Episode 198: "Alien" (1979) with Chelsea and Jesse from @heartgodmedia

All month long @ready2retro will be highlighting films from the "Alien" franchise. 

First up is the one that started it all! Chelsea, Jesse from @heartgodmedia and Max discuss the brilliance that is Ridley Scott's "Alien" (1979). 

In this episode R2R dives into what makes this movie not just a top tier horror or sci-fi film, but one of THE greatest films of all time!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to episode one ninety eight of the
Ready to Retro podcast. It is a brand new month
and we'll talk about it a little bit later, but
it is officially October. So I have two of the
most spookiest people that I know, honestly for real spiruls. First,

(00:43):
returning back to back episodes. Wow, is Chelsea the Duchess
of horror?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know I'm turning around here, I'm coming back.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
And you'll be gone once we get into Nick November.
It's okay, probably probably your contract only says we'll work
for two months.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's gotta be spooky, and time limit is two months.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So welcome back. Also joining us again.
He was here last month to talk the Haunted Mask,
but he's here to talk we're talking Alien. It's Jesse
from Heart God Media. They present cit and Sound podcasts.
I said that differently, but you know, it's the same thing.

(01:28):
I like.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
It's the best it sounded. Hello, folks, I'm happy to
be here.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
So to our listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Literally five minutes ago, seven minutes ago I posted, well,
I posted about a half an hour ago, Hey.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
We're doing this Alien month.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
It's gonna be awesome and Jesse texts me, yo, if
you need somebody, and I'm like, we're recording in five minutes,
ha ha, and he goes down. So that's the kind
of dedication that Jesse has. He is like the third
wing of this podcast. He's more dedicated than Chris for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
That is dedication.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
I'm always ready for the hot tag Always, dude, always,
You're like Spike Dudley.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
It's not even your tag team.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
I'll take you.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
You'll take the bumps and you'll go through like five
tables just because you're that dude.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
We do have the same color hair, so that's true.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
So it is a brand new month. It is October.
This is our fifth October here. I'm ready to retro
the first year in twenty twenty we called it a
very eighties vampire October. Then in twenty twenty one we
had thirtieth anniversaries of Are You Afraid of the Dark

(02:39):
and Erie Indiana, which both shows are fantastic. Then in
twenty twenty two we had Witch Please, and we talked
to nineties witch movies. Last year we talked about classic
fifties sci fi movies that were remade in the eighties.
This year, this is Alien month. We're talking alien, not
like et or whatever. We're talking about the Ridley Scott aliens.

(03:03):
So super excited for this. Jesse's excited for this, Chelsea's
excited for this.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
We're all pumped. We're all pumped.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
All right.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Well, first, before we get into that, I gotta ask
you too, because I know you have plans. Let's start
with Jesse. Jesse, what are your plans for October? How
are you celebrating this spooky season?

Speaker 4 (03:22):
So for the spooky season, I am celebrating by I'm
going to try to get out to the local haunted
theme park that we have. It's about a half hour
forty minutes north of US in a very small town,
and it's called Frightmare Farms, and they have it's on
this huge acreage of land and there's like four or

(03:44):
five haunted attractions. They put a lot of work into it.
All the actors buy in big time. They have a
great hay ride. This. When I say like acres, I
mean truly like sky like aerial. If you did an
air of it, it would look like the like the
Dawn of the Dead scene when they're flying over and

(04:05):
they just see the the hills of suburban outskirts of
Pittsburgh or you know, yeah, it's it's it's awesome. They
put so much work into it. I didn't go last year.
I'm excited to do that. I'm gonna try to go
down to Sleepy Hollow. It's about four hours south and
they do like you know, yeah, they do like the reenactment,
uh in October and stuff. And I've been there too,

(04:27):
but it was all like Cherry Valley. I've been there too,
but not in October when they're yeah, when they're not
when they're doing the celebrating and stuff. So yeah, they
did like a big ceremonial like headless Horseman ride in
the other day. I think it was Saturday, so it
was it was really cool. I'd like to do that.
And uh, other than that, going to see Terrifire three

(04:50):
when it comes out next week, and then just watching
a boatload of movies that are just the seasonal the
seasonal necessities the you throw on in October.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
I will say that when I was at Sleepy Hollow,
I was like, man, they're really missing like an all
year type thing. It just really is just in October.
We went to the cemetery, which was kind of spooky,
but I'm like they should have at least like a
souvenir store. It's a really small town, like really small town.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, it's like Salem Light, Like Salem knows that obviously
it's Christmas time in October for them, but like even
in like September, like it starts ramping up in Salem.
And to be in Salem last October, it's literally like
Marty Graft times eight. Geez for Halloween folks. You know.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Wow, all right, what about you, Chelse? What plans do
you have for October?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
I've got like three main things that I've got tickets
for already.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
First up is this Friday, I'm going to Delusion for
the third time. This might be the last Delusion they do.
I listened to a whole the podcasts Oh Crap with
the creator and he on the Boo Crew podcast, and
he was talking about how this might be it because
I think he wants to do a movie or something,
cause he's like a Hollywood stunt man, I guess, or
did stuff for stunts and stuff. Anyway, I'm doing that

(06:15):
this Friday. It's moved locations. It's at a place called
the Stimson House and you would know the Stimson House
because it was in house to the second story and
Casper meets Wendy, right, So they've used it in those movies.
Shout out to Hillary Duff. So I'm excited because it's

(06:36):
going to be a totally different kind of situation from
last year where they used the Phillips Mansion out Pomona.
I'll talk a little bit a little bit more about
Delusion because I love it so much. But basically, it's
like a it's not really a traditional haunt Maize or
you know, hount House or whatever. It's like a horror
play that you're you get to be a part of

(06:57):
and you walk through you know some of and in
building that they've put this uh story in, and you
become like a character and you go through. It's really cool.
It's not like they're not there to like scare you.
They're there to kind of creep you out basically, and
you're in this horror play, which is a truly awesome experience.
It's my favorite. Then I've got tickets to Not Scary Farm,

(07:21):
Gonna do fay. Oh yeah, I gotta go every year. Okay,
if you want to go, I'll go again.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I'll talk after but I gotta I gotta go.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I gotta go every year, and then I've got tickets
to they. I think it was like a promotional thing,
but they're still running it for this month for Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice they have like a company called Fever They're putting
they have this thing. It's like the Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience.
It's probably like, Yeah, they've got like characters walking around

(07:54):
talking and it's like you can take pictures and you
there's food themed food and stuff. And so we got tickets.
Me and my friends got tickets to that to kind
of check that out. And I think that's oh I've
got I'm gonna go see Brida Frankenstein at the New
BEV down down at Tarantino's Theater, and then I'm gonna
see some other horror movie that I've never heard of

(08:16):
with my friend Justin. I think it's like Mario Bava
film and I can't remember what it is, but we're
gonna go see that. And so yeah, that that kind
of rounds it out for the month. All Right, A
lot going on.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Well, this weekend, I will be at La Comic Con
through our Buddy Zach from Podcasting after Dark and two
dollars late fee.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
I'll be on two panels.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
So the first one is a tack of the Killer
Tomatoes panel and another one is eighties kids talking about
nineteen eighty two, which is funny because I'm not a naighties.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Kid note born yet.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
No no, no.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
No, But hey, I get an invitation to be on panels,
I'm gonna say yes, And I wish it was gonna
you should They're still tell me. And then I'm going
on vacation. So my wife and I are notoriously really
bad at planning vacations. We always do like literally weeks

(09:14):
up to it, and this year's the same. So we've
had the dates for about a month and we've trying
to say, like, what is that perfect vacation?

Speaker 3 (09:23):
So what we're probably gonna do.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
It sounds a little crazy, but Amtrak, the rail road
tycoon whatever.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
They have that they have this thing.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's five hundred dollars for ten trips. So we are
looking at nine cities, fourteen days, going from LA to Boston,
flying back home in Boston. So we'll be stopping in Albuquerque,
We'll be stopping in Chicago, Billy, Cleveland, New York, DC,

(10:00):
New Haven, Boston, Jesse. Maybe we can meet up who knows.
So I I'll probably be on a train for most
of October. So that's that's.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
How are you staying in hotels or is it like
a sleeper car hotels?

Speaker 3 (10:19):
It's coach.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
That is, you're crazy. It sounds fun, but like.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Hey, if you go to New Haven, I'll meet you
there and we'll get Sally's pizza.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah you down?

Speaker 4 (10:31):
Oh yeah, okay, it's only like a four hour drive.
It's not bad.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Okay, we'll talk offline.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I'm super down, so uh yeah, we'll see, we'll see.
That's that's the plan right now. So five hundred dollars
not sponsored by Amtrak. But hey, yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Well I was thinking of like ticket to ride. Do
you know ticket to ride?

Speaker 4 (10:52):
When you said tycoon, I didn't know where you were going.
I was like, wait, it's like roller coaster? Is he
talking to like VR? Sim shit?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Like, So, I don't know how many spooky stuff I'll do, Jesse,
you'll appreciate this. I will be in Philly on the
i think opening night of the NBA. So there are
pretty reasonable tickets for the Sixers and Bucks on opening
night and oh nice, so I might do that. Gotta

(11:20):
see a Broadway play, definitely, because when I was in
New York in twenty twenty one, they were still shut
down from COVID. And I'm trying to convince Jasmine to
do a ghost Town spooky, not haunt, but like ghost
Town tour and Albuquerque.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
But we'll see.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
All right, Well, we're gonna take a break and when
we come back, we're gonna talk about Ridley Scott's Alien
from nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
Don't go anywhere, all.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right, We are back here on I'm ready to retro.
It is October. It is a brand new theme and
as a brand new month, we are talking about Alien.
And I want to start with Chelsea. Chelsea, is your
history with the Alien franchise? When did you first watch it?
How involved are you in this franchise because it goes

(12:19):
from video games, comic books, all that good stuff.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
So where's your love for Alien?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
My love for Alien? I think I probably saw Aliens first.
That's probably my first entry into this franchise, and then
decided to, you know, start at the beginning. Probably I'm
guessing high school. I think that anything Alien related to
this day kind of still scares me like other types

(12:46):
of Alien. Not really, I mean, this is scary, but
I'm not, like, you know, I can't. I love watching it.
But I think probably when I was young or even
junior high, I don't think this. I think I was
a little too nervous quite yet to watch it, but
I probably checked it out in high stool and really
enjoyed it and wanted to keep seeing where this was
gonna go. And just recently because of Romulus coming out,

(13:12):
I did like a rewatch of like a bunch of them.
I watched Alien, I watched Aliens. I had never seen
like all of Alien versus Predator, and then we kind
of watched everything up to chronologically to Romulus because then
we went and saw Romulus. So yeah, you know Prometheus
and all that stuff. So but yeah, but the main

(13:32):
the main Alien, the first one is probably I don't know,
maybe my second favorite, first favorite. It's tough to say,
but of all time for the franchise, but it's but
I would say Alien and Aliens are some of my favorite, Yeah,
some of my favorite movies that I've seen like multiple times,
but probably yeah, But it probably started like it was

(13:54):
high school or whatever. But yeah, and ever since enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Well, Jesse, I'm sure this is a big movie since
you literally joined it with a five minute heads up.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
So tell us. What's your history with Alien franchise?

Speaker 4 (14:08):
Yeah, the whole franchise is near and deer to my uh,
to my heart and soul. Because I think my introduction
was probably Alien three. I remember going into our the
namesake of the podcast, Sit and Sound was a video
store where I grew up in a little Italian town

(14:30):
called Canistota, about twenty minutes outside of Italium. It's Cada Canistoda.
That sounds more like it's a it's an indy. It's
all like Native American territory. Oh, I like I picture
like me and a soora. Yeah, but yeah, the namesake
of the podcast was and is Sit and Sound Sight

(14:52):
and Sound Video, which is now was then turned into
Sally's Uh, Sandy's Sandy's Flower Shop and now it's nothing,
I don't think, But anyway, I remember going in there
seeing the big Alien three poster, which is iconic and
burned in my brain forever. It's the alien, it's the
xenomorph in Sigourney's face, like that close to her the big,

(15:16):
huge poster on there, and all the VHS's came out
in December of ninety two. Alien and Aliens did not
get released on mvhs until right around the time Alien
three came out. They all came out like within a
week of each other on VHS for public wide consumption,
because those are older movies too, and the VHS bang

(15:38):
started happening in the late eighties early nineties for whatever reason.
I'm not sure if they saw an initial releases mvhs
before that, but if you look it up, which I
didn't know, I just thought Alien three came out at
that time, but I had recently been talking about it
with a friend that all three of them came out
on VHS widely at the same time. But yeah, Alien

(16:00):
three was probably my introduction. But I saw all of
them right around the same time. And I want to say,
if they came out in December ninety two, I want
to say, it was like I was five to six. Now,
I wasn't paying attention, like I wasn't like grasping the
concept of the Alien movies at five or six, But
I remember vividly the pizza shop Dominis across the street,

(16:24):
going there, seeing the poster, and I remember the Alien
watching one of the Alien. I couldn't tell you which one,
but I remember it being like a thing because Alien
three had just came out and everyone was freaking out
about it.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, it's interesting, we're all like mostly nineties kids in
uh yeah talking about all this.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
I do remember my mom had a lot of VHS
episodes of X Files and I would watch them kind
of like a little bit later on, and on every
pretty much every videotape they had a trailer for Aliens Resurrection,
So that would just every time you'd watch an episode
that came on right before, because I think probably the

(17:04):
synergy of that being Alien and that movie has just
come out when these these videotapes for X Files are
coming out. So I do remember that as a kid
like this, this trailer for this I you know, trailer
would pop on every time for me.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
I have watched every single movie at least once. I
have seen Alien and Aliens multiple times, so the other
movies I've only seen once. I think I've seen Prometheus
like two or three times, but other than that, I've
only seen the movie like once. I personally love Alien.
This is like, you know, it's great. I'm not like

(17:41):
a hardcore fan, I would say, but I have enjoyed
I've probably seen it about seven times.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
I own it on.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
DVD, of course, but yeah, I think I watched it
probably the same time as Chells, like middle school, early
high school. Around that time. That's when I was really
like watching a lot of movie and that's when YouTube
was streaming movies still before it, you know, had all
the restrictions. So I was just like I went through

(18:08):
this like huge phase around that time and just watching
like horror movies. So of course I had to watch
this one. So yeah, this movie's awesome. I love it.
I love watching the ones that have come out. I'll
watch it in theaters and stuff. So yeah, So let's
ask you, Jesse, if you were to give the plot,

(18:30):
how would you describe the plot of Alien? In the
words of Jesse, A ragtag group on a ship are
traveling back We're in a distant future, and they receive
a signal from a far off place and it draws

(18:54):
them into I guess discover what this is, be it
a war or an SOS call, And they land on
this plane and it is a it's it's an atmospheric
journey of a team that gets infiltrated by a creature

(19:20):
that you do not see most of the film. This
is strategic filmmaking at its best, and you quickly see.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
The fear is not seeing it. Seeing it is obviously fearful,
but not seeing it is like what makes the movie drive.
And the plot is just them. I mean, it's a
classic horror movie tale. They're getting picked off like in
a slasher film. There's so many slasher elements to it,

(19:55):
so it is kind of a weird avenue of a
slasher film, but in a very sci fi, smart, slow
brooding way of this group of what are they technically?
They're like they're part part astronautla part space explorers, part

(20:20):
like colonial like or not colonial, but like you know,
they're bringing over some material, like they're militaristic avenue there.
But they're every Like you look at the team, they're
every men and women types, you know what I mean.
They're not they have that quality of them and it
is a classic slasher plot, honestly, and I think I

(20:44):
love I love that about it because I think it
gets some people who try to infiltrate this beloved genre
and try to make it super highbrow, and they try
to make it seem like it's super highbrow. It's not.
It's just the setting that makes it's a simple slasher
horror movie plot like distant call from some unknown craft

(21:11):
land infiltrated by alien alien picks them apart. I mean,
it's it's it's a classic simple That's what's so great
about it is it's it's simplicity. Yeah, And I think
that's that's why this is why this movie has the
legs that it has, and why they're still making more

(21:31):
because they're still as great as Aliens is, and Aliens
is mostly everyone's favorite and it's the fan favorite, but
they're still trying to recreate that simplistic, small cast, easy plot.
Romulus has just tried to do it. And I'm not
saying that they failed, but everyone's trying to recapture the
glory of this first film because it is such a
simple plot.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, simple plot, but I would argue it's very complex.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
On the set, it's yes, it's yeah, it's everything else
is intricate, but the it's it's a gotta through. It's
a it's a straight line to what the what's happening.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
I would love to see actually how many lines of
dialogue there are, because there's got to be a very few.
Most of the movie is that suspense. A lot of
it is not in music. It's actually just sound effects
or like I was listening in this viewing. I watched
it with headphones and you could just hear the hum

(22:28):
of the ship the entire movie, and I just think
that that's incredible. So, yeah, that's the plot. All right, Well,
it's everyone's favorite segment. It is Chelsea's cool cast, Chelsea's
cool cast.

Speaker 4 (22:45):
Cast.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
So in alien, I want to stay Sigourney we were First,
it wants to say, you know, Tom Scarett, but I
mean that's the this is talk about Chelsea's cool cast.
And second, but you think Tom scare you know, he's
the man, he's the captain, he's you know, he's the leader,
he's the main character. No, it's Sigourney Weaver as who

(23:09):
plays the warrant officer. And then you have Tom Skarett,
he plays Dallas, he's the captain of this Dromo. John
Hurt plays Caine, he's the executive officer. Then you have
Veronica Cartwright who plays Lambert. She is the navigator. You
have Yaffett Codo. He's Parker, he's the chief engineer. Harry

(23:35):
Dean Stanton plays Brett, he's the engineering technician. Ian Holme
is Ash he's the ship's science officer and android spoiler alert.
And you have blie Bli Badello.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
I think it's Bilagie Bedeo Bolagie Bedeo.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
He is in the alien suit. He's the alien. And
Helen Horton is the voice of Mother the Nostromo's computer.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Small cast, small cast love it. And Eddie Powell, who's
it was credited uncredited as the alien.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yep, so that's.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
It, And of course Jones the Cat.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Jones the Cat, of course, fantastic cast, very iconic cast
at this point. At the time, they're pretty much unknowns.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
At this point, there's.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, Sigourney, this is Sigourney's breakout role for surely.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, and break out and butt crack, all of it.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
You know, she's a tall woman.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's very I did that was I was gonna tall woman.
I didn't know she was six feet six feet.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
We were looking when I was watching it a couple
of weeks ago. I was like, how tall is she in? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Six feet yeah, what's that is a lot of these
actors are no longer with us.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Stanton, Veronica Cartwright still is. She just did. She's been
doing cons out here. She's one of the ones I
went to last year. She's still very active, which is nice.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah three three still you'll.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Fit passed in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, Stanton's.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Harry Scirt, Yeah, scared scared, no scared still live.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
We were still live.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
And Cartwright Harry Dean was.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, great stuff. All right, Well, I have a surprise
for you guys. It's Facts with Max. This is a
segment that we do here. So I made a special
song right before we record. You want to hear it?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Absolutely, Okay, this is Facts with Max. Facts with Max.
This is the part of the show where Max gives
you interesting information about the movie or TV show or
album or whatever.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
We're talking about.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
So that further, dude, take it away, Max, Take it
away Max and give us some Facts with Max.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Yeah, you guys think.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
That was beautiful, beautifully breathy like a Celine Dion.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah that how it takes was that one.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
You can't rush profession, Chelsea.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
So what I what I think I might do is
I might do maybe a different take, but I gotta
ask m K.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Conda do a little something behind it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, you don't need an.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Auto tune with it. Yeah, I recorded that.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
Listen to Chelsea's cool cast Bring.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah. Maybe maybe this is gonna be everybody's new favorite.
I think Chelsea's You know what's really great about that?

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Uh Facts with Max. It's really singable. You know you
could fuck you.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Should have called it Facts with the Ghost of Chris.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's just as good as uh eighties Vampire.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
A very eighties, very eighties, very vampire October, awesome October whatever.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
I make you fun every time I see that.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
When you repost it in October, you're like, well, a
couple octobers ago, we did a very eighties Vampire October.
Like I always pops me. I was like, oh, this
is why I'm friends with this fighter.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Oh, that's the only reason for your own amusement. All right,
So here's some facts. Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
So this movie came out June twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
so it was a summer flick. The budget was about
eleven million dollars. It started off at four million dollars.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
And we'll talk.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
About that it grossed worldwide one hundred and eight point
five million dollars, so this was a big success. But
according to Fox who made it, twenty Century Fox, they
said no, it was more than that. So anyways, so

(28:13):
of course the director is Ridley Scott. So I don't
know if you guys know this, but Ridley Scott was
not the first director that was asked to do this.
He was like fourth or fifth.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
At this time. Ridley Scott was not Ridley Scott who
we know and love and you know, appreciate.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
So basically the story was written by two people, Dan
O'Bannon and Ronald shuts It, and they did this story,
but then Dan O'Bannon did the screenplay. Basically you can
look into it, but it went through a lot of
changes and developments, and then Ridley Scott came in.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Are you guys familiar with Hans Rudy Geiger or h R.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Geiger as he is also known as, Yeah, of course, yeah,
of course. So he is the guy who really shaped
what this movie looks like. He's got an awesome just
art and a lot of his art that was like
in the seventies. Basically they were like Xeno morphs, they're
very like kind of weird and grotesque, but also weirdly

(29:29):
like sexual, which is kind of you know, alien. The
movie so a lot of a lot of interesting things.
I'll keep it short, but basically, did you guys know
that Meryl Streep was considered to be ripley?

Speaker 4 (29:42):
I heard that, but I didn't know if it was
legit or not.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, so apparently they chose Sigourney Weaver.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
They made the right choice. They made the right choice.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yeah, I couldn't.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
I couldnot see Meryl Streep and not that that's not
even you know, obviously not a dig against Meryl Streep
at all, but Sigourney is is the template for a
badass woman to this day. Yeah, oh yeah, her and
Linda Hamilton absolutely are the queens of the badass woman. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
We don't really have that anymore, no, and that's a problem.
What was so unique about this filming process is Ridley
Scott built the entire ship and he made it like
four walls. So usually when set designs are created, there's

(30:35):
three walls, so that they could have you know, the
cameras and the crew and stuff. But a lot of
what Ridley Scott was doing was handheld cameras like we
kind of do with our phones now kind of. He
wasn't the first person to do it, but it's just interesting,
like he definitely had his own hand upon this movie

(30:56):
and he wanted the crew, he wanted the shots to
all just feel this costrophobic environment, which I think he
did really well. Fun fact is I home who plays Ash.
He had to gargle milk to spit up the like

(31:17):
liquid goose stuff that when Ash gets exposed as the
robot Andrew. Apparently he didn't like milk, so that was
a real problem. He did not like milk, and I
guess like some of the like wires and stuff were
spaghetti and noodles things like that. We mentioned him, but
Bolagie Badeo. The way that he was discovered was he's

(31:42):
actually a graphic designer, but he was working at a
cafe and some of the producers were at this cafe
and was like, hey, you're six six You're really tall
and lengthy. You should be in this alien suit. So
he had to wear this alien suit. It was really hot.
He could barely breathe and there was a problem. I
don't know if this was union or what. I don't

(32:02):
even know. If that was a thing back then, to
be honest, but he couldn't sit down being in the suit.
So what they had to do was create this like
chair for him, kind of like those you know those
chairs were like baby sit.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
In and they kind of bounce up and down.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
He had to sit in that thing like a spring
chair so that his feet could be off the ground
and he could still be in the suit because it
was too hard for him to be in the suit
walking around. So we had this, you know, six foot
six guy in this really cramped space. So it wasn't
a pleasant experience for Bedejo unfortunately. Another thing is Ronica

(32:41):
Cartwright also tried out for the role of Ripley.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
They liked her, but not enough.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
They were just they knew once Sigourney Weaver came in,
they knew that that was Ripley, so they gave Ronica
Cartwright the role of Lambert instead. The other thing is
when Sigourney Weaver came in for auditions, she was thirty
minutes late because she couldn't find the right address and room.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
That she was supposed to go to.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
So story goes is she was like running down the
hall and then she got her composure right before and
then she came into the audition and the producers and
cast directors like heard all of it, and they just thought, like, Hey,
that's that's our Ripley, someone who can take action but

(33:27):
is also calm and collected at the same time.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Anything else that you guys know about this.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
Movie something I did want to add anybody who you mentioned. Obviously,
Dan O'Bannon did the screenplay. Dan O'Bannon, most notably also
known for known pervert, but great screenplay writer did Return
Living Dead as well, wrote wrote that hr Geiger, I

(33:54):
implore everyone to check out any of his hardcover books
that you can find with all of his artwork in it.
Did like Danzig three, how the Gods Kill? Like Max said,
very sexual and grotesque is the two great words you used.
And I think that that that is perfect description of

(34:16):
Geiger's work. And without that, without like his vision for
like what the xenomorph would look like and just kind
of like everything, I'm not sure that it like without that,
the visuals of the film and how the xenomorphs look like.
A xenomorph is like the Misfits logo, now you know

(34:36):
what I mean. It's like the it's it's burned and
everybody's mind.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
And of course the Emerson, Lake and Palmer album cover
as well.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Yep, he yeah, he's done. His artwork is just it's
very distinct. Like when you see a Geiger piece, you
know it's it's Geiger.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
There's a there's a Geiger. I watched it. He died
in twenty fourteen, but they made they did a there's
like a documentary about him that was made towards the
end of his life. And I'm trying to look up
what the name of that was, but it was it
was pretty interesting. Gosh, I wish you could find this
name of this this Geiger.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
I think, I I think, I know.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
It's like showing him at his house and he had
like a train and he would like he he made
a lot of different art projects and stuff where he
would like film certain things, but he always has this
very specific style of art. It's it's really interesting. But yeah,
if if you want to look look up an hr

(35:39):
got your documentary and it's gonna be one where he's
he's older. Watched that one. I can't think what the
name is, but that was really good though.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
I did like that A few quick things also, I
just want to add that I think is important to
this conversation is too one. Without Star Wars, this movie
would not have been made. The reason why I say
that is because, uh, Star Wars came out in nineteen
seventy seven, it was a huge hit, and Fox at
the time didn't have anything to produce or to put

(36:09):
out that was space related besides this, So when they
were shopping the movie, initially the script, Fox was like
in talks and they're like, yeah, whatever, But this was
the only thing that was set in space, and because
of that, they wanted to green light it immediately because
with the success of Star Wars, everybody was doing space

(36:33):
movies or wanted to do space movies. So without Star Wars,
there is no Alien. The other thing is twentieth Century
Fox doubled the budget from four point two million to
eight point four million just because Ridley Scott, when he
first got the movie, he storyboard the entire movie. He
himself wrote out like shot for shot and kind of

(36:55):
what the z zaw So he literally was able to
double that beacause because of his artistic abilities. This movie
was almost made through Roger Corman. They almost sold it
the rights to Roger Corman. Could you imagine that would
have been wild.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Roger who did a Dark Star.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay, and I didn't want to get into that, but yeah,
without Dark Star, also, there would be no alien because
I think it's the same honestly.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
That you could use the screenplay, so yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
You could. You could also throw in Close Encounters of
the third kind. Yeah, like space was like because it
was so unexplored too, like in film Land. And then
I mean it's it goes without saying like all the
success of all these alien like esque movies, they there's

(37:57):
no way that they didn't have the conversation before he
either like, let's do an alien but make it kid friendly, right,
and obviously et another Juggernaut.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Absolutely, and that was a few years after this.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
The other thing was they used a lot of actual
meat products and different kind of seafood things that were
part of the alien. And you can see it when
ashes like flipping through like dissecting it. I guess it
smelled really bad because it had the what was it called,

(38:30):
was this stuff in biology class formaldehyde?

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yes, that's what it's called.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
So it smelled like meat that and just nastiness on set.
So I don't think it was you know, very union friendly.
Let's just say it like that. Also, last fact is
that the famous chest bursting scene, they didn't tell any

(38:57):
of the crew that that was gonna happen, that blood
was gonna be spurted out. Only John Hurt knew, So
they took two different shots because John Hurt was like
supposed to push out the alien from his chest. But
if you look at Cartwright's reaction, that's a real reaction
because you was not expecting a bunch of blood on

(39:21):
her face. So that's it. That's uh, that's facts with Max.
I think we should play the theme song again, Oh
my god? Should we We're gonna take a quick break,
and when we come back, we're gonna share our favorite moments,
scenes and why this movie kicks ass. We'll be right back,

(39:50):
all right, We're back here on ready to retro. I
almost forgot I have the Gorde Tree pumpkin cider that
I want to try and just drink.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
I've had that one. That's good.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
Nice, Well, we're doing a bet bev check. Yeah, I
got a bev right here.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
I got Chepsi diet.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
That's a retro PEPs is it diet? Pepsi diet caffeine
free because it's when it's nine to a on a Wednesday,
you gotta drink caffeine free.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
I've got something random. I have Trader Joe's Organic sparkling
elderberry and pomegranate, apple cider vinegar beverage.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
Oh damn.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
I also have goats and bats potato chips.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
Hmm.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
All right, so we're back here on ready retro.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
I got my pumpkin cnider, I got my crispy potato snacks.
Jesse's got his diet PEPSI. Chelsea's got her pomegranate drink
apple side.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
I want to ask Chelse, Chelsea, what are some sea
or what are things that you like? We usually talk
about like lines, but there's not a lot of lines here,
So yeah, just just talk about.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
This movie, Like what do you like about this movie?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
What do I like? Well, first of all, the set design,
these octagon hallways are iconic. The what is it? The
the readouts, what is that? Doss is it? Doss readouts?
The green you know, computer and stuff that's so iconic,
so much so that they like replicated a lot of

(41:31):
this for Alien Isolation video game. But yeah, I love
the design of the Alien, like we were talking about,
you know, with Geiger, and everything is fantastic. All the
stylistic choices in the film are excellent. The way that
the their suits look, the way the the the eggs

(41:54):
and the you know, just how the alien. It just
everything looks so cool. The acting is Sigourney is fabulous,
as as Ripley, and yeah, it's just it's just so iconic.
Scenes I don't know, I mean it's like the chest

(42:14):
bursting scene. Of course, we were saying just talking about that,
that was excellent. There's so much dread in this movie.
You're just like dread, Like the whole time, You're like
and there's they're getting picked off one by one and
everyone's like, you know, hating on each other and stuff.
I don't know, it's just all good. But I think

(42:35):
when I think of Alien, I think definitely of the
look of the film. Like I was saying, the sets.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
Definitely absolutely, what about for you, Jesse, Like Chelse was
just saying, like, it's so like all the stylistic choices
are what make the film. The settings are what makes
the film. But what really sticks out to me and
not to be you know comparison, is the Thief of Joy.

(43:03):
But uh, because I did like Romulus a lot, but
something I think Romulus like misses the target with that
they were trying to capture of. What the first film
is is a camaraderie that like the crew has, but
also the likability everyone on that ship save for later

(43:28):
era Bilbo is super likable. You do, I do? I
am like you. Yes, I don't want I don't want
any I don't want any of those guys to die.
That's true. Uh, And you just immediately like makes you feel.
And if you explain this movie and you explain the

(43:48):
pacing to somebody, they would be like that sounds kind
of boring, Like you go like thirteen minutes when there's
just like a handful of dialogue lines and then there's
just kind of like them like looking at stuff and
walking around and and if you explained like the beats
in the film, you'd be like that kind of sounds

(44:09):
like a really slow, boring burn of a movie. But
it's it's not at all. They are able to do
so much with so little, with such little dialogue, such
little you go for so long before you see like
something crazy happen.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
An hour an hour you don't see any of the
alien and for an hour.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
But you're never sitting there like when the fuck is
this gonna come? Like, when is something gonna happen? Where's
the alien? You never see? Say that? And for you
to do a movie called Alien and for you to
go an hour and not say like, where's the alien,
that's filmmaking to me totally.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
I think that's what kind of separates this from other
horror movies. And I was just thinking, like it's actually
unique that when we talk about horror icons, rarely does
the Z morph get mentioned.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
No, because it's so tied to sci fi, Like even
like I mean myself and in my group of wild
bandidos known as horror film fans, there's almost like a
separation where like you can't lump it in because it's
such in its own lane, because it is it's a

(45:23):
total horror, like there's no like if sans or butts
about it. But there is like another sci fi factor
to it too that I think puts it into its
own lane, not like better than horror, not worse than horror,
but its own lane. But you never hear anybody talk

(45:43):
about the xenomorph being up there because it can't be
there with a slasher, you know what I mean, you
can't compare like Michael Myers chucking the Xenomorph. You could,
but it's such its own thing, and it's a different
kind of scary, and it's a different kind of stock,
it's a different kind of slasher. There are a hum Yes,
it's a monster movie, but at the same time, like

(46:06):
you couldn't even compare it to like a vampire or
a werewolf, or it's its own monster movie.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
It's tough because it's like you you put alien, I
mean they did Alien versus Preader, but you put it
up next to anything, and it's gonna decimate whatever it's.
It's like in every movie, it's like it's the perfect
you know, species, the perfect creature, and it's like you
put it up next to anything, it's it just decimates it.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
You want to know, And that's kind of par for
the course with anything quote unquote alien, otherworldly. Look at
John Carpenter's the Thing. You put the Thing up against
one hundred other horror movies, it's gonna be really hard
to not say the thing over almost all.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Oh yeah, I wonder if Freddy can be in the
Dreams of the thing.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
That would be interesting. I would love to say a little.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
Like and the Dreams of a Xenomorph would be as
a yeah, it'll be wild.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
What I love about this movie is the myth thos
is the world building.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
It's everything.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
The very first shot, yes, opening shot of the Nostroma,
which is the ship. I mean, it's just setting the vibe.
It's setting this world. I love how it's dark when
they're asleep in the little pods, and then as they
wake up, lights are on obviously right they're using it,
and then by the end of the movie it's dark

(47:29):
and just like flashing lights from the sirens and things
like that. If you notice there's a bunch of signs everywhere,
and that was intentionally made because they were going for
like this industrial revolution kind of futuristic sci fi space thing.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
So there's a lot of myth thoughs. There's a lot of.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Old and lived in for sure, and stuff.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
It's rustic.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
It's not you know, bright futuristic. You know, in the future.
It's this scrungey you know, that's I mean, that's but
that's really scott. I mean, it's always this kind of
sciphe grungy, sci fi, punk, sci Fi His.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
Like idea of it met with like Geiger's influence too.
It's almost like like someone said, rustic, like a rustic, gothic,
steampunky vibe through the whole film.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
It's so unique.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
I mean you look at like sets, and of course
some of the greatest sets will like Wizard of Oz, right,
but like you could put Alien as one of the
greatest sets because it was it's tangible, Like like I mentioned,
it was on set, it was enclosed and everything was

(48:47):
has had so much detail, and that's I think what
makes not just a horror movie good, but it makes
any movie good when you put that much detail into it.
I think of like Lowder of the Rings, where they
were putting little details on things that would never show
up on camera, but only the actors would see it.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I guess now on four K you can see a
little bit more. But it's those little details and things
that just make a movie so much better and you
appreciate just the actual art. Like that's when I see
things like that. Whenever I go to like different museums
and I see costumes for movies and things like that,
it makes me realize, no, this is art, and I

(49:28):
think Alien is a very artistic movie.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
It's the cornerstone of in genre film, which is so
funny because it's a blockbuster. Yeah, totally, and it's a
sci fi film, but it is a genre film. But
it is so well done that it escapes being a
genre film while still being a genre film.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
I have a question for Chelsea. So, one of the
really cool things about the Xenil morph the Alien is
that when it's blood is on a surface, it's acidic.
So I gotta ask you. When I was watching this,
I never really thought of this. At the very end,
when Ripley shoots the alien and the aliens outside of

(50:16):
the escape pod, he gets pierced, right, how come his
blood doesn't hit the ship and the ship starts to Cinnegre.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Well, my thought would be the door he gets hit
with that, But the door is open right to space.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Well, usually if something was to like pop in space,
it wouldn't like necessarily.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
There's no gravity, it wouldn't pull it.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Push it out. It Probably there's I don't know. I'm
not I'm not an astronaut, I'm not a scientist, but
all I know is that in space there's not well,
no one can hear you scream, But in space nothing
there wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
It would have no gravity, hold it, hold.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
It in instead of like in Star Wars that the
death Star would not look like that explosion would not
happen obviously, But that's my thought, is that it didn't,
you know, because of space. That's my thought because.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I was thinking about I never thought of that.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
I was like, because he comes and hits, it looks
like the ship again, and like the acid should be
if it touches the ship, then the ship should be
damaged from that.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Maybe I'm looking too much into it.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
I don't know, but I can see you can see
what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
Isn't it just the thought though of in our minds,
especially us? There were nineties kids like we're all I
was born eighty eight. You guys are born what ninety eight?

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Well, Chelsea was born in eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
I was born last.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
Oh that's right. You made it, but for a few hours.
But it's like things that like the blood being acid,
Like if you said something like that, if you were
trying to like write a movie today and the three
of us are sitting in a room and like, ah, yeah,

(52:10):
we're trying to create a creature and we're like, oh yeah,
the blood's acid. They're like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
Like but that was like formulated on this movie. Like
it's something that like you know what I mean, Like
it's something that would simply work in a movie today.
And it started like with this, Like it's this. This

(52:31):
movie kick started so many ideas and got the wheels
spinning for so many filmmakers. And it's influenced horror more
than anything. Yeah, Like there's like that brooding like setting
and stuff like that and small cast, little dialogue, high suspense.

(52:52):
I feel like a lot of horror movies haven't been
able to capture it as well as this one happens.
But it's because it's brilliant filmmaking. And it's it's why
this movie's forty five years old and we're still talking
about it, like when we're just blown away by it.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
What do you think of the choice of the way
that the alien comes into their life is through uh,
you know, being inseminated, you know, like that's that was
a choice. Like I wonder, you know, like how did
he even you know, decide that we're gonna have that,

(53:31):
We're gonna have the alien burst out of people's chest
from being you know, Inmated.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Well really Scott never referred to as face huggers. That
was like kind of.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
It picked up like culturally, it got call it got coin, called.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
It something like a he called it a penis, the
face hugger penis, okay, because it.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Goes down its throat. Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, it's
like very sexual. I mean it is.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I mean the hr Geiger stuff is sexual. The face
hugger that's I mean, it's all very much that's there,
and it carries through through the franchise really, you know,
and I feel like it even ramps up in like
these later films, especially Romulus, Yeah, and extremely much so

(54:25):
in Prometheus, where she's you know, having to give herself
a C section, right. So, I don't know, it's an interesting.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Choice everything about how this was made, like I said,
set it's set a standard that people forty five years
later are still trying to meet that standard, and most
fall significantly short. And even those movies that fall significantly
short trying to take from this are still great films.

(54:57):
But if I can say that those are great films
and they all significantly short, that should explain where we
all put alien in the pantheonic film, right, And.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
I would say that it's incredible that a suit could
still hold up forty five years later, because it could
look really hokey. There's one scene where it hasn't aged
that well, but I think it you could pass it
off when it's at the very end, when the when
the xenomorpho is like dying and the like tongue thing

(55:27):
is like slowly coming out. It looks a little jerky,
but I think you could pass it off and say, well,
the thing's dying, So.

Speaker 4 (55:35):
For forty five years later, if we're struggling to nitpick,
that's a great sign.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
And I love oh my god, I love that shot
where it's just like his mouth and that liquid, Like
there's just little things where it's like how did they
think of that?

Speaker 3 (55:49):
How do they think of like.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
And they're transparent the transparent teeth too.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Always like that is like some of the creepiest ship
because it immediately makes me think of like how weird
and how alien a jellyfish is.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
Oh yeah, jellyfish, you know.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
What I mean, Like think about how crazy a jellyfish is,
and we're.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Just like there's nothing like jellyfish, Like it's.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
It's literally a goddamn alien that we found.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
Well, what's crazy is we know more about the space
than we do our own motion. Yeah, that's wild.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
A lot of it will never probably explored.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
In the ocean, you can only implode in a little and.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
You have amount of money to die like that. Totally
going to go off on like a slight tangent, but
it is alien related. This movie was so popular and
did so well still six round test the time that
when Michael Eisner, who is the head of the Disney
Company back in the nineties, was like, what can we

(56:54):
what can we how can we bring the teens and
adults to the park, what can we do? He want
it so badly to use Alien in a way in
the parks in like, you know, as an attraction. And
he did do that with this thing called Alien Counter
But and that was in the Nice But they also

(57:15):
on The Great Movie Ride had a great little scene
of Alien that you kind of drove through with Ripley
and they had a couple, I mean, they had amatronic aliens.
I thought that was so cool. I did get I
went on that probably when I was a kid before
I watched the movie. So it terrified me, and I
think that's partly why I didn't want to watch the
movie quite yet. But they had the alien coming out

(57:37):
at you, you know, from the side, and there was
one over here when you drove by it, and that
always like fascinated me as a kid seeing that at
a Disney park. Michael Eisner could even see how popular
how exciting this was to people that he was like, yeah,
I need this to bring in the teen crowd, the
older crowd to the parks. And I always thought that

(57:59):
was interesting.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
So, and what's crazy is just the the name alien, right,
Like you say alien and you think of xenomorphs, like
it has so much powers, that same power that you know,
the CEO of Disney wants on his theme parks right
when you when you type in alien, it is a noun.

(58:22):
It could also be kind of an adjective. This movie
comes up, Like there's few movies like that that when
you think of alien, I probably think of a xenomorph
rather than like, you know, the typical green Martian thing.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Yes, it's the what what kleenexas the tissues? Alien is too?

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah, absolutely, I would say that too.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, all right, any other scenes or anything else we
want to mention before we do final thoughts and rating.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
I always like to bring it sorry, totally bring it
back to another thing. So in Buena Park there was
a place called movieland Wax Museum and it was it's
basically was a wax museum, but each it was better
where like each thing was like its own like scene,
like instead of just people standing randomly. Well, when Alien
got really popular and they built these three sets that

(59:15):
built an Alien set they built I can't remember what
the other one was, but it stuck around for a
long time. And then they built a set for a
movie called Altered States with William Hurt. I think that
was in that one, right, and so anyway, but you
would walk through it, and my mom said she walked through.
It wasn't around when I was a kid or anything,
but you basically you would walk through the Alien the

(59:38):
nostroma hallways, those octagon hallways, and they would have guys
with like an alien the alien type hand, you know,
coming at you and like scaring the crap out of you.
So I thought that was fun. But yeah, and then
I think you would walk through the Altered States. I
forget what that one was like, but my mom said
she was terrified. But I thought, even back then, again,
this has gotta be this probab was in the eighties.

(01:00:01):
I think this wasn't even in the nineties yet it
was doing so well that they're making these walkthroughs even
back then to freak people out. It was just it
just proves it's how strong it is, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Yeah, everybody likes to get scared. Everybody wants to be
scared and afraid. That's why we love it. All right,
we're gonna take our final break, and when we come back,
we're gonna give our final thoughts and we will rate Alien.
So we'll be right back. All right, we're back here

(01:00:44):
on Ready to Retro. We are going to give our
final thoughts and ratings. The way that we do ratings
here on Ready to Retro is we take a noun
or a line or something from the movie we just reviewed,
and we put it at it ten. So, for an example,
if I was reviewing let's say eight Mile, I'd give

(01:01:08):
it ten added ten be rabbits.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
I don't know that was alright, so let's do this.
You've never seen eight Mile? Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
All right, we don't have time for this all right,
so I will go then let's have Jesse and then
we'll have Chelse.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Round this off.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
So final thoughts, Alien, It's a classic for a reason,
not just a classic sci fi movie, not just a
classic horror movie. It is a classic movie. It is
cinema and its finest. It is one of those masterpieces.
It is a movie where people, all right, I know this.
I know people who went to film school and they

(01:01:49):
would study this movie to a te So it is fantastic.
If it has been a while since you watch this movie,
watch it. It still holds up. It is a just
a classic movie. Like not just like we say, like
like Mighty Ducks is a classic. I'm not talking about
like this is classic cinema or Mighty Ducks a nostalgia movie. Well,

(01:02:10):
you know, Mighty Ducks, Alien two different kind of classics.
We're talking like this is premiere elite, all elites, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Like it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
So I will give Alien a perfect ten out of ten.
Space Chucks because Sigourne weavers wearing Converse white Converse, and
I think that's cool. So she's wearing space Chucks. Good
to know that converse will last, you know, to the future.

(01:02:42):
That's good. Good to know, all right, Jesse. Final thoughts
and rating for Alien. So I have three final thoughts, uh.
First one is there's a documentary called Memory, the Origin
of Alien that's a great breakdown of the film, how
it got made, thoughts behind it, everything. It's a great

(01:03:02):
doc came out a few years ago. I believe it's
on Shutter and I think it's still on Prime. Definitely
check out that this movie is everything that we've said
about it and more.

Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
I don't I've said it earlier. It's it's our casa blanca.
It is. It is. My dog is named Ripley. If
if I had to give like my pup, who I
love more than anything in this world, and I would,
I would kill every living human to protect her. Her
name is Her name is Ripley. Ellen after Ripley, because

(01:03:39):
I Ellen Ripley, because I love the character of Ripley
so much. I think that kind of character is missing today.
She came in there in seventy nine and was able
to be like this is how you a woman can
lead a movie and be the m hero. And I

(01:04:02):
think she is going to go down in my world.
In my eyes, she is going to go down as
the greatest actress for film because she is so powerful
and so memorable and commanding of the screen. And it
isn't like, oh, I'm like a dramatic Meryl Streep like
actress with all this bravado and like so much a

(01:04:24):
method and all this. No, she was just a straight
up badass who commanded the screen. And I think we
need more women like that now. And the fact that
she did it forty five years ago is fucking amazing.
And I will say my connection to this film, aside
from naming my dearly beloved little ripley Ellen after our

(01:04:44):
main character, is I grew up with two houses on
each side of me that were you couldn't throw a
baseball to them. Their porch lights went out at night.
I have seen stuff in the sky. I'm not going
to get into it on here, but across the street,
completely dark, wooded area, you look up, our porch light's off.

(01:05:06):
You look up. And I grew up about twenty five
miles from Griffiths Air Force Base. You can look into
dan Aykroyd's accusations about what he's seen driving down from
Toronto and I eighty one down through Syracuse and over
by Rome. He mentions Griffith's Air Force Base in several interviews.
He's done talking about extraterrestrials and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
On Unsolved Mystery as well. Isn't there like a whole
thing about that?

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Probably, But being able to walk outside my house, have
my porch light off, the two neighbors who you could
see as a little tiny speck of a porch light
when theirs went off, and I look up into the
sky and I just see some stars and complete darkness
and nothing like especially like in the fall, when there's
no chirping of anything and it's complete darkness, and I

(01:05:52):
just see the woods on the other side and it's
complete darkness. That's what made movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre
real to me. Made me feel like leather Face could
run out of those woods. That's what made me feel
like Alien was real. And I would look up into
the sky and I could see a black sky and
there's no lights around me, and I could just see
the tops of the trees and the stars up in

(01:06:12):
the sky. The setting in which I grew up with
is why these movies connected me on cetera a deeper level,
because I feel like in some instance, I didn't grow
up in a big city, so I could kind of
put myself in the settings of some of these movies,
and Alien was definitely one of those ones. Considering some
of the stuff that I've seen, again, not going to

(01:06:33):
get into it right now. That's why this movie whole
is even more dear to my heart than anything I
could talk about. The setting, how it looked, the script,
Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean, Stanton, Ridley Scott, any of them.
That is all important, But that is why I connect
to movies like this on a deeper level. I give
this ten out of ten. Acidic Alien blood splashes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
There you go, all yes or no? Jesse, did you
put out Reese's pieces?

Speaker 4 (01:07:08):
No? But I should, But I should, But I shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
But if you did, you probably wouldn't be with us
right now, All right, Chelsea, bring us home.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Final thoughts or last thoughts on Alien. The whole time,
I just kept thinking, when I watched a couple of
weeks ago, while this still it like it holds up,
like we've been saying, it looks good. Yeah, there's little
things here and there where you're like, okay, you know,
but for the most part, I'm like, man, this just
it just is so good still, and like the part

(01:07:39):
that always gets me and scares me the most. I mean,
I was like, it scares me. I'm like, I'm tensing up.
I'm you know, is when you know, Tom Scaret Dallas
is in the vents and it's like it's getting closer.
It's getting closer than it's got, you know, with the hands.
It breaks me out every I think every time it
like catches me off guard. It scares me so bad.
And you know, if a movie that old still scaring

(01:08:00):
me and like catching me off guard, that's really saying something. Yeah.
I love Ripley. I love Sigourney Weaver. She's fabulous. I mean,
what can you say about that. There's just it's she's amazing.
I love this movie. It's great, and that's what I
have to say. So I give it ten out of ten.

(01:08:21):
Jones the Cat.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
Thirty out of thirty. People love it. It is a
perfect movie, That's what we're saying.

Speaker 4 (01:08:29):
That's how I know there's hope for the world. The
three of us can come here and the world may
be device on everything else most of us can agree.
Aliens of ten out of ten.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Baby if you think Alien sucks or is not a
good yay, Jesse's giving you the finger. I would say
between the lives all right. I did that at work today.
I put all my hands together like this and I said,
read between the lines, all right, Jesse, tell the people

(01:09:05):
where can they find all your good stuff at Heart
Guide Media and then you could tease a little appearance
by me.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Yeah, we are at Heartguy Media on sit and Sound
Jesus Christ, We're at Heartguy Media on Instagram podcasts called
Sitan Sound. We're in the middle of our Nightmarre and
Elmstreak celebration. Max is going to be on the dream
Master episode episode four. I still we still have to

(01:09:37):
record dream Warriors and follow behind a little bit, but
we are covering eight of the films. So if you're
a fan and you're hearing this before dream Masters out
and you want to be a part of an episode,
let me know. I'm I'm welcome, welcoming all to come
on and talk about Nightmare and Elm Street franchise. But yeah,
we're doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
They really likes the two thousand and nine one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I talked about it on God Return Revenge Resurrection. Yes,
I gave it. I gave it. I gave it medium hate.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
I saw one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
I saw the movie theater.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
I don't I saw it too. I don't blame the director,
Sam Bayer, who did like a lot of music videos.
It's not his fault anyway. Uh yeah, uh doing the
Nightmare on Elm Street franchise long overdue. We got the
first two episodes out. You can listen to them. We're
on Spotify, Hard Guy Media, this podcast called Sitan Sound

(01:10:34):
and uh yeah, I'm not sure what we're doing after that,
but yeah, we're doing the Elm Street franchise for the
next like six weeks at least.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
Else anything you want to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Play, don't really got much check out your Twins. I
don't think we're doing much the rest of the year.
Like I said, I think I've said Tess is pregnant,
so there's not much going on there. But we've got
plenty of backlog episodes you can check out. I don't
think we've ever talked alien or anything like that on

(01:11:05):
the show quite yet, but if you want, you can,
if not, stick around here on Ready Retro because there's
a lot of cool stuff coming up and you can
chein out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
So yeah, things like next week, we will be talking
to Aliens. Following that, we will give a Romulus review
with our buddy Corey from Podcasting After Dark.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
I almost said Hard Guy Media.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
And then after that we're gonna have a surprise guest
and I can't wait to announce that it's gonna be
alien related. And then Nick November in November, and then
December we're gonna have some holiday movies cause we're gonna
dip back into that and great stuff, and then we're

(01:11:49):
into twenty twenty five, so crazy, crazy, all this good stuff.
Visit us at ready retro dot com. We have a website,
we're on TikTok of YouTube, and there's a lot of
stuff so ready to Retro. All this stuff will be
in the description of this episode. We will see you
next week. We're ready to retro.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Are you