The Stowaway x Alien Commentary
Added 2022-12-15 17:26:54 +0000 UTCThis clip is from the final scene in Ridley Scott's Alien. After all the discovery and destruction of the main ship and crew, Ripley believes she escaped the carnage by blowing up the main ship with the infestation and prepares to hibernate for the journey home on the escape pod. But escape is a fleeting fantasy- the wounded alien has stowed itself away on her escape pod! The scene sets us up for an acute fear that comes from its serenity as she undresses for hibernation after narrowly escaping death. Her guard, and ours, is down. When the alien's arm drops the cushion beneath us turns to needles and we see there is no escape from this: it's life or death.
The original soundtrack for this section is a symphonic orchestra playing low and sparse in the background. Otherwise, it's not a noisy scene, which adds to the desperation we see and feel. I wanted to capture that same feeling but with more substance and movement. I've been wanting to do an exclusively drone/feedback soundtrack for one of these and tried making this the one; there were tape style delays in the upper register of the EQ that accentuated scenes with a lot of movement. But it didn't feel right; something was off. I settled on this ominous clean bass line because I felt like it gripped the tension on top of the grinding synthesizers, which replaced the drone/feedback. And who am I to not incorporate a healthy dose of synthesizer into a 70's sci fi film? The sequences even match up with the blinking lights in the background equipment at times...it's like they were made for each other.
