Rain and flip flops. Ketchup and chocolate. Exercising and jeans. If you are starting to see a theme, it is that these things just do not go together. This was the same reaction I had when I realized that the two films I most wanted to watch over these last few weeks were Pleasantville and Alien. While I was apprehensive at first, I must say that finding subtle commonalities and fairly obvious differences was actual quite the pleasure, and while the differences are obvious, I want to predominantly focus on the differences.

Alien is one of the most revered science fiction films of all time and “one of the most influential movies ever made,” according to Movie Critic Peter Howell (Howell, 2015). Pleasantville is a unique social and political commentary, called “a provocative, complex and surprisingly anti-nostalgic parable wrapped in the beguiling guise of a commercial high-concept comedy” at the time of its release (Leydon, 1998). The differences are abundant, to say the least, but one of the most noticeable ways this can be seen in how they were initially received. Alien was released in a time where studios could not keep up with the high demand for science fiction films, while Pleasantville’s producer team had noticeably lower expectations. “It was difficult to market. It wasn’t explainable in a couple of seconds like our other films,” according to Mitch Goldman, who was the president of marketing and distribution for New Line Cinema at the time. “We really didn’t expect to be №1 (Fleeman, 1998).” And yet both films were released and were 1st at the box office in their opening week, though one film was noticeably less popular with the film critics. While audiences came to see the next great sci-fi classic, film critics were less generous with their Alien feedback, with one even lamenting “that audiences have been so corrupted by television and have become so jaded that all they want are noisy thrills and dumb jokes (Watkins, 2017).” While Pleasantville also received critique, as all films do, it was certainly not to the same extent. In short, while Pleasantville exceeded low expectations, it seems as though Alien did not live up to the high ones. At least, they did not initially.

While clearly these movies do not have much in common, I was impressed by how much they had in common. First, they both pass a very important measurement for films: the Bechdal test. Essentially, the Bechdal test has three simple rules: 1) there must be 2 women, 2) they talk to each other, and 3) their discussion is not about men. While this is seemingly a low bar, a surprisingly small number of movies can pass the test. Alien actually does something that relatively few movies at this time did: make the woman the hero. Many even cite Alien as Sigourney Weaver’s breakout role, and few would argue that in many of the movies that she did prior (think Avatar), she was one of the major characters and/or heroes of the film. Weaver’s Ripley “paved the way for other leading women in space, from Jodie Foster in ‘Contact’ to Sandra Bullock in ‘Gravity’ (Murphy, 2017).” Pleasantville takes a different approach, where women break through barriers throughout the course of the film until they are treated equally. At the beginning, the mother and many of the other women of Pleasantville fit the stereotype of a 1950’s stay at home mom, but the mother specifically is a great example of how being empowered makes a meaningful difference. While no one would deny that these two films take different approaches, both put women at the forefront of the story and do not just see them as accessories to men. While many of us would like to think that is the norm nowadays, in this era, it was one of the reasons that these films stood out.

Another major similarity between these two is the creative team of each of these films commitment and dedication to create a visually pleasing film. While each film did so in their own, inevitably unique way, both films created an unquestionably stunning film that did something no one had done before them. For Alien, it was creating an unforgettable set design and characters. “I always wanted my alien to be a very beautiful thing, something aesthetic,” production designer H.R. Giger asserted when talking about the creative design of the film. “A monster isn’t just something disgusting; it can have a kind of beauty (Stinson, 2016).” While some would argue that the alien is both beautiful and disgusting, few can argue with the fact that it is something to behold. To many fans and critics of the film, this dedication continues with the set design itself. When designing what the spaceship Nostromo would look like, Director Ridley Scott “wanted it to look like a gothic cathedral floating in space” and included “detail reminiscence of Notre Dame in Paris (Zouch Editors, 2010).” While Pleasantville is also visually pleasing, it is in a much different way. Pleasantville manipulates the use of color and leverages it to show a drastic change in the narratives of these people, which pleased casual fans and film critics alike. “The striking juxtapositions of color and black-and-white in key scenes are dazzling,” one film critic wrote. “But it’s the overall persuasiveness of the high-tech wizardry that truly elevates Ross’ fairy tale above the level of mere gimmickry (Leydon, 1998).” The set does not go to great lengths to be visually pleasing, as it models a typical 1950’s neighborhood, but the way that color is used to effectively tell the story without explicitly saying what it is doing is really unusual. Both film creative teams understand the value and importance of how their films can be visibly interpreted and went to great lengths to ensure that this would be a success.

Every actor and actress gets their start somewhere, and for both Alien and Pleasantville, these films acted as springboards for their stars. Director Ridley Scott was incredibly careful with how his cast was selective, as he wanted them to be able to shoulder the majority of the responsibility of their role. As filming dates neared and the role of Ripley unfilled, actor Warren Beatty called one of the producers and suggested a relatively unknown actress that was performing in an off-Broadway show. Soon after, Scott was meeting Sigourney Weaver, and the rest was, well, history. Weaver eventually became a household name, and so too did the stars of Pleasantville. While few people would not recognize the names Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire, both of these young actors were still early in their career at this time. Pleasantville served as the first of many successes for these two stars, with Witherspoon landing the role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and Maguire going on to become Spiderman. While these films were successful in their own rights, they were also critical to the success of three major household names.

No one would put Alien and Pleasantville in the same category in a number of fields, and yet, I hope I was able to show you that initial reactions are not always accurate. So many people jump to assume that these films are polar opposites, and while they are in some ways, they have some really incredible similarities, and doing this research allowed me the pleasure of realizing this.