Alien, Alienation, and Alien Nation Chapter uri icon

abstract

  • 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Long before the viewers of Ridley Scotts Alien catch their first, fleeting glimpse of the terrifying alien, they have already made the acquaintance of the alienated human beings aboard the USCSS Nostromo. The plot of Ridley Scotts Alien is well known to science fiction buffs and film enthusiasts more generally. In fact, the human members of the crew of the Nostromo exhibit alienation, a condition identified by Karl Marx in the Estranged Labor section of his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. So long as the capitalist mode of production remains viable and authoritative, Marx insists, workers will suffer the indignities associated with alienated labor. In the transition from Alien to Aliens, the added s makes a huge difference. Alienated from their (admittedly clueless) leadership, their cloudy mission objectives, and one another, and overly dependent on their military hardware, the Colonial Marines are no match for the coordinated attack of the alien species.

author list (cited authors)

  • Conway, D.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Conway, Daniel

Book Title

  • Alien and Philosophy

publication date

  • June 2017

publisher