Where to watch Alien (1979)
Alien is available to stream in CA on Disney+ and Crave. It can also be rented or bought from AppleTV and Amazon.
A commercial spaceship crew investigates a distress signal from a distant planet and discovers a chamber filled with mysterious eggs. After one crew member is attacked, an alien threat is brought aboard, turning the ship’s confined corridors into a terrifying fight for survival.
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Bolaji Badejo, Helen Horton
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Trivia & production notes
- Dan O'Bannon conceived Alien as a horror take on Dark Star, the sci-fi comedy he had made with John Carpenter in film school, after being inspired to create an alien that looked genuinely terrifying rather than comedic.
- H.R. Giger's artwork had such a profound impact on O'Bannon during his time on Alejandro Jodorowsky's failed Dune adaptation that O'Bannon wrote the script specifically to feature a Giger monster.
- Screenwriter Ron Shusett came up with the chest-burster concept in the middle of the night, suggesting the alien could impregnate a crew member as an interesting way to get the creature aboard the ship.
- O'Bannon and Shusett pitched Alien to studios as "Jaws in space" and were close to signing with Roger Corman's studio before the script was passed to producers at Brandywine, who had ties to 20th Century-Fox.
- David Giler and Walter Hill rewrote the script through eight drafts, adding the android character Ash that O'Bannon initially considered unnecessary, yet the Writers Guild awarded sole screenplay credit to O'Bannon.
- After Star Wars became a massive hit in 1977, 20th Century-Fox suddenly wanted to greenlight a science-fiction film fast, and Alien was the only spaceship script sitting on their desk.
- Ridley Scott's detailed storyboards impressed Fox executives so much that they doubled Alien's budget from the initial $4.2 million.
- Multiple acclaimed directors including Steven Spielberg were considered to direct Alien, but Scott was chosen after impressing the producers with his debut feature The Duellists.
- Ridley Scott intentionally envisioned Alien as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction," prioritizing horror over the fantasy elements typical of contemporary sci-fi films.
- Ripley was originally written as a male character until producer Alan Ladd suggested the role be female, a change made possible because O'Bannon and Shusett had written all crew members with generic, interchangeable genders.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Alien (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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