A viral social media post has given moviegoers a whole new way to watch Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror classic “Alien,” and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. An X user posted a theory that suggests the film is completely different from the xenomorph’s point of view, drawing some surprising and plausible parallels to the beloved action film ‘Die Hard’.“From a Xenomorph perspective, ’79 Alien is essentially Die Hard,” the post read. “There’s only one, they’re trying to kill everyone, including a guy with a beard, he’s crawling through the vents, it’s a Japanese company, and as we know it’s Christmas.”
Why comparison really works
The connections are more plausible than they first appear. In ‘Die Hard’, John McClane finds himself alone inside the Nakatomi Corporation building, crawling through the air ducts and trying to overwhelm a group of enemies as they try to take him down. In the movie ‘Alien’, the xenomorph finds himself in a unique situation, alone on the ship Nostromo, crawling through the holes and fighting against the crew who are determined to hunt him down.The corporate connection also holds. The Nostromo was a ship owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a British-Japanese partnership, and the Nakatomi Corporation of ‘Die Hard’ is a Japanese company. Both stories therefore unfold in a closed space owned by a corporation with Japanese connections.Then there’s the matter of the bearded antagonist. In the movie ‘Alien’, this role belongs to Arthur Dallas played by Tom Skerritt. In the movie ‘Die Hard’, he is the iconic Hans Gruber, brilliantly brought to life by Alan Rickman. From the xenomorph’s point of view, Dallas Gruber is as much of an obstacle to McClane.
Seeing the monster as a hero
What makes the post particularly intelligent is the question it raises about the prospect. When the crew of the Nostromo encountered the alien ship, it was their interference with the eggs that set everything in motion. The alien who eventually made it aboard the Nostromo was somehow reacting to some events he didn’t choose. By the time the crew started hunting, the creature was alone, outnumbered and struggling to survive.Reframing the Xenomorph as a Die Hard hero rather than a monster doesn’t change what ‘Alien’ is, one of cinema’s most masterful exercises in enduring terror, built on the simple but terrifying premise that no one in space should be able to hear you scream. But it’s a reminder that every story looks different depending on whose eyes you’re looking at it.
