He tells them that they simply can't kill such a perfect organism. Sequence's catalyst: Ripley decides to blow up the ship and escape with the shuttle, along with Lambert and Parker. These revelations clarify every mystery about Ash's conflict with Ripley, resolving their hate subplot with a grinning "You have my sympathy."

I'm not even going to bother mentioning sexual references here... Plus, a robot admiring the alien's "purity, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality," and giving his sympathies to the poor humans who have to confront such a perfect monster is weird enough without the white goo.

Ripley tells the others to go and get some coolant for the air support system, while she gets the shuttle ready. They split. As she gets the shuttle ready, Ripley remembers the cat. / Lambert and Parker collect oxygen tanks. / Ripley finds the horrified cat and puts it into its cage.[+]. / The alien appears and kills Lambert and Parker, leaving Ripley all by herself [-].

Ripley activates the complicated mechanism for self-destruction, setting a dramatic "ticking clock."

Ripley discovers Dallas's and Brett's bodies trapped in a cocoon complex. Dallas is still alive, pleading for his death. Ripley burns both men with the flame thrower.

On her way to the shuttle, Ripley confronts the Alien and runs back inside the main spaceship.

Ripley tries to override the self-destruction mechanism. Even though she manages to reverse the process within the time limit, Mother doesn't stop the countdown [-]. "Bitch!" shouts Ripley.

Ripley carefully makes her way towards the shuttle again. She manages to arrive there safely, pick up the cat's cage, and lock herself inside the shuttle. The alien is nowhere to be seen.

She rockets away as Nostromo blows up [+].

Sequence G deals with organising the escape from Nostromo. Protagonist: Ripley, who wants to blow up Nostromo and escape with the shuttle. Antagonist: the alien, who kills her colleagues and blocks her escape route. On top of that, bitchy computer Mother decides to disobey her mistress.


H. Killing The Alien In The Shuttle

Among a mostly male crew, one doesn't have many opportunities to feel comfortable. Alone in the shuttle, Ripley becomes a woman, again. Little does she know, there is a voyeur on board and his erection comes out of his mouth. 

The previously mentioned erection.

Ripley gets ready to sleep, but the Alien is in the shuttle, hiding among the controls. [-] Rippley slips into a space uniform and forces the Alien to expose itself by turning on the coolant tanks. When it does, Ripley opens the shuttle's airlock, casting the alien out.[+]

Ripley records the final report of the Nostromo before getting herself into suspended animation, again.

Sequence H shows that the destruction of Nostromo is only a false ending, since the monster has followed Ripley into the shuttle. Protagonist: the alien, who wants to kill Ripley. Antagonist: Ripley, our heroine, who will outsmart the monster and be the last survivor of Nostromo.

THE END