Special Sub-Topic: Behind the Scenes of "Alien" Authored by: REfan76 Sub-topic of: Alien (1979)

Who was given the set-pieces and equipment used in the production of "Alien", "Aliens", "Alien 3", and "Alien: Resurrection"?

Bob Burns. Not only was Bob Burns given the stuff, but he was consulted a few times for a few items to be given back for another "Alien" movie and then said items were returned in better shape. The robotic Queen's head from "Aliens" was taken from him for the Queen in "Alien: Resurrection" and then returned, as well as the miniature Sulaco ship from "Aliens" (except that one was used in "Alien 3" rather than "Alien: Resurrection").

Rather than a derilect ship, the original script called for what to house the alien eggs?

pyramid. There were actually many illustrations of this mysterious pyramid before it was scrapped and replaced with a derilect ship.

There's a possibility that this movie never would've been made if "Star Wars" had never been released.

t. Fox was reluctant to go into production on a sci-fi movie like "Alien", but "Star Wars" made the genre very popular and Fox wanted to follow-up with it fast, and since "Alien" was the only script that they had they used it.

Dan O'Bannon had a huge problem with his script that he wrote himself into. He needed a reason for the crew not to just shoot the alien and didn't want to go into the worn out "bullets won't stop it!" thing other writers were doing. What reason did Ron Cobb suggest that he used?

it had acid for blood that would eat through the hull. Dan O'Bannon had wrote sidearms into the script, and he knew that the first time the alien appeared it would be so puny that they wouldn't even need anything more than a peashooter to kill it. So he used Ron Shusett's suggestion and it has become one of the most notable features of the species Dan created.

Where did Dan O'Bannon and H.R. Giger meet?

Paris. H.R. Giger is the designer for all the alien aspects of the film. Anything from the derilect ship to the alien itself was based on his brilliant artwork. Dan O'Bannon is the writer for this movie and came up with many of the ideas for the life-cycle of the species and he also came up with the title as well.

Veronica Cartwright, the actress who portrayed Lambert, applied for the character of Ripley. Did she think she had been casted for the part of Ripley even after she had been casted for Lambert?

y. She found out that she had the part of Lambert when she went to wardrobe and they told her to get her stuff for Lambert. Veronica was bothered with how weepy Lambert's character was, so the directors and producers had to convince her that Lambert was a reflection of how the audience felt.

Did Dan O'Bannon think that he was going to direct "Alien"?

y. This was a reason that he hadn't really developed the characters in the first draft of the script. He wanted to focus mostly on the alien as it was the most complicated thing in the script and leave the characters for a later draft. Ridley Scott took over direction for this film.

What convinced Fox Studios to double the budget for "Alien" from $4.2 million to $8.4 million?

a series of 2x3 thumb-nails drawn by Ridley Scott. While Dan O' Bannon's scripts were impressive, they weren't impressive enough for Fox to give out an extra $4.2 million. James Cameron also wrote impressively, but he wrote for the sequel to this film, "Aliens". Quite frankly, Fox Studios was against H.R. Giger's designs for the film.

Who produced this movie?

David Giler. Dan O' Bannon wrote the script of this film. Sigourney Weaver starred as the main character, Ripley. Alan Ladd Jr. is the President at 20th Century Fox.

Did Dan O' Bannon write the characters with specific genders originally?

n. They were all uni-sex names that were later changed to what you witnessed in the movie. I hope you enjoyed this quiz.