ALIEN (1979) AND ALIENS (1986)
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ALIEN (1979)
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE: Effectively mixing two distinct genres, the first Alien entry set Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and several futuristic companions within a haunted house in outer space. Courtesy: 20th Century-Fox.
CREDITS
Twentieth Century-Fox/Brandywine Productions; Ridley Scott, dir.; Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, scr.; Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill, pro.; Jerry Goldsmith, mus.; Derek Vanlint, cin.; David Crowther, Terry Rawlings, Peter Weatherley, ed.; Michael Seymour, Roger Christian, prod. design; Christian, Leslie Dilley, set design; John Mollo, costumes; Ron Cobb, concept artist; Nick Allder, Alan Bryce, Clinton Cavers, Brian Johnson, Christian Wolf-La’Moy, Carlo Rambaldi, F/X; Dennis Ayling, Martin Bower, special visual effects; 117 min.; Color; 2.20:1.
CAST
Tom Skerritt (Dallas); Sigourney Weaver (Ripley); Veronica Cartwright (Lambert); Harry Dean Stanton (Brett); John Hurt (Kane); Ian Holm (Ash); Yaphet Kotto (Parker); Bolaji Badejo, Eddie Powell (The Alien).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
In space, no one can hear you scream.
ADVERTISING SLOGAN FOR ALIEN
BACKGROUND
Dan O’Bannon (1946–2009) conceived of making a movie about a bloodthirsty alien while still a student at University of Southern California and working on Dark Star (1974) with director John Carpenter and budding F/X expert Ron Cobb. O’Bannon prepared a script titled “Memory”—essentially, Alien’s first act—but wasn’t sure where to take it. He joined forces with Ronald Shusett, who had been highly impressed by the concept of It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) in which an alien slips aboard a ship. The two collaborators hoped for nothing more than a Roger Corman “quickie,” but when the loftier team of David Giler and Walter Hill expressed interest, the project swiftly rose in status. Giler and Hill added the idea of one crewmember secretly being an android.
THE PLOT
Seven blue-collar workers, hauling minerals to Earth, wake from stasis when the receiver in their space vehicle, Nostromo, accepts a transmission from a nearby planetoid. They descend to discover the source, a warning from an earlier craft. They find a pod in an immense cave. It smashes against Kane’s face, rendering him unconscious. Leader Dallas and others carry him back; Ash insists, over protestations by Ripley, that they disobey quarantine rules and allow re-entry. Once again in transit, everyone is shocked to see a miniature monster rip its way up and out of Kane’s chest. An egg had been planted within him. Now the creature, increasing in size, haunts the crew of the Nostromo.
THE FILM
O’Bannon’s friend Cobb was brought on to design the ship. An H. R. Giger painting, Necronom, inspired the design of the creature. The harrowing noir/surrealist approach would prove precisely right for the film. When Hill chose not to direct, the team approached Ridley Scott (1937–), whose cool, distanced approach to the historical tale The Duellists (1977) had impressed them. Scott came up with the look for such elements as spacesuits that were halfway between the fantasy approach of Star Wars and the ultra-realistic grounding of hard sci-fi such as 2001.
Alien was shot at Shepperton Studios, England, where Cobb perfected the high-tech, industrial look that would come to characterize future genre work. Carlo Rambaldi, who had worked with Spielberg on extraterrestrials for Close Encounters, came up with the iconic head. Scott instructed editor Terry Rawlings to show the creature as little as possible to realize O’Bannon’s concept of “Jaws in space.”
Alien offers sci-fi/horror, mixing the two genres. The concept is a haunted house yarn, here reset in deep space.
THEME
The Alien films would prove significant in bringing feminism, the most significant social cause of the 1970s, to the sci-fi genre. Early on in the planning, Ripley was to have been played by a male actor. The part instead went to Sigourney Weaver. The beautiful Ripley is anything but submissive. She is a take-charge person who happens to be female. Audiences assume that Dallas (his name suggests a cowboy hero) would in time save the day. When he fails, then dies, the film effectively deconstructs viewer expectations. We expect a new dragon-slayer. It turns out, happily, to be Ripley.
TRIVIA
The name “Nostromo” is taken from a 1904 Joseph Conrad novel about a seafarer lost in unknown and dangerous waters.
THE LAST ACTION HERO: In an unexpected turnaround, the original’s sole survivor (Sigourney Weaver) was re-imagined as a macho babe in a film that reunited her with the monster but revitalized the concept via an emphasis on rough-hewn physical combat. Courtesy: 20th Century Fox.
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CREDITS
James Cameron, dir.; Cameron, David Giler, scr.; Gale Anne Hurd, pro.; James Horner, mus.; Adrian Biddle, cin.; Ray Lovejoy, ed.; Peter Lamont, prod. design; Terry Ackland-Snow, Ken Court, Michael Lamont, art dir.; Emma Porteous, costumes; Ron Cobb, conceptual design; Norman Baillie, Nigel Booth, Ron Burton, Michael Dunleavy, John Richardson, F/X; Stan Winston, alien effects creator; Steven Woodcock, model maker; Jonathan Angell, Dennis Skotak, Robert Skotak, special visual effects; 137 min.; Color; 1.85:1.
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CAST
Carrie Henn (Rebecca “Newt” Jorden); Michael Biehn (Cpl. Dwayne Hicks); Paul Reiser (Carter Burke); Lance Henriksen (Bishop); Bill Paxton (Pvt. Hudson); Jenette Goldstein (Pvt. Vasquez); William Hope (Lt. Gorman); Al Matthews (Sgt. Apone).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
Get away from her, you bitch!
RIPLEY TO THE MOTHER CREATURE
BACKGROUND
While waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger to complete Conan the Destroyer (Richard Fleischer, 1984) so that they could start shooting The Terminator, James Cameron (1954–) focused on an idea for a possible Alien sequel. Fox was in no hurry as they thought the original should have made even more money than it did, but Giler pressed the studio, which finally relented, and the franchise was now in full swing.
THE PLOT
Ripley alone survived, conquering the alien, then drifting in a space-pod for decades. She is finally discovered floating in space, but her story is not believed. The planetoid is now a working colony. Stripped of credentials owing to a corporate desire to remain mum as to any risks, she’s informed by Burke of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Gorman of the space marines explains that Ripley’s status will be restored if she agrees to travel back as a consultant aboard Sulaco, a warship. After landing, they discover that the population has been annihilated but for one child, Newt.
THE FILM
The shoot at England’s Pinewood Studios did not go well. Many members of the crew remembered Scott warmly and considered Cameron an interloper. Their constant breaks for teatime disrupted the pattern of a director who takes a no-nonsense, straight-ahead approach to filming. Robert and Dennis Skotak, both of whom had worked with Cameron on low-budget Corman films, came aboard for the F/X chores. Most significantly, the director insisted that he was not making “Alien II,” but an original film based on the same alien concept. Cameron perfected his unique approach working on The Terminator (1984), including the use of state-of-the-art action within the cinéma fantastique genre.
THEME
President Dwight Eisenhower, on the eve of stepping down from office in 1959, warned the American public against the military-industrial complex. That sums up Cameron’s vision in Aliens as the corporate lackey and the marine commander set aside the good of ordinary people for the accumulation of corporate profits and personal power.
TRIVIA
The idea of a mother monster protecting her young had been the premise for Gorgo (Eugène Lourié, 1961) and would be re-used by Spielberg for The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).
