Looks like a regular alien in a spacesuit with a blinding white light for attackers or inquisitive people, and certainly NOT a shapeshifting creature!
Maybe an homage to the original movie based on this remake, when it was basically a man in a monster costume?
I agree. The poster should depict something that's actually in the movie and there's not a single scene where someone shines a bright white light out of their face. It's just nonsense. The poster is supposed to draw visitors to the cinema, this poster fails to do so imho.
shareTHIS GUY WAS DUMB.
shareactually the characters in the movie look like the poster quite a few times; they wear some kind of headgear flashlight. so the poster is just one of the workers... except the point is, is it a human or something else?
shareI'm pretty sure that is not supposed to be an alien in a space suit. It looks to me like a man dressed in heavy winter clothing. The light coming from the face is there to show that even though it may look like a man, it is really something else.
sharePrecisely. Its 40 years later and the poster image still seems to be too clever for some people. I'm surprised even Carpenter himself disliked the chosen poster image. He prefered some blood and guts image, because he didn't want his alien to be "a man in a suit"... I think the marketing department of Universal was absolutely in correct on this one.
sharelol the fact that someone had to spell this out is amusing.
shareIn four decades it never once occurred to me that anybody could see it as anything but a man in heavy winter clothing. At least, not anyone who's familiar with the movie and knows it's about a group of men who all wear heavy winter clothing.
shareSo, I guess the classic Alien (1979) poster doesn't meet with your approval either...
shareThe egg? I have no problem with the Alien poster, it represents the most famous part of the film, the thing in the egg that starts the whole thing going.
The floating crusty-looking chicken egg that emits a bright light while it floats above a modeling clay "landscape"? OK, I guess that's close enough.
shareBefore I posted above, I did a quick Google of the poster in question, and I didn't even notice the landscape you mention.
When you brought it up this time, I did another Google search, and got this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=alien+poster+1979&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwif3v7fkN7vAhXE4YUKHSs0CcgQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=alien+poster+1979&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQA1AAWABgrPoBaABwAHgAgAEAiAEAkgEAmAEAqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ei=BU5mYN_HD8TDlwSr6KTADA&bih=818&biw=1323&rlz=1C1CHZL_enGB849GB849
With so many VARIATIONS on the Alien 1979 poster, which one should I be looking at, eh?
Well, the one with the gray modeling clay was the one I recall seeing when the movie came out (it was on the LP cover too). It was clever as hell and not literal. There were a lot of striking posters--not always to great movies--I liked the Prophecy poster with the big egg shaped monster fetus... Also the green spiral/hook Alien 3 poster.
sharethats how they did em back then
shareYou, the poster, looks dumb?
It works.
40 years later it's still one of the most recognizable movie posters EVA!