10 Things You Learn Re-Watching Alien

10. The Pacing Is Slow But Perfect

If you haven't seen Alien in a while, something that might surprise you is just how sedate the pacing is, especially in the movie's first half.

The film opens with slow pans and long takes through the Nostromo's eerie, empty hallways, and the first line of dialogue doesn't occur for almost seven minutes, when the crew are finally roused from hyper-sleep.

Ridley Scott masters the artful, suspenseful slow-burn, yet in today's cinematic climate it's tough to imagine many high-concept studio sci-fi films having a pace more akin to Kubrick's 2001 than, say, the thrill-a-minute mayhem of James Cameron's sequel Aliens.

That's not to say that this approach would've suited all of the Alien sequels (certainly not Aliens), but it'd be refreshing to see the upcoming Alien: Covenant return to this patient form of storytelling. If anyone can do it, it's the guy who perfected it almost 40 years ago.