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Alien: Afterthoughts
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Hergé
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Hergé's Tintin
Looking at the genesis of the early Alien script, it looks as if Dan O'Bannon had discovered the wonders of comic book character Tintin by the Belgian comic book writer/illustrator Hergé.
The influence shows itself up in the early version of the Alien script and I wonder if he was introduced to Tintin during his time working on Dune in Paris, since Jodorowsky and Moebius were fans of Hergé's work.
So it would be as if he read the comic books and occasionally they would set off ideas that he liked that would perhaps connect with other things that he would have been thinking about.
Before he joined the Dune production, he had key parts of the Alien story already written in his Memory script, so I am still wondering exactly what has been added to it since.
While it might appear that Tintin and the Picaros appears to have helped shape the way the chestburster scene as a whole was written, we do know that it had no actual chestbursters in the story and will not have inspired that idea in the way that the comic book stories "Seeds of Jupiter" from Weird Science and "Defiled" from Death Rattle appeared to have, but Tintin stories helped to give the Alien script a strange sort of structure to fall back on.
One can look back in time and find out that the influence of Tintin's comic books could be felt in American culture even as far back at the nineteen fifties in some of the the Tom Corbett Space Cadet comic stories an so on.
People living in Western Europe would normally have known of this comic book character, even if they hadn't actually read the comic books themselves.
Hergé's influence sometimes crept into Jean Giraud / Moebius illustrations too.
With that, Dan O'Bannon would have noticed how it was being used in the Dune art department and carry that interest over into the Alien art department, and later it seemed as if Ridley Scott was starting to adapt some of the Tintin images and sequences from the stories in the film.
So far nothing has been said about it by anyone involved in Alien and Diane O'Bannon, widow of Dan, doubts that there is any connection between Tintin and the Alien script.
However The Black Island island story, reveals the discovery of a pilot's jacket and a torn up note with a triangle on it and where its to be found, indicating a secret drop off point. It's as if the pilot's jacket becomes the alien pilot's skeleton remains along with a triangle scored into a panel as a warning. The lair of the money forgers, a castle on an island in Scotland transforms both the alien birth temple and the Narcissus with escape vehicle harboring a ferocious monster
and
Hergé
and
Hergé's Tintin
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| Tintin and his dog Milou |
a) Connecting with Tintin
The influence shows itself up in the early version of the Alien script and I wonder if he was introduced to Tintin during his time working on Dune in Paris, since Jodorowsky and Moebius were fans of Hergé's work.
So it would be as if he read the comic books and occasionally they would set off ideas that he liked that would perhaps connect with other things that he would have been thinking about.
Before he joined the Dune production, he had key parts of the Alien story already written in his Memory script, so I am still wondering exactly what has been added to it since.
While it might appear that Tintin and the Picaros appears to have helped shape the way the chestburster scene as a whole was written, we do know that it had no actual chestbursters in the story and will not have inspired that idea in the way that the comic book stories "Seeds of Jupiter" from Weird Science and "Defiled" from Death Rattle appeared to have, but Tintin stories helped to give the Alien script a strange sort of structure to fall back on.
One can look back in time and find out that the influence of Tintin's comic books could be felt in American culture even as far back at the nineteen fifties in some of the the Tom Corbett Space Cadet comic stories an so on.
People living in Western Europe would normally have known of this comic book character, even if they hadn't actually read the comic books themselves.
Hergé's influence sometimes crept into Jean Giraud / Moebius illustrations too.
With that, Dan O'Bannon would have noticed how it was being used in the Dune art department and carry that interest over into the Alien art department, and later it seemed as if Ridley Scott was starting to adapt some of the Tintin images and sequences from the stories in the film.
So far nothing has been said about it by anyone involved in Alien and Diane O'Bannon, widow of Dan, doubts that there is any connection between Tintin and the Alien script.
b) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure"
b.i) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure" part I
In relation to the Tintin stories, Tintin finds a sunken shipwreck where they discover a document that leads to Captain Haddock's ancestral home and in the basement they discover a globe with a top that pops off revealing jewels inside.
This is like the discover of the derelict ship in the original Alien script and something scratched onto a panel by the dead alien pilot leads them to the pyramid where they discover the alien eggs with lids that pop off with the facehuggers inside.
b.ii) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure" part2
Another oddity of this story might be that elements connecting loosely to the Egyptian book of the dead have made their way into the story, and thus the shipwreck of the Unicorn incorporates our friend the Henu Barque, and we know that his Henu Barque has crept into the final Alien film itself.
See: Shipwreck from "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure" (1944)
Another oddity of this story might be that elements connecting loosely to the Egyptian book of the dead have made their way into the story, and thus the shipwreck of the Unicorn incorporates our friend the Henu Barque, and we know that his Henu Barque has crept into the final Alien film itself.
See: Shipwreck from "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure" (1944)
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| Shipwreck from "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackam's Treasure" |
b.iii) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure" part III
Meanwhile the shipwreck illustration appeared to be referenced in Ron Cobb's derelict ship painting, as if to say that this Tintin comic book shipwreck was being shown to Ron in artrooms in Fox studios in LA.
Meanwhile the shipwreck illustration appeared to be referenced in Ron Cobb's derelict ship painting, as if to say that this Tintin comic book shipwreck was being shown to Ron in artrooms in Fox studios in LA.
c) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and The Black Island"
However The Black Island island story, reveals the discovery of a pilot's jacket and a torn up note with a triangle on it and where its to be found, indicating a secret drop off point. It's as if the pilot's jacket becomes the alien pilot's skeleton remains along with a triangle scored into a panel as a warning. The lair of the money forgers, a castle on an island in Scotland transforms both the alien birth temple and the Narcissus with escape vehicle harboring a ferocious monster
c.ii) See: Alien Birth Temple references money printing room in "Adventures of Tintin and The Black Island"
c.iii) See: Gorilla with bandaged arm image from Tintin And The Black Island is referenced in Ron Cobb's painting of the Alien?
d) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in Tibet"
A man who has been kidnapped by the yeti, and left alone for a while is found by Tintin, and this appears to have guided Dan O'Bannon in writing his cocoon scene, but also Chris Foss has used a drawing of crashed aircraft wreckage as a source of reference a derelict ship illustration.
d.i) See: Alien: Cocoon scene by way of The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin In Tibet?
d.ii) See: Alien:Derelict No.3 by Chris Foss references plane wreckage fom Tintin In Tibet?
f) By way of "The Adentures of Tintin and the Picaros"
Tintin and the Picaros features a scene where Tintin and his fellows having left a pyramid, having to eat with a tribe of people in a jungle, Captain Haddock walks off to a pond with a crocodile and snake fighting each other, before and a small electric eel pops out of his jumper with of what can happen if attacked by a two metre long one.
f. i) See: Alien: Chestbursting scene references Tintin And The Picaros?
g) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and The Cigars of the Pharaoh"
g.i) See: Panel from a page from "Les Adventures de Tintin - Les Cigars du Pharaon" first published in Le Petit "Vingtième" no.4, p9 January 1933, by Hergé
h) By way of "The Adventures of Tintin and The Broken ear"
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