Alex Garland on Alien

leading from

Alien Echoes

a) The film maker Danny Boyle directed a sci-fi movie called Sunshine released in 2007 and people might have wondered if this would be the nearest thing that he did to an Alien movie, since he had pulled out of making Alien Resurrection. His scriptwriter for Sunshine was Alex Garland and Danny thought that Alex was a big fan of those movies, but there was no public word about it from Alex back then

b) Years later in 2018, publicising his film Annihilation with dealt with the idea of alien life forms, Alex was able to talk briefly about Alien as a movie that he liked, that he thought it was smart, really scary, incredibly beautifully constructed intelligent bit of film making, it felt so fresh when it came out, reinventing subtly all sorts of things, thus is became a lesson in reinvention. He found it subversive as well and then he thought that he liked films that are subversive. For him it wasn't as if the viewer had never seen the alien, the spaceship before, or the crew,  but the crew were people he hadn't seen in a film before, making the Nostromo a blue collar spaceship, and so he enjoyed the space truckers idea

1. Q. So is this your Alien movie?
   Danny Boyle: I think Alex (Garland) is a big fan of those Alien movies as well. The guy who wrote that fourth one, Joss Whedon, is an Alex-type of guy – very imaginative, a wonderful cinematic writer. But how the fourth Alien turned out is very different to the original script that we read..(http://www.indielondon.co.uk, 2007)
2. Alex Garland: I also liked the first Alien movie, it's an incredibly beautifully constructed intelligent bit of film making, and, and subversive as well. I think that I like films that are subversive. (Alex Garland: "Annihilation" | Talks at Google https://youtu.be/w5i7idoijco?t=18m47s, ) (Thanks to Antonio Pérez Galvin at Alien Paradise for mentioning that Alex Garland mentioned Alien in an interview somewhere.)
3. Alex Garland: Alien because it's a sort of a immaculate film, I'm talking about the first one, it's smart, really scary and really beautifully made and just felt back when it came out, amazingly fresh, sort of reinvented subtly all sorts of things. I think it sort of taught me about what reinvention is like in a funny kind of way. It wasn't that  you had never seen the alien before, the spaceship, people in the space ship. They were, they were the sort of people you hadn't seen in film for , it was like a blue collar spaceship, and was really interesting idea, the space truckers thing ( Link sent to me by @BodySnatchers79 on Twitter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dd_Ar7e1oI)