Alien and Aliens

In 1979, young director Ridley Scott brought the film Alien to life. It took the genre of horror and suspense films to a new territory and did so in a near flawless way. Alien is now a classic film that was praised by critics as well as audiences and launched the career of both director Ridley Scott and the movies star Sigourney Weaver.  When the crew of the industrial vessel the Nostromo are awakened by a distress signal coming from an unknown nearby planet, it's protocol for them to respond. Upon their ship landing on the planet, three of the ships crew members go off to investigate the distress beacon. While searching for the origin of the distress call, the three explorers discover a strange spaceship with strange looking eggs as the ships cargo.

Just as Ripley (Weaver) believes to have translated the distress beacon as a warning call to stay away from the planet they arrived on, the three crew members return back to the ship with a living creature attached to the one member. Ripley isn't willing to let them back on the ship without first knowing what the creature is but another member of the ship disregards her intuition and the alien life form is brought on board.

This begins the turn of events that puts the crew of the Nostromo in a nightmarish scenario as they soon learn just how deadly and dangerous the creature they discovered is. 34 years later, Alien still continues to frighten movie goers and was the start of one of the most successful and popular movie franchises. Some consider the 1986 Oscar nominated sequel, Aliens, to be superior than its predecessor.

Sigourney Weaver returns in her starting role as Ripley and once again finds herself fighting for survival. Ripley is asked to accompany a military team on its way to the planet she and the Nostromo landed on and discovered the alien life form. A space colony that was formed there has failed to make contact with home base and the worst is feared. This time, Ripley faces more than one of the creatures and will have to fight with every bit of strength to survive. 

With James Cameron behind the camera on Aliens, the film took more of an action movie feel to it rather than the suspense of Scott's Alien. While I enjoyed both films, for me Alien takes top spot over its sequel. The acting, script, and the special effects are both superbly done for their time and I'd recommend both movies to anyone hasn't seen them.