History Film / Alien

* ExplosiveDecompression: Averted. [[spoiler:The alien [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace can survive in the vacuum of space with no ill effects whatsoever]] (though we only see it outside for a few seconds, so it could easily suffocate later; however, the novelization plays this perfectly straight).]]

* FetalPositionRebirth: The adult alien is in this position the very first time we see it, hanging among the chains above Brett, keeping it HiddenInPlainSight.

* HellIsThatNoise

** 'The Company' is a well-known nickname for the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the AcceptableTargets of TheSeventies.

** An early draft of the script includes a scene where the crew investigates the ship's food stores, discovering thtem dangerously depleted as a result of the alien raiding the provisions -- justifying its offscreen growth.

** An early draft of the script includes the crew investigating the ship's food stores and discovering thtem dangerously depleted as a result of the alien raiding the provisions, justifying its offscreen growth.

** An early draft of the script includes the crew discovering the ship's food stores after the alien raids them, justifying its offscreen growth.

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* ArtisticLicense: The text crawl introduces the protagonists' ship as "towing vessel 'the Nostromo'". Ship names don't work that way; she's simply the "towing vessel 'Nostromo'". Otherwise it's akin to saying "USS 'The Enterprise'".

* BadBoss: The Company, made even more explicit in the novelization. Not only don't they provide funding to properly maintain the ''Nostromo'', [[spoiler:they had advance knowledge of the DistressCall and worked out in advance that it was a warning. Rather than send a fully-prepared research vessel which would not have been allowed to bring a hostile lifeform back to Earth, they arranged for the ''Nostromo'' to 'accidentally' encounter the alien, which would then be 'collected for safe-keeping' by Company representatives.]]

!! ''Alien'' contains examples of the following tropes:

-->'''Ripley''': Whenever he says ''anything'' you say "right." Like a regular parrot.\\
'''Brett''': Right.\\
'''Parker''': Yeah, shape up, man. What are you, some kinda parrot?\\
'''Brett''': *''clearly amused''* Right.

-->'''Dallas''': ''WHAT ARE MY CHANCES?''\\
'''Mother''': ''DOES NOT COMPUTE''
** Later
-->'''Ash''': I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.

* MonsterDelay: [[ExaggeratedTrope Heavily exaggerated]] in that even the Ovomorphs don't ever even show up at all until around forty-five minutes into the film with the FaceHugger and ChestBurster stages of the infamous Xenomorph life-cycle also not ever showing up until even later than that, and even after "Big Chap" aka "Kane's Son" becomes fully-grown, he's still not ever fully shown until during the film's PostClimaxConfrontation between him and Ellen Ripley mentioned below.

** The original trailer shows something hatching from a chicken like egg, which never appears in the actual film.

* QuitYourWhining: While walking to the derelict, Lambert complains about not being able to see. Kane tells her to quit griping, but Lambert responds "I like griping".

* RecycledInSpace: ''Alien'' was originally billed as "''Film/{{Jaws}}'' [-IN SPACE!-]" to producers. WordOfGod says that it's ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'' [-ON A SPACESHIP-], right down to the motion detector (a Geiger counter in the original film).

* SailorEarth: The ''Nostromo''[='=]s usual science officer, whom Ash replaced by order of the company.

* CassetteFuturism: Possibly one of the most ''famous'' examples in history, with its hard, blocky and used décor, to the vector display computers and the analogue control systems. The ''Nostromo'' definitely looks like it was still constructed from the 70s. This may also be unintentional given the time period Alien was released, so it may also be a case of {{Zeerust}}.

* NormalFishInATinyPond: The Alien in this movie is a terrifying monster, but is indeed an average Mook for the Xenomorphs' standards.

* AncientAstronauts: Of the type that doesn't get involved with Earth's history (at least not until the [[Film/{{Prometheus}} prequel]]). Dallas, Kane and Lambert find the relic of the Space Jockey to be pretty old, old enough that the alien pilot's corpse looks ''fossilized''.

* AncientAstronauts: Of the type that doesn't get involved with Earth's history (at least not until [[Film/{{Prometheus}} prequel]]). Dallas, Kane and Lambert find the relic of the Space Jockey to be pretty old, old enough that the alien pilot's corpse looks ''fossilized''.

-->'''Mother:''' [[spoiler:''CREW EXPENDABLE'']]

[[caption-width-right:350: ''In space, no one can hear you scream.'']]

* AncientAstronauts: Of the type that doesn't get involved with Earth's history (at least not until [[Film/{{Prometheus}} prequel]]). Dallas, Kane and Lambert find the relic of the Space Jokey to be pretty old, old enough that the alien pilot's corpse looks ''fossilized''.

** After the chestburster scene, the movie rachets up the tension as the crew detects movement that might be the alien... only for Jones the cat to jump out to scare the characters and the audience, and [[spoiler:Brett]] dies while trying to catch the cat to stop any more false scares.

In the year 2122, the crew of the commercial freighter spaceship USCSS ''Nostromo'' sidelines their trip back home to Earth when they pick up a DistressCall from an uncharted moon. While searching for the source of the signal on the moon, one of the crew members gets an alien organism attached to his face and falls into a coma. The next day, [[ChestBurster an alien embryo explodes from the crewman's chest]] -- and rapidly matures into a savage monster. As the alien stalks through the ship, the crew desperately tries to find a way to fight back.

'''Ash the Android:''' I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded.

-->'''Parker:''' It's got a wonderful a defense mechanism. You don't dare kill it.

*** Dallas was dishonorably discharged from the military after loosing his first command and he spent some time as a smuggler.
*** Ripley had a child and won a lawsuit against the Company when they tried to fire her instead of granting her maternity leave

* AnyoneCanDie: The characters died in more or less reverse order of how famous the actors playing them were (in 1979) - Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, and even Veronica Cartwright were all familiar to audiences, while Creator/SigourneyWeaver was the only entirely unknown actor in the cast, with just four minor credits. The deaths of the characters felt like a downward spiral, and Ripley's demise seemed inevitable. The tension of the last ten minutes (with the ship's computer voice counting them off) was almost unbearable. Ripley's survival was, for the era in which the film was made, shocking (a ''lot'' of 70s-era horror movies had {{downer ending}}s, and some critics even argued that horror movies ''had to'' have downer endings to be proper horror movies), and until the end credits rolled, the audience still expected the alien to pop up somewhere. This was actually Ridley Scott's originally intended ending -the alien was going to bite Ripley's head off in the shuttle and make the last log entry in her voice- but ExecutiveMeddling insisted that the monster had to die, so Ripley was spared.

* BittersweetEnding: Not only a rarity for '70s horror movies, but a double whammy in that [[spoiler:only Ripley survives and she is the one that no one in the audience expected to survive. Ripley kills the Alien by blowing it out the airlock of the escape shuttle- but is deeply affected by the loss of her friends and crew.]]

'''Brett''': ''(clearly amused)'' Right.

** After the chestburster scene, the movie rachets up the tension as the crew detects movement that might be the alien... only for the cat to jump out to scare the characters and the audience, and [[spoiler:Brett]] dies while trying to catch the cat to stop any more false scares.
** Jones the cat jumps out and scares Ripley again before her first attempt to get to the shuttle.

* ChekhovsGun: [[DefiedTrope Defied.]] The film was made ''cinema verite'' style. Very little is explained for the benefit of the audience, and it ignores typical screenwriting structure in favor of that documentary feel. Events that happen, like the damage the USCSS ''Nostromo'' sustains on landing, don't contribute much to the overall narrative besides the verisimilitude of life as a space trucker, and things that ''are'' important such as the existence of Androids, the ship's self-destruct system, etc. aren't mentioned at all until they're necessary for the plot. The characters just take these things for granted and don't spell them out for the audience's sake.
* ChestBurster: The scene when the eponymous monster tears out of Kane's torso. If not the [[TropeMakers Trope Maker]] then ''unquestionably'' the TropeCodifier. It's still considered the definitive Chest Burster scene to this day.
* ClosedCircle: Barring the exploration of the alien ship on the planet and discovering the space jockey, the film takes place entirely on the ''Nostromo''. It's a fairly large mining ship, but it's also made clear they are ten months away from Earth, meaning help is not coming. The movie doesn't spell it out, but the novelization makes it clear that the ship is designed with the idea that the crew will spend the bulk of the journey in hypersleep, meaning they have to deal with the alien quickly to avoid using consumables they'll need at the end of their journey, adding a, while not pressing, still present, time factor.

** Parker's shirt is ripped apart during the struggle with [[spoiler:Science Officer Ash.]]

* CranialProcessingUnit: After Ash the Android gets his head knocked off, the other crew members of the USCSS ''Nostromo'' plug his head into the proper equipment and are able to speak with him.

** Also Lambert and Parker are killed by the monster off-screen while being in radio contact with Ripley.

* DilatingDoor: The sections of the air duct system on the starship ''Nostromo'' are separated by dilating hatches. This makes sense assuming that their intended purpose is to regulate air flow through the ship and not to be pressure-tight in case of a hull breech. Ordinary hatches slide upward or sideways.

-->'''Lambert:''' ''[about the lousy food]'' You pound down the stuff like there's no tomorrow.\\

* DyingSmirk: Ash goes out with the infamous line, [[EvilGloating "I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies,"]] and signs off with a smug smile.

** Despite all the slick, cinematic entries this film would inspire, it makes some very ''cinema verite'' artistic choices marking it as a contemporary of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era. One example is that there is no dialogue for the first five minutes, focusing on the eerie music and setting the scene of the currently empty Nostromo. Then there is the roundtable scene where Ripley decides to blow up the ship, having main cast members out of focus in the background reciting barely audible lines of dialogue and not sweetening them in post-production would be considered amateurish nowadays. There's also a focus on naturalistic dialogue, to the point where '''major plot points''' like the existence of androids and the company's bioweapons division are completely unmentioned until they become relevant[[note]]Dan O'Bannon, when writing the original script, agonized over working details like what the ship was and why it was there into the dialogue, before deciding that anything that didn't flow naturally was information the audience didn't need to know[[/note]]. Contrast with the sequel, which sets up plot points like the Power Loader early and knocks them over like dominoes.

* FateWorseThanDeath: In a deleted scene, [[spoiler:Ripley found Dallas and Brett mutating into eggs.]]

* TheForeignSubtitle: The film was retitled "Alien: The Eighth Passenger" in many languages. This subtlely foreshadows [[spoiler:that Ash is an inanimate robot]], as Jonesy the cat would make the alien the ''ninth'' passenger if not.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Ash. He's quite quick to remind the crew [[EncyclopaedicKnowledge of the clause in their contract requiring all transmissions of alien-origin to be investigated]], failure results in total forfeiture of shares. Yet as a ''Science Officer'', he conveniently violates Science Division's basic quarantine laws to suit his own agenda. He's a borderline StrawHypocrite also. He disturbingly [[AdmiringTheAbomination admires]] the Alien's hostility, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. [[spoiler:As a self-aware android he ''hates'' the fact [[ThreeLawsCompliant he's mostly held in check by programmed safeguards]] and adores how the alien is free to kill indiscriminately.]] However, given that he was actually ordered - ''programmed'' - to deliver the alien by any means necessary, this is probably a subversion.
* HystericalWoman: Lambert (Veronica Cartwright). She's by far the most terrified and emotional member of the crew, and [[spoiler:completely freezes up when the Alien confronts her.]]

* LaserGuidedKarma: Dallas and Lambert demand to be let in, and Ash violates quarantine and opens the door. [[spoiler:All three die as a result of this.]] Ripley, who didn't want to let them in, [[spoiler:survives]]. Parker, in a deleted scene, says that maybe Ripley was right not to let them in, [[spoiler:making him an aversion when he is killed.]]
* LaserGuidedTykebomb: The alien species is implied to be this, bred for the sole purpose of violence. Many thousands of eggs were preserved in the biomechanic derelict, and director Creator/RidleyScott even said the derelict was a bomber - it was designed to bombard planets with Alien eggs.

* LastWords: [[spoiler:Ash the Android]] specifically asks for some final words before [[spoiler:he is unplugged. He uses them to taunt the remaining heroes]].
-->'''[[spoiler:Ash the Android]]:''' I can't lie to you about your chances... [[BlatantLies but you have my sympathies]].

* MortonsFork: Near the end of the movie, after failing to abort the SelfDestructMechanism by scant seconds, Ripley is left with the realization she has only five minutes to do one of two things: die certainly aboard the ''USCSS Nostromo'' in a fiery explosion, or take her chances with a horrific death by the alien on the way to the escape shuttle. She takes a moment to let out her frustrations on a nearby monitor, but ultimately chooses the option with at least a sliver of a chance for survival.

** The film focuses on the ever-present lurking threat of the eggs, chest burster, and adult alien rather than direct confrontations. The trailer for the film highlights the strategy, showing barely any of the alien and focusing on a terrifying montage of people reacting to what could be after them. The alien itself is only shown on-screen for less than four minutes total. The entire body of the alien is not seen until Ripley manages to blow it out the airlock, as otherwise all the focus was on its elongated head and how well it blends into the darkness.
** Most of the deaths are merely implied rather than shown, with special attention made to [[spoiler:Dallas' death]]. Nothing is seen of what happened [[spoiler:after the Alien springs on him once it's illuminated by the flamethrower's light]], and even the aftermath is unclear, only a burst of static and screeching before everything goes silent despite the crew's efforts to raise the victim. As Parker states, when they went inside there was no body, no blood, [[spoiler:just the flamethrower]]. Even worse is [[spoiler:Lambert's death.]] Nothing is seen of what happened, and even the aftermath is not seen clearly, we only hear it happening over the radio. It's probably the scariest death in the film. Given that the last thing we see of [[spoiler:Lambert is the tip of the alien's tail moving up her leg towards her nether regions,]] this is probably just as well. This seemed to be partially due to a cut subplot where the alien wasn't outright killing everyone, but fusing their bodies into some cocoon. Ripley came across this strange nest late in the movie.

* {{Novelization}}: The film was novelised by Creator/AlanDeanFoster. [[https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Alien_(novel) More details here]].

* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:How Ash is confirmed to be an android.]]

** [[WordOfGod The filmmakers state]] that the rolled-up adult magazine that [[spoiler:Science Officer Ash]] tries to suffocate Ripley with is meant to be a penis substitute, because [[spoiler:as an android, [[BarbieDollAnatomy he doesn't have one himself]].]]

* PostPeakOil: In the novelization, the ''Nostromo'' is hauling an oil refinery instead of an ore refinery, because Earth "burned every last drop." No oil means no plastics, and Earth "could do without energy sooner than it could do without plastics." Echoed by Arthur C Clarke, who was fond of saying that, to paraphrase, petrochemicals are too precious to burn.
* PuzzleBoss: "Big Chap" aka "Kane's Son" is easily a famous non-video-game and also even [[JustifiedTrope justified]] example of this trope as the horrifically ineffective nature of the few manmade weapons seen throughout the film necessitates the heavy usage of the general environment against him with it all ultimately culminating in Ellen Ripley [[ThrownOutTheAirlock throwing him out of the airlock]] seen aboard the ''Narcissus'' during the film's PostClimaxConfrontation as already mentioned above.

-->'''Ash the Android:''' There is an explanation for this, you know.

* RoboticReveal: Ash is revealed to be an android when he starts sweating/bleeding white fluid, and it is confirmed when his head is knocked off his shoulders.

* ScreamingWoman: Ripley is an aversion. The only times she screams is being startled when she discovers the Alien approaching her as she's preparing to hit the airlock near the end. Or muffled screams when Ash tries to suffocate her with a rolled up magazine.

* SlasherSmile: Invoked when the Alien bares its teeth [[spoiler:at Parker before opening its jaws to kill him with the inner mouth.]]

* SpaceTrucker: The crew are towing ore. And the refinery to process it.

** The Alien is disposed of by [[spoiler:ejecting it into space.]]

* YouHaveNoChanceToSurvive: [[spoiler:Science Officer Ash]]'s last words before being incinerated are "I can't lie to you about your chances, but...[[BlatantLies you have my sympathies]]."

* PostClimaxConfrontation: At first, Ripley seemingly escapes further harm aboard the Narcissus life-boat just as the
''Nostromo'' self-destructs, only for the alien to both suddenly and unexpectedly confront her one final time and also for her to have to throw him right out of the nearby airlock in order to be able to both save herself and also resolve the film's central conflict once and for all by doing so.

* ClothingDamage: Parker's shirt is ripped apart during the struggle with Science Officer Ash.

In the year 2122, the crew of the commercial freighter spaceship ''Nostromo'' sidelines their trip back home to Earth when they pick up a DistressCall from an uncharted moon. While searching for the source of the signal on the moon, one of the crew members gets an alien organism attached to his face and falls into a coma. The next day, [[ChestBurster an alien embryo explodes from the crewman's chest]] -- and rapidly matures into a savage monster. As the alien stalks through the ship, the crew desperately tries to find a way to fight back.

* AllLowercaseLetters: In the opening credits, the production teams' roles. Also, the Nostromo's introductory text (apart from the ship's name).

* CassetteFuturism: Possibly one of the most ''famous'' examples in history, with its hard,blocky and used decor, to the vector display computers and the analogue control systems. The Nostromo definitely looks like it was still constructed from the 70s. This may also be unintentional given the time period Alien was released, so it may also be a case of {{Zeerust}}.

* ClosedCircle: Barring the exploration of the alien ship on the planet and discovering the space jockey, the film takes place entirely on the Nostromo. It's a fairly large mining ship, but it's also made clear they are ten months away from Earth, meaning help is not coming. The movie doesn't spell it out, but the novelization makes it clear that the ship is designed with the idea that the crew will spend the bulk of the journey in hypersleep, meaning they have to deal with the alien quickly to avoid using consumables they'll need at the end of their journey, adding a, while not pressing, still present, time factor.

* ExplosiveInstrumentation: When the Nostromo lands on the planet, the bridge equipment starts exploding in showers of sparks and minor fires. The bridge crew starts spraying the equipment with fire extinguishers to put out the fires.

* GoToSleepEnding: [[spoiler:The film ends with Ellen Ripley as the SoleSurvivor of the Nostromo, recording her last mission log before going into hibernation.]]

* OurGraphicsWillSuckInTheFuture: Particularly the "topographical scan" of the alien world's terrain, which ''literally'' looks like a bunch of zigzag scribble-lines. Then again, the Nostromo is a tugboat, not a survey ship.

* PostClimaxConfrontation: At first, Ripley seemingly escapes further harm aboard the Narcissus life-boat just as the USCSS Nostromo self-destructs, only for the alien to both suddenly and unexpectedly confront her one final time and also for her to have to throw him right out of the nearby airlock in order to be able to both save herself and also resolve the film's central conflict once and for all by doing so.
* PostPeakOil: In the novelization, the ''USCSS Nostromo'' is hauling an oil refinery instead of an ore refinery, because Earth "burned every last drop." No oil means no plastics, and Earth "could do without energy sooner than it could do without plastics." Echoed by Arthur C Clarke, who was fond of saying that, to paraphrase, petrochemicals are too precious to burn.

* RasterVision: Seen on the ''USCSS Nostromo''[='=]s various computer monitors.

** After the chestburster scene, the movie rachets up the tension as the crew detects movement that might be the alien... only for the cat to jump out to scare the characters and the audience, and Brett dies while trying to catch the cat to stop any more false scares.