What are your memories of your first time watching an Alien movie?

I remember watching the Alien films when I was very little but I was too afraid to watch them thoroughly since my eyes were always closed lol I do remember when the Alien Queen tore Bishop in half and his insides were spilling every where and it made it hard for me to drink milk for quite a while :P

I recently decided to pick up the Anthology because I saw Covenant was coming out and I watched it with my brother and man did we find these films interesting and enjoyable. We would pick the film apart by noticing the practical effects and how silly things got. My brother and I dubbed the original 4 films "Nobody Listens to Ripley" and we've dubbed the prequel series "David Touches Things" lol I love this franchise, it's so compelling and sophisticated and the Xenomorph is a beautiful creature. Also watching people getting hacked to bits is always a laugh.

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I remember thinking Dallas was the main character and expecting him to pop back up at some point after his "death".

I'm loving how we have such a variety for first time viewing experiences!

@Lawrence of Arabia

LOL @ being grossed out by milk after the Bishop incident!

"Nobody Listens to Ripley" and "David Touches Things" are hilariously apt descriptions.

@Godzilla: King of the Monsters

"scene that stood out for me was from Aliens when Ripley and Newt were trapped in the room with the facehugger crawling around and trying to get them."

I love those types of scenes, very suspenseful. I love poor little Newt.

@Im Durp

How did you react to the "Kill...me..." scene??

@ VivisectedEngineer

At the time of my first viewing it was just on a VHS from blockbuster, so I never saw that scene, Dallas just never came back and I eventually realized Ripley kind of took over since his disappearance, and he probably just got killed as it cut away.

I watched it in the 80s at home when I was around 7 I believe. Guess it was the time just before ALIENS came out and the TV station showed ALIEN as a promotion or something.

I think it was the atmosphere in the film that caught my attention so much. I can still remember the moment how the ALIEN logo was revealed in the opening, Ripely running through the corridors, and when Ash's head got knocked off I was freak out. That was the scariest shit to me. On the other hand the chestburster scene didn't really scare me but it was a memorable one. I always played that scene on repeat on VHS. Also I must say the Space Jockey scene is the greatest Sci-fi scene I ever encountered. 

I first Watched ALIEN well caught bits of it (70%) in 1985 (on TV), then saw the whole movie again in 1986 (Home Video) and then Aliens when it came to Home Video i think in 1987?

Was a interesting Movie, i do remember when i was younger that i preferred Aliens at the time but as i entered my 20's i learned to enjoy Alien more, and then in 30's as time goes on, Aliens just seemed to become more a Popcorn Flick.

I remember the movie just being Great (Alien) i was not freaked out or scared i just thought it was COOL.... then as a kid no Horror movie scared me at all.

Only ONE Movie made me feel uneasy and that was John Carpenters The THING and only One Scene... which is Dog Town... which still makes me feel uneasy to this day.

I saw Alien in 1979 when I was 16. Freaked me out..Theater was full and we had to sit 3 rows(or closer?!)from the screen. My sister watched it opening night and thought it was something we'd like so.... she dragged my brother(15 years old) and myself........And that's when I realized how awful Star Wars was! :-p

I saw alien when i was 14 when it came to cinemas in 1979, i read the ADF novel before i saw the movie using my active imagination and was blown away when i saw the space jockey as the novelisation does not mention it, only the device putting out the distress signal.

The suspense leading up to dispatching of crew members made me jump in my chair and left me scared to turn off the light for a while when i went to bed lol, i became a fan. 

The space jockey was and still is the best imagination in film. Everything else that was E.T. in previous movies were always humanoid looking or just plain weird.

Somehow I want to delete all my memories of ALIEN and experience the Space Jockey scene like first time again.  : (

I saw Aliens first on VHS. It didn't scare me but I really liked it! It was a great mix of sci fi, action and horror for me.

I was lucky enough to see Alien upon its release in 1979 in one of those crappy old theaters---you know, the flat floor that you have to look across everyones back, and the old timey blood red curtains with the gold fringes and tassels hanging all over the place, and the HUGE tall ceilings since there are ONLY two theaters in the HUGE building (then new, now non existent) ---after reading the book several times previously, along with my friends and my mom for my birthday. I was only 10 or 11 at the time, so my mom had her consternations about taking us to an "R" movie, of course, but she gave in, as I demanded it, and boy, we had a fantastic, though scary!, time. LOTS of people there, and several got up to leave after the dinner scene, and some still managed to come back (I assume after going to the bathroom to express themselves).

What a great experience. 

I miss ya mom! RIP!

I love reading stories like that. The good old days.

It was early 90s when I first watched Alien. I was less than ten years old , I think. It was scary but I was more worried about Jonesy surviving. haha....

Oooh I love this topic already. When I saw Alien for the first time, it was airing on tv, I was a young duckling, idk maybe 10 years old... And first thing that struck me and is still revelant in Alien (1979) is the terrifying, uneasy feeling of isolation that it created. The dense depths of space with spaceship cruising, locked in it like a can with a unique looking creature lurking around. The disturbing atmopshere of this movie along with the visuals (I absolutely loove the interior of the Nostromo, the design even now in 2017 looks amazing imo) has been following me since then and to be honest, hard for me to recall any movie that made me feel like this.

And I agree about space jockey - scene with it leaves quite a memory! The giant kind of ambigiuosly looking specimen fossiled and with it's ribs out....Forever grateful for Giger's vision. 

Man these stories are so fun to read! I'm kind of envious of you all who got to see it on the big screen, lol!

It's interesting to see how many people were very young when they first saw Alien! I think the only "scary" movie I saw when I was young was "Child's Play".

A babysitter showed it to my sisters and I when I was like...7. I thought it was just stupid because it seemed so unbelievable.

I would have been really traumatized by Alien though, because by the I was already really obsessed with and paranoid about the whole mythology surrounding UFOs and alien abduction, lol.