Alien Explorations

"Alien" Explorations Index

2010-04-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

Visit The Alien Explorations page on Facebook for updates.

1. Alien

2. Aliens

3. Alien 3

4. Alien Resurrection

5. Aliens vs Predator

6. Aliens vs Predator : Requiem

7. Prometheus

Alien

2010-04-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Alien

Dan O'Bannon's Mysteries:

a) Lovecraft, b) Ufology, c) Pyramidology

Inspired by Erich Von Daniken?
a) A man of ideas, b) Influence on the Alien team (1. Dan O'Bannon, 2. Chris Foss, 3. H.R.Giger, 4. Ridley Scott)

H.R Giger's Egyptian Mysteries

i) The Goddess Nut, ii) The opening of the mouth ritual, iii) The Sokar funerary barge

Dan O'Bannon's Original Alien:

a) Discovery of the planetoid, b) The Space Jockey's Remains , c) The Pyramid, d) Spore to Facehugger, e) Facehugger to Adult, f) Dead Planetoid, g) Space Jockey Story, h) Host to Spore: The Cocoon scene

Nostromo
a) Moebius inspiration for refinery platform b) Chris Foss inspiration for Nostromo exterior

Medical inspiration for the Chestbursting

1) Food poisoning episode, 2) Carthasis for stomach pains, 3) Debilitating stomach disease, 4) living with stomach attacks, 5) congenital stomach problem, 6) Crohn's disease

Galactic Geography:

1) The Galactic Map of "Alien", 2) Locating the Nostromo
3) Houston replaced by the Solomons , 4) Galactic Geography In The Alien Novelisation, 5) The Middle Heavens

Carlo Rambaldi's Alien monster concept
a) Dan O'Bannon's dissastifaction. b.) Possible depiction in first draft storyboard.

Ridley Scott's Alien Monster
a) Before Ridley Scott stepped in, b) Into The Necronomicon, c) The Nucleus of the Alien, d) The Sudanese,

e) Bolaji Badejo from the Gold Coast, f) The Salamander People, g) Creating the Alien Lifeforms ( 1. The Chestburster, 2. The Facehugger, 3. The Egg, 4. The Big Chap)

Design origins of the Alien by way of "Swiss Made"
a)Swiss Made 2068, b) Woman with Child, c) Friedrich Kuhn II

The paintings that inspired the Alien
a). Necronom IV, b). Necronom V, c) Necronom II

The Design of the Derelict

1) Chris Foss' Derelict that O'Bannon's wanted, 2) Cobb's Derelict , 3) Ridley's Criteria, 4) Moebius' work, 5) Drawing from the Necronomicon, 6) Giger's Work

Space Jockey's origins in "Swiss Family Robinson"

a) Jonathan Swift. b) Ib Melchior. c) Bava. d) Jack Kirby. e) Ron Cobb. f) Chris Foss. g) Moebius. h) Giger.

Unlocking the design of the Space Jockey

1) The Space Jockey design as it is in Alien, 2) Space Jockey Evolution via Giger's Necronomicon part 1 , 3) Evolution of Space Jockey via the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 4) Evolution of the Space Jockey via Stanley Kubrick's 2001, 5) Space Jockey Evolution via Giger's Necronomicon part 2

The Tomita Planets
a. Admiration for The Tomita Planets, b. Working with Tomita's Planets

Dissecting the Derelict : an essay by myself from the late 1990s
a) The Scene. b) The Problem. c) The Theories Begin. d) Giger's Egg Silo and The Derelict Squeezed Into One. e) The Design Of The Derelict. f) Variations On The Space Jockey. g) Egyptian Secrets of The Life Cycle Tableau.
h) To Explain More about The Jockey With Its' "Cavernous Head". i) Peering into the Silo That's Below The Jockey's Chamber. j) The Secret of No Answers. k) Necronomic Temple Environment. l) The Spores. m) The Derelict's Interior. n) A Detour To The Alien. o)The Jockey And The Spores. p) Mixed with the genes of the Jockey and the human. q) The end of the line, and back to a connection in the distant past

Interview and Commentary transcriptions
i Edited Ridley Scott commentary for the Alien 20th Anniversary DVD
ii. Raw Ridley Scott Commentary for the Alien 20th Anniversary DVD
iii. Edited Alien Laserdisc Don Shay interview with Ridley Scott
iv. Raw Alien Laserdisc Don Shay interview with Ridley Scott

Aliens

2010-04-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

Aliens

Fom Delville via Giger to Cameron's Alien Queen

1. Alien Monster IV, 2. Jean Delville's "Treasures of Satan", 3. The Alien Queen

Alien 3

2010-04-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

Alien 3

The Beginning of Alien 3

The Shadow of the Sphinx

Alien Resurrection

2010-04-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

Alien Resurrection

Joss Whelan injects vampiric blood into the script

The Resurrection of Ripley

Aliens Vs Predator

2010-04-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Aliens Vs Predator

Aliens in a pyramid puzzle box

Borrowed from the Alien saga

Alien vs Predator Requiem

2010-04-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

The Evolution of the PredAlien

Prometheus

2010-04-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Story of Prometheus

Prometheus' DNA, The name of the Prometheus, The story of the man against the gods, Von Daniken's theories, The story of "a higher being" against the gods, Space Jockey questions.

Return of the Space Jockey
The further story as it evolves . Variations on the year it's set, The Space Jockeys, The discussion on Terraforming, Space Jockeys as Terraformers, A New Alien Design , Pyramid in the Prequel

Cast and Characters
Noomi Rapace plays Elizabeth Shaw. , Michael Fassbender plays an android, Charlize Theron plays Meredith Vickers

The Production Crew

Scriptwriter: Jon Spaihts, Scriptwriter: Damon Lindelof, Production Designer: Arthur Max, Designer: Daniel Simon, Creature Designer: H. R. Giger, Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski

Hero Complex Festival 2010 Q & A

1.Scott in the VIP room with a reference to the Space Jockey as a suit, 2. The Beginning, 3. Films back to back, 4. Introduction to Sci-Fi, 5. How Alien Came To Be And Seeing Star Wars, 6. The Fifth Man, 7. Scott in Hollywood, 8. Calling Moebius, 9. Budget and Storyboarding, 10. Reading, 11. Not asked, 12. Prequel is much more interesting than a sequel, 13. Resurrecting the Franchise, 14. Floating "Carcass" Comment, 15. Explaining the space jockey, 16. Legend and flops, 17. The Old Dark House, Underwater research, 18. Europa, Io and to Zeta II Reticuli, 19. Terraforming, 20. Faster Than Light, 21. Casting Sigourney, 22. Ridley Scott on Blade Runner: ( i) Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, ii) Scott on the Blade Runner script, iii) Friction between Harrison and Ridley) , 23. Scott and the Camera, 24. The director and team effort, 25. Film education, 26. Ridley's knee, 27.Tony Scott's Student Films, 28.The Forever War, 29.Audience questions time: i. Setting up shots, ii. Rehearsing with actors, iii. Robin Hood, iv. Western In Development, v. Sequel to Alien, vi. Blade Runner's difference to its source material, vii. Blade Runner the title

Return of the Space Jockey.

2010-03-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

The further story as it evolves

1.L'Ecran fantastique Hors Serie no.13, Decembre 2010 in their article about the Alien prequels translated into French a quote from Ridley Scott on his intentions with the two prequels. They wrote that he said :" La premiere se concentrera sur l'histoire du space jockey, Quel est son but? Comment des oeufs d'aliens se sont retrouvés sur son vaisseau? La seconde préquelle nous permettra de décrouvrir d'où vient cette mystérieuse créature." which on Google translates as "The first will focus on the history of space jockey, what is its purpose? How alien eggs were found on his ship? The second prequel will we must see whence comes this mysterious creature" (Where are they quoting him from? Are they paraphrasing?)

Variations on the year it's set.

1. Ridley did not want to put an exact year on when the original Alien movie was set when he made it back in the 1970s, but imagined it generally taking place a hundred years in the future. In October29, 2009, he talked to Empire magazine about the upcoming alien movie "The prequel will be a while ago. It's very difficult to put a year on 'Alien,' but [for example] if 'Alien' was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior."

2. The Mike Goodridge article in Screendaily.com without quoting, says that the movie will be set in 2085. He heard Ridley Scott say:“If the first Alien took place in 2090, it will take place in the years before that when they first come across this thing on a planet called Zeta Reticuli and it will ask who was that guy in the first film lying in a chair with his chest blown outwards when they first go into the giant spacecraft.”(Mike Goodridge of Screendaily.com) (Read about the issues regarding saying that the planetoid is Zeta Reticuli or was in that star system )

3. However the problem with this is that in MTV interview, Ridley confirms that the sequel will be set in 2085, however states that the events of Alien prequel will take place thirty year before Sigourney, whether that is to say before Sigourney's character Ripley was born or before Ripley encountered the alien creature is another matter, but Ridley says that the prequel be set in a period before she was born

The Space Jockeys

Ridley Scott “The film will be really tough, really nasty. It’s the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would actually go in and clean up a planet?” (Ridley tells Mike Goodridge of Screendaily.com)

L'ecran fantastique Hors Serie no.13, reveal a comment from Ridley Scott that may well be an approximate translatio of an amalgamate of various quotes since they haven't given a source:

La realisateur va donc répondre a une question que les fans se posent depuis 1979. "Cette forme de vie extra-terrestre, à la fois divinité et ingénieur/ biologiste, semble avoir créé les aliens. Nous parlons ici des ingénieurs de l'espace! Les aliens ont-ils été conçus pour une forme de guerre biologique, nettoyant une planete de fond en comble, á l'instar d'ármes de destruction massive? Ou est-ce impitoyable forme de vie, qui s'est developpée au sein d'un écosystème incroyablement dangereux? On révèlera une face encore plus sombre des ces créatures."

English Translation: The film director will then answer a question that fans have arisen since 1979. "This form of extraterrestrial life, both divinity and engineer / biologist, seems to have created the aliens. We are talking about the engineers of space! The aliens were they designed for a form of biological warfare, a cleaner planet inside out, like weapons of mass destruction? Or is this ruthless form of life that has developed an ecosystem incredibly dangerous? We reveal an even darker side of these creatures ".

The reference to gods harkens back to the Don Shay interview back in the Alien laserdisc DVD, where he compared the space jockey's race to Mars the god of war and said about the aliens "they've been to Earth before". However the term "engineers of space" is a new one from Ridley and in this case it seems to refer to the theme of terraforming, which is a main topic in the prequel .

The discussion on Terraforming

MTV asked Scott if Weyland-Yutani (the name of the Company in the movie series) was in existence and his reply was : "It's Weyland. Weyland hasn't joined Yutani yet, so they go and see Weyland. [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life."

Space Jockeys as Terraformers

So now in questions Ridley is asking, the Space Jockey's race are possibly terraformers rather than just or as well creatures involved in a war, using biological weaponry, but a war with exactly whom has not yet been revealed.

The idea of space jockeys being terraformers was touched upon in the Aliens comic books, the Aliens Earth War series, the one off story "The Alien" published in Aliens Platinum Edition 1992, and the Aliens Apocalypse - The Destroying Angels series, but in the comic book series, the alien has been something that the space jockeys have been in fear and hatred of, rather than something they had either genetically altered or created for their own uses.

A New Alien Design

1. Ridley told MTV that because the Facehugger design has been so overused in the movie sequels, he "will have to design - or redesign - earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in "Alien" which is the thing that catapult out of the egg, the face-hugger"

He added "They've squeezed the franchise dry. The first one will always be the most frightening, because the beast we put together with Giger and all its parts — the face-hugger, the chest-burster, the egg — they were all totally original, and that's hard to follow."

However it was most likely that he would consult Giger for the upcoming beast , and he said to MTV, "Once I get more serious and get going, and the big wheels start turning, we’ll certainly talk. And maybe we’ll come up with something completely different"

2. Back in July in 2008, at a Warner Brothers Studio Backlot tour, he was asked by Jay from the Alienexperience.com site about the possibility of returning to the Franchise, Ridley talked about the need for a new beast, "I'd have to redesign the beast" he said, "and it's not like lets go back to Giger and give us another beast , you're not going to get it, you're going to get a variation on a theme, and people have seen it, so you'd come up with something more original even."

Pyramid in the Prequel

1. It was revealed in the Alien Legacy Forums on October 29th, 2010, by a user named Necronom (which shows the person to be a Giger fan): “I’m not sure if any of this is known, but my Brother works in TV and one of the crews he works with came back from Morocco about 10 days ago (I waited until I knew it would be okay to mention). He was told that the area of desert they were shooting (where Scott shot Kingdom of Heaven) on had just been recced by Scott and he’s given the go ahead for them to start work on a pyramid!

The person who told my Brother thought it was going to be a part of Earth, but the pyramid sounds suspiciously like the original pyramid idea for Alien, so might actually be Acheron, or another planet.”

2. The user named Necronom's report may have come across as very unreliable, but later in the Financial Times on December 10th, 2010, it is supported though by an interview with Nourreddine Sail, head of the Moroccan Cinema Centre, confirmed that there would be filming in Morrocco’s southern Ouarzazate film studios in February and March of 2011

The story of Prometheus

2010-03-05T23:58:00.001-08:00

Prometheus

Prometheus' DNA

a) The film is named "Prometheus". Deadline ...

The name of the film

b) The film is named 'Prometheus". Variety r...

Story of a man against the gods

c) Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye talks to Ridley

Von Daniken's ideas

d) Blick interviewed Ridley Scott 12.05.2010

e) Hollywood Reporter report of a Prometheus Q & A at CineEurope

Story of "a higher being" against the gods
f) Barbara Chai interviewed Ridley Scott

Space Jockey questions
g) Article on Prometheus published in Frettamin

a) "Alien Prequel" becomes "Prometheus". Deadline report

2010-03-05T23:57:00.000-08:00

Prometheus' DNA

The announcement came that the Alien Prequel had become a film production called Prometheus.

a) Ridley Scott: “While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. I couldn't be more pleased to have found the singular tale I'd been searching for, and finally return to this genre that's so close to my heart.” (Deadline)

1) Ridley Scott states that " the keen fans will recognize strands of Alien's DNA". John August in his article "Writing from theme" talks about DNA in scriptwriting in terms, perhaps viscerally, of "core ideas".

b) "Alien Prequel" becomes "Prometheus". Variety report

2010-03-05T23:56:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

b) Variety: "Ridley Scott will direct and produce the project along with David Giler, Walter Hill and Tony Scott. Project was originally billed as an untitled "Aliens" prequel until Fox named the project "Prometheus" in January."(Variety, Feb 11th, 2011)

1 ) Although the names remain on IMDB with their respective roles in the movie, shortly afterwards Variety removed the information about David Giler, Walter Hill and Tony Scott from their own website.

c) Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye talks to Ridley

2010-03-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye (Daily Mail.co.uk)

"Ridley Scott told me he has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the script of his new epic science fiction film from leaking out.

His ensemble cast, which includes Oscar-winning Charlize Theron and hot actors Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, Sean Harris and Kate Dickie, not only had to sign secrecy clauses, but were only allowed to read the story if they visited Ridley's production office. (One exception was made, when a security courier flew to an actor's foreign location and stood guard for two hours while the screenplay was perused.)

'I was insistent that the script not leak onto the internet, where it gets dissected out of context, which spoils it for everyone,' Ridley told me during cocktails at a pre-Oscar tribute to Harvey Weinstein, hosted by Dior at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard.

The film's called Prometheus and starts filming in three weeks. ...

'It's the story of creation, the gods and the man who stood against them. It's not a small film,' Ridley joked.

'I'm using the giant James Bond 007 stage at Pinewood and six other sound stages to film it,' he added.Prometheus, Ridley declared, was not - as some have suggested - a prequel to his classic sci-fi shocker Alien. But he refused to divulge more."

c i.) It remains a hope that the script called Alien Harvest that found its way onto the internet as a leaked script which was is supposed to have been scripted by Jon Spaihts which features the space jockeys as a race of beings named "The Growers", despite some points of curiosity that it had is nothing to do with the actual one written by Jon Spaihts.

c ii.) This puts the entities known as the space jockeys possibly back under the label of gods, since he questioned in the Alien laserdisc 20th Anniversary commentary (26 minutes in) about the possibility space jockeys were as the gods of war (in the manner of the Roman god Mars) and more recently in the Prometheus interviews the idea that they are the gods as if they were the people who engineered life on planets many aeons ago.

c iii.) This begs a question about who or what Prometheus is. It is the name of one of the Titans in Classical Mythology who rebelled against the gods and passed on the gift of fire to mankind and as a result was punished. In the context of the movie thought, is it the name of a man to be remembered as a Titan who is indeed fighting against these God like extra-terrestrial foe perhaps in the ancient times that are recorded in fragments in Classical Mythology, or does it refer to the name of a terraforming space craft brought over from Spaihts script Shadow 19. The Shadow 19 script can be found on the internet reviewed over the last couple of years since Spaihts' name has been connected with the Alien Prequel project, here is one review from the website corona coming attractions by Patrick Sauriol . Here Prometheus is a "man" and in the Wall Street Journal interview he is a "higher being", a term that he had used earlier in the interview for the Swiss news article Blick

d) Blick interviewed Ridley Scott 12.05.2010

2010-03-05T23:54:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

12.05.2010, Swiss newspaper Blick interviewed Ridley Scott about his Robin Hood film and managed to interview him a question about his forthcoming Alien production, Ridley gives a nod to Erich Von Daniken's writings saying that he guessed right.

In German the article stated "Sehr lange bevor. Scott orientiert sich an Erich von Däniken: «Der hat richtig geraten. Vor Millionen von Jahren hat es hier und woanders höherstehende Geschöpfe gegeben». Es ist eine Zeit, in der HR Gigers All-Monster noch nicht existiert. «Ich muss etwas Neues erschaffen.»"

Google translates this as "Very long before. Scott is based on Erich von Daniken: "He has guessed correctly. Millions of years ago, there have been standing here and elsewhere higher creatures ". It is a time when the HR Giger's monster does not exist all. "I must create something new."""

NB: Higher creatures could also translate as "higher beings" which appears to be more likely the case as Ridley Scott mentions "higher beings" in the Wall Street Journal interview

e) Prometheus Q & A at CineEurope

2010-03-05T23:53:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

The Hollywood Reporters Scott Roxborough (9:26 PM 6/28/2011)

Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace Tease 'Prometheus' at CineEurope.

The director and cast offer a few details about the highly anticipated sci-fi film to European exhibitors.

Director Ridley Scott and stars Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace touched down at CineEurope Tuesday night to fire up enthusiasm among European exhibitors for their highly anticipated 3D sci-fi film Prometheus.

Scott and his two top cast members flew directly to CineEurope from the Prometheus set in Pinewood, London but did not bring any footage from the new, top secret project. They remained cagey during a Q&A session, only letting a few details of the film slip out. Scott acknowledged that Prometheus, while not a direct prequel to Alien, occupies the same general universe, saying the picture was inspired by a desire to explore the mystery of the "space jockey" the giant fossilized creature with the burst-open chest seen in the first Alien movie but never explained.

Scott also confirmed that the film's title is the name of a space ship sent from earth by an all-powerful corporation of the kind familiar to fans of the Alien franchise. The mythical reference - in Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to man -- is deliberate.

"The (space) journey, metaphorically, is about a challenge to the gods," Scott said. But Scott's ambitions with Prometheus go far beyond simply restarting a hit franchise. The British director said the film's storyline, and script by David Lindelof, was partially inspired by the writings of legendary Swiss sci-fi writer Eric van Daniken.

Van Daniken, author of 1968 bestseller Chariot of the Gods, is best known as the first proponent of the so-called ancient astronaut theory, which holds that aliens kick-started civilization on earth. "NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way," Scott said. "That's what we're looking at (in the film), at some of Eric van Daniken's ideas of how did we humans come about."

Fassbender and Rapace were even cagier about revealing details of the Prometheus plot. Fassbender did hint his character, David, might be a version of the infamous corporate-designed android that plays a pivotal role in all Alien films.

Rapace, the Swedish star of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, would only say that shooting with Scott has meant "hard and sweaty" days and that the 73-year-old director "still has more energy than all of us combined." 20th Century Fox plans to bow Prometheus worldwide next summer."

1) Here we seem to have confirmation that Prometheus is a space craft. Prometheus starts off as a terraforming spacecraft in Spaiht's script Shadow 19.

f) Ridley Scott interviewed by Wall Street Journal

2010-03-05T23:40:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

a) Barbara Chai interviewed Ridley Scott for Wall Street Journal about Prometheus

In the article that she wrote, she mentions:

– The central metaphor of “Prometheus” is about a “higher being” who challenges the gods, and the gods don’t want to give him fire. “Fire is our first form of technology,” Scott says, and so by taking fire, the higher being is punished “in perpetuity in a horrible fashion.” Much like the story of the mythological god, Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and for his actions was bound to a rock with an eagle eternally devouring his liver. (Let’s hope things turn out differently for our higher being…)

In the article it's mentioned that Ridley said that:

"– The last eight minutes of the “Prometheus” story evolve into “a pretty good DNA of the ‘Alien’ one.”"

1. Ridley reiterates his statement from brief conversation with Baz Bamigboye of the daily mail when he jokingly said "It's the story of creation, the gods and the man who stood against them. It's not a small film.' However here the reference to the man who stood against them is now replaced with "higher being." In Barbara Chai's article the phrase higher being is used and we might wonder how directly she is paraphrasing him.

2. Ridley uses the phrase DNA in relation to the story, but we don't actually have any idea what he is talking about unless it's some sort of LA filmscriptwriters talk that would be meaningless to the rest of the fans of the film.

b) Another version of the article by Barbara Chai is found on the Wall Street Journal website for subscribers

In the article, she states in relation to what Ridley said about the film's story:

"Mr. Scott's just-completed film "Prometheus" represents his first sci-fi release in nearly three decades. The movie, he said, is about "a higher being who challenges the gods" and is punished for his temerity."

"The screenplay for "Prometheus" was written by Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts. While Mr. Scott refrains from calling it a prequel to "Alien," the last eight minutes of the "Prometheus" story evolve into "a pretty good DNA of the 'Alien' one," he said."

1. Ridley here is actually quoted as referring to the character that was once talked about as being a "man who stood against them" now as "a higher being who challenged the gods". When questioned on Twitter about whether "Higher being" was actually said by Ridley Scott himself, Barbara Chai graciously responded "@wmmvrrvrrmm He did say "higher being," yes." With this information we can also look back to the interview for the Swiss German magazine Blick where from English translated into German and back into English, Ridley is found to have mentioned Higher Beings

2. The references to "a pretty good DNA" reveal nothing more at this point

g) Ridley Scott article by Fettatiminn

2010-03-05T23:38:00.000-08:00

The story of Prometheus

Ridley Scott is quoted in Icelandic as saying "Þau fundu ekki beinagrind í geimskipinu í fyrstu myndinni heldur búning og þá spyr maður sig hvað hafi verið í þessum búningi? Hvers vegna var það á ferðinni og hvert var það að fara? Í mínum huga hefur það alltaf verið þannig að ef einhver er svo brjálæðislega klár að hann geti skapað eitthvað jafn skelfilegt og veruna í Alien þá hljóti það sköpunarverk að hafa verið hugsað sem vopn."

However a confusing Googletranslation from Icelandic to English reveals confusing discussion about the space jockey.

Ridley Scott:"They found no skeletons in a spaceship in the first film but a costume and then man asks himself what was in this guise? Why was it on the move and where was it going? For me it has always been that if someone is 'crazy smart'(?) that he could create something as terrible as creatures of the Alien and the fact that all creatures have been designed as a weapon. "(frettatiminn)

1. The half translated question about "what was in this guise?" brings us back to the question Ridley posed in the VIP room at Heroes Complex festival in LA about whether the space jockey's body was a suit or a carcass,. but the conversation appeared to have been left unrecorded and no one followed him up since on the point of discussion . See floating carcass comment

Prometheus' Production Crew

2010-03-05T23:31:00.000-08:00

Jon Spaihts

Scriptwriter: Jon Spaihts

Scriptwriter: Damon Lindelof

Production Designer: Arthur Max

Designer: Daniel Simon

Creature Designer: H. R. Giger

Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski

Production Designer: Arthur Max

2010-03-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

In an interview with Silas Lesnick at Craveonline, talking about his work as prodction designer on Ridley Scott's Robin Hood in an interview published September 21st, 2010. He has a small art department and was working on designs for the movie at Pinewood Studio, doodling spaceships.

He revealed in the interview something about the creative process for his work on the movie since it was a sequel that went back in the past of the universe of Alien:

"Well it's not really a sequel. It's a prequel. So we can deconstruct the original. That's an interesting challenge to anticipate. Where it all came from. It's origins. It's almost like archeology. You're designing in reverse time."

Designer: Daniel Simon

2010-03-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

Daniel Simon who designed the new Tron vehicles mentioned in August of 2010 that he's part of the design team assembled for the movie. Visit his blog at http://cosmic-motors.blogspot.com/

Scriptwriter: Jon Spaihts

2010-03-05T23:18:00.000-08:00

Jon Spaihts

Variety mentioned that the script writer "is one Jon Spaihts has become a go-to-guy for space thrillers. After Keanu Reeves became attached to his Warner Bros. sci-fi script "Shadow 19," Reeves hired Spaihts to write the space journey epic "Passengers," which is berthed at Morgan Creek. That script got Spaihts the meeting with Fox and Scott Free, and he won the job with an "Alien" reboot take that the studio and Scott loved. Fox has separately hired him to rewrite "The Darkest Hour," which Timur Bekmambetov is to produce with Tom Jacobson. Spaihts is writing "Children of Mars" for Disney and Scott Rudin, and he will follow by rewriting "St. George and the Dragon" for Sony and Red Wagon." (Jul. 30, 2009)

Scriptwriter: Damon Lindelof

2010-03-05T22:22:00.000-08:00

Deadline mentions that Damon Lindelof one of the scriptwriters for the Lost series met with Ridley Scott to rewrite the Alien prequel script (Wednesday July 28, 2010)

i. Damon Lindelof: "In a world flooded with prequels, sequels and reboots, I was incredibly struck by just how original Ridley's vision was for this movie. It's daring, visceral and hopefully, the last thing anyone expects. When I sat in a movie theater as a kid, feet raised off the floor for fear that something might grab my ankles, I never dreamed in my wildest imagination I would one day get to collaborate with the man responsible for it. Working alongside him has been nothing short of a dream come true." (Deadline news)

ii.a) Damon Lindelof at the Comic-Con 2011

Damon Lindelof: "A gentleman by the name of Jon Spaihts wrote an early draft of the script and, at the time, it was going to be a prequel to Alien. And I think Ridley really wanted to move the movie into more original territory. The idea of a prequel, leading up to the original movies, as opposed to thematically being about something else, but also the opportunity to introduce new characters into the movie, was a big deal. Obviously, in order to get an amazing cast, including an Oscar winner [looking at Charlize], it really had to be driven by the people. So, although the ideas of the movie are very big, we wanted to set it and make it feel like it was an alien in that same universe. Ridley hasn’t directed a science fiction film in 25 years, so now that he’s coming back and doing one last heist, as it were, the bar was very, very high. So, over time, the movie began to become much more original. Although there might be some familiar things from the alien universe, this movie has a heart and mind of its own."

b) Question: How does the name Prometheus fit into the story? Is it related to Greek mythology, or is it the name of a ship?

LINDELOF: We’re not going to talk about specifically how it connects into the movie, other than yes, Prometheus was a Titan who stole fire from the Gods because they were keeping it to themselves and they were worried what mankind would do, if we got our little paws on it. So, that theme is a resonating idea – what humans are doing that we probably shouldn’t be doing, in terms of technological innovation and, perhaps, exploration. Is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Part of the fun of the movie is understanding exactly why we called it Prometheus. And also, it sounds really pretentious, like Inception, so we were just like, “Yeah, that makes the movie sound really smart!” It’s so much better then my original title, Explosion. Well, there might be an explosion in the movie.

Question: Is the fire the aliens, and are the Greek Gods the space jockeys?

LINDELOF: Although Ridley has made a lot of comments, over the course of the development of the movie, in terms of how this might tie into the original Alien series, or its relation to the space jockeys, a lot of the fun in going to see the movie is seeing if and how we’re going to try to connect that. But, I don’t think that any of us would have been doing our jobs right, if this movie couldn’t stand on its own. If you’re a fan of the original film, there will be little Easter eggs in there for you to find, but the idea of connecting it in, in an incredibly profound way, would denude its originality a little bit. Maybe there’s a way that it can be both. At least, that was the intention behind it.

Question: You said there are big ideas in this film.

LINDELOF: That was just more pretentious bullshit.

c) Question: What are some of the ideas that you wanted to explore?

LINDELOF: I think that one of the really interesting ideas that the movie is dealing with is this sense that space exploration, particularly in the future, is going to start to involve this idea that it’s not just about going out there and finding planets, so that we can build colonies, or anything else. There’s also this inherent idea that, the further we go out, perhaps the more we learn about ourselves. And, I think the characters in this movie – some of them at least – are very preoccupied with the idea of, “Where did we come from? What are our origins? What is our place in the universe? Are we the only sentient beings, or are there others?” That was not really a part of the original Alien movie, where it was just, “Hey, we’re miners. Oh shit, we ended up stepping in this huge pile of very frightening shit!” So, although there are elements like that in this movie, and there certainly are scares, the idea of fundamentally and thematically exploring this idea of creation was always a big deal for Ridley.

d) Question: Sci-fi is always trying to predict the future. Will you be exploring any of that?

LINDELOF: Obviously, Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie, in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like. I think the amazing thing about what Ridley does, as a director, is to try to ground that in some sort of fundamental reality. He was the first one to really think of how prevalent advertising might be, in the future, and what Los Angeles looks like. What’s cool about this movie is that it doesn’t take place on Earth, in any real significant way, so the way that we’re experiencing the future is really away from Earth. It’s more about what people are like now. What have they gone through? What are the things that they’re thinking of? The idea that we’re basically all going to be the same a hundred years from now, but we might be driven by different ideas, is what’s driving the movie. So, you will probably see some things that prognosticate what the future is going to look like, that maybe you haven’t seen before, but the movie isn’t really interested as much in the gadgetry and the flying cars of it all, as it is in what these people are going to do, what’s driving them and what’s motivating them as humans to even be there, in the first place.

Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski

2010-03-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

Dariusz Wolski was understood to be the cinematographer for the Alien Prequel when he was quoted by a user with the name Jannard on Reduser.net as having having said in chat about the Red Epic 3D camera that he would be using:

"In my opinion, the new Red Epic camera is about to revolutionize all spectrums of the film industry.

I am going to use Epics in my new project directed by Ridley Scott. I am amazed with the quality of the image and the fact that you can shoot 5k at 120fps without compromising resolution, and most of all the size of the camera.

Combined with the Element Technica Atom 3d rig, we will be able to shoot a 3d movie with the flexibility of a conventional cinema camera.

I don't see anything that comes close to it at the moment. I can't even imagine the potential Epic will have on the big blockbuster industry as well as independent cinema."

Ridley Scott at the Hero Complex Festival 2010

2010-03-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Several articles on the recent Ridley Scott Q & A Hero Complex Festival have been published. Unfortunately at the time of writing this , the interview hasn't been transcribed in full by anyone. We are given summaries and highlights and video snippers, and I thank the websites for the highlights and summaries that they have given. I have seen that the whole interview was briefly up on Youtube in six parts but was quickly taken down. I have done what I can to collect and assemble everything so that one can see different versions of the same information as written by different people. I have a general idea of what Ridley Scott said. If I had a recording, I would transcribe every single syllable that Ridley uttered and share it with everyone on the internet. However the fragmented way that information from this interview has been dished out to the public who were not at the event rather than giving them the whole interview itself has left me worn out following the matter up. It seems that it doesn't look as if the people who attended the event have half a clue any more about what Ridley actually said so I really don't see the actual point of the event unless it's going to be shared at a later date

Someone give me a recording!

Sources

Fear.net

Collider.com

LATimes

Ain't It Cool

scifiwire.com
firstshowing.com
Los Angeles Times video recording fragment transcription

Other sources not added to the page:

Youtube interview recording fragment transcription

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Scott in the VIP room with a reference to the Space Jockey as a suit

Earlier, in a quiet corner of the theater's upstairs VIP room, Scott hinted that he might start filming in January and that this return to "Alien" might be a 3D affair. He also said that the setting would be about 30 years before the events depicted in the original film. That gives him, he said, the leeway to make a second prequel if the first goes well. (LATimes)

Geoff Boucher: The film will key off a memorable but mysterious visual from the original "Alien" — the spooky scene where the crew of the Nostromo find a massive, long-dead being who fans of the film call the "space jockey." Scott said he will delve into the history of that being, whose visage has not yet been seen — the slumped form seen in the original film was wearing a suit or exoskeleton of sorts, the filmmaker said. (LATimes)

1.Is this the origin of the carcass comment below? Did Ridley actually say that the space jockey's visage had not been seen or is this just Boucher's assumption? We don't have Ridley's direct words.

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The Beginning

a) Festival host and moderator Geoff Boucher started off the Q&A by asking Scott how he was doing. He recently had knee replacement surgery and is still on the mend. (Collider)

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Films back to back

a) Scott was amazed we were going to watch two of his films back to back. He joking said he wished we had done it when Blade Runner was released because it was a box office failure, not in small part because it opened the same day at E.T.(Collider)

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Introduction to Sci-Fi

a) (i) Growing up, his family was very strict and didn’t talk about sexuality. So, at the time, he felt sci-fi was very tawdry and he was discouraged from seeing the movies. The Day the Earth Stood Still and On the Beach changed that, followed by 2001. (ii) As a child, Scott thought science fiction was sort of cheesy until he saw the Mad Max films and the art work of Moebius, who he mentioned on SEVERAL occasions.(Collider)

b) The two films that turned Scott onto Science Fiction were THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and ON THE BEACH.( Aint It Cool)

c) Geoff Boucher: It's interesting though the way that film is echoed, I mean I think you could take, err, George Miller's, err, Road Warrior Mad Max films and Blade Runner, and and they actually changed the way that people visualise the future, I mean they created almost all entire sector...

Ridley Scott:yeah

Geoff Boucher:…of the way the future was visualised

Ridley Scott:yeah

Geoff Boucher: Can you talk a little about that?

Ridley Scott:You know, I , I , I came into science fiction by the back door because I hadn't, most of the science fiction I'd seen or glimpsed at as a young teen, I hadn't really been keen on them and err, they always looked a bit as it were, a teeny little bit cheesy, um because in those days they didn't have their technology, or the , to make things look real, and so I'd never really considered that world.
I think really one should really mention Moebius, because I think Moebius in a funny way is the, is the father of this kind of weird thinking 'cause I was staring at Moebius magazines, so I had them stacked in my study when I was a commercial maker, when I, even before I did the duellists, and I was going through these thinking, my god, they're great vision of futuristic ideas, so I, you know, I was influenced almost totally by Moebius (Los Angeles Times video)

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How Alien Came To Be And Seeing Star Wars

a) He told the story of how Alien came to be. He was trying to get something going after The Duellists and after a meeting in Hollywood, his producer took him to see Star Wars at the Grauman’s Chinese. Scott said he felt a vibe in the packed theater that he hasn’t felt since and walked out sick with envy. A few months later, the script for Alien came across his desk and he had to do it.(Collider)

b) Then producer David Putnam asked if he wanted to see this movie called Star Wars. He saw it at the Chinese theater and the vibe in the theater, the expectation of the crowd, made him think he was in for a life-changing event: “I watched Star Wars and walked out (afterwards). I was sick with envy. I hated George (Lucas, obviously) and figured that was the end of Tristan & Isolde.( Aint It Cool)

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The Fifth Man

a) A month later Scott received the script for Alien. “They had seen the film, The Duellists, at Cannes and for some bizarre reason connected… ‘I wonder if this guy could do science fiction?’ I discovered later on that I was the fifth choice. The script was about to die on the vine and I read it and said, ‘Damn! I know what to do with this!’ Because I had been reading all the Jean Giraud/Moebius stuff.” (Aint It Cool)

b) He said he was the fifth person the script was sent to and it was in danger of being killed. When he realized he knew how to shoot it, he went in and proposed they don’t change one word. (Collider)

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Scott in Hollywood

a) i)Scott was in Hollywood, at Fox Studios, within 27 hours after receiving the script for Alien. (ii) Fox asked if he wanted to change anything in the script. Scott said, “No.” He then asked if there were any filmmakers in the audience and gave some advice. “Don’t turn a go film into a development deal.” That’s what he believes would have happened if he started a whole new round of conversation with the script for Alien. (Aint It Cool)

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Jean "Moebius" Giraud

Calling Moebius

a) Scott called Moebius up and asked him to design the movie. Moebius didn’t have the time to design the whole thing, but he did design all the costumes, the wardrobe, the space suits and the helmets (Aint It Cool)

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Budget and Storyboarding

a) - The original budget was 4.2 million dollars, but after spending several months drawing storyboards, the studio got excited and doubled the budget. He feels storyboarding is almost as important as writing.(Collider)

b) - The original budget for ALIEN was $4.2 million. Ridley went home and as the deal was being drawn up he began work on storyboarding the film himself, having been an art student. A month later he went back to Fox and showed them his boards. The budget doubled, went from $4.2 to $8.4 after Alan Ladd saw the vision on display in the boards.(Aint It Cool)

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Reading

a)- The first read is the most important for any screenplay. When Scott reads a script, he wakes up at 6am and turns off all phones and “God help anybody who disturbs me.” (Aint It Cool)

b)- When he can, Scott will spend two hours in the morning each day just reading with no distractions. He thinks it’s essential to read things pure. (Collider)

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Not asked

a) - Scott loves the Alien franchise and was kind of upset they never asked him to come back. In fact, he didn’t even know they were making a second one when they started.(Collider)

b) - Scott said Fox never asked him back after the first Alien. He didn’t even know the second film was being made until it was in production.(Aint It Cool)

c )Geoff Boucher: There any exciting things that you want to tell us I think tonight about, you're going back to the future and you're going back to Alien, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ridley Scott: Well, the... em, I watched the Franchise zip along for the next twenty, thirty years and erm, they never asked me back (audience laughter) (Los Angeles Time video)

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Prequel is much more interesting than a sequel

a) Ridley Scott: "No one ever asked that question: What's the story there? I was always surprised that people didn't ask that one. Now we're going to answer that question. To me, a prequel is interesting, much more interesting than a sequel. They never asked me to do the sequels." (LA Times)

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Resurrecting the Franchise

a) (i) Ridley Scott:"I sat thinking about the franchise which died on the road way back and lying in the dust and I thought, 'What I should do is go back. . .' " (ii) "There was a massive giant lying in a chair and the chair was either a form of engine or some piece of technology . . . and we're going to go back [and ask]: 'Who the hell is the space jockey?' (LA Times)

The Space Jockey

b) Ridley Scott: He explained: "I sat thinking about the franchise, which now has died… And I always thought, 'no one has ever asked… who the hell is the Space Jockey?' So it's written and I'm prepping it now." (firstshowing)

c) Ridley Scott:"I watched the franchise zip along for the next twenty, thirty years. I let it go, because Blade Runner followed. I started thinking about the franchise, which now has died on the road somewhere. I thought, 'What I should do is go back and…' In the first Alien when John Hurt climbed up, looked over the horizon and said the immortal lines, 'Good God, what is this?' what we saw was appropriate for 'Good God,' because it was a massive giant lying in a chair, and the chair was either a form of engine or some future technology. I always thought, 'Nobody's asked, "Who is the [giant]?"' He's come to be called 'the space jockey.' I thought, 'Who the hell is the space jockey?' And so it's written and I'm prepping it now."(fearnet)

d) (i) In the original Alien, right before Kane (John Hurt) gets planted with a Face Hugger, he sees the skeleton of a giant being sitting in a chair. This being is regularly referred to as “The Space Jockey” and Scott said he always wondered who being was and what was its story. He said that being now has a story. The script has been written and he is currently in preproduction on a set of films that will begin to tell how “The Space Jockey” fits into the world of Alien. (ii)- This was when he started talking about his new Alien movies. He said he was always amazed that no one explored the backstory of “The Space Jockey” in the sequels because it’s so obvious in the first movie. So now a script has been written and it’s being prepped. (Collider)

e) (i) - On the Alien prequel: “I sat thinking about the franchise, which now has died on the road somewhere way back and lying in the dust, and thought what I should do is go back… in the first Alien, when John Hurt climbed up and over the top of the rise… there was a massive giant lying in a chair. The chair was either a form of engine or some piece of technology and I always thought no one has ever asked who was the space jockey?” (Aint It Cool)

(ii)- The Alien prequel will be broken into two films. The scripts are written and Scott is prepping it now. (Aint It Cool)

f) At the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex film festival, Scott gave a Q&A in between screenings of Alien and Blade Runner. He told the audience more details about his plans for a new Alien. He'd already said his first prequel will be about the "space jockey," that huge statue Kane (John Hurt) stumbles upon in the first film. It looks like the carcass of an alien giant. (scifiwire)

g)Ridley Scott : Er, I sat thinking about the Franchise which has now died on the road somewhere, way back and lying in the dust, And I thought, you know, what, what I should do is go back and, and in the first alien, when John Hurt climbed up and up over the top of the rise and somebody said the immortal lines "Good god, what is this?" you know, good luck, you know, (to the audience ) that's a joke, pretty basic line actually. Um, but what we saw was appropriate for Good God because there was a massive giant lying in the chair and the chair was either, erm, a form of engine or some piece of technology and I always thought no one has ever asked who was , 'n' this big, they started fondly calling it the space jockey, so I thought we've got to go back, who the hell's the space jockey, and erm, so it's written, and erm, prepped, doing, I'm prepping it now. (Los Angeles Times video)

1) Reference to the carcass at the end of this paragraph is written in as a lead to Scott's "Carcass" comment.

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Floating "Carcass" Comment

a) "I think beneath that carcass isn't a carcass," Scott teased on June 13 in Hollywood. "That's a suit, but inside the suit is a being."(scifiwire)

b) On the Space Jockey: “I think beneath that carcass… it’s not a carcass, it’s a suit. Inside the suit is a being.” An interesting hint at to what he’s doing with the prequels, perhaps? (Aint It Cool)

1) Now was this stated in the VIP room if it wasn't at the Q&A itself. Well who knows? Are the words here attributed to Ridley Scott actually these words he said because after all the little variations in the different articles, I don't ultimately know. Alex Billington credits Aint-It-Cool with finding this comment from the Q & A but Aint It Cool don't give information about the context in which its mentioned and maybe it was in the VIP rather than the Q&A itself

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Explaining the space jockey

a) Ridley Scott:"What we want to do is try and squeeze in two prequels, because if you explain who he was and where did he come from, then that will deal with the savagery of this version, which is pretty savage. Then you may want to find out where they came from, so you may want to go to the place where his people come from."(scifiwire)

b) Ridley Scott:"Because if you explain who he was and where he comes from, then that will deal with the savagery of this version [the 1979 Alien], which is pretty savage. Then you may want to find out where they came from, so you may want to go to him, and go to there place where his people come from."(firstshowing)

c) Ridley Scott:"If you explain who he was and where he came from, then that will deal with the savagery of this version, which will be pretty savage. Then you may want to find out where they came from, the place where his people come from."(fearnet)

d) The story has no set timeline except that it’s WAY before the first Alien so that they can fit in enough history for two movies. Scott explained that once you learn the history of how the jockey encountered the aliens, you’ll also want to learn about how he got there.(Collider)

e)Time frame is way before Alien. Not only will we find out who the Space Jockey is, we’ll find out where his people come from.(Aint It Cool)

1) Collider and Aint It Cool show possibly that he talked about the time line in this section but none of the articles have actually given us a transcript of his actual statement here.

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Tim Curry stars as 'Darkness' in Ridley Scott's Legend

Legend and flops

a) He stressed that, though after Alien he had two flops with Blade Runner and Legend, filmmakers should be their only critic. Money doesn’t matter as long as you are proud of it. That dogma has paid off as both films are now revered. (Collider)

b) (i) - After Blade Runner, which was a tough experience for him, someone said to him, “Why do you make boring movies that people can’t understand?” So, he said “Okay. And I went off and made LEGEND.” Huge laughs at that. “That was a bloody disaster. It’s a wonder I’m still employed!” Boo on that, I love Legend. Luckily Scott followed this up immediately with: (Aint It Cool)

(ii) - “A journalist said to me, ‘In the down period of your career which followed Legend…’ I haven’t had a down period in my career. I’ve enjoyed every goddamn movie I’ve made.” (Aint It Cool)

(iii) - Scott approached Legend as his attempt to make a live action cartoon, like Snow White and other like Disney films. So, he decided he was going to do a live action fairy story, like a Grimm Fairy Tale. Then he went on to praise Tim Curry’s work in the flick and said he thought Tom Cruise was great in it. (Aint It Cool)

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The Old Dark House

a) (i)- The first Alien was The Old Dark House with 7 people with an unwelcome visitor. Scott loved the script, but it was a very basic screenplay. (ii)As far as the prequels' stories go, Scott hinted that there will be a deeper exploration of the science behind the world of Alien, a science he says is very much grounded in our own current technology. (Aint It Cool)

b) "The first Alien was honestly The Old Dark House -- seven people in the old dark house with a visitor. " (fearnet)

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Underwater research

a) - He’s done a lot of underwater research for the upcoming movies. (Collider)

b) Scott then started talking about NASA and doing underwater research, then suddenly changed topics and... (firstshowing)

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Europa, Io and to Zeta II Reticuli

a) "They got me going about this wonderful planet which is out near the big gas, you know those massive gas columns that we discovered about 20 years ago," Scott said. "Just to the side of that, there's this wonderful planet called Europa, around that is Io. And Zeta II Reticuli, We're going back to Zeta II Reticuli." (scifiwire)

b) (Ridley) said something about a "wonderful planet" called Europa that's near the "big gasses/gas columns" (in deep space) that were discovered around 20 years ago. I think he's confused because there's a moon of Jupiter called Europa, but no planet. He then goes on to say that "we're going back to Zeta 2 Reticuli." Now there is actually a star in our galaxy called Zeta 2 Reticuli some 39 light years away that not-so-coincidentally was discovered to have a planet orbiting it that even has creepy real-life ufo rumors linked to it. That's a bingo! (firstshowing)

c) - FirstShowing.net's Alex Billington sent me a heads up after posting this that Scott also mentioned they're going to be exploring Zeta 2 Reticuli, the same system from Alien. Naturally they'd be going back at some point if the prequel leads up to Alien, but from what Scott was saying it seems like this system plays a large role in the prequels.(Aint It Cool)

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Terraforming

a) Ridley Scott: "This is going to go further into that world of terraforming, We're thinking about doing it. In fact, if Kennedy had been allowed to continue on his space program, we would have probably been on Mars now, with maybe a population of about 9,000 people. Take that on board, that's how far we should have gone and should have come. The argument was always 'Why spend so much money out there when we've got enough problems down here?' That's what's turned it around and stopped it. So we're going to a world which is already out there."(scifiwire)

b) i) From his discussions with NASA people he heard that if we had been able to stick with JFK’s space plan we would more than likely have had colonists on Mars by now. ii) The prequel will go further into the world of terraforming and will focus on the realities of what it takes to leave for another planet. (Aint It Cool)

c) This film will go very deep into the possibilities of terra forming and the realities of what it would actually take for humans to leave earth. (Collider)

d) Remarkably, that's still not all he said! Although he was starting to ramble at this point, Scott stated that the "[Alien prequel] is going to go further into that world of terraforming," which is the process of modifying a planet's atmosphere to be liveable. It also may explore the idea of what it will take to travel to these places. He then mentioned that if JFK had continued with the space program, we'd probably have a colony on Mars by now. (firstshowing)

e) This will go further into the world of terraforming. We're thinking about doing it. In fact, if Kennedy had been allowed to continue his space program, we'd probably be on Mars now with a population of nine-thousand people. That's how far we should have gone." (fearnet)

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Faster Than Light

a) Ridley Scott: "The part that's still science fiction is traveling light-years away and sustaining human life for the journey. Scott's going to take the real science of that and make it scary. "Actually, you're dematerializing and rematerializing, because light speed is that. You can't travel in that space of time, so you have to think about 'How do I mathematically change my matter, material presence?' It sounds like magic, but if we said in 1900 that I was going to have a cell phone, I'd be able to pick this up and talk to London, they'd put me in jail or a lunatic asylum. That's how far we've come. I think the closer it is to the truth and the closer it is to technological feasibility, it becomes that much more interesting. If it's a film like I'm going to do, it's going to become that much more frightening." (scifiwire)

b) He then started talking sort of technically about light speed and stuff. (Collider)

c) He mentioned the theory of Near Faster-Than-Light travel, which is complete science fiction at the moment; “Mr. Spock stuff” as he called it, rearranging matter essentially, but theoretically possible. “But what we’re allowed to do by movies is to cheat like hell. But I think the closer it is to the truth, the closer it is to the technological feasibility then it becomes that much more interesting. And if it’s a film like the one I’m going to do, then it becomes that much more frightening.” (Aint It Cool)

d) Then he begins to ramble on about lightspeed and beaming people up, through dematerialization, like in Star Trek, like it's all going to be real one day soon. And finally, here's why he explained all of that:"The closer it is to the truth, and the closer it is to the technological feasibility, then it becomes that much more interesting, and if it's a film like I'm going to do, then it becomes a lot more frightening." (firstshowing)

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Casting Sigourney

a) Sigourney Weaver wasn’t cast until 3 weeks before shooting and though she’d gained acclaim on Broadway, she hadn’t really done a film at the time. When he met her the short Scott (who is 5 foot 8 inches) was extremely impressed and kind of taken back by her size. She tested on the actual set, because they were close to shooting and it was being built. Scott said he could have cut the test into the movie. (Collider)

b)(i) Sigourney Weaver’s test “could have been cut into the movie.” Scott didn’t cast her until three weeks before photography, so he was able to screen test her on the built sets.

(ii) She came to the audition in high heels. “I’m not a midget, I’m 5’8”, but Jesus Christ I was always looking up at her!”

(iii) The idea was Ripley would gradually earn her position in the forefront during the drama. “When you see her at the kitchen table at the beginning of the film you think, ‘Okay, she’s gonna be the first one to go… in a big, gory horrible mess!’” (Aint It Cool)

(iv) When she tells Yaphet Kotto to shut the fuck up he was really needling her and she really lost her temper with him. “It’s great that it’s on film.”(Aint It Cool)

c) Geoff Boucher:It's interesting to see that Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver by the way, everybody, what an amazing...

(crowd round of applause)

Geoff Boucher: But she was voted by many many many fans to be the greatest female character in the history of science fiction, and I don't that surprises a single person in the theatre,

Ridley Scott: it must have been hard for her, but because, the, there was so little dialogue, but the dialogue that existed was I think was pretty damned good, but it was austere, I call it austere, and er, it doesn't give you a long… a lot to get into, there's no five minute scenes, right, and the last thing for her will be… she will gradually earn the position during the drama that she was suddenly coming to the fore. She's great intuition, and erm, great thinking, great elegance, and physically very very good. Fantastic. (Los Angeles Times)

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Ridley Scott on Blade Runner

i) Harrison Ford in Blade Runner

(a) While casting Blade Runner, he decided he might want Harrison Ford for the lead role but his producers hadn’t heard of him. Ridley then said he was the guy who flew the “maltese falcon” which got a laugh. Anyway, he figured if Spielberg and Lucas cast him in their new movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, he must be good. That film was shooting down the street from where Scott was so one night Ford showed up for a meeting in full Indiana Jones gear. He got the job that night. (Collider)

(b) (i) When Harrison Ford came in to meet Ridley Scott in London for Blade Runner he was wearing his entire Indiana Jones outfit, having come straight from the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (ii) When casting Blade Runner, Scott told the studios he wanted to cast “this guy called Harrison Ford.” The studio asked who that was. “He was the guy that drives that funny circular vehicle in Star Wars… The Maltese Falcon? What’s it called?” Lots of laughs and lots of corrections from the audience. “The Millenium Falcon. They said, ‘Why him?’ I said, “Well, Steven (Spielberg) and George have decided this guy is the star of Indiana Jones. I think you want him to follow-up in this film.” (Aint It Cool)

(c) Geoff Boucher: The next film that we're showing tonight, err, Blade Runner, the star of that film , he came to your door in London.

Ridley Scott: Ah, yuh

Geoff Boucher: Could you tell folks… he came to the door, he wasn't dressed in street clothes was he?

Ridley Scott: No

Geoff Boucher: What was he dressed in?

Ridley Scott: We were casting and building, and I'd heard that this film being made was called Indiana Jones, I'd said to my studio and my partners, I want to cast this guy called Harrison Ford, somebody said , "who's that", and I said well, "he's the guy who drives that funny circular vehicle in em" The Maltese Falcon. What was it called

Geoff Boucher: The Millenium Falcon

Ridley Scott: Millenium Falcon.

Geoff Boucher: (laughter)

Ridley Scott: And err, and they said "Oh him, r-r-r-r-r-r, okay" and I said Yeah, and erm they said 'why?", I said "because if Steven and George decided that this guy's the star of.. in Indiana Jones, i think you want him to follow in this film because I think it sounds like it's a good idea.

Geoff Boucher: (laughter)

ii) Scott on the Blade Runner script

(a) Scott said the Blade Runner script read really, really well because it was filled with great prose (description) and some “damn good” dialogue as well. (Aint It Cool)

iii) Friction between Harrison and Ridley

(a) On the friction between Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott on the set of Blade Runner… : “It was a very difficult world to climb in to because I knew exactly what I wanted. Once again I was very influenced by Moebius. For me to describe what’s happening all the time and why it’s raining all the time drove me nuts, so I got very bad-tempered. I said, ‘It’s raining because I want it to fuckin’ rain, okay?!? Turn the fuckin’ taps up!’ I got fed up explaining myself.” (Aint It Cool)

(b) He believes all the on set friction between him and Ford has been largely overstated, however, believes that tension keeps people honest on a set. He had a very specific look for Blade Runner and hated having to explain himself over and over. (Collider)

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Scott and the Camera

a) Scott operated the camera himself on Alien and Legend.(Collider)

b) Scott operates the camera… He operated the entire run of The Duellists, Alien and Legend. “If you’re an operator it’s really frustrating because it’s a bit like being a surgeon in the room on a heart operation and you can’t touch the patient.” (Aint It Cool)

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The director and team effort

a) Film making is a team effort without question. The director is the coach and must be left in control. (Collider)

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His film education

a) Working in advertising was his film school and didn’t get into films until much later. He was 42 when he directed Blade Runner and felt a lot of pressure. (Collider)

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Ridley's knee

a) - He has been doing physical therapy for several months now on his rehabbed knee and sees Harrison Ford every day at the same gym. Said he has put on a lot of muscle for Cowboys and Aliens, which begins shooting this week. (Collider)

b) Scott underwent knee surgery and he’s now having to go to a gym for physical therapy. When he started going to the gym he recognized Harrison Ford, who is putting on muscle “and is looking good.” I assume that’s for Cowboys and Aliens. (Aint It Cool)

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Tony Scott

Tony Scott's Student Films

a) - Scott wasn’t able to pick which of his brother Tony Scott’s films was his favorite but he said his two student films, One of the Missing and A Loving Memory, were the best student films he has ever seen.(Collider)

b) - Ridley said his brother, Tony, directed two of the best student films he’s ever seen. One is called One of the Missing, the other is called In Loving Memory.(Aint It Cool)

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The Forever War

a) They are currently on the 4th draft of a screenplay for the sci-fi The Forever War, based on a novel by Joe Haldeman. He hopes to make it in the future. (Collider)

b) The Forever War (based on the book by Joe Haldeman) is something Scott has been trying to do for years. They’re on the fourth draft currently. (Aint It Cool) -

c) (i)The Alien prequel will be Scott's first sci-fi movie since 1982's landmark Blade Runner. Now he's on a roll. He's planning two prequels and also developing a movie version of Joe Haldeman's book The Forever War. Scott says he has a screenwriter working on a fourth draft of the adaptation. His vision for that film is philosophical and romantic. (ii) "[Haldeman] thought instead of writing the book about Vietnam, he'd write a book about a future idea of this perpetual war that seemed to be perpetual if you were a soldier serving in Vietnam. Why on earth were we there? What were we doing? What's the ultimate target? How do we get out? In a word, that reflects the whole tenor of the book. So it's philosophical and, in a funny kind of way, romantic. Romantic in the sense of I think 2001 was romantic and Star Wars is romantic, the first Star Wars, George Lucas', by far the best of the Star Wars, the one he directed, I think. That's the kind of romantic view. Romantic, I don't mean love story. I mean there's a vision there which elevates the idea." (scifiwire)

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Audience questions time

1. Setting up shots

a) When setting up shots, it’s all through intuition from a lot of preparation. He used to do 100-150 commercials a year so he is used to shooting very fast and doing everything on the fly.(Collider)

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2. Rehearsing with actors

a) He never rehearses with his actors outside of table reads. Many times, the first time he sees anything play out is on the set. He said that’s okay because the actors he hires do their homework.(Collider)

b) Scott doesn’t believe in rehearsal. “The closest I get is maybe sitting around a table and reading, having a discussion.”(Aint It Cool)

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3. Robin Hood

a) - Boucher asked about a Robin Hood sequel but instead of answering that, he just started talking about his Robin Hood movie. He loves the Mel Brooks film, not so much the Errol Flynn, and felt the film was a challenge because everyone has incorrect preconceived notions of Robin Hood and he wanted to go against that. He would, however, like to do a sequel.(Collider)

(b) (i)- He likes Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood, but “doesn’t go for” the green stockings on Errol Flynn. Loves Ivanhoe. (ii)- Is a second Robin Hood film a possibility? “I’d like it. I really enjoyed myself.”(Aint It Cool)

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4. Western In Development

a) (i) I took the opportunity to ask Ridley a question I've been waiting to ask for years: Way back in late 2007 he said "sci-fi films are as dead as westerns," but now has the Alien prequel and a Forever War adaptation in the works, so what made him change his mind? Well, instead of actually answering, Ridley started to ramble on about westerns and then revealed he was "working on one" that Larry McMurtry (Brokeback Mountain) is currently writing. (firstshowing)

(ii) So not only are sci-fi films no longer dead (Star Trek, Avatar, District 9, Moon), but apparently neither are westerns, especially if he wants to make that film sometime soon. I'm wondering if that western he's talking about might be the Boone's Lick adaptation (of his own novel) that is listed on McMurtry's IMDb page, but I suppose we'll find out sooner or later. Scott never actually gave me a straight answer to my question, but it was interesting to hear that bit about the western. And because it's Ridley Scott, I'll let it slide for now, as long as the Alien prequel turns out good. Speaking of which, he talked a little bit about that project as well.(firstshowing)

b) Alex Billington from FirstShowing.net said that in the past Scott said that “Sci-Fi is as dead as westerns” and asked why he changed his mind? He said he didn’t remember saying that but now has a western in development, and it’s being written by Larry McMurtry (Brokeback Mountain).(Collider)

c) Larry McMurtry is writing a western for Ridley Scott right now! Holy shit!(Aint It Cool)

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5. Sequel to Alien

a) - If he had done the sequel to Alien, he would have made the movie he is making now about “The Space Jockey.”(Collider)

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6. Blade Runner's difference to its source material

a) Blade Runner is so radically different from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? because that book has way too much going on to be just one movie. It was Hampton Fancher’s choice to diverge from the book. (Collider)

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7. Blade Runner the title

William S Burroughs

a) The title Blade Runner came from a William F. Burroughs story and they bought the rights for $4,000. This sounded like a joke but maybe it wasn’t. (Collider)

b) The title Blade Runner comes from William S. Burroughs. They paid him $4,000 for it. (Aint It Cool)

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Fear.net

Collider.com

LATimes

Ain't It Cool

scifiwire.com
firstshowing.com
Los Angeles Times video recording fragment transcription

Other sources not added to the page:

Youtube interview recording fragment transcription

Ridley Scott at the Hero Complex Festival on Youtube, transcript

2010-03-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

And this is the best transcription I can make from the Youtube clip which is only an eight minute segment of the total interview

Ridley Scott: Allowed to do by making movies is to cheat like hell but try and keep it close to the.. I think the closer it is to the truth, the closer it is to the technological feasibility that becomes that more interesting and if it's a film like I'm going to do then it becomes that much more frightening.

Geoff Boucher: When you say, uh, when you're talking about Alien, and some people criticise it for lack of characterisation but it's interesting to see that Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver by the way, everybody, what an amazing...

(round of applause)

But she was voted by many many many fans to be the greatest female character in the history of science fiction, and I don't that surprises a single person in the theatre, um could you talk a little bit about her performance and also, I mean, because that movie was so lean, what do you think it is that came through that really connected with people?

Ridley Scott: Um, I met sigourney who hadn't done a movie when she was, um, beginning to get known off broadway, and erm, we were casting. everyone else and I had heard of everyone but her, in fact I didn't have sigourney cast until almost three weeks before principal photography, because I tested here, the test I could have cut into the movie, I tested on the sets that were being built. So that would put me, I don't know, that would put me a month or five weeks out, so Laddie was going crazy saying "you've gotta make your mind up". I said "yeah, I can't you know, I can't find it yet." And I heard about this wo-… woman… girl. I just dug up some fil- photographs out of the archives I drew up which are spectacular, about this big of her as a , like a bathing suit, bathing, you know. She looks twenty three twenty four. And em, i went to meet her in New York, and er she had a very good, bio on her capabilities as an actress., very very smart, and her dad was Pat Weaver, you know, her dad was Pat Weaver. The star of CBS. Is that right? Any body know that? Is it Pat Weaver?

Geoff Boucher: I believe so

Ridley Scott: So, erm, I met her and erm immediately, just her sheer physique , necause she's , she came in her high heels, I mean, um, I'm a , I'm a, like not a midget, I’m a 5’8”, and Jesus Christ I was always looking up at her! And erm, I walked into a restaurant with her and I felt like, she hold my hand, I felt like "Mummy, Daddy"

(audience roars of laughter)

Geoff Boucher: Did you like that?

(audience roars of laughter)

Ridley Scott: And erm, I said we're going to have to test, so she tested, and that was certainly a great test, you could have cut it into the movie, and um, it must have been hard for her, but because, the, there was so little dialogue, but the dialogue that existed was I think was pretty damned good, but it was austere, I call it austere, and er, it doesn't give you a long… a lot to get into, there's no five minute scenes, right, and the last thing for her will be… she will gradually earn the position during the drama that she was suddenly coming to the fore, because when you see her at the kitchen table at the beginning of the film, you think "she's going to be the first one to go" in a big gorey horrible mess, and gradually during it, she takes over from Yaphet Kotto, tells him to shut, shut the fuck up. I was yanking Yaphet Kotto saying "get her going, get her going". So Yaphet was pushing her and she lost it, which was great, so it's on film.
And er, I just kept silent, she kept going, it's great.

Ridley Scott:And erm, erm, the err, err, she's great intuition, and erm, great thinking, great elegance, and physically very very good, fantastic. So it was rare, it was a rare experience, Good

Geoff Boucher: Absolutely , and er, you know, there, the next film that we're showing, err, tonight, err, Blade Runner, err, the star of that film, the last time you and I spoke, you told me the story about when you talked to Harrison Ford about being in Blade Runner, he came to your door in London.

Ridley Scott:Ah yuh.

Geoff Boucher: Could you tell folks… he came to the door, he wasn't dressed in street clothes was he?

Ridley Scott: No

Geoff Boucher: What was he dressed in?

Ridley Scott: I was "running"(?), we were casting and building, and I'd seen, I'd seen the , I'd heard that this film being made was called Indiana Jones, it was being made up at Elstree and London, and erm, errrrr, I'd said to my studio and my partners, I want to cast this guy called Harrison Ford, and err, somebody said , who's that, I said well, he's the guy who drives that funny circular vehicle in" em The Maltese Falcon. What was it called?

Geoff Boucher: The Millenium Falcon

(laughter)

Ridley Scott: Millenium Falcon. And err, and they said um, "Oh him, r-r-r-r-r-r, okay" and I said "Yeah", and erm they said 'why?", I said "because if Steven and George decided that this guy's the star in Indiana Jones, i think you want him to follow in this film because I think it sounds like it's a good idea

(laughter)

Ridley Scott: and um, so I met, I waited one night to meet with him, he said "i'm filming, I dunno, ah okay". And he turned up I think around eleven o'clock at night, and um, but he came in straight from the set, so he still had on I think his khaki hat, leather jacket, unshaven, you know, boots, sat down, said "I'm really sorry I'm late, didn't I" and that was it, that's the first time I met him. He came with the Indiana Jones gear on (laughter) and erm, that was it, um. He found the script very interesting and er, erm, although the script read… I thought the script read really really 'cause it was, it was , it was full of, erm, when i say Prose, description, as well as some pretty damned good dialogue

Geoff Boucher: I'm not I could pick a film ages better than Blade Runner, I mean it's, it's a little startling actually in fact, the film seems better today than any other time I've seen it

Ridley Scott: See how right I was the first time, you guys were wrong

Geoff Boucher: (laughs, points to Ridley amidst the crowds applause) He was right!

Geoff's voice continues to talk, unclear because of the clapping)

Geoff Boucher: ….. a sort of the ah, the, the friction that was because of of, between you and Harrison, but d'you think that that's been over stated… on the making of the film

Ridley Scott: yuh

Geoff Boucher: do you think that was overstated?

Ridley Scott: Yuh, yuh yuh, It's always overstated, I mean there's always skull and hair flying between Russell and I, and certainly, I've worked with him five times, there's always like um, what it does, it keeps you "honest" (?), because if there's that tension, then everyone's paying attention, and um, the, I think, it was a very difficult thing world, to climb into, 'cause I knew exactly what I wanted, again because I had been a designer, and I, once again I was influenced by Moebius, and just peripherally. I don't know whether Moebius would recognise Blade Runner or not, but it was there and erm, so for me to describe what's happening all the time and why it's raining all the time, drove me nuts. So I got very bad tempered. and er, I said, well that it's raining because I want it to fucking rain , okay

(laughter)

Turn the fuckin’ taps up!’ I got fed up explaining myself, and erm, fortunately I got a very good cameraman who would be it, you know

(Round of applause)

And with him he would bring his first class unit, er, because I'm a camera operator. Because for instance on Alien, I operate on the whole thing and the Duellists and Legend, and erm, if you're an operator, it's Really frustrating because it's like being a surgeon in a room on a heart operation and you can't touch the patient, so I'm standing there with, erm, Jordan and his guys and err, it was, it got tense because I say I want this and that and, why, and I said because, I said, that's what i want okay, and, because that's the job, somebody, you know , film making is a team effort without any question, and usually the better you are, the better the team, I don't… I mean, people say you got an eye, you kidding, I got a great camera man
I'm gonna give him a jolly good time, or you're going to have a really hard time and enjoy it at the end of it
That's the deal, I'm like a coach, you know, so in the day of the movie, somebody has to be autonomous, likely preferably, and politically nicely, yes, someone has to say, you go that way, otherwise that's where you get to this place (raised left hand up high) what! When you get committees, that's when it gets right out of control, erm.

Los Angeles Times video of the Hero Complex Ridley Scott interview snippets

2010-03-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles Times video of the Hero Complex Ridley Scott interview snippets ( Transcribed by Wmmvrrvrrmm)

Geoff Boucher:Ridley Scott!

( audience applause)

Geoff Boucher:It's interesting to see that Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver by the way, everybody, what an amazing...

(crowd round of applause)

Geoff Boucher: But she was voted by many many many fans to be the greatest female character in the history of science fiction, and I don't that surprises a single person in the theatre,

Ridley Scott: It must have been hard for her, but because, the, there was so little dialogue, but the dialogue that existed was I think was pretty damned good, but it was austere, I call it austere, and er, it doesn't give you a long… a lot to get into, there's no five minute scenes, right, and the last thing for her will be… she will gradually earn the position during the drama that she was suddenly coming to the fore. She's great intuition, and erm, great thinking, great elegance, and physically very very good. Fantastic.

Geoff Boucher: There any exciting things that you want to tell us I think tonight about, you're going back to the future and you're going back to Alien, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ridley Scott: Well, the... em, I watched the Franchise zip along for the next twenty, thirty years and erm, they never asked me back

(audience laughter)

Ridley Scott : Er, I sat thinking about the Franchise which has now died on the road somewhere, way back and lying in the dust, And I thought, you know, what, what I should do is go back and, and in the first alien, when John Hurt climbed up and up over the top of the rise and somebody said the immortal lines "Good god, what is this?" you know, good luck, you know, (to the audience ) that's a joke, pretty basic line actually. Um, but what we saw was appropriate for Good God because there was a massive giant lying in the chair and the chair was either, erm, a form of engine or some piece of technology and I always thought no one has ever asked who was , 'n' this big, they started fondly calling it the space jockey, so I thought we've got to go back, who the hell's the space jockey, and erm, so it's written, and erm, prepped, doing, I'm prepping it now.

Geoff Boucher: The next film that we're showing tonight, err, Blade Runner, the star of that film , he came to your door in London.

Ridley Scott: Ah, yuh

Geoff Boucher: Could you tell folks… he came to the door, he wasn't dressed in street clothes was he?

Ridley Scott: No

Geoff Boucher: What was he dressed in?

Ridley Scott: We were casting and building, and I'd heard that this film being made was called Indiana Jones, I'd said to my studio and my partners, I want to cast this guy called Harrison Ford, somebody said , "who's that", and I said well, "he's the guy who drives that funny circular vehicle in em" The Maltese Falcon. What was it called

Geoff Boucher: The Millenium Falcon

Ridley Scott: Millenium Falcon.

Geoff Boucher: (laughter)

Ridley Scott: And err, and they said "Oh him, r-r-r-r-r-r, okay" and I said Yeah, and erm they said 'why?", I said "because if Steven and George decided that this guy's the star of.. in Indiana Jones, i think you want him to follow in this film because I think it sounds like it's a good idea.

Geoff Boucher: (laughter)

Ridley Scott: and um, so I met, I waited one night to meet with him, he said "i'm filming, I dunno, ah okay". And he turned up I think around eleven o'clock at night, but he came in straight from the set, so he still had on I think his khaki hat, leather jacket, unshaven, you know, boots, sat down, said " I'm really sorry I'm late, dude" and that was it, that's the first time I met him.

Geoff Boucher: It's interesting though the way that film is echoed, I mean I think you could take, err, George Miller's, err, Road Warrior Mad Max films and Blade Runner, and and they actually changed the way that people visualise the future, I mean they created almost all entire sector...

Ridley Scott:yeah

Geoff Boucher:…of the way the future was visualised

Ridley Scott:yeah

Geoff Boucher: Can you talk a little about that?

Ridley Scott:You know, I , I , I came into science fiction by the back door because I hadn't, most of the science fiction I'd seen or glimpsed at as a young teen, I hadn't really been keen on them and err, they always looked a bit as it were, a teeny little bit cheesy, um because in those days they didn't have their technology, or the , to make things look real, and so I'd never really considered that world.
I think really one should really mention Moebius, because I think Moebius in a funny way is the, is the father of this kind of weird thinking 'cause I was staring at Moebius magazines, so I had them stacked in my study when I was a commercial maker, when I, even before I did the duellists, and I was going through these thinking, my god, they're great vision of futuristic ideas, so I, you know, I was influenced almost totally by Moebius

Geoff Boucher:well, I'm not sure I can think of a film that ages better than Blade Runner, I mean it's… it's...it's a little startling, actually, in fact the films seems better today than any other time I've ever seen it.

Ridley Scott: See I was right the first time, you guys were wrong.

Geoff Boucher: (laughs, points to Ridley amidst the crowds applause) He was right!
Thankyou guys for coming and here comes Blade Runner!

Prometheus' Cast and Characters

2010-02-08T14:35:00.001-08:00

Noomi Rapace plays Elizabeth Shaw.

Michael Fassbender plays an android

Charlize Theron plays Meredith Vickers

Noomi Rapace plays Elizabeth Shaw.

2010-02-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

a) Of the five major roles to be cast, Noomi Rapace is the first actor signed to star in the film. The young Swedish actress landed the role of scientist Elizabeth Shaw after Scott saw her portrayal of fictional Lisbeth Salander in the film The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, for which she was lauded by Time magazine as a 2010 Performance of the Year. Rapace starred in all three entries of the breakout global franchise based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy of books (The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest are the other two entries), which have collectively grossed more than $212 million worldwide. (Fox press release)

b) She was interviewed by MTV, and asked about her character in relation to Ripley from Alien

"She's a scientist and is very bright," she continued. "She's a believer. I think there are some similarities, but she's very much her own. I don't think people will compare her so much to Ripley once they see the movie."

c) Aftenposten also interviewed Noomi about her role

Alien og Terminator

Samarbeidet med Ridley Scott er i Alien-universet, men ikke en egentlig en del av Alien-serien. Rapace får ikke lov å røpe handlingen, hun får bare lov å snakke om sin rollefigur.

- Jeg spiller Elizabeth Shaw, forsker og arkeolog. Hun er engelsk men oppvokst i Afrika for faren var misjonær. Fra ham har hun fått troen på gud, og har et sterkt indre. Hun er nok det mest hele mennesket jeg har gjort. Hun har et indre lys. Hun er veldig sta og målbevisst. Hun mistet foreldrene da hun var barn, så hun har fra tidlig av vært alene. Men hun er veldig intelligent. Jeg vet jo at når en har klart seg lenge selv, så blir en sterk. Men også skjør, for det sårede barnet i henne har ikke fått utvilke seg naturlig. Man er emosjonelt lettbrekkelig. Hun er full av håp, en drømmer, litt naiv. I midten av filmen skjer en masse ting og hun forvandles til en kriger – en annen side ved henne vekkes til liv.

- Det høres ut som hun har en del til felles med actionheltinnenes gudmor, Ellen Ripley?

- Ja absolutt! Det finnes et slektskap her. Jeg så Alien som tenåring og ble helt ”blown away”. Kan det virkelig være sånn! Det var jo den første kvinnelige hovedrollen! Ridley har, med både Alien og Thelma & Louise, vekket drømmer og håp hos mange.

Google Translation

Aftenposten :The collaboration with Ridley Scott in the Alien universe, but not really a part of the Alien series. Rapace are not allowed to reveal the action, she is only allowed to talk about her character.

Noomi- I play Elizabeth Shaw, a researcher and archaeologist. She is English but grew up in Africa for his father was a missionary. From him she had faith in God, and have a strong inner self. She is probably the most whole person I have done. She has an inner light. She is very stubborn and determined. She lost her parents when she was a child, as she has from early times been alone. But she is very intelligent. I know that when one has survived long myself, so be strong. But also fragile, for the wounded child within her has not been'll develop naturally. One is emotional lettbrekkelig. She is full of hope, a dream, a little naive. In the middle of the movie is a lot of things and she transforms into a warrior - another side of her awakening to life.

Aftenposten- It sounds like she has a part in common with the actionheroines godmother, Ellen Ripley?

Noomi: Yes, absolutely! There is a kinship here. I saw Alien as a teenager and was completely "blown away". Can it really be that way! It was the first female lead! Ridley has, with both Alien and Thelma & Louise, awakened dreams and hopes of many.

1. The character Elizabeth Shaw's name was used some years ago as an assistant to the doctor in the British TV sci-fi series Dr Who, the character was also known as Liz Shaw and was played by Caroline John and assisted the Doctor played by Jon Pertwee. It is still unknown as to whether this was a deliberate homage to the TV series or not. (see wikipedia entry Liz Shaw)

2. Enki Bilal the comic book artist had been one of the major talents along with Moebius of the early Heavy Metal comic books that captured Ridley's interest. Bilal's work has been an influence on the shadowy look of Blade Runner.

Illustration from Bilal's La Femme Piège next to Noomi Rapace

When I watched Noomi Rapace in the movie The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, she reminded me a little of the type of faces drawn by Enki Bilal, and later it turned out that Ridley had become very interested in her for a role in a film that was to be a prequel to Alien and was soon to become a film called Prometheus. So I ask the question is the fact that Noomi resembles a sort of woman drawn by Bilal, if this was one of the contributing factors for Ridley Scott taking an interest in her for the film role.

Michael Fassbender is in Prometheus

2010-02-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

Damon Lindelfof was interviewed by MTV , talking about Fassbender's role

Fassbender's Role
Damon Lindefol: "He plays a robot. One of the things that evokes the idea of 'Blade Runner' is, 'What does the movie look like from the robot's point of view?' If you were to ask him, 'What do you think about all of this? What's going on? What do you think about these humans who are around you?,' wouldn't it be cool if we found a way for that robot to answer those questions. When you cast a guy like Fassbender, who's going to bring a lot more to it than [makes clichéd robot movements] — that was me doing the robot, I don't know if you could tell — it's not Anthony Daniels. All due respect. He's phenomenal. But C-P3O…"

Charlize Theron plays Meredith Vickers

2010-02-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

Charlize Theron plays the role of Meredith Vickers, a woman character, a different kind of company "suit" or even a "corporate entity" who runs the company that has pulled the money together to fund the mission to send the spacecraft to another planet, her character is cold and business like, appearing to have an agenda that starts out to appear to be one thing and transforms into another

he has an aggenda to be revealed as she is found lurking over everyone from the corner.

i) Damon Lindelof talked to MTV about Charlize Theron's role as Meredith Vickers

Theron's Role

Lindelof: "Her character's name is Meredith Vickers and she's sort of a corporate entity. That's another one of the familiar things from the 'Alien' movies — that there are corporate interests in play. I feel like Charlize brought a new spin on that old variation. It's a remix …. I don't think she's slimy [like Paul Reiser's character in 'Aliens']. She's not the fast-talking, snake-oil face of the company. By the way, "What company is she a face of?," I think is a big part of the fun. As we were developing the script, she had some really cool ideas that made it not the suit you're used to."

ii) At the Comic-Con 2011, Q & A panel, Charlize talks about her character

a) Question: Charlize, can you talk about the character that you’re playing?

Theron: No I can’t, sorry. I’m just here to be pretty. No. I play this lady called Meredith Vickers. She’s the suit that runs the company that has nickeled and dimed this whole thing together, to fund this mission. Initially, she really was just that. And, Ridley came to me and said, “Do you want to do this?” I said, “For me, to work with you is a really difficult decision to make, but I’ll think about it.” No. Obviously, I wanted to work with him, but I felt like the character was just a little one-dimensional. [Damon Lindelof] stepped in, and I got on the phone with him and Ridley, and I threw very loose cannons towards him, with no specific ideas, but just wanting her to be somewhat more layered. I can’t tell you what Damon came up with, but he came up with some good shit! She starts out one thing and ends up another thing. It’s a pretty nice surprised, toward the third act, so I don’t want to ruin that for you, but she really does start out very one-dimensional. The great thing about Ridley is that he shoots everything so layered that you always wonder. There were many days that I showed up and he would do this tiny little thing like throw me in the corner, just lurking. And then, all of a sudden, that became a character trait. I would always be in the corner, lurking over everybody, and not saying anything, but just watching. Then, you realize that it really adds to this enigma of this character and what her agenda really is.

b) Question: Charlize, you’ve made a lot of really interesting choices in your career and you’re not typecast. What was it about this character that excited you about taking on this role?

Theron: For me, more than thinking of it and compartmentalizing it as a character who does this or is this, it’s always been the only marriage that has lasted, of who I’m working with and what I believe the chemistry of me and that person, and everybody else on the film, can bring and elevate. There’s an instinctive part, when I read something. I read this and I felt like, instinctively, she wasn’t really explored, and that’s fine. Sometimes you do a film and there are characters that are not explored, and you obviously don’t want to hurt a film. But, the more Ridley and I talked about it, the more we realized that, with the big themes of what the story and the film was about, there was a way to explore some of that, in a different way, because Vickers is such a different character. She’s not a believer. She’s not a scientist. She comes with this very frigid, cold, economic mind, and yet there’s something about her that’s questioning and doubting. You think it’s for one reason, and then later you realize that her agenda was actually something completely different, and that really wasn’t explored. You couldn’t explore that through the other characters because they were so different from her. I produce films, so I do come from a place of wanting to make the film better. I really don’t come from a place of, “If I’m going to play this, I need this.” I just wanted to see the potential through, and if Ridley wanted to do that and Damon wanted to do that, then I was really on board. These are the little moments that happen, that you don’t necessarily see coming. Through her and her characteristics, we really explored a lot of deep shit, which was really, really fun. Eventually, in the third act, I get to do some really, really fun stuff.

Dan O'Bannon's Mysteries

2009-06-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

a. Dan's interests

Dan had a great knowledge of Science Fiction books and movies. We see some of this in the many different themes and ideas that he added to his Alien script, we see themes and ideas recognisable by fans of writers Clifford D. Simak, Van Vogh, Philip José Farmer, H. P. Lovecraft and movies such as Planet of the Vampires, The Thing from Outer Space and numerous others. We also see an interest in mysteries as they were talked about then such as UFOlogy, in this case the Zeta Reticuli Incident.

b. Love for Lovecraft

H P Lovecraft

Dan O'Bannon had a great knowledge for and admiration of the works of H. P. Lovecraft who was a writer of science fiction horror novels. Right from the earlier stages of it development O'Bannon's script for Alien encapsulated themes ffrom the mythology apparent in Lovecraft's works. The final Alien movie has been regarded by many as a Lovecraftian movie.

Lovecraft, as part of his Cthulhu mythos in his novels wrote about a book of spells for summoning demons called The Necronomicon and Dan O'Bannon went as far as to write his own version of the book to provide a version of it for the public that was probably near enough to the imagined actual thing. There has been a lot of confusion about whether the book mentioned was actually real or not, and many people have come forth with their versions of the real Necronomicon for the book markets and these would never quite be the book that Lovecraft described.

c. UFOlogy

i a.) The character Broussard (later in the movie for this instance changed to Lambert in the movie) who identified the position of the Nostromo in the depths of space said "Just short of Zeta II Reticuli. We haven't even reached the outer rim yet.", the star system is a reference to the Betty and Barney Hill Alien abduction case.

i b.) Jon Sorensen who worked on special effects for Alien mentioned at AlienExperience.com about the reference to Zeta II Reticuli "It sounds very much like a piece of Dan O'Bannon dialogue. He loved that stuff." (taken from AlienExperience.com Re: ALIEN Makers Documentary thread Reply #540 from Jon Sorensen , on: June 29, 2009 )

ii. In 1997, when he appeared in a documentary called Area 51: The Alien Interview about extra terrestrials and UFOs where as an actor he played a man interviewing an extra-terrestrial.

d. Pyramidology by way of Von Däniken

iii a.) He was known to have an interest in pyramidology as we can see with the inclusion of a pyramid on the planetoid in his original Alien script. In Starlog July 1979, p95,Walter Hill said the words in relation to talking about the presence of a pyramid in the original script "Dan was deeply into pyramidology at the time".

iii b.) However Walter Hill talked about Dan O'Bannon with derision, so anything he said in regard to Dan O'Bannon and his work ought to be questioned because Walter Hill and his writing partner found themselves prone to errors and exaggeration. Walter Hill told Cinefantastique (Vol 9, Issue 1: p16) that "In one story conference I recall, He (Dan O'Bannon) wanted the ship to sail into some kind of Bermuda Triangle in space. There was this genuflect to pyramidology, the alien eggs were in the bottom of a pyramid." As unreliable as Walter Hill might be here, it brings us to add Bermuda Triangles and Pyramidology as two subjects that would have interested Dan O'Bannon.

iii c.) It was definite that Walter Hill really didn't have much interest in the Pyramidology in the script, and thought it was extraneous, he told Film International that " they had pyramids and hieroglyphics on the planetoid, a lot of Von Däniken crap ". (see also Inspired by Erich Von Däniken )

Medical inspiration for the Chestbursting

2009-06-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

Dan O'Bannon inherited a condition from his father known that effected his digestive areas and during his life he didn't talk about it openly with the media, but it was revealed once he died in 2009 that he suffered from Crohn's disease.

Over the years discussion about his stomach condition had taken place, which would remain undiagnosed for some time and when it was, he didn't actually want to go into detail about it publicly. As it happens it appears that the experiences that he had with his digestive area problems, directly or indirectly related to Crohn's disease, became the inspiration for the chestbursting scene.

For further information about Crohn's disease visit www.crohns.org.uk.

1) Food Poisoning episode

Back in 1978, Chris Foss told Martin Anderson (later of DenofGeek.com) his version of the inspiration for the chestburster

Chris Foss: "The 'chest-burster' was based on an episode of food-poisoning...long before he came to Paris [for Jodorowsky's Dune], [O'Bannon] ate some fast food and woke up in the night in incredible pain and actually had to be taken to hospital; and imagined that there was a 'beast' inside him. And that was exactly where that thing came from."
Martin Anderson showed the interview to Dan O'Bannon some time later, and his comments on it included no criticism of what Foss said.(source Denofgeek.com)

2) Carthasis for stomach pains,
HRGiger: Dan O'Bannon, when he was writing the script, had a stomach pain and he wanted the pain to go away and came up with the idea of the pain leaving through the stomach, so he invented that. (FX, 07, 1999)

3) Debilitating stomach disease
Dan O'Bannon: Then I was stricken with a debilitating stomach disease still undiagnosed and spent most of '77 in hospital making decisions by phone. So I was feeling really miserable and in intense pain when Gordon Carroll called up and says "We're all going to London to make Alien. Let's go!"

"I groaned and bitched, but everybody persuaded me I'd better do it. I'd already spent thousands of dollars from Alien option and preliminary money on medical bills, and it looked like I'd need more, so I went to England. Lo and behold, in the process of working, I made what appears to be a complete recovery. It was the first time I'd felt normal in better than a year" (Mediascene#35, p6)

4) Living with stomach attacks
Dan O'Bannon revealed to the Washington Post during an interview in the July 29,th 1979 edition

Washington Post "So he's rich. Famous. Vindicated. If it weren't for his stomach attacks, he might get his first shot at happiness, but they started coming during the last year of work in the movie, incredible gut pain and nausea that the doctors, after endless scans and probes, found no cause for, whatsoever. The only cure is to shoot him full of Demerol and feed him intravenously. He just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago after one bout, but his worst attack came during sneak previews - one of the preview cities being his hometown of St Louis, ironically enough. (N.B. during that interview, Dan would unzip his trousers every time he sat down because of his stomach condition)

5) Congenital stomach problem,
Neil Norman, a writer for The Face interviewed Dan in 1986 and took note of his illness at the time and found out about as much about it as he could.

Neil Norman: "Dan O"Bannon is a sick man. Shortly after my visit he had a date with a surgeon who was going to remove a large section of his bowels. Drawn and grey with pain, he was describing in minute detail the plot of his next film to someone on the other end of his radio telephone"

Later in the article he goes on to write: "Despite everything, the humour remains. O'Bannon's sourness on occasion can also be put down to poor health which is something he inherited from his father. He didn't want to talk about it in detail. All he will say is "It's not infectious". It makes it difficult for him to travel and he spends ten days getting over jet lag from a ten-hour flight. He stays at home, something he has learned to live with.

Dan spoke further about it in the article: "I'm not tough. God did not mean for me to be a physical man of iron. He meant for me to be a mind. Anything I do in life is a compromise because whatever I do that I like, there will be something about me that makes it difficult. My health problems do not affect my ability to work. No matter how much pain I'm in it never stops me writing and it never affects the quality of my work. Part of this is because writing is a narcotic. When I don't feel well , it is a way to escape from the pain". (FACE, April 1986)

6. Crohn's disease
Exploration of the possibility that the symptoms of Crohns disease led to the idea of the chestburster

"Mr. O’Bannon, who died in 2009, was afflicted with Crohn’s disease and suffered its symptoms for decades: “The digestion process felt like something bubbling inside of him struggling to get out.” That’s how the most famous element of Alien—the creature hatching out of a man’s stomach—was born." (New York Observer ,The Horror! The Horror! Fright Flicks Finally Get Their Due (article promoting Jason Zinoman's book 'Shockvalue') By Lawrence Levi 7/05 5:46pm)

H.R Giger's Egyptian Mysteries

2009-06-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

H. R. Giger in his artwork has often used ancient Egyptian themes and ideas, and some of these he brought into the concept work for Alien, all of which can be found as illustrations in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

i) The Goddess Nut

In his work for the Alien Life Cycle Hieroglyphic tableau, he incorporated the image of the Goddess Nut. ( See: Egyptian Secrets of The Life Cycle Tableau)

ii) The Opening of the Mouth Ritual

In his early design for the Facehugger, he incorporated the idea a pair of pliers in the creatures mouth to open it's victim's mouth up inspired by the idea of tools used for opening the jaws of the mummy up to allow the soul into the body for the reanimation rite (See: HR Giger and the opening of the mouth ritual)

iii) The Sokar funerary barge

In the final design for the Space Jockey, Giger was able to incorporate elements of the Seker./Sokar funerary barge ( See: Evolution of Space Jockey via the Egyptian Book of the Dead)

Inspired by Erich Von Däniken?

2009-06-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

a) A man of ideas

Erich Von Däniken wrote a book of fantastical speculations about extra-terrestrials having visited Earth in the distant past, created mankind in their own image and there were giants as well, and they were responsible for the pyramids of Giza. The book was called "Chariots of the Gods". He was only writing a book about his own private naive speculations about some of the world's ancient enigmatic mysteries, and because the book became a success, he became a victim of Switzerland's dislike of new ideas, he was ridiculed by the press and the public for many years to come. As time went by, Erich's point of view on the subject evolved and the arguments about the origins of these ancient structures have increased, which have been a starting point for many other people's ideas about the possibilities of technically advanced civilisations who have visited Earth in the ancient past.

One of Erich's most famous ideas was that the image on the Sarcophagus Lid of the Tomb of Pakal Votan depicted an astronaut in a rocket ship cockpit. Another was that the Naza Lines were used by ancient astonauts as a landing strip

b) Influence on the Alien team

i a) Dan O'Bannon Inspired by Eric Von Däniken

drawing credited to Dan O'Banno

One of the earth crew in the original script the character speculated about the pyramid in relation to the Space Jockey " Maybe the rest of the crew is in there -- in some kind of suspended animation, waiting to be rescued." which is an idea related to Von Daniken's explorations into what the Pyramids were about.

i b) Walter Hill said the words in relation to talking about the presence of a pyramid in the original script "Dan was deeply into pyramidology at the time". (Starlog July 1979, p95)

i c) Walter Hill spoke with derision about the Däniken-esque material in O'Bannon's original script . He said about it "they had pyramids and hieroglyphics on the planetoid, a lot of Von Däniken crap " (Film International)

ii) Chris Foss inspired by Erich Von Däniken
Chris Foss the artist who was one of the concept designers for Alien also took inspiration from the book Chariot of the Gods when he drew the Nazca Lines being used a landing strip by a space craft for a project not related to Alien

iii) HR Giger influenced by Erich Von Däniken

iii. a)When Ridley chose some ideas from Giger's Necronomicon for the space jockey, more was required beyond that for the design of the space jockey and his seat which forced him to turn to images of the ancient Egyptian funerary barge of the god Sokar to transform that using his imagination into his ancient alien dead pilot in its control seat, perhaps much like the Sarcophagus Lid the Tomb of Pakal Votan appears to have translated itself in Von Däniken's mind into an ancient astronaut in a rocket ship whatever the truth of the matter. (see 3. Evolution of Space Jockey via the Egyptian Book of the Dead)

iii. b) Giger in his essay about his hometown, wrote that "Chur became famous in the world press as the place where Erich Von Daniken was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for fraud - a term otherwise reserved for murderers. It shows that the inhabitants of Graubunden for fantastists, foreigners or people from other parts of Switzerland have a chance if they bring money into the canton, like Gunter sachs or the Shah of Persia" (Giger's Necronomicon, p12)

N.B. Chur us the capital of Graunbunden which is a cantor (district) in Switzerland

iv) Ridley Scott inspired by Eric Von Däniken

iv.a) Years later, in 12.05.2010, Swiss newspaper Blick interviewed Ridley Scott about his Robin Hood film and managed to interview him a question about his forthcoming Alien production, Ridley gives a nod to Erich Von Daniken's writings and we can read through Google Translater that Ridley is saying that he guessed right. (See: Blick interviewed Ridley Scott 12.05.2010)

iv.b) Ridley Scott also acknowledged Von Daniken's writings at the CineEurope even in 2011. "NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way," Scott said. "That's what we're looking at (in the film), at some of Eric van Daniken's ideas of how did we humans come about." ( Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace Tease 'Prometheus' at CineEurope, 6:26 PM PDT 6/28/2011 by Scott Roxborough, Hollywood Reporter)

Dan O'Bannon's original Alien

2009-06-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

a) Discovery of the planetoid

b) The Space Jockey's Remains

c) The Pyramid

d) Spore to Facehugger

e) Facehugger to Adult

f) Dead Planetoid

g) Space Jockey Story

h) Host to Spore: The Cocoon scene

a) Discovery of the planetoid

2009-06-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

a)"The crew of the Nostromo, (named by O'Bannon as the Snark): The commercial mining ship Nostromo is owned wholly by it crew, a group of independent miners who have combined their personal resources in a speculative adventure of free enterprise, hoping to find mineral lodes that will repay their investments and make their fortunes. Having succeeded, they are returning to Earth when the ship's computer interrupts their voyage to inform them of a transmission of unknown origin. They are faced with a crucial decision: will they ignore the transmission or investigate. Being their own bosses they are under no outside pressure to investigate, but this is the first contact man has ever had with any intelligent non human life form, and the potential benefits to the discoverer are limitless. Being adventurers and profiteers, they land."(Dan O'Bannon's Unseen Alien, Starburst 15, p42)

b) The Space Jockey's Remains

2009-06-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Chris Foss's derelict

The Space Jockey's remain

a) "The source of the transmission proves to be a wrecked alien spacecraft" (1)

b) In one description shaped like a huge toadstool (2)

c) And another description a lobster (3)

1. See Chris Foss' derelict

d) "Shot full of immense holes as though the ship had been riddled with impossibly corrosive acid. Dead at the controls is the skeleton of the alien pilot "(1).

e) "The giant alien's remains bear no resemblance to the human form and are discovered seated in a control chair. On a console on the walls, there is a machine, and on it, a small bar moves steadily back and forth, sliding noiselessly in its grooves. This is where the transmission is coming from" (2).

f. Dan O'Bannon : "Ron Cobb did the skeleton - what they later call the Space Jockey - and it was just perfect. It had a very large cranium and four or five eye sockets. Very small jawbone - no teeth to speak of. Of course, I expected it to look horrible when you see it in the film, but then if you looked at it a bit closer, you'd discover that it didn't have the large teeth or the mandibles or any other thing that are characteristic of a carnivore - and then maybe you'd begin to imagine it as some totally non-violent herbivorous creature sailing around space." (4)

g) "It turns out to be an automatic recording, which has been repeating for God knows how long. The question is: what killed the crew? Scrawled onto the console before the dead pilot is a symbol, a hastily scrawled triangle. Clearly he was trying to leave a message."

h) "While they are puzzling over the meaning of the triangle, the storm outside momentarily, enabling them to see to the horizon. There on the cliffs is a pyramid, instantly suggestive of the triangle. Is this what the pilot was trying to indicate? They go to explore it. "(1)

(1)Dan O'Bannon's Unseen Alien, Starburst 15, p42
(2)Dan O'Bannon's online version early Alien script?
(3)Dan O'Bannon's DVD version of the early Alien script.
(4)Dan O'Bannon interviewed in Cinefex 1, p64)

(i)Warren Presents Alien Collectors Edition p40 reveals that in the original draft of the alien script, the jockey was not from space but from the very same world as the alien, one of the small planet's three civilisations. And the vehicle was not a space ship but a land craft moving from one sector of the planetoid to another. No words from Dan O'Bannon can be found to back this up.

(ii) The original script describes the planetoid as a planetissima which is an astronomical term for one of the rocky bodies, of the order of 1 mile (1.6 kilometer) in diameter, that are believed to have formed in the protosolar nebula, and whose accretion formed the rocky cores of the larger planets.

(iii)The idea of an alien derelict ship presented itself to Dan O'Bannon through the short story and radio play version of Clifford Simak's science fiction story Junkyard, in this case the ship has it's engines ripped out by another alien race who left their engine parts behind since the organism in the tower made them forget how to operate their own engines. And the presence of a derelict spacecraft showed up in Planet of the Vampires, the derelict looked to some degree like a giant beetle, the interior was a long ribbed circular tunnel leading into a vast central chamber which also served as a tomb like environment for it's skeleton of the deceased giant inhabitant.

(iv) The giant skeleton O'Bannon freely admits having borrowed from Planet of the Vampires (see: Something Perfectly Disgusting, Alien Quadrilogy), and the giants chamber contains an audio player than when activated plays endless alien utterances.

(v)The original Planet of the Vampires script also contained a transmitter created by the disembodied spirits on the planetoid to lure space travellers to the planet.

(vi) In the online version of the early script, the derelict is described as a giant toadstool and in the DVD version of the script, it is described as a grotesque craft, nose down in the sand like some titanic lobster, and the latter is exactly what Chris Foss drew in his concept art for the derelict which O'Bannon approved.

(vii) Dan O'Bannon admitted to the writer Andy Murray who wrote Into the Unknown about the work of Nigel Kneale "one of the things that made a big impression on me from the third Quatermass film was the idea of finding a wrecked alien space craft, and investigating inside of it, and finding the remains of the creatures. In my original screenplay when they land on the planet, they find a crashed alien space ship and they go inside and find the remains of an alien creature, in the movie they sort of just crushed two scenes together, but in my version it was two separate scenes. They find this wrecked alien space craft and they deduce that this alien creature was killed by something. Then subsequently they discover and indigenous pyramid and they go into that and find the eggs. In the script that was one of the more specific things I was thinking about from Kneale's work" (Into the Unknown, p152 ). In the story, the space ship remains are thought to have been an unexploded bomb at first which was a concern during the post WW2 years.

c) The Pyramid

2009-06-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

drawing credited to Dan O'Bannon

The pyramid is ancient, primitive and clearly of a different design to the derelict. We are dealing with a different alien here: the dead ship appears to be visitors from elsewhere, the pyramid seems indigenous. Walking around it they find no entrance., any entrance must have been buried in the shifting sands of time. So Kane uses his climbing gear to crawl to the top of the monolith. where he finds an open shaft going straight down.

Meanwhile back at the Earthship, the computer has finally succeeded in translating the transmission. It means: DO NOT LAND".

Chris Foss's planetoid landscape

But the explorers are cut off from radio contact and do not learn of this development, so Kane goes down to the shaft. At the bottom he finds a bizarre tomb or shrine filled with incomprehensible paintings and heiroglyphics, which appear to have a religious significance. In the centre of the tomb is an altar, surrounded by egg-like objects .

detail from above showing Pyramid

From this point there only two differences in the original script worth mentioning. (After returning to the Earthship, the crew studies the films Kane shot in the tomb. The hieroglyphs describe the life cycle of the native Aliens. Reproduction for them is extraordinarily difficult and complex requiring a host and much supervision, as a result of which their life cycle has become central to the culture. The fatal flaw of this species appears to be the biological necessity of overexploitation of the biosphere; and the Earthmen speculate that this may be the reason for the lifelessness of the planet and the apparent disappearance of the species (1)

pyramid opening by Chris Foss

Expanding on this in the original conception of the Alien race, the inhabitants of the planetoid are seen as tough and primitive, and with an extremely complicated sexual cycle. Reproduction was very difficult for them and had therefore become central to their religion. And this pyramid was a temple to reproduction (2), the exterior was approximately twenty metres tall and was possibly the creation of an ancient, primitive and cruel culture. Inside the building is a room accessed through a vertical tunnel in the roof since the normal entrance has long since collapsed.The spore pods can be found around the alter in the centre of the room (3). The inhabitants of this world had three entirely different stages in it's life-cycle which are featured as very stylised hieroglyphs on the wall of the birthing temple. It features an oval design with markings as a spore casing, a star shape as a face-hugger, and the star shapes are shown in conjugation with other life forms perceived as freakish hybrids or Gargoyles and worm like things are then seen emerging from the hybrids (4), the image of the spore and face-hugger is followed by a creature with six legs and tentacles as the creature in its young form and then the larger form and the pattern repeats itself (5) .

Chris Foss' pyramid interior

(1)Dan O'Bannon's Unseen Alien, Starburst 15, p42
(2) Don Shay talks with O'Bannon. Cinefex 1.p48
(3) Dan O'Bannon's letter to Giger, Giger's Alien, p10, 363E
(4) Online version of the O'Bannon and Shusett's original script
(5) DVD version of the O'Bannon and Shusett's original script

Ron Cobb's birthing chamber

Dan O'Bannon borrowed the idea of a tower on a planetoid through Clifford Simak's Junkyard, in the form of a primitive stone tower on an asteroid that contained instead of birth temple full of spores a creature at the bottom the size of a melon that stole the memories of creatures that touched it and the hypothesis was that the memories wouldoccasionally be collected by an unknown alien race and they discover that this creature had pipes and wires leading into it from the ground that made the explorers wonder if it were a synthesis of animal and machine. (See scriptintroduction in Alien Quadrilogy DVD extras) Why it should have been built in such a primitive way was never discovered by the explorers in Junkyard. Likewise we never really work out how once thriving culture who built pyramids could have evolved on planetoid 120km wide in Alien. The life form inside the tower serves as inspiration for the spore found inside the pyramid, and just as people lose their memories when touching the life form, those who become victims of the facehugger can not remember anything about encountering the spore of being facehugged.


hieroglyphics detail from above

ii) A member of the Earth crew wonders if the pyramid contained fellows of the dead extra terrestrial pilot in a state of suspended animation waiting to be woken up again by their brethren which near enough mirrors an aspect of the ponderings of Erich Von Daniken when he wrote Chariot of the Gods, that he had about the purpose of the great pyramid of Egypt. In Starlog July 1979, p95, Walter Hill acknowledged that "Dan was deeply into pyramidology at the time"

d) Spore to Facehugger

2009-06-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

a) First the egg (a spore really) which is tended by the third stage adults and housed in a lower chamber of the breeding temple. When ready to hatch, the spore pod is placed in the middle of the sacrificial stone with blood drains in it (1).

Sketch by O'Bannon

b) The spores are leathery, egg-shaped objects about one metre tall, which contain the larva of the alien (2).

c) The alien race had two sexes of its own but they needed a third host animal to reproduce, a lower animal, equivalent of an Alien cow and it is led on to the stone. The other side to this is that the alien appears to reproduce asexually using a hosts for a spores and a chestbursters and in that case we are yet to understand what form the two different sexes take in this life cycle (3). The small larval alien within the spore pod known as "the face-hugger"(2), that (4) amounts to an ambulatory penis (4), is possibly an octopoidal creature which waited for a creature to approach and when someone touched the spore pod (2), or Sensing the warmth the "face-hugger" springs out, the lid flies off, attaches itself to the animal, deposits eggs the nearest available orifice or as another point of view puts it, deposits a fetus into the stomach..

drawing by Ron Cobb

(1) Ron Cobb.Alien Portfolio , written and compiled by Jeffrey Walker
(2) Dan O'Bannon's letter to Giger in Giger's Alien, p10, 363E
(3) Don Shay talks with O'Bannon. Cinefex 1.p48
(4) Book of Alien, Scanlon and Gross

i. Dan O'Bannon talks about the idea of the Facehugger

Dan O'Bannon wrote about the Facehugger in the essay 'Something Disgusting', "I imagined a creature we cannot distance ourselves from, because it emerges from inside of us. I gazed down into a space that is both a cave and a womb, the unconscious mind, and Hell. In that space, something is born. It is vile, and unclean, It gets on your face, it smothers you.

I made the victim of this xenobiotic oral rape a man, A female victim would have been a cheap shot; the male contingent of the audience would have found it less frightening than erotic, it would have aroused their rape fantasies. That is why horror films almost always use female victims- the (male) filmmakers don't really want to feel fear. They prefer fear upon someone else, preferably a beautiful woman.

But I had a different agenda. I was summoning up devilish forces, demons which live in the collective sleep of all humanity. I knew they were everybody's because they were mine. (later, when the film was in production, Gordon Carroll suggested bringing in a psychiatrist to tell us what was frightening. I was outraged - no psychiatrist would ever know as much as I did about fear.) You may wonder if I was mad. I wondered it myself." ("Something Disgusting" essay in Alien Quadrilogy DVD set,)

Perhaps Dan O'Bannon felt inspired to imagine himself as someone summoning up demons in the manner of Lovecraftian characters who come into the possession of Abdul Alhazred's Necronomicon since he was very knowledgeable about the author's work.

ii. Dan On Alien reaffirms that the Facehugger performs oral rape.
Dan O'Bannon : "The whole thing was supposed to be about the sexual life cycle of an alien. One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex, everybody is always all in a knot about sex, I said that's how I'm going to attack the audience, I'm going to attack them sexually, and I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the Men!. And I'm going to put in every image I can think of that I know will make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth, the thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number." (24 minutes into the documentary Alien Saga)

iii. Origins in "Strange Relations"

This also relates to the fact Dan O'Bannon wrote (see: essay "Something Perfectly Disgusting", the Alien Quadrilogy DVD 2003) that he found inspiration in a collection of short stories called "Strange Relations" by Philip José Farmer , and one story that it contained was "My sister's brother" involves a considerably strange form of reproduction that brought the human male character to feel extreme revulsion. The baby was in the form of a worm that grew in the stomach of its androgenous mother and would over the course of it's development take on the role of both foetus and phallus and would give ecstasy and would draw into its own body to inherit their genes the eggs of ten to twenty other loving adults whose bodies it would enter orally during the course of something comparable to love making. The male explorer from Earth "felt as is something had been implanted in him and had broken its shell and was growing into something like a worm. It was eating him, and what would happen before it devoured all of him he did not know", and this line connects well with the idea of the facehugger implanting the chestburster as an embryo or egg into the stomach of it's host.

e) Chestburster to young Adult

2009-06-12T07:32:00.001-07:00

O'Bannon sketch, Rocket Blast Comicollector 148

a.) "The "face-hugger" soon dies and falls off, the inseminated animal off to an enclosure somewhere to await the birth. The fetus develops inside" (1)

b) " The host is just an incubator for the thing that will ultimately emerge " (2) "eventually chewing its way out and killing its host. The creature, the "chest-burster" is the Alien's second stage, and it simply runs about eating, mindlessly carnivorous" (3)

Ron Cobb's young alien adult

c) "It's tremendously hungry and needs to reproduce" (2). " At this stage the creature is still controlled and nurtured by adult Aliens" (3),

d) "It grows to maturity with incredible speed" (2), "Until the "chestburster" begins losing appendages and becomes more and more harmless. Finally, its bloodlust gone, the Alien becomes a mild, intelligent creature, capable of art and architecture, which lives a full, scholarly life of 200 years." (3)

(1) O'Bannon talks to Don Shay. Cinefex 1.p48

(2) Book of Alien, Scanlon and Gross (no page numbers )

(3) Ron Cobb.interviewed, Alien Portfolio , written and compiled by Jeffrey Walker

O'Bannon's alien sketch

Cobb painting based on O'Bannon's sketch

(i) The Unknown Giger Painting

a) Dan O'Bannon talked about the Giger's alien creature that he had in mind for the monster right from the beginning and not a Ron Cobb alien at all. Describing a Giger painting is not always easy although he describes it to some degree, which one he was talking about I am still not one hundred percent certain going by the published texts although he describes it has having a head distortion towards the front as opposed towards the back as we see in the final creature.

1) O'Bannon: "Well another source was that I met Giger when we were working on Dune, and I'd looked at his picture books and when I got back to America I was still haunted by his work. It was on my mind and when we sat down to do Alien I ended up visualizing the thing as I was writing it, I found myself visualizing it as a Giger painting. And I wrote this script."(Fantastic Films us #10/ GB no1, p13)

detail from The Spell II. Is this the one?

2) O'Bannon: "I had this vision right on this very sofa, of Giger monster around with a science fiction horror movie could be based and it ended up happening. In fact the design that they ended up getting, almost by coincidence, I had settled on in my own mind. One of Giger's designs that I liked and I wanted to see as the monster. Later on Ridley went through Giger's work and he found quite a different source of inspiration and he had Giger design from that. But the funny thing was, when it got done - when Giger ended up adapting it and designing it and shaping it up - it ended up being similar to the thing that I'd had in mind that I never mentioned. I was just so happy to get Giger that anything he did was fine by me."(Fantastic Films us #10/ GB no1, p13)

detail from Necronom V. Is this the one?

3) O'Bannon: "When I started thinking back. I said "you know, it's amazing. Damn it, it's even similar to the one I've been thinking of." There's a head distortion on the creature, the one I wanted distorted the head toward the front. The one that Ridley picked distorted the head out towards the back, they're in the same family." (Fantastic Films us #10/ GB no1, p13)

f) Dead Planetoid

2009-06-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

"But the planetoid was now dead and this civilisation had been gone for millions of years" (1) . "At some point a cataclysm causes the extermination of the adults of this unique race leaving no one to tend and nurture the young" (2). "The fatal flaw of this species appears to be the biological necessity of over-exploitation of the biosphere" (3). "All that remained of it was this pyramid and the spores - which can survive dormant for incredible lengths of time under even the most adverse conditions" (1). "In a dark lower chamber of the breeding temple a large number of eggs lie dormant" (2), "waiting to sense something warm" (2).

(1) Don Shay talks with O'Bannon. Cinefex 1.p48 / Alien Special Effects p20
(2) Ron Cobb. Alien Portfolio
(3) Dan O'Bannon's Unseen Alien, Starburst 15, p42

g) Space Jockey Story

2009-06-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

Years later, The Space Jockey's race comes to this planetoid. The Jockey's are on a mission of exploration and archeology and they are fascinated by this marvelous temple and unknown culture. One of them finds the chamber and gets face-hugged. He's rescued, but no one knows what's happened. They take him back to their ship and continue their exploration of the planet's surface. When the "chestburster" erupts from the Jockey it goes on a killing rampage until it is shot and killed. The Alien dies, but immediately decomposes and its acid eats through the hull of the jockey's ship, leaving them stranded on the planet. The Jockeys radio out a message that there is a dangerous parasite on the planet, that nothing can be done to save them in time and that no one should attempt a rescue (1) .The message in an unearthly voice spoke words written out phonetically were "Limtis \ limtis \ limtis, r'q'nniblas ai brek ph'nglui zur g'domastion r'zedro veton fhtagn, ai ren, tre horth limts linik cevnologner, suitides, ai thorolast, gles gles gles" (2). Then the jockeys slowly starve to death. (1)

(1)Ron Cobb, Alien Portfolio , written and compiled by Jeffrey Walker
(2)Alien Early version script (online and DVD)

i)One word recognisable in O"Bannon's alien message is indeed "fhtagn". He was well known as an authority on the work of H.P.Lovecraft, and it is known that Lovecraft's fictional writings that dealt with ancient extra-terrestrial races visiting Earth, "fhtagn" is found to roughly translate as "waits" or "dreams".

h) Cocoon scene

2009-06-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

At the end of the story is a missing scene which appears to be well known to the public as the cocoon scene, in which Ripley finds Captain Dallas spun into a web in the hold of the Earthship, Brett and (and at one time) Parker have also been spun into cocoons which are in the process of metamorphosing into the very same type of egg found in the pyramid, thus completing the Alien's life cycle (1) . The first containing Dallas appears to be woven from some fine, white, silk-like material, and it is slowly undulating. Another cocoon dangles from the ceiling, but this one looks a little different. It is smaller and darker, with a harder shell. In fact, it looks almost exactly like the spores in the tomb thus completing the Alien Life Cycle (2)

(1) Dan O'Bannon's Unseen Alien, Starburst 15, p42
(2) Dan O'Bannon's online early Alien script.

The Nostromo

2009-05-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

Moebius inspiration for refinery platform

Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo exterior

Moebius inspiration for refinery platform

2009-05-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

a. ) A major inspiration for Ridley Scott were drawings by Moebius as featured in the comic book Metal Hurlant (and it's American counterpart Heavy Metal) that Ivor Powell introduced him to while while filming The Duellists in Dordoigne.

a.i) The writer of this blog recalls from memory of the Memories of Alien interview at the Empire Big Screen, 2011.

b. ) When Ridley made the sudden jump to having Nostromo's refinery platform as a large squarish shape we might ask where Ridley took the inspiration and we can see it clearly enough in this comicbook story a likely answer.

In Moebius' story "It's a small universe" a couple of star travellers travel in a smallish space craft that appears to be a squarish platform with a support pylone extending beneath to connect with the lower horizontal tube which has the cockpit bubble situated at the front of it

sideview of space ship

The first image from the comicbook story shown here reveals the vessel approaching a planet somewhere out in space and the others of it landing on the planet. This craft comes to rest with the upper rectangle floating in the water with the rest submerged.

early Ridleygram of the refinery

c. Ridley's early storyboard known as a "Ridleygram" of the refinery before the planet appears to show a wide straight platform with similar sized attachments beneath the structure held by slanted support pylon

The original Starship Enterprise

d. Moebius' spacecraft is most likely a general parody of the original Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, but as a small space ship and with a rectangular top instead.

Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo

2009-05-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Nostromo

1) Ron Cobb borrowed from Chris Foss
Chris Foss before Ridley Scott dropped him from the production had been creating many concept drawings for the design of the Nostromo, and so it went that when they needed to design the final thing.

Denofgeek.com uncovered the fact from interviewing Ron Cobb that although Chris Foss was not directly involved with the design of the final Nostromo, Roger Christian went away with Chris Foss's amd Ron Cobb's designs to build the final spaceship and while Ron Cobb's exterior design loosely inspired by Foss' work was used for the Nostromo, one can find that features from Chris Foss' other designs found their way into the ship.

Ron Cobb's Nostromo

Ron Cobb: "Creating spacecraft exteriors came easily to Foss. His mind and imagination seemed to embody the entire history of the industrial revolution. He could conjure up endless spacecraft designs suggesting submarines, diesel locomotives, Mayan interceptors, Mississippi river boats, jumbo space arks, but best of all (ask Dan) were his trademark aero-spacecraft-textures like panels, cowlings, antennae, bulging fuel tanks, vents, graphics etc. As the months passed, along with two or three temporary directors, Chris began to have problems caused by his spectacular creativity. No one, in a position to make a decision seemed to be able to make up their mind and/or choose one of his designs. I think Chris was turning out spacecraft designs the decision makers found too original." (Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)

Ron Cobb"The truth of the matter is, as Chris said, we both influenced each other, I think I borrowed from him more than he borrowed from me" .(Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)

2) Upper Thrusters and main body shape

Tug with enigmatic upper engines

The main shape of the Nostromo is similar is near enough borrowed from the vessel below left with "Fountain Line" written along the side of it's "Proton Drive" engine, while the upper engines upon the Nostromo are noticeably very reminiscent of Chris Foss' snake like space ship segmented like a train on the right.

The "Fountain Line" tug

3) The Engine Intakes

Nostromo's upper engine intake openings

A point about the design for the Nostromo is that maybe it can be said to resemble a gothic tomb. Chris Foss had drawn numerous designs for ships with cavernous intake openings for engines, but one with the most haunting features is his design for a pyramid interior with it's vast rectangular tunnel with sloping ends that taper to the rectangular mouths of these entrances, perhaps here we are seeing the origins of the characteristic engine intakes openings

Chris Foss pyramid temple interior

detail from pyramid temple interior

Rambaldi's Alien Monster Concept

2009-04-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

First draft storyboard from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set.
"p.134 Ripley blows the rear hatch"

a) Before Ridley stepped in to have Giger design the alien, we find out fragments of information about a design for the creature by Carlo Rambaldi who later would create the alien mechanised head. The brief references to this only come from interviews with Dan O'Bannon expressing his dissatisfaction with Rambaldi's concept when he was the first man hired by Fox to actually design the creature.

First draft storyboard from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set
P134" The atmosphere in the lifeboat sucked into space"

b) However in 2010, the pre-Ridley Scott "First draft storyboards" presented in Alien Anthology blu-ray set there appears to be depictions of the alien that looks approximately like a multi-eyed marshmallow man, whether this was due to the sketch being so rough that it could look like anything and was roughly inspired by Ron Cobb's lobster like humanoid or if this is the way Rambaldi's creature could have looked is another question, however in all the other storyboards found in this series, great effort was made to draw all the designs correctly.

First draft storyboard from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set
p134 "The Alien shoots past Ripley: grabs her ankle"

i) Dan O'Bannon (Science Fiction Film Making in the 1980s, p62, & Starlog #71 ) : I fought a year with Fox to hire Giger. I wrote the script so Giger could design those things. And then they picked up the script and said "Naw, we don't want this guy. When has he even designed a movie?" They wanted someone who was a good solid movie pro.

First draft storyboard from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set
"p135 The creature struggling"

They hired Carlo Rambaldi to design the thing originally. He came up with something that looked like a half molten marshmallow with a bunch of big, pretty blue eyes. For a year I kept thrusting Giger's work in front of them and they kept saying. "This is some wingding who lives in Europe. What movies has he designed?" Only because Ridley was hired on was Giger hired. He took a liking to Giger's work. Without Giger, I don't think we would have had much of a movie"

First draft storyboard from Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set
p135. "The Hatch Slams Shut

Ridley Scott's Alien Monster

2009-04-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

a) Into The Necronomicon
b) Looking for the Alien's Nucleus

c) The Sudanese

d) Bolaji Badejo from the Gold Coast

e) The Salamander People

f) Creating the Chestburster
g) Creating the Facehugger
h) Creating the Egg
i) Creating the big Alien

j) An intermediary stage