Ridley Scott's 'Alien': It’s all about the Cat

*** Warning: Contains Spoilers for Alien, and the sequel Aliens***

Well, actually, 'Alien' is all about the suspense. We’ll come to the cat later.

Much of the appeal of the first film comes from not even knowing what the ‘Alien’ of the title refers to – although it’s easy to lose sight of that fact with the endless sequels and spin-offs that have been spawned over the years, and have made us very familiar with the look (and modus operandi) of the ‘Alien’.

So it takes half the film before we actually catch a glimpse of the Alien, and understand that it’s intending to destroy the whole crew.... a lesson that James Cameron’s Aliens sequel employs to similar effect when he delays the first big on-screen encounter with the aliens until halfway through the film

The opening sequence of 'Alien' makes clear that a danger or threat exists, but without defining the precise nature of that threat. In the first minute or so the camera pans through a seemingly empty (and enormous) spacecraft, and the unsettling music makes it clear that something isn’t quite right. Blinking monitors reflect on the visors of two space suit helmets (is someone inside that suit, we wonder, and if so, why are they not moving – are they dead?), and the ship appears to be running itself seemingly without anyone being on board - a bit like the Marie Celeste. First-time viewers are also presumably wondering whether this is, in fact, the ‘after’ of the story, and whether the rest of the story will be told in flashback.

To boldly go ...

For the first half of the film, I think interest is created partly by the understanding that ‘something is going to happen’ - this film is called ‘Alien’ after all! But also, quite simply, by the re-imagining of space travel. This isn’t pioneer space exploration as we’ve experienced in Star Trek; the crew of the Nostromo are simply doing a job moving cargo through space. The characters on board express no wonder at the technology around them, or at being out in space, or at coming out of a hibernated sleep. I like the way almost every early scene has someone clutching a coffee mug, or eating, or smoking which gives an informality to these scenes. Perhaps the fact these characters are entirely at ease with their space surroundings and each other makes us feel the opposite, and that this is all rather “alien” to us. Even the names of the characters are odd and therefore suggestively futuristic – Ripley, Ash, Kane.

I liked the way we experience the characters as a team at the beginning – to the extent that it’s difficult to keep track of all the different people and what their role is on the ship. It’s certainly not clear that any one of these people is destined to survive and become the hero /heroine of a 4-film franchise!

I always knew Bilbo was an android....

Of course, there are some pointers to the fact that Ripley is likely to survive – or indeed, that she has earned the right to survive. It’s clear that at crucial stages of the drama, Ripley stands firm and makes the correct call when others senior to her do not, and also that she thinks for herself. It’s Ripley who translates the distress signal, and realizes it is, in fact, a warning. It’s Ripley alone who refuses to let the alien on board – a decision that Ash overrides with calamitous results. It’s Ripley who decides they should leave the ship and blow it up, and it’s Ripley who keeps her head, and tries to stop the self-destruct when she realizes the alien is blocking her route to the escape shuttle. But, crucial to maintaining suspense, Ripley’s inevitable survival is only clear in retrospect. Once it’s clear the alien will pick them off one by one, it’s not certain who or how many of the crew will survive.

Which brings us to the cat, Jonesy.

New Alien franchise: Alien versus Jonesy the cat??

The cat performs a number of roles in the story. He’s used as a diversion in an early ‘false alarm’ scene. Ripley and Parker detect motion on their gizmo, only to find it’s Jonesy. When the cat runs off, Brett follows it, thereby separating himself from the group – and inevitably it’s at this point he’s killed by the alien. When Jonesy hisses, initially we think he’s reacting to Brett, when of course he’s reacting to the alien behind him. So, the cat acts as a cipher to the killing.

Jonesy is also used as a plot device at the denouement – Ripley risks her life by going back to fetch him, then runs into the ‘alien’, drops the cat cage, and runs back to try and stop the self-destruct countdown.

But I’d say the cat performs a role that’s central to the emotional journey of the film. Imagine the very last scene, when Ripley has destroyed the alien, but without the cat being there. The emphasis of the scene would then be on the fact all of Ripley’s colleagues and friends are dead, and she is left alone – which might feel like a kind of defeat. But the way the it's actually written, Ripley isn’t alone – she has the cat who, like herself, has survived against the odds. I think of the cat as being a bit like the crew’s mascot, and that therefore for the cat to survive means that Ripley has truly defeated the alien because something of the crew has survived.

And the writers have clearly invested some importance in the animal surviving. When Ripley drops the cat cage and runs off, there’s a great camera shot of the alien turning to the cat and baring its teeth in a grin. The implication is that it’s about to kill the cat too, and so it’s quite satisfying from a plot structure point of view when it turns out that this is not the case, and the animal has, surprisingly, survived.

Not a cat

Enough about the cat!

Ok – so the film might well have worked without having a cat in it. In fact, when I re-watched Alien recently, I realised I’d completely forgotten there’d even been one in it!

But I’d argue that the character of ‘Newt’ in Aliens performs a similar role – much of the drama and emotional impetus is derived from Ripley’s protection and defence of this 11-year old girl (a situation made all the more emotive due to the fact Ripley’s own 11-year old daughter is dead). Again, imagine 'Aliens' without the girl’s character. It would become a much flatter story, and reduce the action to something more like ‘Return of the Living Dead’ where characters are picked off one by one. If you were being cynical, you might suggest these ‘cypher’ characters /cats are introduced simply to simulate an emotional depth that would otherwise be lacking.

But I think the reason why Alien works better than its sequels is partly because there is in fact more emotional depth to the story. Ripley is a character who thinks first about others. She acts in the crew’s interest by challenging Ash’s conclusions about the distress signal; she goes back to rescue the cat at the end; and when she assumes command of the ship, her priority is to make sure the alien is killed and the remaining crew members escape.

Which makes it all the more disappointing that they ‘break contract’ with the audience at the beginning of Alien 3, by killing the entire crew who survived Aliens, just to extend the action to another sequel.