In the darkness.

Pajiba has an article on the second Alien movie. I was struck by some prose:

There’s a moment of understanding near the end, in the depths of the hive, when Ripley shoots the flamethrower into the air and then points it at the piles of eggs. The Queen nods then, her warriors backing off into the shadowed tunnels, two mothers understanding each other, my child for yours. But Ripley is too far gone to retreat in peace, seen too much blood and horror. She burns the eggs anyway, pumps the grenade launcher all around the nest, not content to let the ticking reactor bathe it all in atomic fire in a few minutes. It has to be fire Ripley uses, that first discovery of ours, the first symbol distinguishing us from the animals. It’s not just a weapon, it’s the light that keeps the darkness at bay.

The closer is beautiful, too.

There are three great fears in a technological society, embedded in the great science fiction horror franchises of the eighties. The Terminator echoes the fear that technology will turn on us, the blade twisting to stab the wielder, the dark child growing to smother its parents. The Predator echoes the fear that superior technology will come along, that all our brains are for naught if we stumble across someone with better toys. The Alien is the ultimate nihilistic fear though, grounded in the horrific notion that the technology might not even matter, that lions and tigers and bears are grinning in the darkness beyond the campfire.

gauche
08 Jan 10