Скачать или смотреть The ONE DETAIL that EVERYONE is missing in ALIEN!

#alien #movie #horror #scifi #sciencefiction

'Alien' is a 1979 science fiction horror masterpiece directed by Ridley Scott, starring a cast with some of the best actors in the business, such as Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm and the legendary John Hurt.

The opening scene shows the eerie interior of the spaceship Nostromo. And later on in the movie, the crew of this ship will encounter a hideous monster from another planet that has become one of the most iconic antagonists in movie history.

(Spoilers as of here!)

One special detail that has been getting only little traction within the Alien fandom, is the little drinking bird toy that is on a table in the opening scene of Alien. As the camera moves through the cabin we briefly see this drinking bird toy, dipping its head into a glass of water. You can see it 3 minutes and 2 seconds into the movie.

I have read a few elaborations about the backstory and significance of the drinking bird toy in the opening scene of Alien. And, much to my surprise, these elaborations, most of the time, do not deal with what I think is so significant about it.

Regarding the drinking bird, Alien fans mostly discuss the fact that drinking bird toys have been observed in several scenes in Alien movies and games, so it's part of the Alien universe continuity. Others discuss the reason why the drinking bird is there in the first place. Some say it possibly has a message in store for the crew, for example, it could be a reminder to stay hydrated, which is very important for astrounauts.

Others eleborate on the drinking bird appearing in a deleted scene on a DVD. Up to now I have found very little elaboration on the main thing that crosses my mind when I saw the drinking bird in the opening scene of Alien for the first time. And that is; how is it possible that it moves in the first place?

You see, this drinking bird toy is mainly filled with alcohol or a similar fluid. The remaining space in the bird is not filled with air but with alcohol vapor. When the bird is dipping its head into a glass of water, that water, which is now on the outside of the head of the bird, vaporarizes, making the head of the bird colder than the rest of the bird. As a result, the pressure of the alcohol vapor inside the birds head drops, relative to the pressure in the lower part of the bird. That causes the luiquid alcohol in the legs of the bird to be pushed upwards, making the bird top-heavy, and then it topples, dipping its head in the glass of water again.

The bird keeps dipping its nose into the glass of water until there is no more water left in the glass. So that means that if the bird is moving at a certain pont in time, someone has recently been there to put that glass there or recently filled the glass with water. So to me, the most significant aspect of the drinking bird in the Alien opening scene, is that it reveals from the very beginning, that not everyone aboard this ship, is asleep. And combined with the follow up of this scene, in which seemingly, the entire crew wakes up from hyper sleep, this implies that one of the crew members is faking to wake up.

So from the get go, we know that there is a crewmember who is not who he or she pretends to be. Of course, later on in the movie, we learn who that is, and what the meaning of that is...

I found one instance on Reddit where this exact thought is raised by a Reddit user. Only to be met with a response from someone who thinks he wipes this idea from the table, because he thinks that a drinking bird toy, moves perpetually. No, it doesn't.

A perpetually moving object that is not fueled by some kind of energy source, does not exist in a gravity setting, such as earth or in this case the Nostromo. In this case, the energy source is the initial push towards the birds head. We first have to push the head of the bird manually into the glass of water to set the chain reaction in motion.

From then on, the bird needs that glass of water to keep the motion going. And with every new dipping of the birds nose into the water, that glass of water will get a bit more empty. And depending on the situation, after a few hours, or maybe even a day, the glas is empty, and the bird stops moving.

It's kind of a long explanation, but in my opinion, if we understand this principle, the conclusion must be that someone recently filled the glass of water. Maybe less than only hours before the crew wake up from their hyper sleep. I think that is what Ridley Scott is trying to tell us here... Anyways, always funny so see how people like myself get consumed by seemingly insignificant details in movies... Thanks for watching!