Excellent articles, I had no idea about O'Bannon's original script and plans. Despite O'Bannon's thoughts on Giler & Hill's rewrites, I think I'd agree that they worked out for the better. O'Bannon's ideas, though fascinating, really told the viewer a lot, and doesn't seem as mysterious, horrifying, and unsettling as the final product.
Thanks for your interest. I have to admit personally that I enjoy the android and conspiracy ideas in the final Alien movie. The android certainly gives a bit of substance to the idea of why they should bring an infected man aboard despite the likely dangers.
Plus, there's the joy of watching the movie a second time and seeing the hints to Ash's ulterior motives. Plus it makes humanity as dangerous, and certainly more duplicitous, as the Alien.
I think though that I'm horrifying amazed at the work that Shusett and O'Bannon put into the original script, the way O'Bannon must have lived with that world of ideas, endlessly looking through books and magazines etc for facts and ideas for him to transform and create layered ideas.
I wish it were easier for me to track down all the little comments that I remember. I have the files of articles but it sure is like having to wander around a labyrinth for days and days. The other day I discovered a comment by Ridley about his interest in an old photo of a flying saucer and it took me several months to find it even though I knew which magazine title published it and I had the article in front of me
I wasn't keen on O' Bannons original draft to begin with. But after looking into the draft and it's history i began to see the draft in another way and enjoy reading it. You artice inspired me to write my own sort of short synopsis/summary of the script.
Thanks,I'm still wondering if I can take this article to another level. I keep thinking that it's all a bit like learning Vulcan chess with all the complex history of the different ideas and whatever was going through Dan's head and indeed unfortunately his stomach when he was assembling them. It's easy for me to read the original script and have reveries about all the strange pre-production artwork by Chris Foss and Ron Cobb that would never have made its way into the final film.
I wanted to add a whole lot more but decided to leave the rest for a later article.
Researching Alien's beginnings you always learn something new. I've always been fascinated not only with the final films production, and process, but the things we don;t see, the early concepts, the dropped and unfilmed scenes etc, etc. It's the same with Alien 3 also. The more i look into Alien the further more i get drawn into it.
Excellent articles, I had no idea about O'Bannon's original script and plans. Despite O'Bannon's thoughts on Giler & Hill's rewrites, I think I'd agree that they worked out for the better. O'Bannon's ideas, though fascinating, really told the viewer a lot, and doesn't seem as mysterious, horrifying, and unsettling as the final product.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interest. I have to admit personally that I enjoy the android and conspiracy ideas in the final Alien movie. The android certainly gives a bit of substance to the idea of why they should bring an infected man aboard despite the likely dangers.
ReplyDeletePlus, there's the joy of watching the movie a second time and seeing the hints to Ash's ulterior motives. Plus it makes humanity as dangerous, and certainly more duplicitous, as the Alien.
ReplyDeleteI think though that I'm horrifying amazed at the work that Shusett and O'Bannon put into the original script, the way O'Bannon must have lived with that world of ideas, endlessly looking through books and magazines etc for facts and ideas for him to transform and create layered ideas.
ReplyDeleteI wish it were easier for me to track down all the little comments that I remember. I have the files of articles but it sure is like having to wander around a labyrinth for days and days. The other day I discovered a comment by Ridley about his interest in an old photo of a flying saucer and it took me several months to find it even though I knew which magazine title published it and I had the article in front of me
ReplyDeleteI wasn't keen on O' Bannons original draft to begin with. But after looking into the draft and it's history i began to see the draft in another way and enjoy reading it. You artice inspired me to write my own sort of short synopsis/summary of the script.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy visiting this bog.
Thanks,I'm still wondering if I can take this article to another level. I keep thinking that it's all a bit like learning Vulcan chess with all the complex history of the different ideas and whatever was going through Dan's head and indeed unfortunately his stomach when he was assembling them. It's easy for me to read the original script and have reveries about all the strange pre-production artwork by Chris Foss and Ron Cobb that would never have made its way into the final film.
ReplyDeleteThis is what i wrote which was influenced by your article:
ReplyDeletehttp://weyland-yutaniarchives.blogspot.com/2010/10/project-formerly-titled-starbeast-part.html
I wanted to add a whole lot more but decided to leave the rest for a later article.
Researching Alien's beginnings you always learn something new. I've always been fascinated not only with the final films production, and process, but the things we don;t see, the early concepts, the dropped and unfilmed scenes etc, etc. It's the same with Alien 3 also. The more i look into Alien the further more i get drawn into it.
For those interested, the entire STARBEAST script can be found here.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Do you know where I can find the one where the monster was hidden in the space jockey's head?
DeleteIf you're talking about the script for Memory, it hasn't been released
Delete