Alien was released in 1979, a time where feminism was needed and had gradually grew over time. There was arguably more of a need for a strong female character back in the 1970’s, where feminism had began to pick up speed, most notably in the form of second wave feminism. Alien was a unique film, not entirely being classed a as horror, sci-fi, or thriller but rather a combination of the three. It had jump scares, gore, but it also toyed with our emotions since we felt emotionally engaged with the character of Ripley. As the majority of her crew were killed off, we followed our heroine through till the end, admiring the brave traits which set her aside form other female leads.

It is difficult to actually define what inspired Alien, since it is such a unique and individual film. Some basic ideas and principles from the film were based off old classics, scriptwriter O’Bannon drew inspiration of the alien pursuing a group from the hit 1951 horror ‘The Thing: (Christian Nyby). He also cited ‘Planet of the Vampires’ (1965, by Mario Bava) for the idea of the heroes discovering the alien

Other fiction also influenced some of the ideas and visual style of Alien, in particular the 1953 short story ‘Junkyard’ where the characters discover some eggs after landing on an asteroid. ‘Strange Relations’ (1960, by Philip José Farmer) also influenced the aliens as a whole, and O’Bannon claimed that many comics served as influence for the aliens as well.