In 1979, Ridley Scott changed the face of cinema with his seminal tale of terror amidst the stars with Alien. The brainchild of writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, Alien proved to be a hit, shocking audiences worldwide and gaining the admiration of critics too.
It’s success spawned numerous sequels, prequels and spin-offs to the point where everyone’s favourite xenomorph has permeated into pop culture and become an iconic figure in not only the horror genre but for cinema in general.
After his experience of working on Dark Star, Dan O’Bannon wanted to work on something strictly horror featuring a creature that wasn’t just a spray-painted beach ball. His work on Dark Star caught the attention of fellow writer Ronald Shusett who wanted to collaborate with O’Bannon on a few projects. Together they came up with an early treatment for Alien known at the time as Star Beast.
However, work on Star Beast came to a halt as O’Bannon was offered work on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s doomed adaptation of Dune. It would prove to be a blessing in disguise as it was where he met H.R. Giger and Jean Giraud who would be key to the success of the overall look and designs in Alien.
Jaws in Space
After the failure of Jodorowsky’s Dune project, O’Bannon recommenced work on Star Beast with Ronald Shusett. During this period O’Bannon came up with the idea of calling it just Alien and began pitching the film around Hollywood. At one point it came close to being a low budget creature feature for Roger Corman where they pitched the film as being “Jaws in Space”.
It wasn’t until it was brought to the attention of Walter Hill and David Giler (who both hated the script but saw potential in it) that the ball got rolling with the film. They redrafted the script (adding the character of Ash and changing the majority of the dialogue) and brought it to 20th Century Fox. Initially cold on the script their interest wasn’t renewed until the success of Star Wars put science fiction to the fore again.
With the pieces in motion, the next step was hiring a director for the job. Impressed with his work on his debut film The Duelists, Hill and Giler approached the then relatively unknown filmmaker, Ridley Scott who jumped at the chance to direct the film. Scott’s vision was to focus more on the horror elements of the film rather than science fiction, citing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a chief influence.
Space Truckers Vs the Xenomorph
With Scott at the helm, the next step was to find a crew for the doomed Nostromo. O’Bannon noted in his script that the genders of the characters could be interchangeable giving Scott free reign to cast the film as he saw fit. Partly inspired by the “used future” look of Star Wars, Scott pushed for the idea of having the crew be “truckers in space” rather than explorers to make them more relatable in order to heighten the tension once the alien boarded the ship.
This motif is clear to see from the crew’s first meal together when engineer’s Parker (Yaphett Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) want to discuss the “bonus situation” from their latest mission. With a strong cast of character actors, Scott could focus on the visual style of the film.
When looking at the design of a film like Alien, it can be split into two elements, the human and the alien. On the human end of things, Ron Cobb and Chris Foss (who both previously worked with O’Bannon on Dark Star and Dune) were brought in to design the look of the space ship and the space suits. Foss, in particular, came up with concepts that were unique but believable in terms of the functionality in their design.
On the flipside, another alumni from Jodorowsky’s Dune project, H.R. Giger was brought in for the design of the alien and the alien ship. Despite his work being deemed too ghastly for audiences, Giger’s designs were the film’s real masterstroke.
The Ghastly Beauty of H.R. Giger’s Creations
Not only was the creature unlike anything seen up to this point but the distinct sexual nature in Giger’s designs utilising phallic and yonic imagery highlighted the psycho-sexual nature of the film reinforcing the ideas of rape, male fears of sex and pregnancy.
The introduction of the creature is one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history. Set up with no knowledge of the outcome, the cast was in sheer shock as John Hurt’s character Kane gave birth to a beautiful baby chestburster. Their reaction onscreen was so real that Veronica Cartwright fell back into hysterics as fake blood sprayed all over her face.
Their reactions on screen would be a reflection to audiences around the world as there were reports of audiences being sick at the sequence (with one theatre in Texas removing the sequence entirely to protect the integrity of their bathrooms) and people close to the screen running to the back of the theatre in a defining moment in cinematic body horror.
Giger’s biomechanical design of the creature would be enhanced by Scott’s use of smoke and choice in lighting to alleviate Scott’s fears that the audiences would see the Xenomorph as being just a man in a rubber suit.
By sparsely showing the creature Scott was able to instil fear as he stated, “the most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw” in the same manner of the shower scene in Hitchcock’s, Pyscho. This is all the more prevalent in the death scenes of each member of the ship, particularly Lambert.
This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.
Beyond the xenomorph, one of the most enduring aspects of the Alien series is the character of Ellen Ripley. Up to this point, female characters in this genre served as eye candy or as a damsel in distress but Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of the character would prove to be a real game changer as she, ranked 8th in the AFI’s list of the greatest heroes in film history in 2008.
As the warrant officer of the Nostromo, she was not only a competent member of the crew but the most sensible, especially when it came to making her decision to quarantine Kane after infection from the face hugger. Her character really comes to the fore whenever all hope is seemingly lost taking control of the situation.
Behind the scenes, Weaver faced minor strife with older members of the cast that believed she was out of her depth but she proved them all wrong. In the face of such adversity, Ripley would overcome the odds to become the sole survivor of the Nostromo (along with Jonesy the cat).
In the 40 years that have passed since it first terrified audiences around the world (including the likes of Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty at an academy screening), the legacy of the film cannot be understated. Scott managed to take a B-Movie creature feature and transform it into a cultural landmark in cinema perfectly blending the genres of science fiction and horror.
Joe Mc Elroy (BanterFlix)
