Speaker 1: 0:14

hello and thank you for joining us for another episode of I freaking love that movie. I'm andrew, joined by my buddy, rob, as we dive into another movie we freaking love. This isn't a podcast for those quippy cynics, just love for movies and the people who go and make them. We're going. Good, go make them, boys. All right, continuing our recent run of sci-fi film, goodness, we joined a crew of spray struckers and their pursuit of more shares in their company. But then we come along and find a deadly stowaway and a horrific new tagline in space. No one can hear you scream. That's right, rob, you and I are talking. What?

Speaker 2: 1:04

In Ridley Scott's Alien. The commercial spaceship Nostromo's crew responds to a mysterious distress signal, uncovering a lethal alien creature that begins to hunt them down, picking them off one by one. Tensions mount as warrant officer Ripley discovers a chilling betrayal within their ranks, forcing her to fight for survival against a relentless predator. In the end, ripley attempts to escape the ship, but must face off against the perfect organism.

Speaker 1: 1:31

The cat.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Da-da-da-dum the cat. Oh, jonesy, jonesy, jonesy. That's right, oh man, oh. And then she went back for the cat at the end and said man, just the cat is really the most perfect killing machine in that movie.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I mean just yeah, just uses the xenomorph the kill count he's like luring. Yeah, to use a sports metaphor, if the cat is to get the assist on every goal, you know?

Speaker 2: 2:04

yes yeah, he's definitely.

Speaker 1: 2:06

He's definitely on the same team as the alien well, I remember seeing like one of the original, like one of the original trailers. I don't know if it was like the original theatrical trailer because I was, you know, negative five years old and but it's like in the trailer they like show the cat, like hissing at the camera and like legit think maybe the cat's got something to do with it, you're like a creepy cat in a horror movie in space the seams uh, at least they.

Speaker 2: 2:37

They weren't really lying to us about the movie. With the trailer they're like. This is to be a little scary, running through corridors flashing between different cuts of stuff and people freaking out.

Speaker 1: 2:48

In a very, very wet, wet spaceship.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Yes, and the cat is hissing in one shot and then another shot. He's just kind of like staring.

Speaker 3: 2:58

Mm, hmm, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I'm like, oh, it's like unnerving. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, oh, it's like unnerving. Yeah, I think it was that also that trailer where it's just like the alarms system is like blaring throughout the trailer and so it's. You're just like, oh, let's just, something's not right and they don't show they don't show the like titular alien in the trailer because that's how they used to do stuff back in the day. They wouldn't show off the big bad or the monster boys.

Speaker 1: 3:34

That's something I learned when I was in fourth grade doing my book reports on the big friendly giant. You don't tell the end of this book. You know when you're giving the book report because all the other kids want to read it.

Speaker 2: 3:50

So you know that's how trailers used to be be. We don't do that on this podcast, though we are gonna probably tell you a little bit of the ending, but hopefully, through this conversation that we have about our nostalgia and our love for alien, we just make you want to go watch it more. Um, that's kind of always our goal is when we talk about all of these films is that we want you to go out there, and well, I think the recent news about Redbox we're running out of places that you can like literally go pick up a copy. You go to the library or half price books.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Half price books. I mean, we're still half price books strong.

Speaker 2: 4:21

As with the case with a lot of things, alien well was owned by fox and now disney, because disney owns everything. Yeah, so, and disney owns everything, so there's probably a streaming platform out there for you to go check it out. I purchased back and I think when they had like three or four the alien movies all bundled together I just that's when I picked it up.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Well, you know, you don't have the, the, the dvd set.

Speaker 2: 4:43

That is like as tall as you are that alien quadrilogy yes, when you unfold it, it is about as tall as you, not me, but it's about as tall as you yeah almost up there with, like the extended editions of the lord of the rings, if you like, were to accordion style, like pull them all out absolutely I do.

Speaker 1: 5:01

I do want to give a shout out to one of our fans from the first couple seasons. I hope they're still listening here in season three. But the film cabinet on uh oh yeah, instagram they were.

Speaker 1: 5:10

They got me interested in recollecting uh hard copies and I definitely got myself a hard copy of this, of this movie. I don't have the quadrilogy, that's as tall as you are, but I do have a copy of alien aliens and I've actually been recently trying to find more of the uh the steel case because those are fun. You know, I've got, I got the steel case ones. There's uh, there's a disc replay not too far from me that they have like an entire section of steel cases and they get new ones every so often and so I, whenever I'm in there, I always check and see if there's a new steel case is something I want to get kudosudos on the shout out to Film Cabinet.

Speaker 2: 5:45

We record these a little bit farther out so we haven't actually officially launched the first episode back for season three. But I did notice on one of our Instagram posts recently in the I freaking love that movie, ifltm movie Instagram channel that Film Cabinet did like our post. So still keeping tabs on us us. I think he's excited. Yeah, still collecting those.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Well, I've talked about old school computers and things like that. Uh, let's talk a little bit about this film and some of like what we love, about the practical effects. The practical effects, uh, in just the, the way of like the, the monster, the titular alien and the ship, but like even the computer, like it was old school, blinky lights and, like you know, green screens and like I mean, let's talk about that aesthetic rob. What, what, what for you really sings the praises of classic sci-fi here.

Speaker 2: 6:44

So are you referring to Mother? I am M-U-T-H-R I believe is the acronym Mother, yes, mother, being like this almost hexagonal looking room, and then it's like walls of blinking lights with like a really small screen where the text is but features some of the creepiest text I've ever read in a sci-fi film. You're getting close to the end of the film and ripley has seen a lot of her crewmates die to this monster. She finally gets access and she can go talk to mother, because it's like bare bones chat, gpt kind of vibes where they can like type in questions and it will answer them based on its protocols and whatnot. And it's basically says that they were sent out to get that organism. They knew about it. The company that they worked for shout out Waylon Yutani that they did know about it and they sent them out there. And then the last, the last part of the line was crew expendable and so she was like, oh my god.

Speaker 1: 7:47

And then the science officer ash outs himself as a, as an android, as artificial person, artificial person, as um, as uh, ridley scott is want to do many a time and his, his sci-fi properties is talk about artificial humans, um and I just want to talk about I mean going a little bit beyond just uh, alien here and talking about aliens and and do you want to space out of soon, even like the some some some of like space 1999, the gary anderson show, how great that classic sci-fi was with creating exposition, but like scary exposition, with just like computer screens, you know, having things happen that you you were reading and it wasn't like this old teletype kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 8:33

But you don't, you don't get that so much anymore. You know in inside, but we kind of sci-fi, horror or whatever you want to call it, or yeah, these scary tense moments, it's like watching a computer print letters on a screen is so archaic to us these days but it's still so frightening and it's just that there's these good, good scenes of the tension building as the computer slowly writes out your fate.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Yeah, the little green cursor shoots past and what it says in text form, it's so much more chilling because it's like cold detached. This is just the facts. Absolutely, yeah, that kind of brings me. We're talking about the. You know the sci-fi aesthetic and this film came out in 1979. Obviously we were talking about being negative years old when it came out, but, um, the original star wars came out in 77 and I feel like you know 2001, a space odyssey. It's like a little cleaner aesthetic. It has a very like a classical look to it. You have. You have, uh, like nasa punk, nasa core, whatever you want to call it, like this idea of 60s NASA stuff would look like.

Speaker 1: 9:54

I like that term NASA punk. We have steampunk, dieselpunk, nasa punk.

Speaker 2: 10:00

I don't think I made that up. I think that was a part of the design aesthetic for Starfield they called it NASA punk.

Speaker 2: 10:09

But I was like that is such a great way to show. It was like if scientists had built. You know, obviously, like NASA, scientists built all the stuff in 2001, a space odyssey. It was like that's what it would look like if they had built it and with alien, it's almost as if all the just like mining and and oil and like resource companies built all the stuff there's like the proper, like the cockpit of the Nostromo and like the mother computer, which are like kind of sci-fi, but everything else just feels like oil rigs and like we said it, like you said in the intro, it's like space truckers, like these guys are just space truckers. They haul. The Nostromo is just like this really little ship, and then they have the huge like resource oil, like refinery or whatever it is. It's and they don't say oil but it's refining some kind of precious resource to bring back to the like the core worlds, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Um, and so they're all just on contracts, which is another part I love in this. Like lived in and grimy feel is like you have parts before all the killing starts, where you have the workers, and they're like talking about the bonus situation. It's like if we get all of this stuff to the core worlds. They're basically bargaining with the captain again to talk about, you know, the bonus of their shares. They should get more.

Speaker 2: 11:29

And they're like, well, you already agreed to the contract. And he's like you know, everybody else agreed to their contract as well. And he's like, well, yeah, but everybody else is making more. And so it's those two guys, it's Brett and Parker, who both kind of work with a lot of the machinery stuff and so right. But you see the class, job description like division between them. It's like there's the people who are like the higher ups in the ship, who chart the course. They understand how they keep everything running, and then you have these guys who are kind of portrayed as the grunts an interesting thing that makes things feel lived in it's like what you wanted to see, if you ever like, when you were young and whatnot.

Speaker 1: 12:07

You saw star wars and you said I want to see what it was like on millennium, before han joined up with the rebellion, or like something and I try to think about like sci-fi in general, sci-fi properties and that kind of like corporate business.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Whatever you know commerce story. You don't see a ton. It does up in some minor ways, like in corporations and things like that and background properties. A lot of sci-fi firefly leans into it a little bit more, but even that had this under arching of like mel would do whatever he could to stick to the alliance. I mean, I think the biggest place you saw it was like fans early on with you know, with the asteroid mining and things like that, and they were talking about then the belters. But even that turned a little more into like the hero's journey. So it is fun though I maybe it's just that you see it you really can't make a big long story about just sci-fi commerce. You know it's so interesting and so you have to turn it into a horror show or a hero's journey along the way.

Speaker 2: 13:16

But I do love it when it comes to world building and it creates such great world building and then you see, uh, with specifically this it's like corporations who there's not a lot of like restriction or oversight on them, and so they're making these like horrendous calls like oh yeah, go out to this, not distress signal, it's a warning, uh signal to like not come here because there's a this evil like destructive parasite, and they're like go get it and bring it back for the bioweapons division. It's like oh, uh, probably not a great idea.

Speaker 1: 13:47

No, yeah it's, it's one of those things that is so like. I mean it's not to be the inciting incident in the story but it's kind of, I think, kind of like the great granddaddy of this evil corporation in science fiction property. You know, weyland-yutani became this cornerstone reused again and again and again in multiple different properties going forward, multiple different properties going forward, and it's just so fun to be like it was just because they wanted this reason and they wanted an explanation and they're like well, we live in a capitalist society and unregulated corporations can be insane. You go to the industrial and so let's use that as our inciting incident.

Speaker 1: 14:30

You know, I just think it's funny how just that choice by the story writers.

Speaker 2: 14:36

It's become like a sci-fi trope where they've been able to pull this in.

Speaker 1: 14:41

I mean even even the video game stolaris, you can play as a nation, as a corporation, nation to rule an empire of a corporation, like I mean it's, it's so pervasive through all science fiction. So, rob, I wanted to ask you to move our next question. I wanted to ask you was there anything that really stood out to you about the filming, anything that was like, uh, especially as you came back re-watched it, a bit older, a bit wiser like as a, as a younger guy in my 20s, uh, in teen years, and when we would watch the movies together, um, I liked aliens way more than I liked alien.

Speaker 2: 15:24

I just really loved the pacing of aliens and it was, you know, it was exciting, fast paced and it kept my attention, whereas alien is this like slow burn. You get an opportunity to meet all the crew members and you get to see how they live their lives, like they have this normal everyday job. They went and they worked and they refined all this stuff and then they're going to wake up from hyper sleep, probably back at wherever they're going to offload their cargo and get paid. Um, they're arguing over how much they should get paid. So it's just they feel like normal, everyday people, which is a little different from aliens, because aliens it's like, oh, it's all these marines and it's, you know, everybody's kind of putting up a front and being tough guys and stuff. So I felt at the time when I watched aliens I love that I was like, oh yeah, a bunch of we're here to protect you, ripley, but and then like ripley becoming the you know the protagonist, uh, throughout this film alien she's the one who tries to make them keep quarantine with kane.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Oh, the smart lady told them not to let let the parasite on the ship. And then who lets them on? Of course, the science officer. Who's a traitor. Um, the science officer who? That should have been the dead giveaway. Right there was the science officer saying, no, we should just bring him on. It's like what are you doing, man? Um, that doesn't seem like something a smart person would do. But I just come to love that aspect of it. And then I just love how it just pivots, it flips on a dime kane, starts coughing and suddenly the science fiction is over and it's a horror movie and they're all locked inside the house with the monster.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Love it I think it's one thing that is so interesting to me, because me and my wife had this discussion so many times. She would tell me that alien is a horror movie. I'm like no, it's a sci-fi movie. And she's no, it's a horror movie.

Speaker 1: 17:14

I'm like no it's a sci-fi movie and one thing I love too is that it's both right we when we to be right in that regard. Uh, because my wife loves horror movies, I love science fiction and I mean she also loves science fiction, but she likes horror more. I also love horror, but I love science fiction more. So, like we're like this perfect venn diagram for this movie and that's not what a venn diagram is, but that's okay, we'll use it as an example but we're like this perfect, uh, melding use case, yeah, for this movie. So it is funny because there is the horror aspect to it, but it's still still so rooted too in this, like this xenomorph alien. That is exciting in a sci-fi sort of way, but I can still accept it as fully realized science fiction movies all the way through the end and love it for every bit of science fiction that's in it and enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 18:12

You know, science fiction doesn't have to just be the hero's journey, so to speak. You know it's, it's, it can be about. It can be about industry and commerce and things like that, with a little bit of horror sprinkled in, or so you said. Like you know, trapped in the cabin with the monster and the final girl survives. You know the final girl survives.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Yeah, that's right so, yeah, I mean I. So in that way it does it really fills into that horror trope. But uh, you know, I, I don't know, I span genres and it's enjoyable, truly, actually enjoyable, to watch for the narrative and the set work, the lighting, the cinematography, I mean, yes, it is just absolutely gorgeously shot. You know, there's these scenes that are with like light, that, the light that guides your eye to where the director wants you to see. You know, you have scenes where Xenomorph literally in the frame and you miss it until it moves.

Speaker 2: 19:11

You know, and because it's so well done and that's, and that's just what I love about this movie, as with all things, we do like to highlight and showcase our wonderful, amazing listeners, and we were actually gifted with two different listener comments for this specific episode, one from a new listener and one is from a longtime listener and also someone who was on an episode Mr John WK, listener and also someone who was on an episode, mr john wk, as a screenwriter.

Speaker 3: 19:44

One thing I really love about alien is the script by walter hill, especially the way the description is written. It's very hemingway-esque, it's like beautiful, terrifying poetry.

Speaker 2: 19:58

It's a really unique style that definitely works for this film and so he's talking about the, the script for alien, and how it's just terrifying poetry.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I love that description of it well, it's just a fun piece of trivia too, that.

Speaker 1: 20:12

But I think most people would not or would never know, but it does definitely come through in the film because you know, if you don't read the script or you haven't seen the screenplay, uh, you know, like obviously it has, I you wouldn't necessarily know that it was written almost poem-esque and I think that's just kind of speaks to the just the art that is screenwriting.

Speaker 1: 20:35

You know, times, I think it's screenwriters or whatever I always go, it's stuff gets rewritten or it gets for, you know, easy punchy lines or things like that. But there there's so much, especially back in a little bit, a little bit more of like the mid classic, uh, hollywood, you do, the really strong scripts that were just so well done, so well written, and it is this like hidden art that the you know, 90% of moviegoers, maybe more, have no idea that that the art of the screenplay is, is a piece of artwork onto its, unto itself, and it's so cool to learn that that this was written with such a love and a and a artistic eye or ear or stroke of a typewriter, I guess back then you know that that you know thankfully.

Speaker 1: 21:26

John knows and he was able to tell us and and fill us in on that great little bit of trivia. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:32

I want to thank John WK for not only being a longtime listener, but offering his insights as a screenwriter. And then we'd like to thank this next person for being a longtime listener, but offering his insights as a screenwriter. And then we'd like to thank this next person for being a longtime listener and offering one of our first audio comments. So this is. I like to call her Princess Moni, but this is Moni, and she's going to talk a little bit about her experience with Alien.

Speaker 4: 21:57

OMG, rob and Andrew, it's so funny, y'all are talking about Alien. That movie came out at the end of the 70s. I was four years old and I freaking love this movie because I have these great memories of going with my mom and dad and hiding in the back seat and being able to like duck down at the drive-in theater. At those moments that, like, the music could get intense and I thought the cat was the coolest thing as a four-year-old. The fact that a cat could sense alien was just like I gotta have me a cat and I love that. Ripley trusted her cat. It was the coolest thing.

Speaker 4: 22:44

But I have so many crazy memories of not realizing actually how scary that movie was. But I could duck in on the backseat so you know I could skip the scary parts when you heard the music get all crazy and the cat started hissing. So it was so crazy and the cat started hissing. So, um, it was so crazy. But because I love that movie so freaking much, um, I have actually seen them all with my mom ever since, so it's so cool. You're all talking about this movie because it just launched an amazing perspective of how to look at space and it was also like the first female. That was like really the heroine. She wasn't the final girl, she was like the heroine and she's the one that as a girl, like you know, I want to be like ripley, so it was pretty cool getting that at four so cool very cool moni.

Speaker 1: 23:38

I love parenting late 70s that said, let's take our kids to a driving movie like an alien. I mean that is amazing late 70s. No seatbelts and no stopping for the aliens movies. I do love that she went to see the rest of them with her mom that's amazing.

Speaker 2: 24:02

That is really sweet. Thank you so much, moni, for sharing that story with us. We do. That's what we're about. We love not only celebrating the films, but we also love celebrating the memories that we have surrounding some of these films. Also shout out to your dog who was whining there at the end. I know it takes a lot to hold them back. Sometimes, you know, when they freaking love a movie, they really gotta go in on it he didn't like that she was talking so highly about cats, so that is a very good point.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Also, moni, you make a really good point that ripley is not really a final girl, she's like a survivor, she's a full on hero like she gets. She's the one who gets there. She gets the self-destruct going. She is gonna help Parker and Lambert. They sadly are killed by the alien before she can help them. But she like went running to go try to save them at the end there at the end of the film and she blows up that huge old refinery which she gets in a lot of trouble for in Aliens just to get that. And then she harpoons the alien at the end because it's stowed away on the ship. Sorry about the spoilers, but it came out in 1979. Go back and rewatch it and you'll freaking love it as much as we do and also apparently you'll freaking love it as much as, uh, we do and also apparently moni freaking loves it well, yeah, I want to say also thank you, thank you to john and moni for your, your call-ins.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Uh, this is a very fun segment we've been able to do. Uh, rob's gotten taking the lead on getting a lot of these, these call-ins, you knowins, and this is because we are recording well in advance of our release. So now that these are being released, we would like to open this up to everyone who doesn't just know Rob. And if you'd like to share your own comments or questions with us, you can visit us at jammerfun. That's J-A-M-R dot F-U-N, it's I-F-L-T-M, and on there there's a fan page. You can submit your audio or text as a, as a question, like a good old fashioned radio show. Um, and someday we might make it so you can record it straight on there, all right, well, you know what that means, rob. We are on to our final section. This is like this, is like this, is like Wheel of Fortune.

Speaker 1: 26:19

It's time for the final spin, that's right, we're back to the list. Where on this list are you going to put this movie?

Speaker 2: 26:34

Oh man, this was a really hard one because I I freaking love all these movies on this list and it gets harder and harder every episode that we record here, because now I have to start making really tough decisions after watching films and then thinking about the other films and how I rated them. But I would say I'm maybe a little controversial for some folks. So I am going to put alien right before serenity on my list, so it's going to be there at that 13, 14 spot I believe. So it is above aliens. So that's kind of the controversial part. There is that I feel like I like alien a bit more than aliens.

Speaker 1: 27:10

For me. I think it's going to come in not quite as high as yours. It's going to come in actually at number 21 for me, right above.

Speaker 4: 27:18

Independence.

Speaker 1: 27:19

Day at number 21, for me uh right above independence day. I like it uh just a little bit more than I. I like uh data slicing.

Speaker 3: 27:26

Open an alien and getting used his brain for in the guts um, for you know, welcoming into earth.

Speaker 1: 27:31

So I think it's a. It's a great film. I love it a lot. I think it's gonna end there, right at number 21, our list. And don forget, you can always check out our list once again at that jamfund slash ifltm fan page. We're going to have our lists listed there. You can see them or you can check them out on our Letterboxd accounts. Everything you want to find out ifltm these days, go to jamfund slash ifltm and check out that fan page. Go to gmailcom slash IFLTM and check out that fan page. It's all there.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Links, all the good stuff. We do want to mention that this episode is dropping at the same week that the new Alien film is coming out. So go out there and check it out. Go in with an open mind, maybe you'll enjoy it. From the trailers it does look like it's kind of going back to some of the horror roots of the original alien um, and so that that's kind of why we decided to put this episode out at this time. But that's, uh, alien romulus, I believe. So, uh, I know I'm gonna go check it out and, uh, we'll see how it lines up on the list at some later date that's right, rob.

Speaker 1: 28:34

I'm looking forward to alien romulus as well. I keep thinking it's a star trek movie, but it is clearly not.

Speaker 2: 28:43

It's like Romulus not Romulans Right, Not working about the.

Speaker 1: 28:48

Romulans from Romulus. So alright, well anyways remember you can always share your list with us at info at jammerfun, that's J-A-M-R dot F-U-N. Or follow our social channels that are included in the descriptions. Uh, and thanks for joining us on this episode. We look forward to having you back next week and in the meantime, please remember we all freaking love different movies, and that's a good thing. So, as blockbuster used to say, be kind, kind and rewind. As always, we encourage you to share with anyone who will listen what movies you freaking love. Bye.

Speaker 2: 29:27

Bye. Don't laugh, andrew, it's not that funny it was absolutely hilarious.

Speaker 1: 29:45

It was the funniest intro I've ever done.

Speaker 2: 29:47

It's like Michael Scott.

Speaker 3: 29:48

I start a sentence, and sometimes I don't even know where it.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Sometimes I don't even know where it's going.

Speaker 1: 29:54

I could feel that. I could feel that meandering, I'll find my way out, jonesy.