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A nostalgic look at classic music, video games, TV and films asking the question: "Does it hold up?"
Each episode features a different host that brings a fresh take on a film, TV show, video game, or music album of their choice. What can we discover? Do old favorites have a shelf life? Will the classics hold up? “The Classic Hold Up” is an AudioVideoLand production by Digital Storytelling students of Michigan State University in collaboration with Impact 89FM.
Welcome to the classic hold up, where we analyze media from the past. Each episode features a different host that brings a fresh take on a film, TV show, video game, or music album of their choice. Do old favorites have a shelf life? Will the classics hold up?
Speaker 2:Hello, everyone, and welcome to the classic hold up, where we take classic films, TV shows, albums, and video games, analyze them, and debate whether they still hold up. My name is Kaylee Martins, and I will be your host for this episode. I'm a digital storytelling student at Michigan State University with a concentration in filmmaking and a minor in film studies. I'm currently in my junior year here at MSU. After I graduate, I wanna be a film and television editor right here in the Great Lakes State.
Speaker 2:When I first enrolled at MSU, I was a film studies major until I discovered the digital storytelling program, which is much more production focused compared to the film studies program, which is heavily focused on, like, film theory and analysis. What I love about filmmaking is its unique blend of collaborative, creative, and technical skills used for the art of storytelling. That's why I wanna be an editor, because I get to be highly technical while telling a story with others. But enough about me. Let's talk about the movie that the American Film Institute named as one of the best science fiction films of all time, Alien.
Speaker 2:The film follows the story of The US CSS Nostromo, a giant deep space freighter owned by the dystopic mega corporation, Weyland Yutani. Set far in the future, aboard the Nostromo are seven crew members in cryogenic stasis waiting out their lengthy journey back to Earth. Captain Dallas played by Tom Skerritt, executive officer Kane played by John Hurt, navigator Lambert played by Veronica Cartwright, science officer Ash played by Ian Holm, engineers Parker and Brett played by Harry Dean Stanton and Yaffet Cotto respectively, and, of course, Ellen Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver. Oh, and there's also this adorable cat aboard the ship named Jones who's played by four lookalike cat actors. Their cozy stasis is disrupted when the ship's supercomputer mother wakes them up after receiving a distress signal from a nearby planetoid.
Speaker 2:The crew decides to investigate sending captain Dallas, Kane, and Lambert on foot in their bulky space suits. They discover that the signal is coming from the inside of a crashed alien spaceship, the pilot of which appears to have been long since deceased with a gaping hole in its chest. On the Nostromo, Ripley and mother determined that the distress signal was actually a warning. Kane descends into a huge room containing countless big fleshy eggs. When he approaches one, a crab like alien jumps out and smashes through Kane's space suit, wrapping itself around his head with a death grip.
Speaker 2:Captain Dallas and Lambert rush Kane back to the Nostromo for medical attention, but Ripley refuses to let them aboard in order to follow company quarantine policy. The science officer, Ash, lets them in anyways. Ash's attempts to remove the alien from Kane are unsuccessful, and the acid blood which it releases damages the ship, grounding it until the engineers can finish repairs. Hours later, Kane wakes up and seems fine. As the crew eat dinner before going back into cryosleep, Kane begins season pain until a little alien creature bursts out of his chest, killing him and fleeing elsewhere on the ship.
Speaker 2:The creature grows abnormally fast, turning into the big black xenomorph that picks off the crew one by one over the course of the rest of the film. Mother reveals that Ash has a secret goal from the company, bring the alien back to Earth by any means necessary even if it means killing the crew. When Ripley confronts Ash, he tries to kill her, but Parker and Ripley manage to kill him with a makeshift flamethrower meant for the alien. Ripley and Parker decide to blow up the entire ship and escape in the emergency shuttle, but Parker and Lambert are killed by the alien before they get the chance. Ripley barely manages to start the self destruct sequence and get aboard the escape shuttle just as the Nostromo explodes.
Speaker 2:Luckily, Jones the cat manages to escape with her. Ripley gets ready to go back to bed in cryosleep when she sees that the alien has hidden itself on the shuttle with her. She carefully slips into a space suit, straps herself down, and in a desperate final struggle with grappling hooks, flying debris, and engine explosions, Ripley manages to send the alien flying out of the airlock and into the void of deep space. Released in 1979, the film was directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shussett. Before creating Alien, Dan O'Bannon went through several versions of the sci fi story of his astronauts stranded on a small planet.
Speaker 2:It wasn't until he worked on the unsuccessful nineteen seventies adaptation of Dune with HR Geiger that he came up with the idea for the monstrous alien. Geiger was actually hired as the designer for the xenomorph. O'Bannon's collaboration with Shussett is what led to the idea that the alien would impregnate a crew member leading to their violent death. O'Bannon and Shussett pitched the film to twentieth Century Fox as jaws in space, and rightfully so. The way that the alien is scarcely shown, slowly building up tension for a few shocking moments is much like Spielberg's killer shark, and the haunting score of the film created by Jerry Goldsmith is equally as iconic.
Speaker 2:Selecting the director of the film was a thorough process because O'Bannon and Chussett were very worried that most directors would treat Alien as a random monster movie failing to do it justice. Eventually, after seeing his storyboards and concept art, Ridley Scott was hired as the director. When O'Bannon and Chussett wrote the film, they explicitly wrote it so that every single character was gender neutral. In casting, Scott initially was going to cast Ripley as a man until the president of twentieth Century Fox asked, why can't Ripley be a woman? Being consequently cast in alien is what kick started Sigourney Weaver's acting career.
Speaker 2:Twentieth Century Fox gave the film a low budget expecting it to be a minor movie. Filming took about three and a half months during the late summer and 1978 at Pinewood And Shepperton Studios in London during a heat wave. Actors nearly passed out when filming the spacesuit scenes. For the iconic chestburster scene, Scott didn't inform the actors that fake blood would spray out of Kane's fake chest, leading to a genuine reaction of terrified hysterics from Cartwright, the actor who played Lambert. For Christmas in 2019, I got a scratch off poster with 100 classic movies that I had to watch.
Speaker 2:And the first movie on that poster that I wanted to scratch off was Alien. I watched Alien with my dad in the half finished basement of his friend's home on a ridiculously large TV, what can only be described as a man cave. I've loved Alien ever since. I'm a big sci fi nerd, a huge fan of practical effects in movies, and I love gothic and body horror, all of which Alien has in spades. I distinctly remember sitting on this big couch with the footrest kicked out and watching with terrified awe as the xenomorph burst out of Kane.
Speaker 2:The effects on this movie are truly just astonishing. Although, I will say the alien skittering away does kinda look goofy in that first sequence. As I said, body horror is something that I have a grim fascination with. The body horror of Alien is particularly special to me though because of its themes of reproductive body horror. As a woman, I'm all too familiar with the fear of sexual violence and forced pregnancy.
Speaker 2:And what I love about Alien is that the writers of the film used these, at the time, unspoken societal fears and turned them on the audience. The writer of the film, Dan O'Bannon, literally went so far as to say, and I quote, that's how I'm going to attack the audience. I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not gonna go after the women in the audience. I'm gonna attack the men.
Speaker 2:And I'm gonna put in every image I can think of that I know will make the men in the audience cross their legs, end quote. When I watched this film for the first time with my dad, I could sense that he was feeling exactly what O'Bannon wanted, although I didn't know it at the time. He seemed incredibly disturbed by Kane's fate. There's something very validating about seeing these fears that every woman, including myself, have to live with every day reflected in the horror of a great film. When I read about the film after watching it, it was even more satisfying to read that quote from O'Bannon and realize just how intentional the reproductive horror was.
Speaker 2:I was honestly disappointed when I watched the sequel film, Aliens, and discovered that it was a dark action comedy and that almost all traces of reproductive horror were gone. And what's worse, they even gave Ripley a pseudo daughter figure that becomes her primary motivation for the film, forcing her into a protective mother trope. After watching the original movie, I fell in love with the 2014 survival horror video game, Alien Isolation. It's my favorite horror game of all time. I've also watched Alien Romulus, which was inspired by the original movie, In Isolation.
Speaker 2:And most recently, I watched the Hulu series, Alien Earth. Each time I watch a new installation in the Alien franchise, I'm attempting, usually unsuccessfully, to recreate that indescribable awe that the original Alien inspired in me. I'm here today with one of my best friends and roommate, Jacob Kowalski.
Speaker 3:Hello. I'm Jacob. I'm a major in economics. This is my senior year here, and I'd consider myself a very casual movie viewer. And I tend to watch a lot of older stuff, stuff that I see, like, referenced a lot.
Speaker 2:When was the first time you watched Alien?
Speaker 3:So I actually haven't watched Alien until last summer when I realized it was on Hulu.
Speaker 2:How do you feel about the movie?
Speaker 3:I really enjoyed it. I love the visuals of Alien. I love the design of the alien and, like, the alien ship they explore, how, like, mechanical all the, like, alien species are. It's just very interesting, very different from what a lot of other movies, like, how they depict aliens.
Speaker 2:I love how HR Geiger's, like, horror really seeps into the design. I feel like it's such a perfect aesthetic for what they were going for.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2:In its first weekend, Alien made $3,500,000 in the box office, and its gross domestic box office for, like, its entire first theatrical release was $78,900,000. So they made almost eight times their budget back.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:They got nominated for two Oscars. It won best visual effects despite all of this financial success it experienced. Initial critics actually didn't like it. They compared it to fifties monster b movies, including the New York Times and the Guardian. One critic even wrote, and I quote, you could put the world's worst actors in alien and the result would be much the same.
Speaker 2:What do you what do you think of that quote?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that critique is kinda weird because I feel like the performance of the actor for Kane and the the actress for Ripley are actually really good. Like, especially, like, Kane, like, after the infection from the face hugger, like, portraying that infection was done really well.
Speaker 2:He just looks like he had an awful time, like, the worst hangover ever or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It, like, truly, like, feels like there's something inside of him because he always kinda looks like he's about to throw up the entire time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that is it's just so disturbing to see, truly. In an interview with the LA Times, Ridley Scott, the director of the film, recalled being disturbed by how scared audiences were by his film. Some viewers apparently even fainted in the audience, which, you know, if I was the director of this horror movie, I don't know if I would feel proud or horrified by what I had wrought upon this world.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like I would feel proud. I feel like that was kind of the point of Alien.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm sure Dan O'Bannon with his little I wanna attack the men in the audience quote was, like, just kicking his little feet
Speaker 3:Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 2:Smiling when he saw people faint. Like, that's probably awesome for him. But, yeah, it was definitely very positively received in the past. Alien has been rereleased eight times from 1982 till 2024. There's a director's cut from the movie that came out in 2003, and I think this just goes to show how beloved and, like, successful of a franchise alien has spawned.
Speaker 2:It has eight sequel movies, including two terrible crossovers with the predator franchise. It has a TV series, Alien Earth, 10 short films, and over 60 video games. Now a lot of those video games are like shovelware, but one of them is Alien Isolation, which is like one of the most critically acclaimed survival horror video games of all time. So from a historical perspective, by the Library of Congress, it was deemed culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant in 2002, and they decided to preserve the film in the National Film Registry. Similarly, the American Film Institute ranked it the seventh best sci fi film of all time.
Speaker 2:It seems to me like we really just can't get enough of Alien. You know, I personally believe this to be especially true because I was at a drag bar in Ann Arbor, Necto, and it was Halloween of last year, and they were having a costume contest night. And somebody at this drag bar was dressed up in a homemade xenomorph costume and was just, like, dancing in this club in a full, like, full body xenomorph outfit, like and it wasn't even any sort of, like, sexy version of the outfit. Like, no. It was just a full monster suit that they decided they were gonna wear to the gay bar because they just loved Alien that much.
Speaker 2:So I think I think people love this movie.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:If it was released now, Jacob, how do you think it would do?
Speaker 3:I still think it would do pretty good. I mean, people really like the art of HR Geiger, and it was, like, smart that they, like, use that art style. I feel like it's very timeless. The depiction of technology in Alien, I think, was pretty smart. Well, maybe they didn't foresee this, but, like, the use of, like, clunky keyboards, these, like, terminal interfaces of, like, green text on black, that has become, like, very, like, aesthetically pleasing to people nowadays.
Speaker 3:Whereas, like, other movies, the pictures of tech can seem pretty dated. I don't think that applies to Alien.
Speaker 2:Yeah. By doing, like, a retrofuturism look and having, like, eighties computers, like, not only is it iconic, it also stops it from becoming dated as technology and real life advances.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It would it would it wouldn't be interesting if that stuff did, like, exist.
Speaker 2:I also love how bold a choice it is. And it's just like such an unforgettable seeing mother as, like, a concept, the way that they have to insert a floppy disk thing. Yeah. To, like, get into the room. And then it's, like, the blinking lights, and then mother is basically just a dial up computer
Speaker 3:Yes. With how it, like,
Speaker 2:whirs life. It's so awesome. I definitely think that that was an awesome choice. I think that the pacing of the film might hurt it a little bit with modern audiences that, like, have a shorter attention span. But overall, I think that the aesthetic is oversaturated at this point because of the Alien franchise that was spawned by the original movie.
Speaker 2:But had the Alien movie not come out in the seventies and now it came out, I think the aesthetic wouldn't have been
Speaker 3:It would be very new.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think it would be like such a like people would love it because the eighties is such a and like the late seventies is such a like hot aesthetic right now
Speaker 3:Yeah. To
Speaker 2:where I think people would just love it for that if nothing else. Yeah. And with women's rights issues cropping back up
Speaker 3:It has a really good social commentary that, like, modern viewers, I think, love.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Reproductive horror and the horror of a capitalist dystopia is tragically still very relevant today.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:So it's Beloved now, but in, like, another forty years, do you think that people will still love this movie? Like, how do you think it's gonna be perceived in the future?
Speaker 3:I think it's still gonna be seen as a classic, and it's still gonna be seen as, like, foundational to, like, sci fi horror. I think its influence will still be seen for the years to come.
Speaker 2:One thing that I think will affect the franchise in the future is how societal fears change. So like we just said, if Alien came out today, it would still be very relevant and well received because, like, the societal fears of reproductive body horror and capitalist dystopia are still very much real. Like, capitalism is still around and reproductive rights are under attack again. If in another forty years, those issues change significantly, maybe alien won't be perceived as, like, a classic thing. Maybe it'll seem like a dated relic of an old time.
Speaker 3:Maybe.
Speaker 2:Alien Earth is actually a great case study for this, I think, because Alien Earth came out in 2025, and the focus of the horror of that show is not reproductive horror or, like, aliens. It's really transhumanism and the rise of artificial intelligence. You're really not supposed to be scared of the Xenomorph in that movie. You're supposed to be scared of, like, the robots. I think that the horror of Alien might be lost over time, but overall, the franchise will probably still be looked back on, like, lovingly as, like, a piece of history, if nothing else.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I agree with that.
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Speaker 3:Start your journey at comartssci.msu.edu.
Speaker 2:So we've got some questions here. The first question we've got, with the budget Alien had, do you think it shows? So for reference, Alien had an $11,000,000 budget. Even for the late seventies, that's like a really small budget. Fox actually expected that the movie would, like, not be successful.
Speaker 2:They only gave the film $4,200,000 initially until they saw Ridley Scott's storyboards. And then they were like, okay. Here's another $8,400,000 because your artwork was cool.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Do you think that shows in, like, the production?
Speaker 3:Then in that case, I don't think the the small budget shows. I think I feel like the set design is very detailed and well put together, and the the costume design feels very good, like, especially with the xenomorph and, like, how they designed the face hugger. It's probably because of their use of, like, very dark lighting to hide any flaws that there might be.
Speaker 2:I think the practical effects are super impressive, and I don't think the budget shows at all. How do you think the original holds up compared to the rest of the franchise? Have you seen any of the, like, sequels? The many, many sequels?
Speaker 3:I've actually not seen any sequels. The only other piece of the franchise I've interacted with is Alien Isolation.
Speaker 2:Overall, I think the quality of the franchise has just gone down a little bit because they're just, like, making sequels because they can and because they wanna make money. Although there has been, like, a recent revival where the franchise, like, changed a lot over time in the February. But now with movies like Alien Romulus and games like Alien Isolation that really pay homage to the original film, I think that's when the Alien franchise is at its best. How does Ridley Scott use suspense and pacing to build tension before the alien even appears on screen?
Speaker 3:I think a good example of, like, the way he used tension would be the scene where, you know, Kane, Dallas, and Lambert are exploring the alien ship. And you can have a really good idea that something's gonna go wrong, but they are very slowly, like, crawling through the ship. And even when, like, Kane reaches the eggs, it's, like, very you know, he's very slowly, like, investigating them. And, you know, you see the movement in the egg, and you you know what's gonna happen at that point. The slowness and suspense of it just makes that, like, jump scare hit very hard.
Speaker 2:Our roommate who watched the movie with us, he had to, like, hold a pillow in front of him and had his hands on his head and was like, oh god, as he, like, got closer and closer to this egg in that scene. How does the film balance science fiction and horror elements? And which genre do you feel dominates?
Speaker 3:I think Ridley Scott did a great job not letting the, like, sci fi really, like, bog down the film. And in that way, I do think the horror dominates, but not in, like, a bad way. The crew feel very working class, so they're not like, they don't understand the technology in the same way, like, the viewer doesn't. So it's, like, it's very easy to follow along and kind of understand their fear with them.
Speaker 2:What scene shocked you the most the first time you watched it?
Speaker 3:It was definitely the reveal that Ash is a robot. And what really shocked me there is because there is this, like, agreement of, like, what, like, an android, like, looks like. And when the head of ash gets knocked off, instead we see a bunch of, like, milky liquid, like, fleshy bulbs connected with tubes, that is just, like, not what we usually think of when we think of an android. So it really shocked me when the characters all, like, agree, like, oh, this is a robot. Instead of this is like an alien which is kind of what he looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Do you think that this content holds up? Because I think that the film is still pretty classic. Like, I don't know that that'll ever go away.
Speaker 3:It's a hard question. I think currently the social commentary of the movie definitely still holds up with, like, women's reproduction and themes of individualism. I think the aesthetics hold up with the way tech is depicted and HR Geiger's work. But the horror aspect of it, I don't know if it will hit the same. But some of the cuts of the xenomorph especially the xenomorph, the horse surrounding the fully grown xenomorph.
Speaker 3:Like, a lot of the cuts of the xenomorph, I don't think hit very hard.
Speaker 2:I don't think that the xenomorph is as scary to just, like, look at as it was in 1979.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I feel like it's more seen as cool.
Speaker 2:Just because it's not as scary, does that mean that the film isn't gonna be a classic? Like, does that mean it doesn't hold up even if it's not horrifying? I mean, we know it was horrifying in 1979 because there's people passing out in the audience. I don't think anybody's doing that in 2025, 2026.
Speaker 3:No. I
Speaker 2:mean, maybe somebody who has, like like, severe fear of, like, blood and gore. But, like, why are you seeing a horror movie at that point?
Speaker 3:I definitely think it it does hold up as a classic. It I guess it depends what you mean by hold of because I don't think it holds up as the horror film it used to be making people pass out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think maybe that's part of why, like, the franchise is shifting away from horror with the xenomorph. Directors and writers kind of realize, like, it just doesn't work. The xenomorph is just not as scary.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Audiences are used to it.
Speaker 2:Despite the horror not holding up though, I feel like it's just such an iconic film. I think it will always be a classic. I think it's always gonna be this unmistakable iconic movie that you just can't get rid of in the cultural zeitgeist.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think anytime you're trying to, like, create, like, some kind of super organism for sci fi, I think the xenomorph will always be looked at for inspiration.
Speaker 2:And that sort of, like, fleshy, like, carnal spaceship horror, do you think there's, like, room for that horror to even exist? Like, the horror that HR Geiger and Ridley Scott established in Alien, do you think that that holds up outside of the context of the xenomorph? Is that kind of horror itself not holding up, or is it something about the xenomorph that isn't scary enough anymore?
Speaker 3:It may be that the xenomorph is just too recognizable, but that, like, biomechanical horror, I think, could still hold up if you're able to divert expectations.
Speaker 2:I think even if Alien hadn't been this iconic franchise around for forty years, I think the Xenomorph still wouldn't be as scary if it came out today. Because I feel like people are just kind of desensitized to, like, monsters and horror in general.
Speaker 3:That's true. It's like, you know, these monsters or, like, slasher villains are kinda seen as more, like, cool, almost treated like superheroes
Speaker 2:Yes. Nowadays. Very much so. Which makes me kinda sad because it's like, will I ever be scared again? The best problem to have?
Speaker 2:Maybe I should see a psychologist about that because that might say something about my Maybe. But let's give our final verdict. Enough yapping. Does this content hold up?
Speaker 3:I do think this content still holds up.
Speaker 2:I think so too. I think that even though the horror doesn't work, it still holds up in so many other ways that it will always be a classic.
Speaker 3:It will always be viewed favorably for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. HR Giger and Ridley Scott and the writers of Alien created a franchise that's so iconic and so classic that it doesn't need to be scary to hold up. It can become a completely different thing and people are still watching it. They struck gold with the original. Like, you just can't get rid of it.
Speaker 2:It's always gonna hold up. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thank you so much, Jacob, for being here with me today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Yes. It was so much fun recording this. Thank you to you for listening. This episode was written, produced, edited, and hosted by Kaylee Martens, featuring special guest Jacob Kowalski.
Speaker 1:Find the classic holdup on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow us at audio video land for updates, teasers, and behind the scenes content of all audio video land productions. The classic hold up is an audio video land production by students of the college of communication arts and sciences at Michigan State University in collaboration with Impact eighty nine FM.