Alien’s Opening Scene: A Masterclass in Cinematic Suspense and Foreshadowing
In the opening scene of Alien, Ridley Scott masterfully combines established cinematic techniques of editing, score, mise-en-scene, and set design to weave a tapestry of fear. As the opening credits roll and the title gradually reveals itself, the camera pans through space at a painstakingly slow pace past a Saturn-like planet, reminiscent of an alien egg. This draws the audience into a realm of cinematic suspense and anticipation. This intriguing introduction, akin to a cipher or message, features symbols reminiscent of hieroglyphics drifting through deep space, ready to be intercepted, decoded, and understood. Scott’s expertise in film craftsmanship is exemplified by the emotions evoked during the title’s gradual unveiling, instantly immersing the audience in the eerie atmosphere of this Sci-Fi horror film.
Scott conveys the emptiness of the ship through the use of slow tracking shots that pan from one corridor to another. Accompanied by a hum and dark lighting, the camera guides the viewer through the ship in suspense, exploring what lies beyond the darkness. This feeling of unease is reinforced by an almost forty-second shot, as the camera pans from the barren dining area, past various tech, and into a control room. The meticulous precision in the production design aids the viewer in perceiving the spacecraft as a complex yet grounded setting. The set appears worn and battered, as if the technology and other objects on the Nostromo have been used and repaired numerous times with odd spare parts and tape. This form of retro-futurism contrasts with typical science fiction films, where everything is neat and polished. Deep space is dark and gritty, and the ship echoes this notion. The entirety of the environment’s contents have been engineered to make the viewer feel uneasy. The dark corridors and air vents automatically evoke the tension needed to ignite the audience’s imagination as they prepare for possible future plot points. The ship’s cushioned inner walls are reminiscent of the walls in depictions of mental hospitals designed to prevent patients from injuring themselves. The walls contribute to the slightly contradictory claustrophobic and confining nature of space. In the vastness, the crew is trapped, and the dreary ship with its cushioned walls invokes the feeling that being on the ship is akin to being held captive.
The scene is silent except for a soft humming, but then the computer comes to life with jarring graphics and sound. Scott then employs a reverse-shot sequence, as the computer boots up and displays a signal it has detected. There are back-and-forth cuts of the helmet and the gear in the control room. The camera then focuses on the emergency helmets positioned in front of the computer interface, marking their importance to the audience. As the camera lingers on a helmet, its placement squarely in front of the computers and its design become an oddity that the audience might have missed if not for the camera’s lingering. This emphasis leads the viewer to see a helmet as an item of importance: with something strange over its mouth, the helmet could resemble a strangling. This mouth protrusion could be foreshadowing the facehugger; to further emphasize this point, this is also the helmet of the ship’s pilot, who is the victim of the face hugger’s attack later in the film. Then, the camera lingers on a dangling elephant keychain on the computer, whose trunk covering his mouth mirrors the facehugger, further solidifying that this scene foreshadows the strangling. Next, we land on a still image of a special space helmet and we see the reflection of the computer display in the helmet’s visor. The computer screen mirrored on the helmet might possibly suggest that someone inside the spacecraft is an android, hinting at the reveal of Ash’s true identity later in the film.
Because we are shown such extensive shots of the Nostromo before we meet any of the characters, the audience is subliminally made to believe that the ship itself is a major character. The opening sequence, with its shadows and darkness, portrays the Nostromo as a futuristic take on a classic haunted house. The lighting is dark and muted, displaying the ship in a sort of standby state and adding a feeling of reality to space travel. The dismal and hostile atmosphere that we are thrust into also establishes a crucial tone — this spacecraft is populated by people but is not totally under their authority. The crew are in an artificial slumber until the ship wakes them and they are isolated far from any help. The universe is indifferent to the crew while they are all in hypersleep, unaffected by the presence of humans.
The faintly frightening sensation is heightened by the console’s apparent random activation. While we see a type of celestial map projected on the screen, the machine-like noises are complemented by weirdly jumbled but obviously organic sounds. Dismal music coupled with the quiet hum of the vessel supports the slow pans of an apparently empty spacecraft with inadequate lighting. Scott manages to effectively force the eerie sensation of space travel on his spectators. The diegetic noises that the Nostromo computers make while processing the company directives are both haunting and inhuman. The dark and foreboding tone that the opening scene establishes gives the audience insight into what the rest of the movie will look like. By the time the human characters appear on screen, the audience is already feeling alienated, tense, and intimidated, providing a basis for the horrifying events that follow. For the first five minutes of the film, there is no dialogue- Scott instead focuses on the ominous score and establishing the seemingly deserted Nostromo. The lack of dialogue does not lose the attention of the audience like one might imagine: the opening scene is hypnotic.
The ship becomes a microcosm of the space that surrounds it, conveying its vast and impersonal nature. We later learn that massive corporations own and operate the Nostromo and we can infer the parallels between them. Space, like the effects of corporations, is perilous and indifferent to mankind. As the movie goes on, it confirms the original instincts the audience is made to feel from this opening scene: space is not a safe place for humans. The intro is a warning that the crew is on the verge of calamity. There is no way to know what’s hiding in the vast darkness, and that fear of the unknown is the entire movie’s driving force.
