My parents went to see ‘Alien’ the year before I was born. We’ve been a family of fans ever since
Essay by Dan Heching, CNN
(CNN) — Many families share in the delight of movies like “The Sound of Music,” “Home Alone” or any number of Disney titles. Not mine.
My parents, who began dating in New York City in the mid ’70s, had several crucial moviegoing experiences as a young couple, from watching “Jaws” to “Star Wars,” that set them on a rather distinct cinematic trajectory our whole family has come to share: a fondness for sci-fi and monster movies.
“When your mother and I were going out, it was a way – when you were going out on a date – you go into a dark room, and you lose yourself in this new environment,” my father, Harry Heching, said during a recent chat.
The year before I came on the scene, my then-newlywed parents went to see a new science fiction movie in June 1979 that very well could have been just another entry in the genre that was experiencing a burgeoning rush in the wake of 1977’s “Star Wars.” That movie was Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” and neither of my parents would ever be the same again.
“What struck me the first time I saw it, and I thought it was so brilliant – for a long time, at least a half-hour, maybe more – everything is very very dark. It’s hard to make out anything. You really don’t know where they are,” Harry said. “You hear them talking to each other in a very conversational way, they’re kind of mumbling to each other, and it’s dark. You don’t know what’s happening… until the scene where that guy is on the table,” he added, in reference to the iconic, horrifying cafeteria scene in which the character played by John Hurt meets his untimely and grotesque end. (The scene also put young me off noodles, for years.)
My mother Marge actually finds it difficult to pinpoint a specific memory from the first time she saw “Alien” or “Aliens,” simply because, regardless of the fact that she’s seen the movies dozens of times, “it’s like I’m seeing them once again for the first time.”
Regarding the climactic final scene between “Alien” heroine Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, and the menacing xenomorph, Marge continued to say that “it doesn’t matter how many times I see the movie, I know exactly where the alien is, I know exactly what’s going to happen, I know exactly how the hand is going to come out, whatever. Every time it happens, it makes me jump!”
Because the thrill of going to the movies was so intrinsic to how my parents chose to entertain themselves, it carried over to myself and my two younger brothers, to the point that when we’re all together – even to this day – we invariably end up talking movies. And most often, the “Alien” franchise is at the top of the discussion.
While my middle brother Josh and I share a memory of cowering in a corner of the TV room attempting to watch one of the first two movies with our parents, my youngest brother Gideon came to appreciate the franchise a bit later in life (which is not to say he isn’t similarly scarred – he recounted how, at the age of 6 or 7 while on vacation, he saw the scariest part of the 1997 space-horror “Event Horizon” alongside my father, saying it was “the most messed up thing” he’d ever seen).
Gideon has grown into a discerning cinephile with a taste for genre fare, like the rest of us, and asserts that it’s due to our formative experiences and the types of movies our parents watched when we were younger – and still do, to this day.
“We have similar tastes because you guys raised us on the same movies that you love,” he said. “The fact that we had ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ on VHS – I watched those so many times as a kid that that shaped my tastes moving forward.”
An ‘Alien’ fan family’s feelings on the new movie
As a clan, we hold a mixture of excitement and a fair share of trepidation around the newest movie in the franchise, “Alien: Romulus,” which comes out this Friday.
The “Alien” franchise is an extraordinary but at-times spotty one. Scott’s “Alien” was followed by James Cameron’s masterful and mold-breaking 1986 sequel “Aliens,” which in turn was followed by David Fincher’s polarizing “Alien 3” from 1992. While showcasing some excellent performances and a powerhouse climax, the threequel’s unrelenting bleakness eclipses its merits, and the effects also don’t fully hold up.
From there, the franchise entered zanier territory, with 1997’s “Alien Resurrection” – another mixed bag – along with the more B-movie “Alien vs. Predator” crossover movies from the aughts. Then, Scott returned, kind of, to the world of “Alien” for his films “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” in the 2010s, which ultimately disappointed fans due to how little sense they made in the larger framework of the earlier films.
While a fifth entry in the original franchise was long teased, “Romulus” is the first movie to take place within the original “Alien” timeline – between the first and second movies, to be exact – in over 25 years.
The most thoroughly skeptical is my mother, who, after watching the final trailer for “Romulus,” exclaimed to me in a text, “Seriously? They have removed all the suspense and subtlety and are just going for the gore factor. And who are these vapid characters?” She went on to say that none of the cast looked like they could “fit into one toe” of the boots Weaver’s Ripley has left, that she would “definitely not” be seeing it in the theater.
“I am actually not excited at all. I will see it, but more because of my investment in the franchise generally,” Josh similarly shared over email. “But I am not particularly excited. Might have to do with the fact that I think all movies that come out now are re-boots and sequels. Nothing truly original.”
And while my father agreed that “Romulus” doesn’t look like “it will break any new ground,” Gideon sounded a bit more hopeful.
“The instant I saw that (Ridley Scott) finally gave up the reins to someone else, I was excited,” he said, referring to how displeased we as a family all were with Scott’s not-really-“Alien” movies “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” from 2012 and 2017, respectively. Gideon also said he found it promising that the new “Romulus” is directed by Fede Álvarez, who helmed the well-received “Don’t Breathe.”
“If you’re expecting something that’s going to recapture the magic of the first two (‘Alien’ movies), that’s not really so fair,” he added. “As long as it’s back to basics.”
That original movie magic is something my family truly revels in, from conversations like the one quoted here to countless other similar discourses, usually over a rare family dinner when we’re all together. Case in point: the number of times we quote “Aliens” to one another, specifically lines uttered by the late, great Bill Paxton.
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