I rewatched 'Alien' after 45 years. It still kills. These are the most memorable moments

Everyone talks about the gut-busting scene.

And why not? If one thing comes to mind from Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” which came out in wide release on June 22, 1979, it’s no doubt the crew eating dinner aboard the Nostromo. John Hurt’s character Kane seemingly chokes and grabs his stomach before the little alien creature tears its way out, looks around for a second and skedaddles off into the dark corners of the ship to get on with the business of massacring most of the crew.

It’s shocking (including, famously, to the cast), it’s gross and it’s memorable, obviously. But I am here to tell you that it should be only the fourth- or fifth-most remembered thing about the movie.

'Alien' has one of the greatest lines in any movie

What could possibly be better? For one thing, there is the great tagline, often imitated and parodied but genuinely chilling the first time you hear it: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” This doesn’t turn out to be true, necessarily, but it does speak to the isolation of the imperiled crew of the commercial tug ship as they head home after a job. And the screaming part, well, you know. There is plenty of reason to.

Another thing is one of my favorite lines in any movie of all time because it is so devastating. Like, soul-crushing. (Note: Spoilers lie ahead, but this movie is about to celebrate its 45th anniversary, so if you haven't seen it, it may be time to catch up on things.)

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the rest have learned that Ash (Ian Holm) is in fact a cyborg who has been surreptitiously helping “Mother” carry out the ship’s true mission — to transport the alien they’ve inadvertently welcomed aboard like some kind of crustacean vampire, back to Earth — crew safety be damned. He’s been thrashed into a heaping pile of mush, but they hook up his head and grill him about the creature. How do we kill it, Ripley begs. You can’t, Ash says. It’s the perfect organism. Then, the kicker: “Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s when I would pretty much open up the air lock and drift off to the embrace of a speedy frozen death, which would be preferable to whatever the alien does to victims.

However, the thing that finally gets Ash smashed for good is what he says afterwards.

“I can’t lie to you about your chances. But you have my sympathies.”

'Alien' moves slowly, and it works

But what should really be remembered about “Alien” is what a slow burn of a great movie it is. Which is not surprising. When you go back and watch nearly a half-century later, it is a little surprising how it gets there.

Which is, slowly. Certainly by contemporary standards. Scott, directing only his second feature, takes his time. The crew awakens — slowly — from sleep. They go about the business of reorienting themselves, complain about the pay and give each other grief. Kane and Brett (the late, great Harry Dean Stanton) make the questionable decision to light up and smoke during dinner. Then Dallas (Tom Skerritt) gets a call from Mother. They pick up a distress signal from a moon and land on the small planet. A creature bursts from an egg, latches onto Kane’s face and, long story short, he’s now an incubator. The monster breaks free in the dinner scene, and from there, it’s simply a game of survival.

An agonizing one. Scott’s patience pays off — as the crew searches for the creature, he lets the film breathe a bit, which prevents the audience from doing so. The tension builds. Seeing a flashing light approach on a prehistoric computer screen is thus terrifying.

James Cameron took the story further in 'Aliens'

Of course, it’s also a story of female empowerment and survival, which James Cameron explores further in “Aliens,” the first sequel. Weaver’s Ripley eventually faces off against the monster, but even before that, she asserts herself in Dallas’ absence. She’s now the boss, pure and simple.

The script, by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, was supposedly pitched as “‘Jaws’ in space.” It’s well-crafted, certainly, but what really sells the film is the cast — Weaver was a stage actor basically unknown in film. The rest of the cast — Stanton, Hurt, Skerritt, Holm, Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright — is a who’s who of great character actors. There weren’t any huge stars, and that worked to the movie’s advantage. It emphasizes the nature of a crew, especially one that is thrown together for long stretches of time in a confined space. We believe they’re who they seem to be.

Then there’s Scott. With “Alien,” he already shows confidence in the audience and in himself, trusting that we won’t lose interest. We watch differently now, expecting jump scares and fast cuts. Here things just play out. When people sneak around, terrified, they really do seem to be sneaking around.

What a triumph. The film was hugely influential, and not just in terms of all the sequels — eight of them and a television series. But when you love a movie, you always wonder if it will stand the test of time. Forty-five years later, I'm here to tell you that “Alien” does, and then some.

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Alien' at 45: Sigourney Weaver still rules in Ridley Scott's classic