What is the Original Alien Screenplay? - Explained
Vložit
- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- Dark Horse Comics will be releasing a new comic, Alien: The Original Screenplay. How does this version differ from the film released in 1979?
Facebook: / alientheoryyt
Twitter: / alien_theory
Instagram: / alientheoryyt
WEYLAND YUTANI EXECUTIVES: EmYarUk, Lady Anne ^^ö^^(Jessica M Kandal, PhD), Mark Fox
WARRIORS: WedgeGTX, LS Gregor, Blockerman, Matthew Coleman
DRONES: Waya525, Yunners, Sarah Pusey
CHESTBURSTERS: Mark Lennon, MattyTee, William "Bill" Weaver, Blake Aleksiak, Charlotte Gregory, Lee Kendrick, AverageSol, Shaun Coulstock, David Grossman, Andrew Syeinmetz, christopher dobson, Adam LaZerte, David Hokanson, Em Norton-Mathews, Anna M32, Demetrius Banks, Robert Johnson, Axel R. Garcia, Clark Crown, Jason Dolan, Michael McKinley, Ambrosia, Scott Bruce, Raymond, Bryan Kitchens, Commodore Erickson, Jenna (Aquanette123), Erin McRitchie, Sean Arme, Arkuras, Chris Kozlowski, Phil Winterleitner, Thomas J Gettings, Grace Ryder, Gregor Mundell, Ambrosia
I lost it at panel with the little angry face-hugger doodle 👿😂
Happy Birthday H. R. Giger. RIP.
Hopefully we'll see some of his influence in the new DUNE movie.
Giler and Hill's revisions really made O'Bannon's screenplay work. They brought sophistication and intrigue to the mix that O'Bannon's ''Star Beast'' story was missing. Giler and Hill's version took place in a totally indifferent universe, which was terrifying and supremely compelling.
I wish they would get better illustrators for these comics. The art seems so standard and I'd rather they use comic illustrators who had a more painted style that was on par with the film concept art. Stuff you would see in Heavy Metal Magazine at the height of European comics in the 70s-90s.
Artwork by an artist like Lee Bermejo would have been awesome
In some parallel universe this actually got made🙃
in yet another universe a gender swap remake was made and the main character is a man stud named Rip Lee.
It did get made. It was called Prometheus.:)
@@martinharris5017 But it was heavily modified, no?
@@MaledictGaming Yes, absolutely. The first half of O'Bannon's screenplay is very close to the first half of Prometheus, including the crew being explorers rather than a commercial crew, the presence of an Engineer corpse with severed head which they retrieve; the temple with altar and murals and stockpiles of spore capsules, and the temple having a breathable atmosphere thus allowing the crew to remove their helmets.From there of course the two stories diverge. But, there is enough resemblance to see the connection. Ridley Scott used elements of the original story that were abandoned and expanded them.
One version of the early O'Bannon Memory script had the explorers investigating a lost Earth settlement colony that had fought a losing battle with hostile aliens and become hosts for the alien life cycle. Sounds remarkably like the premise of Cameron's Aliens sequel does it not?
You should take your meds...
This is a clever gimmick. I like these “what if” stories.
Calling it a "gimmick" seems to be insinuating that it's in some way underhanded. Further, it tends to imply that the story is really not worth telling, relying on tricks and dishonest advertising in order to hock the unworthy product to unsuspecting customers. Sorry, but I just don't see this as that.
Dooker T on the contrary, I don’t see gimmick as a dirty word. It’s a fun novelty for an individual comic run/action figure/film entry. It’s not the core concept that can carry an on-going saga, but rather the spice that intrigues a viewer and draws him/her to this particular entry over another option.
@@D00kerT He's using the term in the traditional use and definition, which is not as derogatory most tend to think. Taking this into account and in context, it is actually the correct way to describe what 'what if' stories are.
Frederick A. ...then, your mileage may vary?
Firebrand thank you for the detailed explanation! You literally put it better than I could have.
It feels like a combination of Alien 1 and Alien Covenent...
I finally watched the documentary and to tell you the truth, I didn't care if it was a rehash of the original 2003 documentary, I liked it. I miss Jerry Goldsmith, H.R. Giger, and Dan O'Bannon as they brought the film to life, making it one of the most provocative, influential, and beloved sci-fi movies of all time.
Maybe you should do a review of "Dark Star" sometime just to look at O'Bannon's early work and how it led him toward "Alien".
I totally agree. Dark Star is an important film in Bannon's portfolio.
Yup, imagine the creature from Dark Star tho, like an evil Pac-man, no one takes it seriously then oh-my-fuck a big mouth pops open... just saying 🤔
Also Galaxy of terror
Please finish the "Earth Wars" series!
Fezzic oo7 you finish it!!
Vincent wards "wooden planet" alien 3 should be next
definitely
It would basically be Alien3. Same story just with monks instead of cultist prisoners.
@@wratchedlore5015 That's basically what this comic is. I would love a wooden planet book next.
Imagine one for Blomkamp’s Alien 3
@@wratchedlore5015 Well they already did the original Alien screenplay which is "the same story" just with different character and creature designs so why not the wooden planet?
The chestburster at 5:00 looks super high.
"dude like, what if right, like *hits blunt* get this right, like, I'm the real good guy of the story ok, cuz like, from my perspective, all these humans are invading my planet, man
just let that sink in for a while"
*Whoa* ... so what you're saying is this chest pain is just from that last bong rip?
Only someone who is really high would notice that...
@@fredericka.4296 indeed
I kinda want to see one for the original predator
Shane Black came up with a draft at some point I think though it wasn't used.
There is an easter egg of the original Predator design in The Predator
@@SerpentNight I think we know why now
Wouldn't the original predator just be Van Damme in a red suit?
@@thedonttouchthatdialguy that is the one that we're talking about
"Chaz Standard?" Might as well have named the captain Dirk Diggler.
That would have been awesome 😜
Lmfao
2:05 that image has made me laugh for years. I think I first saw it in a book in the 90s.
I'd love to see them make "Aliens: Engineers" based on the original script that became Prometheus.
Is that the "Gaylien" script? I liked it.
What’s that script about?
I'm so glad that there are creators out there like Mr. Guy, whoever you are that created the Alien Theory channel, that have a true passion for sci-fi. I feel the same about great...and bad:), science fiction. I can't imagine what it must of been like in the early days of the channel, trying to get yourself noticed. Much thanks for all your hard work, creativity and persistence!
I've read this script like 3 times and, needless to say, I'm SO fucking psyched about this! Thanks for the heads-up. This is seriously one of the best channels on CZcams.
this is why i love this channel! all the extra work you do for us! well done
To Walter Hill goes the credit of writing/introducing the crucial chestburster horror scene, a key factor in turning Fox around in their opinion of the script. A large part of O’Bannon’s dialogue was altered and in some scenes rewritten from scratch. Hill and Giler were responsible for introducing two female characters, turning Ash into an android rather than having a subplot of the onboard computer “Mother” in a confrontation with a crewmember (similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey), fleshing out the characters as blue-collar working types rather than a group of military-type personalities, and giving the film a dark, noirish atmosphere instead of O’Bannon’s 50s type science fiction presence. Even the cocoon scene of Dallas and Brett in the alien’s lair, which was not added to the theater version but is present in the Director’s Cut of the film, was written by Giler, not O’Bannon.
As Walter Hill put it in an interview in Cinefantastique Vol 9 No 1: “The O’Bannon-Shusett script was, in any kind of literary sense, remarkably unsophisticated. It had not even B-picture merit. That was its problem. Nobody could take it seriously. It wasn’t a professional job. It was poorly written. It has a ‘Jesus, gadzooks’ quality and no real differentiation in characters.” Hill goes on: “It was put together with a lot of low cunning. To my mind, they had worked out a very interesting problem. How do you destroy a creature you can’t kill without destroying your own life support system? I thought this a good notion. But the script had a lot of junk in it, like holograms and other current ‘pop’ stuff. In one story conference I recall O’Bannon wanted the ship to sail into a kind of Bermuda Triangle in space. There was this genuflect to Pyramidology: the alien eggs were in the bottom of a pyramid. O’Bannon and Shusett presented their draft to us and we asked O’Bannon not to write anymore, to stay away from pens and pencils altogether. He didn’t seem to mind.”
As Giler went on to confirm: “Walter Hill probably had more to do with the O’Bannon script launched than anyone. Mark Haggard at Goldwyn Studios asked him to read it, and Walter championed the project from then on. It [the O’Bannon script] was a bone skeleton of a story. Really terrible. Just awful. You couldn’t give it away. It was amateurishly written, although the central idea was sound. Basically, it was a pastiche of Fifties movies. Walter Hill and I rewrote it completely, added Ash and the robot subplot. We added the cat, Jones. We also changed the characters around. We fleshed it out, basically. If we had shot the original O’Bannon script, we would have made a remake of IT! The Terror From Beyond Space.”
The chestburster scene is in the original screenplay by O'Bannon. It was this scene which made Hill, Giler, and Carroll want to make the movie. You can find the script online and read it yourself, or you can watch the documentaries on the Alien Quadrilogy (2003) boxset where this is discussed in detail.
2:06 lol!!!!!
I always laugh seeing the concept doodle
Man you're love for Alien is so admirable. You have done and are still doing an awesome job man!
read this series this fine march morning , found it really enjoyable, i really liked the alien design too. Nice video man, im gonna look up that alien 3 comic now , thanks ;)
@6:00 Sketch of starfish-headed "Old One" from Lovecraft's "The Mountains of Madness". Wish O'Bannen had worked on that as well.
I'm happy for William Gibson right now. He's an amazing writer
Considering Dark Horse is doing great with the original scripts for Alien and Alien³, I want them to make an adaptation of the unmade 1991 AvP script by Peter Briggs titled "The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator" and if it got a audiodrama, then they could probably get Tia Carrere or Joan Chen to voice Hiroko Noguchi since they were the writer's fancast.
I love your channel man thank you for everything
Really keen for this! I've always wondered what O'Bannon's "Starbeast" would have looked like, had there not been the revisions.
This sounds very interesting. I'm really looking forward to see a video by you about the comics and to hear your views on it! 👍👍
This should be interesting. I’ve always been curious what O’Bannon’s script looked like sans Scott and Giger’s help bringing this to life. Looking forward to this.
Well it has be pretty good.
I mean Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay, and directed "Return of the Living Dead" - the greatest zombie movie ever made, and one of the best horror movies of all time.
It would have been a cheesy B movie, still a very good script and plot just wouldn't have had the magic Alien did.
the original alien concept looks like a cross between a real life minecraft creeper a crab.
Lol the "Alien" here looks like the Fly from 1986 movie of the same name made by David Cronenberg.
@rrobertt13 It looks like a poor lovecraftian style creature (like an elder thing/deep one combination), and whilst I do really like Lovecraft's universe, the Xeno is so iconic I'm glad it got its own design.
It really does. Maybe David took inspiration from those scraps, who knows.
Looks like something from Men in Black or the Star Wars cantina!
I love the fly, but somehow the conceptual sketch made me think of the Prawns of District 9, which is interesting as Neill Blomkamp later came foward with a Alien proposal.
Great video. Thanks for this.
Amazing video! Thanks a lot!
Glad we got Ellen Ripley and not Chaz standard. 😅
noelie noelie 😂👍
The John Smith of space names
What about Martin Robby. Or Sandy melkonis.
Or _Chunk McLargeHuge_ . Or _Dirk Barrier_ . Or _Chet Concrete_. Or ....
@@tommyzDad Chet Concrete sounds like my kinda guy :D
This was a really good idea by Dark Horse Comics.
I'd love to see them adapt the Alien 3 draft by Vincent Ward and John Fasano.
I'm so glad we got the version we did.
I'd very much like to see Jon Spaihts original screenplay for Prometheus receive the same treatment
I love your videos !
So excited to read this, the Alien 3 comic was pretty darn entertaining.
Very excited for this. I hope they do more things in this nature
It’s gotten to the point where if I click on an Alien video and don’t hear your voice, I don’t even watch it. I have no idea how you aren’t at 2 million subscribers yet.
I always wondered if 20th Century Fox pulled from the original designs of the grown Alien in this for their Cronenberg remake of "The Fly", especially Brundlefly in its final form. It wouldn't be impossible unused concept art gets recycled all the time.
Got the Alien 3 Audiobook from Audible a few months back....Gibsons script is awesome....and the fact they got Lance Henriksen(Bishop) to narrate and reprise his Bishop role, as well as Michael Biehn being back, and Newt as well(instead of the lame crap they pulled in the original movie where all 3 are mysteriously dead, cause they were written out of the movie....) definately should give it a listen....its a great production, with awesome sound effects and you will definately feel the tension in the action,
Great stuff, I’ll be sure to pick it up.
I'm excited for this. I read the script over a decade ago and was shocked to see how much of the discarded material was reimagined in Prometheus. I could go into detail but I don't wanna spoil it for others that have not read the original script.
The original screenplay is on the "Alien Quadrilogy " box set.
An intriguing proposition for sure
was It the Terror from Beyond Space ever given its due as inspiration?
I am digging this trend of taking defunct alien scripts and turning them into works of graphic art!! I have seen the William Gibson Alien 3 script/comic, and I am definitely excited for this one too! I hope that they make a graphic novels comic series based on the David Towey Alien 3 script which some claim inspired Pitch-Black later on. It's the one about a prisoner aboard a penal space station, and Weyland Utani is using the prisoners in their experiments. That eould be a cool story to see, that and the original Vincent Ward wooden planet story would be cool too.
I got the full 'ALIEN III' comic set and love them! can't wait to get my hands on this new comic!
Also thanks Alien Theory!
I like the idea of expanding the story. Even Scott said at the time that they would have liked to include the pyramid and more of the creepy planet in a longer version. I think it could have been even better.
Great vid! Curious. Love the background music you play in your vids. Could you please tell me the names of the songs you use.
Would greatly appreciate it 🙌🏼
Acidglow just made a cool video on the Starkiller comic while narrating the entire comic page by page. It's well worth the watch guys!
I love this idea and sure hope they are going to base the look of the creatures and ships on the early Ron Cobb art work. I hope we get some more Alien 3 scripts as comics, especially Twohy's script and Vincent Ward's wooden planet.
Interesting how the creature design is spot on with what ended up in 'deep star six'
It's interesting to note that the original written physical description of the Alien ( 6 feet monstrosity....squamous, covered with tentacles ) sounds much more like Rob Bottin's "The Thing" than H.R. Giger's creature. It's funny to think what the Alien might have ended up looking like if Bottin had been hired to create the Alien instead of Giger (as unlikely as that would be, considering Bottin was only a teenager at the time).
This is why comic books are such a great medium, you get to see the creators original vision.
Keep bring the Alien news and I pre order Alien phalanx I can't wait to read it
Can't wait to get that comic always wondered what the original script would've been like
Very cool stuff. Yeah I hope they keep bringing early versions to some form of life just like Alien 3
Would like a conclusion to the Brian Wood comic book series, though I know that won't happen now.
I was so into that story and was excited about future updates. Those stories with the added story of Alien: Isolation made Amanda my favourite character in the franchise and Zula Hendricks was a badass too.
cant wait for the audible edition of this, assuming there is one
Love the Alien movies, best sci-fi horror out there still. I wonder when they will make another?
I like this.
But when you said Original, I thought it'd include the plot about the Alien becoming intelligent and civilized as it grows older-plot.
Something about that Hermit Crab Xenomorph rocks... i can't put my claw on it but i like it alot
have fun with the new comics, interesting. i am stil a aliens fan and i know now the stories and the thoughts behind that are more different than the perception of the movies i saw so much. i have now different thoughts but i want to have a confirmation if thats right what i think what the real story is before i want to talk about that
Wow what an awesome base script. No surprise it evolved into the culture rich universe it is!
Definitely looking forward to this. I wish they’d do this with Star Wars.
I liked where the Gibson Alien 3 story was going even though some parts weren’t visually clear as to what was going on. Plus after so much build-up the story ended on kind of a whimper.
The have done this with star wars. It was called "the star wars" and it was based on lucas's original script with starkiller. Vader was not lukes father and the force doesn't really exist much
I loved the great Alien 3 comic for William Gibson’s great screenplay.
Alien had several elements taken from the Space comedy Dark Star.
Get work , keep em coming !
I read the original screenplay a while ago and enjoyed its more streamlined nature, with the rising jeopardy of losing their air and food supplies added in. Not that I don't love the way the movie actually came out and how it brought sci-fi/horror into the mainstream (though horror had occasionally broken through to the mainstream with movies like Psycho, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Carrie). There's a cheap Corman knockoff from 1982 called Forbidden World which, more than any other Alien knock-off I've seen, looks to me the closest to what a Corman-produced version of "Star Beast" would have looked and felt like.
I can't wait to get the book What day does come out
What does your comment and my girlfriend have in common?
They're both missing a period.
Just a few different changes to the story, than it would be okay. Can’t wait to see it
Never mind the original screenplay, I want to see an adaptation of Alien: Engineers, the film that Prometheus should have been, and almost was until Lindelof got his hands on it. Yes that's right, I'm blaming Lindelof, not Ridley. I only blame him for Covenant.
Neill Blomkamp's Alien film would be interesting to see, especially with it apparently ignoring the events of Alien 3 and 4.
5:01 I would love to get a hold of the MEMORY script (to see why it’s even called that for one).
It was called Memory because of Kane's line about having a memory of "being smothered" after recovering from the face hugger attack. (According to the book Alien Vault)
Awesome!
The head of the pre-xenomorph alien reminds me of post-molting Brundlefly at the end of Cronenberg's The Fly remake
A oh that’s an awesome video
Marvel comics had "What If" 50 years ago.
its nothing new, but a fantastic idea.
Ohhh they did a comic for the Gibson Alien 3? I totally want to get that. I've always been a champion of Gibson's version.
Read the entire original screenplay by Shusett and O’Bannon-couple of things I wish they had kept from it. And yet the rewrite ultimately added more than it took away. It all had to happen just so to get the classic that so terrified us
I like the idea, but that spaceship name, man... reminds me of the Narf from that one movie by M. Night Shyamalan.
Fun Fact: The original name of "Chaz Standard" was "Chet Generic", but they changed it because they thought it was too bland.
Also, this is totally made up by me and untrue ☺
the acid blood mentioned in the early draft contradicts the claim of acid blood being a last minute addition
Vincent Ward's Alien III should be next. Although, I'd settle for Whedon getting to do Alien: Revelation as a comic, purely out of curiosity.
There was an alternate A4 idea involving Antartica Traffic Control, with the aliens racing to the bottom of a great space elevator before a cloned Ripley could stop them.
Something tells me this franchise wouldn't have gotten off the ground if it featured "Tug Slabmeat" and crew aboard the Snark, fighting off a goofy looking, hostile alien. Thankfully we got Alien, and not the original Alien screenplay.
Butch Deadlift, Slade Puchface, and Biff Ironstag.
You can see a bit of Prometheus in this too
Just read it, very interesting adaptation. Enjoyed as it is.
Obviously the next logical step would be the original Prometheus script
They should do the alternate Prometheus script Alien: Engineers next. I’ve read it and it’s really compelling and fun.
I'd buy that. I had a look for a digital edition of alien3 (not Gibson's which I already have) after you reviewed it but it seems it doesn't exist. Hope I'll be able to get this original Alien script one though.
Nothing beats the Earth War imo.
It’s kind of a mistake to not have committed to the subplot regarding the breathable air leaking/running out. It’s just as, if not more important, than the subplot with Ash and the company.
The rewrites David Giler and Walter Hill did on the O'Bannon/Shusett screenplay saved the picture. Giler and Hill added android Ash, all the company intrigue, nixed the pyramid for the derelict spaceship and renamed all the characters. I was shocked at how poorly the O'Bannon/Shusett version read.
love those original Dan O'Bannon concept drawings for Alien.strangely creepy, especially the dead pilot. if u watch a movie call Planet of the Vampire Kings (i think) is an earlier inspiration for Alien I think as it's very similar in a lot of ideas.
also DarkStar of course.
Hi AT, this is not related to the video but i wondering if anyone can explain engineers exo-suits?? eg are the developed from the black goo? as they are so similar to the xenomorphs exo, and why the engineers on the home world dont have these? any help be great! ps awesome vids as usual.
This sounds interesting, the what if focus its great and what could the movie could've been without the Giger monster.