Star Wars caused a big splash as soon as it was launched, with studios scrambling to move into space, and George Lucas overturning the stereotype that sci-fi could only be B-movies. But Fox Pictures, which launched Star Wars, then launched a space movie with a completely different route, which is known as Alien, and Ridley Scott took care of every detail of Alien very well, and after its launch, it became another classic and innovative space science fiction movie since "2001: A Space Odyssey". The PlayList sorted out five little secrets about "Alien" that you may not know, this science fiction movie of more than 30 years, not only has excellent arrangements in the story plot, but also in that era when computers are not popular, styling design and art props are a major focus of this movie, let's take a look at what interesting little secrets there are!
01. Was the alien born from a beach ball?
Alien writer David O'Bannon started out as a special effects artist, making special effects for John Carpenter's Black Planet, but the aliens in the movie seemed a little weak at the time, and they used a painted beach ball, but Dan O'Bannon wanted to make aliens more realistic and scarier alien creatures. He later worked with Ronald Shusett, the screenwriter of Total Recall, to adapt Philip K Dick's We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which would later become known as The Terminator. In addition, Dan O'Bannon and Rhone developed a screenplay,"Memory," about an astronaut awakening on a long journey, and Dan O'Bannon was supposed to help Alejandro Jodorowsky make Dune, and after the film was difficult to give birth, Dan O'Bannon and Rhone wrote the script for Alien, with the main focus still on making terrible alien creatures. The results were very satisfying to Fox Pictures, and Alien became the only science fiction film at the time other than George Lucas's Star Wars.
02. In addition to Ridley Scott, there are many big directors who want to direct Alien
At first, the production company wanted to find a well-known director to direct, such as "Bullitt", "Roommates" director Peter Yates, "The Great Gatsby", "Roommate at the Top" director Jack Clayton, or "Kiss Me Deadly", "Kiss Me Deadly". The Dirty Dozen directed Robert Aldrich. It's just that when they meet with these directors, the reactions of the directors make them feel like it's just a job for the directors, for example, when they met Robert Aldridge, they asked him what he thought the first stage facehugger might look like? He replied:
"We should be able to put some internal organs on that person's face, after all, not everyone will remember the appearance of the alien after watching the movie."
Producer Walter Hill wanted to take over the directorial tube himself, but they were quickly caught in the eye by Ridley Scott, the director of the Palme d'Or at the time, The Duellist, and after the first meeting Walter Hill and the other producers felt that Ridley Scott was the best candidate because he didn't treat it as a messy B-movie, and the studio saw his storyboard and design. Doubled the original $4 million budget to $8 million.
03. Meryl Streep was going to play Ripley?
At the beginning, when the script didn't have much detail, Ridley Scott had wanted to find Veronica Cartwright to play Ripley, but because he didn't think Veronica Cavett's performance was impressive, he let her play another role, Lampert. Ripley's candidates still returned to Meryl Streep and Sigour, and in the end he chose Sigour Weaver, but with Meryl Streep's acting skills, it is not difficult to imagine her playing such a classic role. The other character, Ken, was originally looking for John Hurt, but he already had another movie to shoot in Africa, so he looked for Jon Finch, the protagonist of "Frenzy". Unexpectedly, on the first day of filming, Joe Finch fell ill, and the examination found that it was diabetes and bronchitis, so he had to give up, and finally John He deliberately pushed off the African shooting, and he returned to the ranks of "Alien".
04. Playing alien is a Nigerian student who is more than 200 centimeters tall?
Bolaj Badego has 218 cm, he studied graphic design in London, and his tall and thin body became the best candidate to play the alien, after all, the animation post-production technology of that era was very positive, or rely on the actors wearing prop costumes, Bolaj began to accept tai chi and mime courses, developing his body movements to let him find the best feeling of performing the alien. It's also a great science to talk about alien costume props, when they made Facehugger's tail from the intestines of sheep, filled with shellfish meat. In addition, when they shot the alien with their stomachs cut open, they only shot it once, and the actors only had the most brief understanding of the scene, they didn't know what was greeting them, so Veronica Kavitt was the most direct and natural reaction when she was sprayed with blood. As for the alien costume, it is made of snake vertebrae, human heads and a cooling pipe on a Rolls-Royce car, which is very delicate and creative.
05. They find the fossilized alien on the spaceship, who was actually played by Ridley Scott's son?
Fox Thought It was too expensive to shoot the scene because the alien Space Jockey was so big that it would be a budget burden to shoot, but Ridley Scott insisted on shooting the scene, so he got his two sons, plus the photographer's child, and put on a small space suit, which was just enough to show the difference between aliens and humans. However, at the premiere, they took many prop costumes to the outside of the theater to show, and some religious fanatics believed that Space Jockey was the embodiment of the devil, so they set fire to burn it.
The Alien series consisted of five episodes, and in addition to Ridley Scott, the directors included James Cameron, David Fincher, and Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, all of whom were very personal. Technically speaking, in 1979, such a scary and realistic alien creature could be made, which had surpassed the films that people could imagine at the time, and also created the outstanding performance of "Alien" at the box office, becoming a classic representative of science fiction films in film history.
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