March 7, 2026

2 thoughts on “Alien (1979) – The Deeper Meaning You Missed

  1. A fascinating critique. Never let yourself be seduced by a movie. It’s not just entertainment.

    Slightly off topic: the Don recently announced that the USA intended to mine the moon. If I remember correctly doesn’t the moon break up in H G Wells’s “The Time Machine” due to mining? Or was that another movie?

    I suppose that since the moon isn’t particularly large then heavy and extensive mining could result in changing the mass of the moon to the point where it could alter its orbit. And that wouldn’t be a good idea.

    It’s strange that the Antarctic is a protected region but the moon seems to be up for grabs.

  2. One thing people miss about this film, and the Alien series alike (and one could further extend this to media more generally), is not just how the films relate to the real world and the human experience through abstract comparison of ideas on morality, philosophy and human possibility acted out as representations; as if the film is its own hypothetical world that happens to, intentionally or otherwise, resemble and critique our world without having to answer to the reverse happening, but also how the films make literal and physical representations of our world through the hypothetical lens of it’s world and what truths lie within that. After all it is just a film, and our world carries on whilst that world ends when the tape stops playing. So then what can we learn about our world from Alien? What truths of our world are represented physically in Alien? And what are we left with after detaching any emotional investments we have to the Alien story?
    noun: alien; plural noun: aliens
    1.
    a foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where he or she is living.
    “an enemy alien”
    adjective: alien
    1.
    belonging to a foreign country.
    “an alien culture”
    What colour is the XENO-morph? What does this colour represent given the previous information? What does the slimy, elongated and penetrating head of the Xenomorph represent? What do these aspects represent when we introduce Ripley? Who does Ripley represent? It goes without saying that there are many more questions to be asked, especially when we follow the events of all the films.

Comments are closed.