Movie Review: Alien

Seeing Aliens before hand ruined this a bit for me.  As did seeing Spaceballs.  That aside I did enjoy the movie, but sometimes things are lost when you know the ending.  Instead of wondering who lives and who dies, you know.  Some may say how the story goes is what makes a movie appealing, even if you already know the ending (movies about the Alamo for example).  

Having never seen Aliens all the way through (review pending once I watch it, again fully), but being able to better make connections that I couldn't before made this worthwhile.  In terms of horror scifi, this movie really takes the cake.  A story about an alien that gets loose aboard a tow-ship in the middle of space and starts killing people (or does it?).  The plot seems pretty linear, but like with many movies there's more than meets the eye.  You learn about the alien and some of the crew during the movie; things I would have liked to have known going into Aliens.

Also the use of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) as the heroine makes a break from other horror or scifi films where the female lead is weak and needs to be saved by the male lead.  I feel that making Ripley the heroine adds more to the movie than if Ripley had been a man.  She's tough, resourceful, and the one who you want on your team when the Aliens attack, oh wait that's the sequel!

Something else about the movie I liked a lot was how real it was.  The characters were not put simply into cookie cutter stereotypes, and the interactions of the crew and the ship made everything seem more believable.  They do things you or I would do if we were put in the same situation.  Rather than doing things completely over the top.