Ridley Scott’s 1979 visionary film “Alien” follows in the grand tradition of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Wars” in its epic scope, which illustrates and then isolates the image of a colossal ship as something stranded in desolate, endless space. Instead of focusing on an existential Kubrickian journey or the grandiose space opera of “Star Wars,” Scott’s film focuses on the utilitarian notion of “mission gone wrong, let’s get home.”

With just one non-sci fi film under his belt, Scott was offered “Alien” and recognized a way in which he could implement his newly discovered Metal Hurlant — a European avant-garde comic magazine — influence into the visual style of the film. Collaborating with influential Swiss surrealist painter H.R.Giger for conceptual design of the actual Alien, they created the biomechanical look that has dominated the representation of extraterrestrials in sci-fi movies to come.

The film is peppered with slow, long panoramic shots that establish mood and build suspense. The careful camera movement and narrative display a type of pacing lost in today’s horror and science fiction films, e.g. “Red Planet.” This manner of patient filmmaking trusts the audience enough to wait for the tension to build and not drown them with explosions.

The power of silence is shown through constant focus of the size of the ship, which builds and foreshadows something more sinister. The use of negative space, the strength of what is not seen and anticipation is the mastery that has made directors like Hitchcock and films like “Jaws” such cultural milestones. Also innovative were the eschewed romantic ideals of noble scientists and fearless space explorers, which are all too familiar of the genre. Instead, the realistic notions of space travel becoming mundane and the crew as contracted laborers make a great contrast to the wondrous shots of interstellar space. The fact that the cast is old helps give the sense of blue-collar workers stuck transporting ore and ready to go home. Conversations consist of the disdain for the ship food, which produces double entendres between eating and sex. Issues of class, sexism and bureaucracy are present as we see the two repairmen incessantly wondering about lesser pay shares, Ripley’s orders being ignored by the crew and the faceless company giving out dangerous mission objectives favoring discovery over the group’s safety.

After receiving a signal of apparent distress, the crew is sent to investigate the source and every aspect is shown with intricate detail. From the descent to the planet’s surface, to the ominous glimpse of the alien ship, to the petrified pilot and the beautiful atmospherics of the primordial mist of subterranean environment, nothing is missed. The tense inspection of the Alien egg by Kane, played by John Hurt (“The Elephant Man”), followed by its explosion onto his face is the perfect payoff to the build.

But that’s all you get because the camera cuts away. No prolonged, action-filled struggle with the alien, but more suspense instead. Then the leech is seen resting on his face, as it is slowly prodded, examined and then bleeds acid and more pay-off as the acid burns through the ship with ease. The Alien creature is constantly changing shape and is seen so infrequently that a tangible form cannot even be placed on it. The imagination is left to do most of the work. Straight from the “Jaws” school of film, Scott believes the less the antagonist is seen, the more frightening it becomes. A modern application was seen most recently in M. Night Shyamalan’s film “Signs.”

This film made another brave move by having only a female character survive, keeping Ripley, Sigourney Weaver (“Aliens”), who had no prior movie experience, as the lead for all subsequent sequels. Her portrayal of a tough, able and quick-thinking Ripley displayed the grace-under-fire attitude that set the prototype for future female sci-fi heroines.

After this film, the focus moved away from the idea of sci-fi as horror and more into sci-fi as action. There is no clearer evidence of this than the arrival of director James Cameron in “Aliens,” the 1986 sequel that focused on an all-out war on the inhabited planet between the aliens and humans. The franchise continued with epigones such as “Aliens 3” and “Alien: Resurrection.”