Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi friends! Welcome to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff, where today we are watching Alien. My name's Steve Selnick, and joining me as always, he doesn't just have access to mother, he is mother. It's my good friend, Charlie peppers. Charlie, how you doing

I'm doing really well. I'm living for our girl Sigourney Weaver saying, Get away from her, you

Sigourney Cooked. Sigourney Cooked.

this whole movie. She cooked real hard. We're going to skate right into the reason why we're here today. We're officially halfway through spooky season at this point that you're getting this podcast where. Technically in week three, I guess I technically we're giving you more than four weeks of content.

So, you know, I've never been good at numbers. I don't know if you've been good at numbers ever at your life, Charlie, but we're just going to, we're generally halfway

through our spooky

I'm good at numbers when I don't have to think about it, and I just do the calculation in my head, but when I have to really focus and I get anxious about it, then I'm really bad at [00:01:00] numbers.

I, I constantly joke in my I'm actually repping various today. I'm still wearing my shirt from teaching this morning. I constantly joke in my various classes that I went to art school. I've never been good at numbers and I'm sick of saying them so much. So I'm just going to tell you to sprint as hard as you can at the very end.

And usually it plays usually a

Oh my god.

So we're here to talk about the classic film alien. And I believe Charlie, we both got to experience this movie for the first time in this viewing, correct?

Mm hmm.

Yeah, I was actually, I was having a stoner night with three of my friends, Hayden, Paulius, and Fletcher. We just got stoned and we watched Alien. Then it hit me, oh shit, me and Steve are covering this in the podcast. So I watched it stoned, then I watched it sober

that's like such a, that's such a realization moment to being like, Oh yeah, we have to like talk [00:02:00] about this later, man.

Yeah, it didn't hit me till the very end sequence that I got excited about. I'm like, I can't wait to talk about this final fight. I

awesome. Oh yeah. We got, we got lots to dig into. I'm very excited. As a well established sissy, as we've said many a time on this podcast, I have avoided alien since the day I was born, since we were just discussing this movie is 10 years older than us. And you know, I, these continue to be not so bad for, you know, I, I actually watched this twice because I wanted to, I actually like after the end of it, I, I went back and I was like, Hey, that wasn't so bad. And B, I want to go back and watch it again to see like what I catch and what I don't.

listeners, if you've been paying attention, Steve, every movie that we watch is like, That wasn't so bad. That wasn't so bad. You like horror, bitch. Like, you like, you like scary movies, and I like that this is cracking you open, because every [00:03:00] movie that we talk about, you're kind of like, Oh, that wasn't it.

Which made me, which influenced my picks that I chose. For the next two things that we're gonna

We're definitely ratcheting up the

we're ratcheting up because scream was a good way to get into it the craft I just thought was cool. This is a little bit scarier Barbarian is another level So I'm just saying stick around like stick around and find out find out

we're going

all the way up. Nothing can stop us. We're

all the way up. Anyway, let's get it to this one. As we discussed, we're going to be talking about the original alien. This is kind of on, I guess, to circle back around to it being our, for our first time watching it, each alien Romulus just came out, what, like a month or two ago, something like that.

It came out as sort of like an end of summer blockbuster sort of

flick.

Yes,

Roughly. Yeah. And so I, I just felt like it was [00:04:00] time for me to rip the bandaid on the og. And when I talked about it with Charlie, when we were planning this stuff out, he was like, oh, I've never seen it either. Let's do it. And that's exactly how hard we plan these things.

So here we are talking about aliens content for us all. So let's get into the movie the, the seminal original OG alien. Released on May 25th, 1979, screenplay by Dan O'Bannon, directed by the legend Ridley Scott, and starring Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yafit Khodo.

And the reason why I said all of those names is because those are quite literally the only seven people in the movie. So, one thing that I think A horror movie is very well suited for is a small intimate cast. And one of the things that struck me right away, as we get into the opening shot of the movie, other [00:05:00] than the fact that that was a big old toy that they were flying through that set right there.

If you have ever seen any sort of. background on how Star Wars was made and how they float flew those little models in there. Just imagine them like floating that gigantic model of that, that space gas freighter. But anyway, the plot of the movie is, and I love this part of the movie from what I could find a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature stocks and kills the crew of a spaceship.

boom.

Easy.

Boom.

We're in. So, we, we get the commercial towing ship, Nostromo, is on a return trip from Thetis to Earth. So, going inter system means that they're out of the Milky Way Galaxy right now. And they're hauling a refri they're hauling a refinery, And 20 million tons of mineral ore, and only seven people are needed to pilot this [00:06:00] monstrous craft that holds millions of tons of pounds of ore. And also they can just sleep while the ship, the ship is in transit back to earth. But anyway, we get this, like, I think one thing, and this is one of the shorter outlines that we've ever, like, we make an outline for these films. usually there's like three or four pages of details and a lot of it is plot and we add our own thoughts and feelings and stuff like that, especially when there's stuff that we want to interject and make sure that we talk about. As I sort of expose a little bit of the behind the curtain thing. But this, this outline is only two pages long. one of the other cool things that I really liked about this movie is that technically like not a lot of time passes, not much, like a lot happens, but not a lot of like, it happens and not a lot of space and time, everything kind of starts moving very quickly from the beginning to the end. And where there is not as much like plot detail, which [00:07:00] don't get it confused for the plot not being good because the plot is very coherent and I think very gripping the entire time. But, and Charlie, I want you to jump in here because I think you have things to say about this is just how slow and meticulous and detailed everything is from the onset. Just from that first shot of panning through the ship and getting the computer turning on and you're like, Oh, why is the computer turning on and seeing the insides and all the computers worrying and whizzing and then the crew slowly waking up and they actually they sort of don't tell you who the main character is right away.

You actually are meant to think it's, in my opinion, you're meant to think it's the guy who slowly sits up and. Realizes that he's, or it's, you know, it starts waking up and sits up first. You would, you'd think that a movie would be like, here's the first person we're going to focus on. This is the main character.

That's not the main character. He's spoilers. The first one to

die. But what, what do you, what do you think about that? Cause I know you had a lot to say about like sort of the detail. And [00:08:00] I, I think that this movie fills in the gaps of plot with just

Tension.

spent. Intention. Yeah, I think that's the

Yeah, I think that this film not only is a masterpiece, but it's a masterclass in building tension and suspense. This set is one of the best sets I've seen in a movie. Have there been more impressive, granular sets? Yes, one of the sets that comes to mind immediately is Hogwarts for some reason, because that was a fully immersive world, and I wanna, I wanna, because those are both movies in different worlds.

Hogwarts was created to have this limitless feeling of space. There was wonder around every corner. And the surprises came from the fact that anything could jump out. The tension in Alien is that we are in a very confined space [00:09:00] and anything can happen. And you're trapped with this extra terrestrial creature, which looks very, very scary, by the way, it just looks like a dark, slimy booger on legs, you know, I think

With

it's so with gnarly teeth, it looks like the worst kind of hoggy, hoagie, hoagie, when you hawk a loogie, no, no, no, loogie, oh

a sandwich.

my god, I hawked an entire sandwich from my nose, I'm about to solve world hunger, y'all

Watch out.

out. I think the set really creates a sense of claustrophobia. And I love that we just get to stay in the space and that we do spend time with the characters. One of my favorite scenes is when the characters are, I believe, eating dinner with each other after they've woken up. And it creates a sense of, Oh, this is a family.

This is, these are people who know each other and have a rapport. Because if people have a rapport, they care about each other [00:10:00] and people care about each other. We care about them. And if they get killed off, it matters, and it has emotional heft to it. This film does a lot really well. The pacing is also the type of pacing that I don't think a lot of movies nail anymore, because we're all about trying to hold the attention span of Millennials, speaking of myself, and Gen Zers that have ADHD, but we weren't afraid to sit in a shot and just let it cook.

Guilty as well. My attention span could use some help for sure. You very expertly carried us through sort of the next part of the film where everyone wakes up, they're eating dinner together, they're talking about what they're going to do with their. Cash when they make it back to earth and get their payday from all of their shares of getting all this ore back to earth. And all of a sudden Ash, the science officer being a little keener is like, Hey Dallas, the captain of the ship mother wants to talk to [00:11:00] you. And so. We're slowly learning that this crew is under the direction and leadership of a essentially a faceless, almost like a Charlie from Charlie's Angels, only it's a computer. I have to imagine maybe it's an AI. If this isn't explicitly explained, which is why I'm, I'm theorizing it. I took it as it's a computer, like it's computer AI. That they're speaking through that represents the corporation that they're working for. I don't think it's someone that they're directly communicating with back on earth. But basically mother says that they're changing course. They've discovered a distress signal and that they're contractually obligated to check out anything that which might contain intelligent life. Dallas is like, you either do this or you forfeit your share.

So you either, if you want the money, like they were arguing at first, especially the engineers, Brett and Parker are like, Hey, like, we already get paid less than you. [00:12:00] I actually said this to Erin because she was kind of passing me by. As I was watching it the second time, I love, I was like, I love how there's fucking labor dynamics in a 1979 movie where the alien just rips everybody apart.

Like there's just a, just a little sprinkle of labor dynamics in there. And, and capitalism little, little, not the capitalism in there, but so basically that gets shut down, they're going to the planet. And so captain Dallas, the executive officer, Cain, who is the first guy who woke up with the camera focused on that you kind of think is maybe the main character, or maybe you think Dallas is the main character, because he's the one that has to talk to mother. And the navigator Lambert set out to investigate the signal source. While the warrant officer Rip Ripley, AKA Sigourney Weaver, the science officer Ash, who we talked about, who was already kind of acting a little weird and the engineers stay behind. And as they're landing on the planet. the shuttle basically gets damaged. It just looks like it lands funny. And then all of a sudden things get messed up. The engineers need to stay and fix the ship. They all go off to try and figure out [00:13:00] where the signal is coming from. This is one of the coolest shots of the movie. I think maybe to your point where it's things that we don't see anymore, Dallas Caine and Lambert walk into this giant cave and they see this derelict alien spacecraft and it looks huge, it looks imposing. Again, if you kind of understand cinema in these days, it's probably like a scale size model that they've been able to get down and make it look like it's huge and it's real. And I think a difference between then and now is that everything was so not everything, but so many things were done practically back then you had to build the things you had to make them actually appear in real life rather than designing them and being left open to the, the, the critical eye of how people look at CGI.

I, I do have a note about that. That is something that I really appreciate about this film and about how much it hangs its hat up on practical effects because looking [00:14:00] at a practical effect that you can sort of Tell they flew that in on strings is different than looking at a special effect where you sort of see that ripple in the special effect where you can tell that's where the special effect and reality kinda didn't seem together the most effortlessly.

And I think that we're very trained as an audience that grew up with special effects to catch that. Not being able to see a moment like that once in this film was such a relief and Really put me into the space and helped me suspend my disbelief in a way that I haven't quite been able to in some time with the movie, including, and Steve, you're going to get so mad at me.

Sometimes I look at Star Wars, even A New Hope, and I'm like, I can't get into this. It looks so fake, but

Oh, interesting.

a movie [00:15:00] about. Aliens as well, like it's more complex, but when I look at Star Wars, it just seems so the practical effects almost work against it in some moments because with Star Wars, it's really hard to hit that sweet spot of I want this world to feel real enough that I can inhabit it, but also everyone in this world is a Pretty much a supernatural ninja who can do all of these things, but then you look at these practical sets that are beautiful Then you look at the laser beams and how fucking slow Those fight scenes are and I just

I don't believe it I don't believe that Darth Vader is this villain that can kill everyone he moves Sooyyyyyyyy slowllyyyyyyyy ha in those first couple of movies.

HAHAHA

Yeah, no, I don't disagree [00:16:00] with you. I, I think especially A New Hope was so ahead of its time for what it was that I'm sure people's brains melted out of their faces the first time that they saw it. But again, like, I just actually saw a meme the other day where it was that scene of Obi Wan and Darth Vader fighting in A New Hope. And the text underneath it was like, remember when we were doing flips over each other and Musafar is like, yeah, man, we got old, like, like, you know, it, it all builds and improves off of it. Like to, to bring it back to alien, there's as cool as the practical effect alien looks, there were times where it looked like a dude with an alien helmet on.

Like there were times where I was like, that's a man's knees. And so the, the CGI doesn't prove certain things where you can make this creature more, I guess, real looking, but in terms of the imposing this of, I think it's just so much, for [00:17:00] some reason, I believed how imposing that big crash spaceship was or how huge and vast this oil refinery was. Just by how seemingly big it was in scale from the practical effects. And I don't know why CGI doesn't do that for me all the time. It also sort of gave that beginning of Spaceballs where the ship kept going for like a whole minute. Have you seen Spaceballs?

I've seen it on TV when I was a kid. But I think I saw an edited version.

That was one of my favorite movies growing up. I don't know how problematic that is these days, but I should go back and watch it. Rest

I mean, it does It does have the title BALLS in it. So I think it's meant to be campy.

Meuchendeisen. Oh, I mean, it's, it's a Mel Brooks classic, and it's definitely less problematic than some Mel Brooks movies, but we're getting, we're getting very off track if we start going, talking about how problematic Mel Brooks is. He, he walks so Quentin Tarantino can run.

Anyway, I'm going to move back to this. Yeah, I said what I said. I'm not even going to cut that. Dallas Kane and Lambert go into [00:18:00] the spaceship and in it, they find the remains of this huge, again, like amazing set design, this huge alien creature whose ribs appear to have been exploded outward from the inside. Hang on to that.

That might come back later Meanwhile, like, Ash is like, you know, like, I can't really, you know, like, I haven't really figured out what the, the, the transmission is, you know, like I've, I've done whatever and Ripley is like, okay, I'm going to take a shot at it because you seem incompetent and something's off with you.

He also, I want to note this, and I noticed this especially on my second watch through, Ash is freaking the fuck out. The entire time they're doing this mission. Did you notice

that he's like in the front? He's looking out the window. He's like chewing on his nails and stuff like that. He's really, really nervous.

So spoilers, I guess. I think. Mother communicated with him before this mission happened. I think the side channeling started right here. And Ash is starting to have to [00:19:00] like, keep it all inside. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Do you

I agree. I mean looking I definitely buy it. The performance gives enough for us to buy into that, that that was what the character was thinking. So yeah, I agree.

they get into the ship just as Ripley. Is figuring out that the transmission isn't a well, it's kind of a distress signal, but it's more so a warning to stay away. And Ripley is like, I gotta go. I gotta go stop them. And Ash is like, no, no, no. By the time you get over there, they'll already know they're smart.

They'll figure it out. If it's a bad, like, if it's bad, they'll figure it out. You don't need to tell them. Stay right here. Stay here. Everything's cool. I need you here. I need you on the ship. And so he stops her from going red flag number two. Red flag number three is that there's something clearly moving inside of the egg and my guy's first move is let's cut this shit open Let's see.

What's let's see what's rattling around up in here,

only credit that I will give to this character is that [00:20:00] this is the 70s. I'm sure that there weren't a lot of movies like Alien for people in the world of Alien to watch and know better. So when this happened, if I were in that time, I'd fuck around and find out. I'd be like, oh,

what's in

I agree with you I agree with you. There were so many moments in my first viewing of this movie where I was just like no Why are you no don't why would you do that? Which I feel like is also a common experience of just like watching a horror film is You know Completely disagree with the actions the character is taking while you are helpless to stop

Yes, and if these are people who are on a spaceship doing these missions, I I'm sure that they encounter wild, very weird shit all the time. So the confidence level of this character and also their threshold for paranormal things must be through the roof. So I'm sure that they've seen things that really blew them away and they got a little too [00:21:00] big for their britches and thought, Oh, why not?

was it stupid? Yes. But do I also buy it? Yes.

He was the british one, right? So he was probably in like full colonization mode for

sure. As he cuts open the egg and leans over it fully, a facehugger proceeds to jump out and, and smash his face. And so that was like the first like really good jump scare of the

movie, really. From there, Kane gets taken back to the ship, whatever, and we kind of leave the planet. They leave a planet full. Of those eggs behind and, and never really talk about it again. So, and, and there are sequels and there's a whole alien extended universe at this point. So I think one of the interesting questions that this movie poses that never gets answered, that they're able to use moving forward is where did these aliens come from, how did mother and the corporate entities know about it, and, and. And like, why do they exist?

And none of these questions are answered or explored [00:22:00] at all through these movies. So I feel comfortable talking about it now because that's not really a spoiler. The, the only thing that we're going to deal with is this single face hugger and alien moving forward. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Unlike the larger, like unexplained lore of the universe.

think Alien walked so that Cloverfield can run. Have you seen Cloverfield?

I have seen Cloverfield. What do you mean by

I think just the ambiguity of where the hell did this, did this thing come from? What's the origin of it? What's the backstory of this, you know, system that these characters and this ship and these creatures are living inside of?

I really don't know. I think that Alien was the blueprint of less is more in a very brilliant way. I really do believe that. I also think that if Alien hadn't been as vague, I would say tastefully vague, to create even more tension, that we would not still be having spinoffs decades later. There was enough room for [00:23:00] interpretation and paranoia to really build out the mythology.

Like, we just had a new Alien film last month,

Yeah. You could, you could call it a, like a hedge of sorts. Like, Hey, if it's good and people like it, we've left enough room to continue it. And if they don't, we've told a story

and we can be good

I think they planned for this to be self contained in a really good way, just to tell a story. Because I don't think sequels were that big.

Basically I'm curious now, like I almost want to go and continue to watch them and whatever. I have seen one other alien movie, it was Prometheus.

That's the only one I've seen, too. And I was checked out the entire time. I was just

I had no

watching it like, oh, that's a cool moment. That's a cool set. And I didn't think about it until right now.

So the face hugger. latches itself to YouTube. You got the, the face and the, the, my, my my Booker T face hugger attaches itself to his face and they drag them back to the Nostromo. But [00:24:00] Ripley's like, hold on. Like they want to get him back inside Dallas and Lambert, or like open the door. And Ripley's like, hold on. You're telling me that an alien has attached itself to Kane's face. And you want me to let you in? Absolutely not. I under I know the quarantine policy. Do you know the quarantine policy? It doesn't sound like you know the quarantine policy. And, as they're having this argument, and Ripley's like, Sorry, I'm in charge. Tough titties. I'm not gonna open the door for you. Ash walks over and basically overrides the protocol and lets them inside. Red flag number three for Ash. And another implication that he probably knows more about what's going on than he's letting on. unsuccessfully attempt to remove the creature from Kane's face. you discover about that, like sucking through the helmet by they cut the helmet off and by cutting just below the knuckle on one of these facehuggers legs, it's blood is acid that [00:25:00] goes through three levels of the ship before stopping.

And they have this whole moment where like, Oh shit, this is gonna like go through the hall and cause like, Catastrophic damage to the ship. Now, one other thing to cover before the face hugger disappears and that they have the moment where they're x raying cane. Again, I think Ash right here is lying because he knows more, but they're basically looking at the x ray and they see this tube down his throat and they're like, what do you think it's doing? And Ash is like, Oh, it must be maybe giving him oxygen. I think in this moment, Ash knows that it's depositing the xenomorph in Kane's

Mhm.

because he's the science officer, he's able to speak with authority. And these people who are just like minors, as one of the engineers said, like, they're not going to know better.

They're terrified out of their mind. Kane wakes up and it's gone. And everyone's just like, Cowabunga dude,

Not cowabunga!

let's fucking eat. Let's have dinner. So glad you're okay. Where is it? Who gives a shit?

And you see, you [00:26:00] see Steve? They've dealt with other shit before. Their overconfidence in being able to handle this problem leads to their undoing. That's my headcanon.

I did quickly jump ahead. I do believe they find The facehugger dead, which is the second good jump scare before the ship goes up and back to the, so Cain wakes up unharmed. Everyone's like, holy shit, awesome. We should probably find this thing. They try and find it. We get that cool jump scare of the tail coming down and touching Ripley's shoulder and she freaks out and, but it's, it's like a carcass.

It's dead. And at that point, everyone's like. Let's party. Let's celebrate. Let's get back up to the ship. Let's have a dinner. Everyone's like making fun of Cain because he's like, man, you don't, you don't put on any of those pounds for how much food you're eating. Big red flag. And then they're all laughing, all whatever.

And Cain starts choking. He's

This part

all super confused.

made [00:27:00] me, so creeped out.

The

the baby alien. works is that that was actually being deposited in Cain's chest, rips its way out of Cain's chest, a very famous scene in film history. And it kills him. Obviously it literally bled everywhere on everybody.

And in this honestly hilarious scene goes like careening across the table, like escaping out this little, like, it's just kind of looking at everybody. One of the engineers wants to kill it. And Ash was like, no, don't you like, don't touch it. Red flag, the biggest red flag being like, why don't you want to touch it?

Stab it in the fucking head. What are you talking about? And it escapes away into the ship

I was eating while I watched it so I was like, UGHHHHHH

I, I made a business decision to not watch this until I was done cooking meals for the night. One, because I didn't want to be disgusted while handling food. And also because I wanted to fully pay attention

Alright, so Steve, [00:28:00] for the next movie that we cover, Imma need you to match my freak and eat the entire time you're watching Barbarian and Get Out.

I feel like that's a bad idea, but I'll try and do it. I'll at least grab the popcorn just for you,

Maybe a hot pocket. Do a hot pocket.

Ooh, I mean, give me an excuse to go buy a Hot Pocket. Say

Broccoli and cheddar, mothafucka?

Oh, I was just about to ask you what your favorite see I'm a pepperoni

girl, but I could I could do a I could do a broccoli and cheddar.

She loves a broccoli and cheddar.

Yeah, I'm a pepperoni girly for

I'm a broccoli and cheddar girly, but sometimes boyo.

In the first sweep of trying to find the alien, we discover, I don't want to say the star of the show because honestly, this cat is partially responsible for maybe two or three deaths of the crew, including this first one where they're looking for the alien.

They think it's hiding in a little compartment and they open it up to discover Jones, who is the cat of Ripley, AKA Sigourney Weaver. We didn't really talk about Jones that much. When I saw Jones in the first, [00:29:00] scene that he was in, I immediately paused the movie and Google does the cat die an alien. that's the one thing I will, I will always spoil myself on whether or not an animal lives through a movie because I refuse to be surprised

I love that we live in a world where we're so desensitized to people dying because we're like, people ain't shit. Oh no, kitty!

Yeah. Oh yeah. Aaron, Aaron gets upset at me about that often because I will forever like, I don't know if you're watching rings of power, but. There's there's a horse in rings of power that they've essentially turned into a character like it has a name. It has a personality. It basically speaks, but it doesn't speak. And I'm like, if anything fucking happens to this goddamn horse there, I'm going to riot by myself in the streets. Like I will, I will be a solo uprising of one protect barrack forever

You know what? I will be out of love. I will be right there with you. I'll be right there with you. I haven't watched

dead, by the time this podcast comes [00:30:00] out, I'm going to be so upset because there's only like two more episodes left.

So it'll be, the season will be over by the time this comes out. Anyway, we've, we're doing good on the, on the breaks today. So Brett, one of the engineers who kind of like caused the cat, I think he kind of froze when the cat hissed at him and it ran away and, Brett follows the cat into a large room where now a fully grown alien, like mere, I have to imagine hours later, like no one's getting a full night's sleep at this point.

This has to be like minutes to hours later, this alien has grown to in the, in the little bit of research that I've done. Cause I, we're going to talk about some Reddit research that I did. It's largely theorized that this is actually still a very adolescent alien slash. The lifespan, the life cycle of these xenomorphs is very akin to like a fly where it's very fast, where they could be, and I'll get to the reasons why the world might have been interested in them later, but [00:31:00] essentially you now get this fully grown alien where it attacks Brett and essentially you just see him come down from the air shafts and it basically attach his, tentacle inside of Brett and suck him up into the, the air shafts. And the rest of the crew that was out looking for him brings this information being like, it's huge now. It's definitely using the air shafts. And they, the only plan that they can think of is shutting off hatches and slowly cornering it and jettisoning it out of an air shaft to which Dallas is like, I'm going to do it.

I'm the ship's captain.

Dallas don't do it.

for it.

don't do it.

Here's the thing. Dallas. Don't do it but also like, can we give anybody else the motion tracker that isn't just going to be like, it's getting closer to you. Watch out Dallas. Like she didn't give any helpful information other than just cry.

The whole time Lambert couldn't be the final girl. I was like the second time watching this, I was just like, [00:32:00] Lambert does not have final girl energy. She was way too scared the whole time, but. But at this, I think that, I mean, I think the first moment you're getting that Ripley is the main character of this movie is probably the moment where she doesn't want to let Kane in with the facehugger on his face.

That's probably the first moment. If you're watching this fresh and you don't know the Alien movies, maybe you're back in 1979 and you're in the film. I think that the moment you go, Oh, maybe this woman is the main character of this movie because she's immediately standing up on what's right. But like, this is the moment where you're like, Oh, Dallas is fucking toast. I guess it's Ripley then. And so Dallas goes into the vents. He goes down into the shaft. He turns right. Alien is there. Dallas is dead. they they find nothing but his flamethrower.

no, not that Puss That

in charge. Ash, you got anything? Like what's, what's going [00:33:00] on? What's like, what's up with you and mother? And Ash is like, Oh, mother and I are, we're still, we know we're still, we're still sending texts. We're still DMing. She has an iPhone. I have an Android. So it's green bubbles. It's kind of tough to get the messages across, you know, services body out in between galaxies have it. We're still collating, you know, and Ripley is like, that's the biggest fucking crock of shit I've ever heard in my life. I'm the captain now. Hey, look at me. I'm the captain. Now I'm going to go to, I'm talking to mom.

Okay. I'm going to go talk to mom and she's going to tell me the truth. And she, she punches it in override code and the computer is essentially like, here's what I told Ash. There's something on this planet, we want it. We don't care if everybody else dies, you make sure this thing gets back to Earth. as Ripley is taking this in, in a horrified fashion, Ash is just like, sitting there over her shoulder being like, what's up, so you read it? I'm gonna try and kill you now, cause no one else could know. [00:34:00] And this is where he starts oozing this like, white, Yeah, stuff, and I guess it's him, like, overheating, maybe? Because he starts attacking, Ash starts attacking Ripley, knocks her out, rolls up a magazine, starts sticking it down her throat, essentially, to try and suffocate her

such an interesting choice

Weird choice. Yeah, I don't know why, maybe because she wouldn't make noise that way, but I don't know if she would make noise if you were

I mean it it was also it was also a very intimate way to try to like a very a crafty, weird, intimate way to kind of cause somebody to die. It was it.

You know what my guess is, now, like I'm literally thinking of this right now, I wonder if all of this is outs like so outside of Ash's programming that it's causing him to malfunction. And that's why we're,

and that's why we're, because he's like, he's a science, like, he's a science and like, spoilers, Ash is an android.

He is a robot. He is getting orders directly from Mother, who I think is also an artificial intelligence. So there's [00:35:00] some unexplained communication happening there because I don't believe Ash had access to Mother. I think only Dallas did. And so as Ash is attacking Ripley, Parker intervenes and decapitates him with a fire extinguisher and like bashes his head in and he has to get incinerated with a cattle prod essentially to actually go down. And they're like, what the fuck? There's an Android on the ship. And I guess we kind of skirted over this. There's a conversation between Ripley and Dallas being like, We don't know Ash. He just got put on this mission last second. No one knows anything about him. I don't trust him. And Dallas is like, there's nothing you can do about it.

So Ripley is, you know, wicked smart. Crazy plot twist. I knew that Ash was being weird. I And I thought he had like gotten indoctrinated by the alien somehow because he was sweating white. And that's what I thought that was. But then when he gets his head knocked off, there's clearly all these like wires and oils and stuff spurting out.

So he's an [00:36:00] Android.

Weirdly enough. I was into the story from a technical standpoint from jump, but it wasn't until the Android reveal that my hat started to come off to the story, just on a writing standpoint, because I thought what an interesting choice. For this film to go there and to add that layer of him being an android because you have something He's kind of an agent of chaos throughout the entire movie.

That is this wild card Inside kind of a sleeper agent a wild card, but also doesn't think that they're a bad guy I think that that reveal kind of, in some ways, made the movie for me, because it showed me how ambitious the film was, and it made me wonder how big of a Star Trek fan Ridley Scott was when this came together, because it felt very Star Trekian, or Trekkie, for lack of a better term.

I love that they, I [00:37:00] mean, it kind of plays back on the point we were covering before about how they just went, this is our universe and we're

Mm hmm.

we're kind of making up our rules and because it's our universe, our rules can go and this Android can have weird wires that look like sea kelp.

And white liquid pouring out of him. And that's just how Androids are in this universe. And we're not going to explain it. And you're just gonna, you're going to be too enthralled by the story to really think about it for too long. And again, it makes me want to watch a sequel because I want to see if they dive into any more of this stuff

Very exciting. It was very, it was thrilling to see that happen. I was taken aback, but also intrigued. That's the moment when I, for sure, leaned in, and I also leaned in because the entire movie, I was just waiting, waiting for Ripley to take charge.

Oh yeah, well, we're about to get it. She turns ashe's head back on and has a conversation with him and she was like, Hey, I turned you on so you could tell them what you told me. And he was like, this feels like a [00:38:00] waste of power. I, you could have just, you saw the message and he is, she was like, no, they need to hear it. And so he says the same message, get the, get the subject home cruise, expendable, all that stuff. And they have this really interesting conversation again, where I think it shows us that Ash knew more than any of them and also their. Corporation knows more than any of them are letting on and maybe ash knows but never says it and is essentially like It's a perfect specimen.

It shows no remorse. No regret. It kills without discrimination It would be an amazing weapon and it's like it sounds like you kind of admire it and he's essentially like I do And also I wish no ill on you. I'm sorry. This is happening like but sorry Not sorry. And then they unplug them. He's gone. And Ripley is like, okay, let's get the fuck out of here. We've done our best. There's a shuttle. Let's just, let's try our best with space. I'd rather be in space with that thing floating in an incinerated refinery than anything else. And Brett and Lambert are like, bet we'll go get [00:39:00] supplies while you get the self destruct sequence armed. Here's my note for Lambert. Don't drop everything if you don't want to get killed by an alien. Could they have made more noise in the supply closet? They made so much fucking They were yelling at each other. They were dropping canisters of metal. Like, what are we doing?

they've never seen horror films before, and also, also

they're

they're probably used to there not being that much sound in space. So maybe they're like, what sound? What noise? What footfalls?

was, yeah, I was flabbergasted. I was just like, Oh, these guys are like, there's no way that the alien isn't attracted to these clanging metal tubes hitting the ground over and over again,

It's so funny. It's so funny. Oh my god

lo and behold, the alien shows up and. It kills both Lambert and Brett. So now Ripley is, well, Ripley is not the final person because Jones is still with us. Thankfully, [00:40:00] Ripley initiates the self destruct sequence, heads to the shuttle with Jones, who she tracks down, but finds the alien blocking her way. She puts Jones in a fucking crate, which is like, what are you doing to my boy? But for some reason, the alien decides to not eat Jones. So I don't know why cats are not on the ship. The menu for the xenomorph, but the, the humans are, she cannot successfully hit the self destruct and she returns to the shuttle to find the aliens nowhere to be found. And she's like, okay, I, if I don't see it, I got to fucking get out of here. And like, like I said, a terrifying moment for fans of Jones, the cat, as you see, like the alien slowly lean over to the kind of go face to face with Jones. I loved this last scene because here's something I know about movies in general. If the movie feels like it [00:41:00] should be over and it's not over for like two minutes, then you know some shit is going

just know you just know

You just know so we were lingering way too long and on a second watch through guilty of this you're a hundred percent distracted by the percent by the fact that Sigourney Weaver is slowly taking off her clothes and exhaustion and is in like this this can't be underwear and like very 70s sexy outfit if you look closely as she's walking over to these little bits of pipes, you can see the aliens outline in that little crevice that she walks over

to, because on a second watch there, you can see, you can kind of see it's outlined in there and it like sticks its hand out and she's like, holy shit, it's still here. It's essentially like kind of sleepy. It reached it's stretching out towards her, but then it kind of like, it almost like essentially sticks its tongue out and kind of like rolls back over and doesn't really get up. And this is the, this is the Reddit research that I did because on a second watch through one of the things I was trying to look [00:42:00] for was like, why is it there?

Why is it not moving? Did you have this thought?

I did actually what did reddit tell you?

Reddit told me that, well, Reddit told me two things. One, that it was sleepy, because it was working really hard and had a lot to eat, so it needed to take a little nappy. Just need, you know, when you, when you, when you kill six humans and eat their corpses, it's just, that's a lot of

calories, man. You

gotta sleep that

need a little power nappy, okay got it

Need a little power nappy. The other is, and this is where it's largely unchecked, but there seems to be a notion that Ridley's original intention for the xenomorph is that it had such a short lifespan. That it was actually already dying. getting away from all the noise of the self destruct and the, the, maybe the needed a comfortable place to launch off from, but so the discourse seems to be somewhere between it was sleepy and needed to recharge and it was potentially already on its way out and dying, which is why this corporation was so interested in it as a [00:43:00] weapon, because it could just drop it into this place.

It could kill indiscriminately, and then it would be dead.

Mm hmm.

And so that makes it a pretty formidable

I buy that.

yeah, right. I would buy that as well. So that was my like 10 minutes of Reddit research till telling me and maybe like two different threads, but that's, that's not even half ass internet research.

That's quarter ass internet research, Ridley or Ridley Ripley. I think I might have said Ridley a few

I think I might have too. They're, they're a little alike.

folks, Ridley is the, pterodactyl esque villain from the Samus games. So, apologies if we said Ridley and not Ripley a couple of times. I watched a really amazing, like, seven hour retrospective on the Samus erin.

Did you know that these exist? People do, like, multiple hour Retrospectives on YouTube's on like old video

Oh, I watch them

all the time,

all the time all the time, It's one of my favorite sleeping devices. Yeah,

anyway, let's let's finish this thing. So she she sneaks into the closet. [00:44:00] She Slowly, she's like, Oh my God, this is where this is where truly Sigourney becomes an action hero in my mind, like where she truly walks out of this being like, give me more movies, give me more Ripley, give me more Sigourney. And we do our wishes are granted very quickly. She gets a space suit on. She has an idea because it's not coming out. She's like, this thing isn't coming after me. Like I can see that it sees me. And it's not coming after me. So she puts a space suit on, she slowly walks over, , she buckles up and she starts like steaming out the alien gets distracted a little quickly because all of a sudden the alien is next to her and she's like, Oh shit.

And she hits the button and sends it out the airlock, but it, grapples on to. The walls. And this is one of the moments where I was like, okay, this is clearly a human and an alien costume. And, and she shoots it square in the chest with like a grappling hook, which was amazing, but the grappling hook gets stuck in the door as it closes. So she decides to cook it in the jets of the [00:45:00] spaceship and it flies away into space and she scoops up her cat and sleeps peacefully in her stasis pod as she leaves the final note of the freighter Nostromo and we fade to black. What a film,

Charlie. I had such a good time with

I had a great time with this one as well. after watching this, I did watch it twice. I feel like I, my brain is combining stuff from Alien and Aliens together though.

Oh, really?

I,

I haven't seen

I haven't, but like I think some parts of the final fight of what Sigourney Weaver did in this got contained in my memories of Aliens when I watch clips of it on the internet.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, but,

Is that the sequel,

yes, technically, technically.

Oh, well, put it, we gotta put it on the

Add it to the list, baby.

Let's do it. Well, let's, let's jump into, do you have any final thoughts on the movie before we jump into our, our Xeno ratings for

Ooh, XenoRatings, I [00:46:00] love that.

I loved this film. Also, Steve, I love how much you love this film. That's why I was more quiet than usual. Cause, just your passion for this. This, this film. This is beautiful to watch because as we do more and more of what is my favorite genre, I get to see one of my favorite people reacting to it, and I hear you growing more of an appreciation for the craftsmanship of it and what gets put into it.

So I'm just, I'm proud. I'm so proud.

Damn you, Charlie, making me

Mm hmm.

in our, in our podcast for fun. No, I appreciate that, man. That's really nice of you to say. Thank you. And I appreciate you helping me push my boundaries because I have been a steadfast no for this stuff without any softening. So you've, you've softened this, this hard callous man. let's Jump into our, our Xeno ratings for Alien. Charlie, out of five Xenomorphs,

how would you

rate this

[00:47:00] 5. Easy. This is a classic, and the blueprint for so many things that came after it. this movie didn't really grab me emotionally, so I'm not giving this 5 Xenomorphs for an emotional reason. Just more as a director and writer. Game recognizes game. This is fucking brilliant. Like, this is,

Game recognizes game is

so good.

respect.

Respect.

We're so ridley. Scott, respect to you. He could finally take

it. Yeah. That he, he finally, he finally got Charlie's

Yeah, of anyone, somebody making a podcast saying it, it's just gonna knock them over, I'm sure.

If it wasn't on YouTube yet, then it definitely wasn't true. If it wasn't from Charlie on YouTube yet, it definitely

gotta be from Charlie on YouTube.

Charlie, this is also a five Xenomorphs for me, man. I

I can tell!

If we're, if we're going to like. put together a formula of a scary movie for Steve. [00:48:00] I think there have to be moments that I laugh whether or not the laughs are intended on purpose. I think both Scream and Alien have moments and honestly, I, I again, don't necessarily consider the craft. Maybe much of a of a horror movie is those other two, but like I laughed at scream because there were genuinely funny moments written into the script. And I laughed at alien because some silly ass shit happened that I just thought was fucking funny that I think they wanted us to take seriously, but it comes out funny, but it does the tension.

It does the stakes. It does the, you end up really caring about Ripley. And you really care about that main character, that final girl and you have a villain that's just, I mean, I think I understand when you like it when a villain has a point, but I, I also like the creature that has no conscience that you have to

survive.

I

because then

little bit. That's very video gamey

it's a force of nature. Then it's pure evil. I think that's great.

And women overcome forces of nature every

They fucking do right on, Steve. Right [00:49:00] on. And I also love that you are appreciating the term final girl. So far we've had Sydney, we've had Sarah, and now we have Ripley.

I love it. Well, I believe, do we have a final girl in the next movie that we're

Oh, do we? Do we

Oh, do we?

One hell of one. One hell of a Final Girl character.

Well, that's gonna, that's gonna do it for this episode of Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff. Thanks for watching Alien with us. Charlie, any final thoughts before we go?

No, no, but I might also flip a table if I see an animal about to die in a horror film.

Hey, listen, man, I even, that was my, actually, I took an extra couple of days to watch Fallout because I couldn't find information on whether or not the dog made it to the end of the season. and if you know me, you know, I like fallouts, one of my favorite video game franchises of all

time. And so like, I was ready to not watch that show if dog meat wasn't going to make it. So I, by the dog meat makes it through season one. So you can at least watch these. So [00:50:00] anyway, great time talking about alien with you. We are going to be coming back next time watching now, I believe this is a more recent film in barbarian.

It came out this year, last

Oh, it came out not that recent. It definitely, it came out after the pandemic.

after the pit. So definitely more recently than 1979 after 2022 is definitely, I'm going to call that recent

Oh, totally.

so for myself, Steve Selnick and for my good friend, Charlie peppers, we will look forward to seeing you on the next one.

Bye.

Bye.