Ash in Alien: The Android Antagonist
While Alien’s (1979) primary antagonist is the extraterrestrial being, one can argue that the secondary antagonist is Ash, the scientist consultant on the ship Nostromo. As the plot advances to reveal that an alien is on the ship and several of the crew have been killed, the warrant officer Ripley takes the role of commander and requests help from the ship’s computer Mother. Receiving no significant information in terms of protocol after discovering an alien hostile, she is ambushed by Ash, whom Parker destroys and exposes to be an android. Ash says his special order from the ship’s employers is to “bring back life form. Priority one. All other priorities rescinded.” The corporation behind the ship Nostromo had programmed Ash for this specific function, neglecting all ethical responsibilities to preserve the lives of the crew members.
Ash symbolizes the corruption of mankind aided by digital technology. This corruption is based on the original unethical ideologies that men already have. Even though audience members are never told the real reason behind Ash’s function, they still know that the crew’s lives are dependent on the orders the company gives Ash. Thus, a group of humans acting as a corporation has the power to dictate another group of humans’ lives. This becomes an ethical complication, the ability to control another person’s life. The movie uses Ash to portray the fear that with the aid of computers, people can easily control other people. With the computer as a middle man, the company never has to interact with the crew and, as a result, becomes detached to the crew members and their actual identity. Not having the do any of the unpleasant work of facing the crew members themselves, the company can justify their reasons for sacrificing the entire crew without empathy to hold them back.
Besides the company’s detachment toward the crew, the movie also stresses on Ash’s awe of the life form. He says that he admires the alien as “the perfect organism” and its “purity…unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.” Ash, thus, voices the imminent downfall of the humankind by what he thinks is the necessity to advance toward a world like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This downfall can take place only with the aid of technology, because androids like Ash can admire such an amoral alien because of their own inability to feel or be altruistic to one another. During the scene where Ash attempts to kill Ripley, the audience can see Ash’s bunk area’s walls covered with pornography and the sadistic way of shoving the magazine down Ripley’s throat. The director uses the scene to separate Ash from the other crew members, showing how the android may appreciate the alien because of their similarities. The fear of using technology to transform humans into unfeeling beings like the android and the alien is one of the themes of Alien.
The two ideas connect because the company’s detachment may represent the beginning of men’s downfall toward amorality. Even though actual existing technology has not created an android like Ash, it has decreased the need for real life interaction. Has the downfall of man already begun? This fear is what leads some people to be cautious toward the internet and online relationships. The only thing separating humans from the android and the alien is our ability to be ethically responsible for our actions.
