In space no one can hear you get sappy

In space no one can hear you scream.

Dunno why but, lately, I’ve been in an Alien frame of mind.

I refused to see the first one when it first came out. It’d be WAY too scary and gross for me. Nuh-huh, NOT gonna see it. And then what happened? Then I was visiting the great and gone all too soon Kevin Scott and he talk/challenged me into it. I swear, it just amused the shit outta him to watch me do sit ups during all the OH MY GOD, WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN?!?! scenes. You know, like the one where the facehugger scary alien first shows, gloms onto John Hurt’s face (Mega Cleithrophobia City!), plants its larva and then later, at lunch of course, the now ready-to-bloom, beastie bursts bloodily out of his chest. Yeah, I could have abs of steel if I watched that movie every day.

Or not. Over the so damn many years and fresh series installments I’ve become…what? Inurred? That and I started to see things from the Alien POV. Yup, I have.

They’re just trying to survive and thrive. We warmongering human types, with our warm and squishy guts that make perfect incubators, wanna enslave them, use them as weapons. Assholes! Sure, not all of us but, we’re not a live-and-let-live race by any means.

Basically the aliens are defending themselves and, just because they look WAY different – kinda hideous in fact – doesn’t mean they should be under our belligerent and bloodthirsty thumbs. Ya know?

Then Alien Resurrection came out. (which Hillel indulgently joined me in viewing the other night) Joss Wedon wrote it so there’s a definite humor element within all the horror – ya know, just like real life. That and the grey areas, the unknowns, have been upped. Again, like life!

At the end of Alien 3, Ripley and the infant Alien Queen do a back flip into a vast pool of ouch-this-is-gonna-hurt, fiery, molten lead. They die BUT she and her bairn are, centuries later, brought back to life – they’ve been cloned. Here’s the deal though, Ripley and the queen's DNA are now commingled. Ripley’s a little bit Alien now (and vice versa)  and her POV has shifted.

Empathy happens and nothing is easy. HEY, just like real life again…sorta.

Like most people, I LOVE the basketball scene where she totally pwns Johner, Ron Perlman’s character. But, maybe more, the scene where Call, Winona Ryder, can no longer hide that she’s a more-human-than-human robot. She and Ripley bond and, ultimately, save the day.

The mega sad part comes when the ship’s nearing Earth. Ripley’s just-born grandchild (the queen mum died in childbirth and, like a baby duck, the xenomorphling has imprinted on the next closest being) has to be offed and it’s heartbreaking. Baby Alien just wants to be loved. He/she had a human-ISH face and sad puppy eyes.

I’m a sucker for an underdog.

So, in a fit of mondo escapism, I believe I’m gonna, now, binge watch the entire series. Resurrection is, however, my favorite and yes I'm gonna watch it again.