"Alien" the movie
12.17.04 (4:30 pm) [edit]I remember going to see the movie “Alien” when it came out many years ago and found the movie very interesting it its presentation of the alien. The alien was both a parasite and also the perfect predator once it reached it full growth, which did not take long. No childhood or adolescents for these creatures, just the fast track to being the world’s best predator. Good news for it, since it was at the top of the food chain; not so good for us since we became number two being displaced from our former placement. We also seemed to be their favorite snack and also the preferred place for them to reproduce themselves; a nasty painful procedure for those unlucky to have an egg deposited down their throats.
I could never bring myself to look upon the alien as evil since it was merely following its nature to the hilt. It was made for hunting, was strong and fast, and there was a lot of them since they seemed to be more insect than anything else I could figure. They seemed intelligent for sure, but I am not aware of anywhere in the movie were they were shown to be capable of any kind of choice in how they could react to any one circumstance toward their prey. Well they would not kill a human that had and egg that would develop into a queen, and I suppose any human with the egg of a drone would probably be spared; again instinct, intelligent yes but no choice was apparent.
In the movie there was also the innocent child complete with white blond hair; innocent blue eyes and a lovable cuteness, the perfect symbol for innocence I guess. The child and the alien have something in common at least in my opinion. The innocence of the child is not something that is based on any kind of choice; the innocence of the child comes from a lack of experience and will change as the child’s experience of the world deepens. Some children lose their innocence sooner than others. So the child is neither good nor evil; that will come later when the ability of choice develops. So in the movie the alien and the child are innocent in a sense, they just were what they were. The child has something over the alien, and that being growth is possible and the ability to choose will develop if enough intelligence is present. I think one of the reasons the aliens kept being put off was that they did not have the cunning of the humans, that is necessary to be able to come up with plans that are unexpected.
The aliens were born by eating through the chest cavity of the human host, and in the process not only causing a great deal of pain but destroying its host as well; just like many insects in the way they give birth to the next generation. Pure instinct capable of thought but limited in their choices on how to act or make plans. To me the aliens are the perfect metaphor for the rage that we humans have locked up in ourselves that is often seeking some outlet to express itself, and in the process leaving chaos and destruction in its wake. It is like our involvement with war the world over, the process of war seems to take on a life of its own, destroying those who give birth to its destruction, and once it is born it takes on definite course for growth dragging those behind who gave it birth in the first place.
Many of our diseases are believed by some to come from our own ‘dis-ease’ with ourselves, our self loathing and self hatred, which we not only project onto others but turn in our ourselves that damage our immune systems and leave us open to sickness. Also the way we seem to like those things that shorten our lives, the foods we eat, the drugs and alcohol we ingest in large quantities, the way we continue to smoke and how the young also indulge even though they know the detrimental effects it will have on their health later on. These kinds of things point to the real alien force that is destroying us, the cut off portions of our own souls that we do not wish to own.
I certainly have my share of the above and it seems at times a losing battle, but I struggle on. I wonder why so many people have trouble with the thought of original sin; it seems apparent that there is something not quite right with us.
Peace
mitch