Alien

I love how slowly paced this is for the first 45 minutes or so. The antagonizing ease with which everyone in the crew, aside from Ripley of course, are manipulated into bringing the "perfect organism" on board?? And, even then, the complete lack of urgency to dispose of it while they had a chance?!? It builds suspense along with the characters and dynamics so masterfully.

Everyone watching this movie for the first time has a gut feeling that they "don't like that scientist guy", but — from my experience — the inclination is for audiences to just assume he cares more about science than humanity. Not only is that a common trope, but we often project that stereotype onto reality. We're all desensitized to some extent as to the reality that scientists are not solely motivated by their own obsessions. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, they're just working at some job for some big company doing whatever they're told to do to keep getting their paychecks. It's the corporation's interests that matter when trying to determine "why the hell that creepy looking guy seemingly wants to keep this thing alive??!!"

We, as an audience, are conditioned to let scientists tiptoe a few moral/logical boundaries without much cause for alarm because they're probably just doing it to get their nerdy little fix. We forget that even a far fetched, dystopian, and overly indulgent scientist's fixations must be funded by a company that profits off their successes. Anyways, I think the point has been made: Alien's mega-corporation, Wayland Yutani, chose the perfect job for their cutthroat undercover AI to perform.

In a movie where all the characters are so preoccupied with their shares and the absurd "contracts" requiring them to risk their lives for corporate greed, the majority never confront Ash about his motives or wrecklessness. Alien's capitalist critiques are not solely pointed at Wayland Yutani, but also towards those who are unwilling to critically think about the forces driving other people's actions. Basic stereotypes are the easiest way to explain away behavior and, therefore, can/are used by the bourgeois to make people turn a blind eye to immoral conduct.

A lot of stuff about class dynamics between engineers, managers, scientists, etc. in this (and in Aliens) that I lack the energy to dive into at the moment. What I will say is that the film demonstrates how the capitalist class subtly divides the working class by using stereotypes to their advantage, applying the pressures of task-based wages (see: gig economy), relying on the divisive and immobile nature of bureaucracy, instilling the ever-present threat of unemployment, and, of course, deploying an undercover AI robot with seemingly superhuman strength and stealthiness to make sure everything goes according to plan (seriously though, how the fuck did he sneak up on Ripley so quietly during the climactic scene when she was talking to Mother???).