Daily Dialogue — July 23, 2017

Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? [slams her hands down on the table] Ash?
Ash: [awakens and starts speaking in an electronic and distorted voice] Yes, I can hear you.
Ripley: What was your special order?
Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.
Ripley: What was it?
Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.
Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?
Ash: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded.
Ripley: How do we kill it, Ash? There’s gotta be a way of killing it. How? How do we do it?
Ash: You can’t.
Parker: That’s bullshit.
Ash: You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor… unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
Parker: Look, I am… I’ve heard enough of this, and I’m asking you to pull the plug.

Ripley goes to disconnect Ash, who interrupts.

Ash: Last word.
Ripley: What?
Ash: I can’t lie to you about your chances, but… you have my sympathies.

— Alien (1979), screenplay by Dan O’Bannon, story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Scientific Explanation, suggested by Melinda Mahaffey.

Trivia: Many producers have professional “readers” that read and summarize scripts for them. The reader in this case summarized it as “It’s like Jaws (1975), but in space.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: Such a great scene, Ash’s head explaining the ship’s “special order” and ending with a prediction of the crew’s fate. Brilliant.