Today is Alien day. So here are ten things you might not know about Alien, the 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon:
Working titles for the film included "They Bite" and "Star Beast". It was when Dan O'Bannon was re-reading the script that he noticed the number of times the word “alien” appeared and decided that would make a much better title.
In the early drafts, Ripley was written as a man, which meant this was one of three films in which Sigourney Weaver played a character originally planned to be male. (The others were The TV Set and Vantage Point.) Ripley might have been played by Meryl Streep, as after auditions narrowed it down to those two. However, Streep’s partner died about that time so Weaver ended up with the role because Streep was in mourning.
Harrison Ford turned down the role of Captain Dallas.
The ship’s Cat, Jones, is played by four different felines. On the first day of filming, Sigourney Weaver’s skin started playing up, leading her to fear she might be allergic to cats; but it turned out she was allergic to the glycerin sprayed on her skin to make her look hot and sweaty. If you’re wondering how they got the cat to hiss at the alien, the crew had a German Shepherd Dog hidden behind a screen, and the cat was reacting to that.
The set must have been pretty smelly at times because some of the props were quite disgusting. The dead facehugger that Ash autopsies was made from fresh shellfish, four Oysters, and a sheep Kidney; the inside of the alien eggs contained fresh cattle hearts and stomachs obtained from a local butcher. The "egg tube" of the facehugger was Sheep intestine. After trying several options the crew decided organic material was best for the wet and gooey look they were aiming for. That said, the slime used on the Alien was K-Y jelly.
The Blue laser lights used in the alien ship's egg chamber were borrowed from The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show in the soundstage next door.
The original name for the spaceship was "Snark", then "Leviathan", before they finally settled on "Nostromo".
The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, conducted by Lionel Newman, and performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra.
At the end of the film, wait for the credits, turn the volume up, and you can hear the sound of a pod opening.
At Paisley Abbey there is a gargoyle bearing a striking resemblance to the xenomorph, the alien creature in the film. A stonemason hired to restore the ancient, crumbling gargoyles in the 1990s included it.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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