Ridley Scott’s Alien Is Breaking Cell Phones, Look Out And Protect Yourself
A video clip from Ridley Scott's Alien is breaking cell phones because the 4K is too difficult for the phones to render.
Ridley Scott is most well known for his legacy in the sci-fi world, but it looks like his 1979 classic, Alien, is causing some mayhem off-screen as well, according to a recent Futurism article. Well, we can’t really say off-screen because the mayhem we’re talking about in this case actually involves the screens of certain Google Pixel and Samsung devices locking up when playing a clip from the classic film. While we presently live on a technological timeline that never ceases to amaze us, an unfortunate reality is that smartphones can sometimes prove to be unreliable.
Before you run to the bomb cellar to retrieve your tinfoil hat, heat up your canned meats, and fire up the Ham Radio, we wanted to put your minds at ease that this technological mishap has nothing to do with an extra-terrestrial invasion. The simple explanation is that the 4K quality of the classic Alien clip is difficult to render on some Google Pixel devices. While the bug has an easy fix in the form of a system restart, Google has yet to comment on why their phones are crashing when opening up the clip.
This isn’t the first time that Google smartphones have crashed for similar reasons. While a couple of years is a technological eternity, some of us remember the 2020 “cursed wallpaper” fiasco like it happened yesterday. The 2020 Google and Samsung phone crashes were the result of an image that was so robust that the devices couldn’t process the colors properly. Ridley Scott must be happy to know that Alien was such a visually stunning film that modern technology still has trouble keeping up with his brilliance!
Despite the technical issues that some Google and Samsung users are experiencing while watching the clip, it’s always great to be reminded of Scott’s 1979 masterpiece, Alien. It’s been over 40 years since its theatrical release, but the film is still generating a buzz, even if the circumstances are less than ideal. And if you’re a prankster who knows anybody using a Google Pixel 6 or 7, you might want to harness the power of the film to cause a little bit of mayhem … just don’t throw us under the bus if you get in trouble.
Alien follows a space crew that is called to investigate a distress call from an alien ship. It doesn’t take long for everything to go south for the crew as they stumble upon a nest of alien eggs that waste no time attaching themselves to the crew members. The clip that is freezing up phones is an iconic moment from the “get out of there” scene, and it looks amazing in 4K Ultra HD.
Alien won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was also nominated for Best Art Direction. The entire crew must have done something right if their clips are still too advanced for viewing on new technology. While it certainly wasn’t their intention, we hope everybody has a good laugh about it and will continue to give Alien the recognition it deserves!
