Alien-title analysis

 

 

Set in the deep and farthest reaches of space. A commercial spaceship crew are pitted against a vicious, nightmarish alien life form that infiltrates their ship. Armed only with engineering tools and their limited knowledge of combat, they must try to kill the monster before it kills them.

The opening titles of this film are very simplistic but use suspense, ambience and lighting to incredible effect. The title alien slowly fades in as the main credits are shown, starting with a simple /       |      \ and finishing with A L I E N. The background and colour scheme used is a very dark combination of blacks, greys and greens which is the first sign  that the film will be set in space, because dark colours are normally what people associate with deep space. The outline of a mysterious shape can be seen in the background, it is unclear what this shape can be but as the film progresses we realise that it is in fact one of the alien eggs.

The film uses very a very faint ambience that steadily grows (although it still remains very quiet) to increase the suspense of the film. This has the effect of creating tension in the audience, so that when the horror does kick in, they will be terrified from the suspense and the film will not be relying on its effects alone.

The simplicity of and unusual transitions of the opening credits keeps the audience’s attention because they are intrigued to find out what the titles are leading to.
They end on a full shot of the ship “NOSTROMO” in deep space and this helps emphasise the main source of fear in the film that the crew are all alone in the farthest reaches of space, which is also the basis for the films slogan “in space no one can hear you scream.”