'Alien' Question. (1 Viewer)

[Anders Englund]

Quote:

The pilot on the alien ship could have set up the transmission before he died, warning others to come that way.
--Anders

 

[Alex Spindler]

Listening to the director commentary it seems we are at a bit of an impasse. The director seems to side with the contingency theory (something along the lines of the company staffing their ships with androids to protect their interests) while the A.D.Foster sides with preknowledge and the deliberate tasking of the ship to collect the alien.
From a story standpoint, I'd support the director version primarily because the logic chain seems more solid to me. However, I'd concede that A.D. Foster probably had access to backstory information that never made it into a shooting script, so his is probably more correct.
Great question and thread.

 

[Paul_D]

Steve, I had a troubing recollection this evening. The thought of Nuns on the Run entered my mind, along with the sight of Eric Idle dressed as a woman. It seems I stand corrected.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Its clearly of alien origin, but it seems strange that there'd be absolutely no sign of the original inhabitants.

You mean except for the spacefarer? It's not outside the realm of plausibility for the ship to be manned by a single alien being. And given that he died from a chestburster in his chair, the only question is where is the huge alien that came out of him?

 

[Benson R]

I used to have a book that detailed the making of Alien. Originally in the script and in the story boards the crew boarded the Alien ship and found only the pilot. He was pointing in a certain direction. They left the ship continued on to where he was pointing and found a pyramid like temple where the eggs are found. So originally the alien was an indegous creature and the pilot had crash landed on the planet and discovered the alien.

The story was simplified for pacing and budgetary reasons.

 

[Paul_D]

I think its much scarier to think that the spacecraft crashed after the alien got on board. Somehow the creature being indigenous would take the mystery out of it.

 

[MikeRS]

The pyramid scenario was from the original draft "StarBeast", by Dan O'Bannon. The aliens were conceptually designed as a discovery from long ago, by the original inhabitants of the planet. The pyramid was this mysterious ancient temple, which must have been a great excavation by this former civilization. But it ended up being their downfall. By the time the human crew get to the planet, it had been extinct for many years.

In the temple, they notice tons of art on the walls, cryptically depicting the metamorphosis stages of the alien. It was described as similar to ancient Egyptian Tomb art. So it was played as a mystery for the crew, wondering what exactly happened to the original beings of this planet.


The COMPANY, Ash/androids, female hero, aliens as non-indigenous lifeforms, working class protagonists.......all these concepts were added by Walter Hill and his collaborators during the re-writes. So whether it was a "contingency plan" or a completely devised and telegraphed scheme by the COMPANY, can not be answered in this draft.

STARBEAST Synopsis

En route back to Earth from a far part of the galaxy, the crew of the starship SNARK intercepts a transmission in an alien language, originating from a nearby storm-shrouded planet.

Mankind has waited centuries to contact another form of intelligent life in the universe -- they decide to land and investigate. Their search takes them to a wrecked alien spacecraft whose doors gape open-- it is dead and abandoned. Inside they find, among other strange things, the skeleton of one of the unearthly space travellers.

Certain clues in the wrecked ship lead them across the hostile surface of the planet to a primitive stone pyramid, the only remnant of a vanished civilization. Beneath this pyramid they find an ancient tomb full of fantastic artifacts. Lying dormant in the tomb are centuries-old spores, which are triggered into life by the men's presence. A parasite emerges and fastens itself to one of the men's faces -- and cannot be removed.

An examination by the ship's medical computer reveals that the creature has inserted a tube down his throat, which is depositing something inside him. Then it is discovered that the parasite's blood is a horribly corrosive acid which eats through metal -- they dare not kill it on the ship.

Ultimately it is dislodged from its victim and ejected from the ship, and they blast off from the Hell-planet. However, before they can seal themselves into suspended animation for the long voyage home, a horrible little monster emerges from the victim's body -- it has been in him, deposited there by the parasite... and now it is loose on the ship.

A series of ghastly adventures follow. They trap it in an air shaft and a man has to crawl down the shaft with a flamethrower -- it tears a man's head off and runs away with his body -- a man is crushed in the air lock door and the ship loses most of its air in a terrific windstorm -- another man is burned to death and then eaten by the creature -- and another is woven into a cocoon as part of the alien's bizarre life cycle.

Finally there is only one man left alive, alone on the ship with the creature, and only six hours till his air runs out; which leads to a climax of horrifying, explosive jeopardy, the outcome of which determines who will reach Earth alive -- man or alien.

Even with the changes, it pretty much nailed the structure of the final film. Hill and co. basically added the texture and blue collar aesthetic. But O'Bannon definitely deserved his screenplay credit.