The first film in the ever-expanding Foreigner Saga remains, at least in my opinion, the very best. Although Ridley Scott’s more recent entries continue to expand the franchise’s lore with varying degrees of success, what’s most compelling to me is what he did so well right from the start. When we meet Ripley, Dallas, Brett, Parker, and the rest of the Nostromo crew, the mundane reality of their lives as workers in the service of a corporation that already exploits them for little money and will rip them off at a moment’s notice if it sees profit in it. The alien stalking the crew and picking them off one by one is terrifying, but what really makes it resonate is the larger theme of capitalist bullshit, conveyed so economically and efficiently by the wonderful line: “Priority one – ensure return of organism for analysis. All other considerations are secondary. Crew expendable.”
But themes, no matter how well implemented, are not enough to give a film soul. No, what makes Foreigner so extraordinary is the way in which his characters are so naturally embodied by his superb cast – Sigourney Weaver, of course, in a brilliant performance, but also the likes of Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton and the wonderful Yaphet Kotto – who, as we meet them in the film’s opening scenes, directed so well by Scott, interrupt and talk over each other in such a natural, believable way that one rarely sees in post-1970s American cinema. And like Spielberg’s The Great White Shark four years earlier, ForeignerThe strength of so often lies in the unseen, left to our imagination. The Nostromo, more than many other film sets, feels believably lived in and manipulated, and of course offers plenty of hiding places for the Xenomorph that stalks the hapless crew. Later films in the series were more intense, more lavish and more expensive, but the tightly focused humanity and horror of the series’ predecessor remains arguably the best the series has ever had.
– Carolyn Petit
