https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z5sX4qC5HE
The movie Aliens 1979 gave off a very restless mood. Once the astronauts, scientists, and engineers on board received the message of a transmission of something unknown, the rest of the film had an anxious, suspenseful, eerie, restless mood. It was unknown what was going to appear around the next corner or what person was going to be killed next. Space travel in the beginning of the film is seen as laid back and relaxed. The film begins with a scene of the actors sleeping and then gathering around a table eating, smoking, and chatting. There is even a cat on board the spacecraft. The people on board seem very nonchalant about being in space until they get the mysterious transmission. The depiction of space travel then suddenly changes and one gets a feel that space travel is targeted at finding aliens. The spacecraft is programmed to go towards transmission signals and later you learn that the scientist, Ash, on board is a robot sent with the mission to find aliens and bring them back to Earth for analysis.
Carl Sagan had this view that aliens would be some kind of intellectual being like ourselves and be as interested in other lives as we are. In the movie, aliens are depicted as being vicious, bloodthirsty, indestructible beings. If they are intellectual it is not depicted in this film.
A common trope seen in movies is the idea of an "ultimate life form" or "perfect being". The above movie clip is when the people on board find out that Ash is a robot and he is sharing last minute thoughts before they destroy him. Ash is explaining how the alien is a "perfect organism" and cannot be killed. He says, "I admire its purity, a survivor" and emphasizes how it is structurally perfect. People are always looking for perfection and someone or thing that is perfect, without faults. This scene shows how Ash, even as a robot, was jealous of this perfection.
