Interesting. I’d never thought of it that way. The obvious connection between 2001 and this film is the HAL/Ash connection—two machines that turn murderous to fulfill their mission.
As a parasite the alien can be seen as a metaphor for disease, for fear of pregnancy/parenthood, or any foreign invader. Since the humans in the film are working-class and The Company they work for sent them to find the alien, it’s also a take on corporate exploitation (a reading I particularly appreciate nowadays).
Taking your idea of the alien as an evolutionary step as a dark sibling of the Star Child—I’m not sure about that yet. But, it is interesting to note that in the subsequent Alien films we do see that the parasite incorporates some aspects of its host—the dog/cow alien in the third, the predator hybrid in that other movie.
In any case credit Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger with creating one of the most original movie monsters of all time.
The issue with Ash’s perspective is that he is a character criticized, ultimately, for his inhumanity — despite his “logic”, he wigs out, and despite human impurity, conscience, remorse, and morality, it takes Ripley stripping to her birthday suit, i.e., being at her most humanly vulnerable, to defeat the thing. So to read Ash’s comment as aiming for that same numinous supra-human in the Star Child is missing the way the film deconstructs his message. Nevertheless, both movies would be thematically concerned with the issue from any perspective simply because it’s a staple of science fiction.
—PolarisDiB
That said.
The Quatrilogy viewed as a whole is an epic saga of seduction between the Xenomorphs and Ripley, culminating in her pregnancy and eventually motherly responsibility for their being. In the fourth movie, which most people choose to just ignore rather than analyze thematically, she not only becomes the Mother Queen she destroyed (all Freudian-like) in the second film, she also gets to see herself as the Xenomorph when she sees the previous Ripley clones in the room. In that sense Ripley the hero is not yet fully able to return to Earth (very last frame of Resurrection ) as the the Hero’s Journey’s structural “Bringing the Elixir” until human and Xenomorph are merged (in an unfortunately very stupid-looking form) and she has gained its predatory abilities and acid blood along with her genuinely human hero old self.
So there’s that.
—PolarisDiB
I read a quote two days ago about the original Alien which got my juices flowing and stirred my appreciation anew. Damned if I can find it now… but… Mr. Dan O’Bannon is a massive Lovecraft fan, and one critic noted how usually Lovecraftian horror finds its way to earth, but in the case of Alien, the humans accidentally discover the world of the Old Ones.
Regarding your similarities between Alien and 2001, I personally believe it’s a stretch, but for:
1) 2001 influenced EVERY sci-fi film massively ever made after it, which is fitting since Kubrick consumed every sci-fi film that had been made up to that point…
2) Ridley Scott clearly idolized Kubrick – one look at The Duellists makes this evident.
3) I think there are a number of sci-fi archetypes at work, but if one takes the story to its greatest conclusion, you have horror/pessimism (Alien) vs hope/optimism (2001).
The Xenomorph and the Star Child in my mind represent two separate things.
The star child was really just Kubrick’s vision of humanity evolution and his film, evolution can’t come soon enough. Kubrick film illuminates the idea that humanity thinks of itself as more important than it really is and that if we’re not alone in the universe we are more than likely children in the face of greater intelligence. Evolution is just another step.
We are never really given much information about what the Xenomorph really is or why it’s on the Space Jockey’s vessel. The Xenomorph is a perfect example of evolution doing what it does best, keeping things alive. The only difference is is that Xenomorph’s have no function other than propagation and the removal of anything that may hinder that. They kill you or capture you to further propagation and don’t do more than that. They have spaceships, no observable culture and only a basic communicable language.
Oh, and Polaris, Alien 3 is underrated, Resurrection is terrible. It’s embarrassing considering it has so many good things in it too.
“For me, classical music in space = 2001”
Really? Oh boy.
“As the alien bursts out of Kane’s chest it could be revealing humanity’s evolutionary potential, but instead of a god-like being, evolution might lead to a perfect procreator.”
Sorry, not seeing what you mean. Can you say more?
I’m going to have to go with Roscoe on this one…….the birth of the alien from John Hurt’s chest has nothing to do with anything pleasant. It violently rips itself out of his chest. That more than anything pertains to a primal fear of pregnancy especially in the male body.
And the process of alien reproduction is more rape than it is anything else.
Yeah, this is a stretch, but an interesting one, at least to me. All odd theories aside, my initial and broadest interpretation is still that the Xenomorph is a synthetic horror of the alien other and the hidden self.
And, for better or worse, I wasn’t thinking much of the sequels. I haven’t seen any is so long, except for those terrible Predator crossovers.
PolarisDiB brings up a really great point that the xenomorph isn’t as perfect as Ash thinks.
@Roscoe
My guess/suggestion was that the xenomorph acquires so many human characteristics that it reveals a potential path that humanity might have gone down and still could, especially with the xenomorph’s interference.
@Ben
I’m not sure why you think I associated the xenomorph with pleasure. Could you please explain?
@Francisco J. Torres
Yeah, I know. I’ve got to stop that. Any suggestions?
“Oh, and Polaris, Alien 3 is underrated, Resurrection is terrible.”
Vice-versa.
—DiB
“That more than anything pertains to a primal fear of pregnancy especially in the male body.” and a fear of gender role reversals.
It’s a parasite/host relationship that has no real benefits for the host. However, I think that there’s a dark fantasy running through the Alien mythos that the discovery of this superior life-form is as close as mankind will get to the fulfillment of meeting God. I guess in some way that could relate to 2001, though I think the intentions of the Star Child are vague at best…but anyway, that would certainly relate to Clarke’s themes that God is still lies ahead of us rather than dead and gone. We had it all wrong.
I hadn’t associated your view with the the alien being pleasant, I was merely espousing my own view.
I can’t recall the name of the theory at this time Mr. Simington but there is a theory out there pertaining to the idea that any sort of of higher alien intelligence would be indistinguishable from God. The star child is a new step in man’s evolution……….the polar opposite of the apes we see in “The Dawn of Man” sequence.
Cliff notes version-
2001=High modernism.
Humanism-Man as crown of creation, Tiumph of reason. Evolution. Hal 9000.
Alien=Post modern.
Post Humanism-Man as dog food. The end of rationalism. Devolution. Ash.
@FRANCISCO J. TORRES
I’ve always thought of (high) modernism as post-humanism and indeed a reaction against reason, technology, evolutionary theory, etc. 2001 is not an evolutionary film in the Darwinian sense – it’s Nietzschean and though Nietzsche talked of some stages of humankind, it has nothing do with evolution nor the triumph of reason. That’s such a misinterpretation of 2001 to make it this cold, intellectual affirmation of technology and rationality, because that is everything it isn’t. Post-humanism is a Nietzschean and post-structuralist phenomenon, something in the heart of modernism – post-modernism on the other hand is NOT post-human. Also, Alien sure is postmodern but not in the way you describe it, i don’t like your definition. Postmodernity is the circulation of lost meaning and symbols, the everlasting reproduction of images and as such the absolute victory of rationalism, of technological reason. Baudrillard has the best definition in my opinion: the triumph of objects over subjects. What you’re describing: the end of rationalism, devolution, end of humanism – that is excactly the modernism of Nietzsche AND of 2001.
To me, Alien is much more rational and humanistic than 2001. While Alien elaborates on the theme of anxiety, fear of the unknown, 2001 unconditionally affirms the unknown, it sort of longs for the destruction of humanity and human reason. It is purely romantic, trying to create a sense of the sublime. Alien somehow manages to be more than that just horror thanks to a certain kind of mysticism not unlike that of 2001. But it doesn’t embrace nothingness and non-meaning unconditionally, doesn’t affirm the collapse of reason and of man and of Kantian categories. That’s why it’s not modernism, modernism always embraces decadence (part from maybe the classicist modernism of T.S. Eliot) – but Alien sure isn’t classicist. It’s just postmodern, but not in the sense you explain it.
Is there anything to this?
imo, no. But I agree with HoL on the HAL/Ash connection—two machines that turn murderous to fulfill their mission.. And both of them have such great death scenes!
Michael Convery
I’ve just watched Alien for the first time in ten years, and now I understand why it’s considered a great film. Like much of Scott’s work, the film has such a density of detail that one could pick at it for hours and come up with many interpretations that weren’t intended.
Anyway, when I was watching it a friend of mine said, “It’s like a less pretentious 2001.” And, as that was in the back of my mind, the scene where Dallas is listening to Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” cemented a biased connection. For me, classical music in space = 2001.
So, when I heard this dialogue it made me wonder if the film is presenting a revision of the Star Child:
Ash: You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor… unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
As the alien bursts out of Kane’s chest it could be revealing humanity’s evolutionary potential, but instead of a god-like being, evolution might lead to a perfect procreator.
Is there anything to this?