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Bonus 14 - Alien (Patreon)

Published:
2019-06-25 20:56:49
Edited:
2024-09-20 23:43:07
Imported:
2026-06
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Tune in as we discuss the 1979 sci-fi/horror classic Alien!

Coming soon: The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson!

Comments

Robert Smith

So, only 7 years later (and I can't believe I didn't mention this at the time)... there is a ton of interesting stuff with the Alien soundtrack. One of my favourite things on YouTube is a 30-min video called "Xenomusic", which goes deep into the soundtrack, complete with lots of good movie footage. Highly recommended... if you haven't seen it in the 7-year interim!

Clyde Duensing III

Man, don't get me started on Prometheus. I was so mad at that movie. You already called out a number of the problems, although there are really too many to get into without a dedicated show, but I was maddest at the part where the two guys are just so scared they have to get out of there right now. They can't take the fear and tension. Then, of course they get lost, in spite of one of those guys being the guy who's mapping the whole place. But the best (worst) part is, when confronted by what looks like a giant alien cobra, three feet away from him, the perviously terrified biologist is like, “It’s beautiful,” and just stands there fawning over it until his inevitable death. So, so stupid.

Clyde Duensing III

I meant of course, the previously terrified biologist, although for all I know he could have been perviously terrified as well.

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Fun fact: moray eels have secondary mouths, just like the xenomorph! It's apparently a thing that animals totally evolve to manipulate and break up food in their mouths while feeding. Also, there's a neat extra detail about the script's indifference to gender that has sadly been lost to time. Lambert and Dallas were originally intended to be trans. Yes, you heard me: in point of fact, in the original cut of Aliens, during the scene where Ripley is being interrogated after she woke up, there were screens with company bios of her coworkers briefly visible in the background that stated Lambert and Dallas were trans, but studio pushback led to Ridley Scott changing the scene so they were obscured. You can still find (slightly blurry) screenshots of Lambert's bio, though, which clearly states she was AMAB. Gender just wasn't supposed to be a big deal in the future, even if it's a capitalist nightmare where you're a wage slave to a greedy corporation that pays you in company scrip.

Clyde Duensing III

I love this move, and also the sequel "Aliens" they are both near-perfect examples of filmmaking for somewhat different reasons. I can’t speak to whether anyone actually fainted, or threw up or anything like that, nothing of the sort happened the times I saw it in the theater, but they were taking the shocking nature of the film and the R-rating very seriously at the time. I set up and meet at the theater movie date with a woman I knew from college to see Alien. Not sure it was opening night, but it might have been, or close to it. The plan was that I’d get there really early and buy the tickets, then we’d go in when she got there. Except they wouldn’t let me buy the ticket for her because I couldn’t prove she was 17 or older. So I didn’t buy a ticket at all. When she finally showed up they told us the movie was sold out. Keep in mind that I got there so early I was the first person in line when the box office opened. Needless to say, I struck down with great vengeance and furious anger when I heard this, and they somehow came up a couple more seats for us, so there was a happy ending after all.

Clint Page

This seems like the place to bring up Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's 1981 follow-up to Alien. "Dead and Buried" is not a good movie necessarily, but it's particularly noteworthy for a Lovecraft audience because O'Bannon was definitely digging into his Arkham House paperbacks as evidenced by loads of flashing lights and warnings for the final shocking twist, not unlike "The Whisperer in Darkness" or "The Thing on the Doorstep". Seriously, the last 90 seconds of this movie are in italics.

Clyde Duensing III

I got "The Alien Quadrilogy" box set when it came out. It contained theatrical and "Directors Cuts" of all 4 movies, as well as extensive interviews and documentaries. Dan O’Bannon was one of the people interviewed for the set’s special features, and apparently he was just in a continuous fight with the producers from day one and accused them of superficially rewriting his script, then trying to have his name taken off of it. From the attitude of one of the main producers (name is escaping me right now) who was also interviewed for the set, that was probably all true. He openly said the original script was horrible, but it had that one great scene (chestburster) that made it something special. Funny thing is, one of the charges of the producer about the original script was that the character names were all terrible, and O’Bannon complains, during the interview, about that being stupid, “How can names be terrible?” Sadly, O’Bannon is wrong on this point. I read his original script and not only is it kind of bad, in a stiff, 50’s B-movie sort of way, but the names actually are all terrible. However, that original script also contains virtually all of the major important events that occur in the film and that is why his name is one that ended up on the script.

Darren Buxbaum

Not having a copy handy, didn’t Alien have the hand held tracker/sonar? I know this seems cheesy, but I was a kid when that movie released and I remembered how that sound really set the tempo of the creatures movement and the viewers heart rate. I know it sounds gimmicky but I thought it was effective.

Clyde Duensing III

Yep sure did. The game "Alien Isolation" also uses that mechanic to great result. If you like stealth oriented horror or horror sci-fi games or even are a fan of games and "Alien", I highly recommend it.

Mary Kate Jenkins

Oh man!!! I never thought this day would come. This and Jurassic Park are my two favorite movie franchises. I have to be very careful though when I go back and rewatch them, because I have a great potential to fall into a deep, deep fan hole. One time I probably spent three days trying to find a canon compliant answer to what do the Xenomorphs consume for energy. I never did find an answer that satisfied me, but maybe one day someone will point something out that I missed and enlighten me. In college we covered these movies in my “psychoanalysis of horror films” class which led to some amazing discussions of Ripley’s role in all of the films. And on a fun little sidenote, a few years ago I had a hedgehog that I named Jonesy because he had apricot orange and white spikes. Thanks for covering this guys!

Jimmy Mac

Terrific job with the plot breakdown and analysis. One of the most interesting things in regards to not only Alien but also The Thing, Mountains of Madness, and countless other scientists, soldiers, and technicians in a frozen environment battling a shape shifting entity is that ultimately the plot is the opening of Hamlet. In effect, all horror movies are Shakespeare's act 1, scene 1 of The Great Dane. Anyhow, thank you so much for a great time and a terrific analysis.

Background Noise Comic

Really enjoyable episode. Wish it was twice as long! One error- Alien3 is completely evil and vile. I wonder what other Lovecraft-ish movies you could discuss?

Darren Buxbaum

“First rule of space travel kids. Nine out of ten times it’s a ship full of dead aliens and a bunch of free shit!” Rick Sanchez “If you find a room full of eggs, don’t shy away from it. Give one of them a shake. Those face huggers are worth more than this ship.” Rick Sanchez I think Rick and Morty will probably be my son’s “Spaceballs” when he watches Alien for the first time. I remember a movie “XTRO” that had face hugging device in it as well. That movie (definitely a B movie at best) may have came out after Alien. It might have been the monsters new chloroform in a rag bit. Thanks guys for covering this movie and your insight. I just remembered how much it scared the crap out of me as a kid.

Darren Buxbaum

I remember XTRO was creepy and worked on fears with animated toys (eerie in Close Encounters) and clowns. I also remember the woman giving birth to a grown man. Didn’t “Starman” with Jeff Bridges have a similar quick gestation without the face hugging? I fear that I misspoke in the creativity of XTRO now that you bring up those points. I will have to hunt that movie up to watch again.

Necropolis Railway

Xtro is so excellent! One of my favorite underappreciated horror movies. Clearly they were selling it as an Alien knockoff, but the actual movie is nothing of the kind. It's a very unique, weird sci fi tale that just gets stranger and stranger with every twist. I hope at some point it gets some kind of resurrection in appreciation.

Necropolis Railway

One that is definitely more of a knock-off is Galaxy of Terror, which is a very cheesy film that I think is still pretty awesome and worth checking out. It seems to be in part an adaptation of O'Bannon's earlier versions of the Star Beast script (Galaxy of Terror is a Roger Corman picture, and O'Bannon had shopped Star Beast to him), in that they both have more surface exploration and are mainly based around a giant alien pyramid haunted by an apparently long dead civilization. I would have preferred we had gotten Alien 2-- a sequel that would have reunited Scott, O'Bannon, and Giger, but that fell through-- instead of Aliens, since really the main thing I think that makes Alien distinctive is that it is the best onscreen realization of Giger's art, both aesthetically and thematically. And if Alien 2 had involved this pyramid idea, I think that would have given us an even deeper journey into the Giger-verse.

Forrest Rush

1979 – Alien, 1982 – The Thing. Sure there were other great important scif or horror films before and during those years: Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, ET (yuck),STTMP (uhhh, I’m a trekkie so mustn’t grumble – much) but nothing meant as much to me as those two movies. Finally, real visceral believable horror that connected to this weird writer I liked and nobody else had ever heard of (Does he write porn?). I don’t recall any restrictions on seeing Alien in the cinema but I was 17. However, folks did holler and freak out at that scene. I think it’s the first and only time I actually saw popcorn go flying in the air and hear various guys scream because their girlfriends dumped a gallon of cola in their laps. What I do remember is as it started, I thought, oh another one of these movies trying to be 2001 or maybe THX 1138 (which was my favorite scif film at that point). As Alien progressed, I kept trying to dismiss it (It’s supposed to be the future but look at those dingy computers they’re using. I’ve got a better one than that at school, etc. etc.). But when John Hurt pulls up his shirt and you see it moving and pushing, I knew then and there I was watching the greatest horror/scif movie I had ever seen. After the Thing came out, I then had to reevaluate which is greater, constantly changing my mind. Now I just consider them both equally the greatest horror movies with scifi elements ever made. Aliens is fun as hell. Alien 3 goes for more gravitas than is needed. Do you know that William Gibson wrote a script for Alien 3 where Hicks and Newt survive? Audible released a production with Michael Bien (Hicks) and Lance Henriksen (Bishop). I’ve only started it, so can’t say how good or better than 3 it is. Resurrection is well very Jeunet, meaning you’ll hate it or just be willing to go on a wild ride to nowhere where the colors are often the most interesting thing going on (see Delicatessen and/or Amélie) – but the swimming xenomorphs are super-cool. About the prequels, nothing need be said or even acknowledged. You’re 100% correct Chad that the mystery created in Alien shouldn’t be tampered with by trying to explain. I would be all for a continuation from Alien 3 or Resurrection. Heck, make Alien: Isolation into a film. Amanda could be the next super-badass woman on the big screen. I’ll finish by saying that it was just one other amazing aspect of a 1979 film that Ripley was the hero/protagonist without it being “preached.” Ultimately, like the lack of any direct exposition, Alien is such a good film in that it eschews Hollywood rules (maybe not Campbell or scriptwriting rules). There is no ”This is the message and look at how we are doing things differently and learn what it means Americans.” Instead, it’s rather European in just telling a story and expecting the audience to figure out what needs to be figured out and accept what must/should remain a mystery. That’s why the prequels fail, fail, fail. Back to “We must explain everything ‘cause folks be dumb and just want explosions.” And yes, please cover XTRO at some point in the future or maybe some of the most important arcs from the Alien comics.

Alan Ricks

Alright its time for everyone to go watch Lily C.A.T., a classic anime that hits all those sweet sweet alien beats but adds some Thing for good measure. Its streaming on Amazon I believe.

The Juggalobalist

There is an audio book and comic that is an adaptation of the original alien 3 script.

Stacy Schumacher

I love this movie so much. I'd say that "Alien", in addition to "The Terminator", "The Thing" and "Aliens", is one of those movies I'm always happy to watch with friends on a movie night. I remember when I was a kid, my mom didn't want me to see it, not because of the Alien or the chest-bursting scene, but because she found the scene with Ash intensely frightening and disturbing. Same thing with Aliens - she gets way more frightened by Bishop's injuries at the end. Something about the white-goo and the synth continuing to try to speak/move. I personally always shake my head at the fact that they're all smoking cigarettes in such an enclosed place - it really challenges my ability to suspend disbelief ;)

Robert Daniel Pickard

I think the characters Bishop and Burke in Aliens are named after the 19th century London grave robbers / murderers that would do some pretty grisly things to procure bodies that could be sold to doctors. I was reading Xavier Aldana Reyes' Horror: A Literary History and there is a good chunk about the influence of the real life Bishop and Burke on the genera.

Ben Mund

SO. STOKED. FOR. THIS. EPISODE. Will report back after listening.

Daniel Onions

Chad's laugh about Ridley Scott forcing his children to labour on his art reminded me that there will always be a part of Mr Fifer that remains Old Hollywood.

Matt Sacco

A great episode about one of my favorite movies. Thanks, guys! And I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but the Blu-ray Assembly Cut of Alien3 is an almost totally new experience, and, for me, a huge improvement on the theatrical release. It elevates it to such a degree that I think I'd actually put that cut into the VERY exclusive category of genuinely good Alien movies.

Captain Jack Santiago (and his Space Monkey Mr KerPlop)

Interesting side note - I remember reading somewhere that the alien “engineer” in Alien was inspired by the description of the cosmic being in the Conan story “Tower of the Elephant”. Not sure how true that is but I thought it was kind of believable. As for Prometheus, I have to admit it was kind of a guilty pleasure. Loved the cinematography. I don’t have as much problem with the scientists as most people. When the biologist took his helmet off on an alien planet I just figured “oh, so these are the stupid sort of scientists...”, and I knew their fates were sealed. Disappointing that Del Toro gave up on his Mountains of Madness movie because of Prometheus though.

Forrest Rush

So, finally got around to listening to the William Gibson Alien 3 radio drama. It's pretty good. Definitely more in the vain of Aliens than either Alien or the Alien 3 we got. It would have made for a fun flick. Oh well, too bad.

Sebastian Tonewo

Prometheus's script was a god damn dumpster fire. I would imagine it's to do with the same guy that ruined lost, Damon Lindelof. I don't advocate for violence but Chad, should you see him in public, that man is in need of some pocket sand to the face.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

Alien meant a lot to me. One of the first really scary films I saw - and tried to play off as not being scared - and the core for the first stand-up chunk that developed and landed just as I'd hoped. Long time ago now. Aliens is fun, but it commits the insect race hive-mind cardinal sin of having a queen that lays all the eggs, commands the warriors, and is somehow bad-ass. The insect queen is not a brain or a muscle. The insect queen is reproductive organs. Only. Sure there's only one of them in the hive, but it commands jack-all, doesn't fight, and its death will only serve to piss off all those exceedingly capable soldiers. I would much, much rather have seen that film.

Steven Moore

Next movie review? Beastmaster 2.

Andy O'Dowd

Alien RPGs - I have a copy of the Aliens RPG from the early 90s. Basically every roll is followed by looking up the result on one of a hundred tables. No wonder we never played it. Chris mentioned Fria Ligan’s upcoming title but for those eager for some sci-fi horror roleplaying would do well to look up http://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/mothership It’s an elegant system for generic horror RPGs but heavily influenced by both Alien and Lovecraft. The character sheet has a flowchart on it so you can roll a character in minutes and get playing. There’s also a novel ship generation method in the Dead Planet expansion. Throw a handful of dice and push the together for the room layout and the faces dictate the room function. Prometheus and others - I don’t know why Prometheus gets such a hard time. Most of the accusations levelled at it can be found in all the other movies. It did feel a little rushed storywise, I’ll give you that. I would have liked it as a 6-10 part tv series.

William Radcliffe

Interesting note - Sci Fi writer A.E. van Vogt claimed that "Alien" copped plot ideas from his story "Black Destroyer" (published in Astounding SF) in 1939. 20th Century Fox and the author reached a settlement of $50,000 in Vogt's favor. Possible future story topic for HPPodcraft? :)

Allison Albright

Oh man, this episode was such an awesome surprise. I love the Alien franchise and I will go see every movie (except the AvP ones) because they make me so happy even when they're not great. But the original movie is amazing! And it's amazing for so many reasons. The dialogue is so well done and so realistic - more movies should be done this way. It makes the characters really human and believable. The Giger influence is beautiful and makes for a really alien monster. I also love the giant skeleton in the derelict ship and how it's just there and never mentioned again. The movie also works on a number of different levels. It's a horror movie about parasites and body horror, it's a monster movie, and it's also a horror movie about forced penetration and forced reproduction. The adult alien has a female-ish body, but this phallic head with another, even more phallic head (with teeth) inside it. Dan O'Bannon has this quote about it: "That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men." So it's a movie designed, in part, to make men afraid of rape and forced birth. I think that's a really novel concept for a horror movie, especially when it's so common to see the rape of female characters used as a plot device or treated with insensitivity by many horror movies. Also, Ripley is such an awesome character. A really well done, strong female lead at a time when that was less common. And there's not a whole song and dance made about it. The movie doesn't explicitly point out what a "strong woman" she is by having her do any of the usual silly shit, it just shows her as a capable human who was right about the quarantine and also kills extraterrestrial monsters and saves cats. The fact that the cat lives might be my favorite part of the movie.

Rafe Ball

On Alien 3, I don’t think it’s a bad movie in its own right, but it’s a poor Alien movie in that there are some significant issues when you view it in the context of the two films that came before it. For instance, there’s lots online about how it doesn’t make sense how an egg (or eggs) got onboard the Sulaco in the first place, but even putting that aside Ripley has been stuck on a shuttle with a hiding alien before. Are you seriously telling me she didn’t go over the whole thing inch by inch to check for aliens before getting into that cryopod? She’d be going round with a flamethrower, poking every pipe with a ten foot pole to make sure it wasn’t a sleeping xenomorph. How the heck would she miss a great big alien egg?!?

Steve

Veronica Cartwright suffered a creepy and horrific death in Witches of Eastwick. I've always had her pegged for a human with Deep One antecedents. Of course, her sister was Lost in Space. And her third husband was in Star Trek.

Steve

I enjoyed all four films, although as Chris says, the hardest bit to get over is just killing off two characters at the start of 3. But Alien is still the best one.

Ravewolf

What always bugged me about the prequels was the the predictable Hollywood writer's tendency to humanize and/or make everything centered around humans. The previously mysterious space jockey becomes just another grey humanoid alien, of course, and the history of the derelicts becomes mixed up with Earth's history, of course. It all has to be like and about us, all the time. Whereas the original film better captured that sense of humans just being another item in a vast and uncaring universe full of...alien things. The prequels missed the Lovecraftian style and point on this.

John Butler

Jodorowski’s Dune ( the documentary film ) has a lot of information about Dan O’bannon ( well, anecdotes told by friends and people he worked with ). I was a fan of his work before I watched the doc, but gained a huge amount of respect for him after I found out more about his past.

Josh Bell

Hey guys - absolutely loved this episode and the previous bonus show about Die Monster! Die! I’d love to have more of these and if I may be so bold, why not do the best pastiche of Lovecraft ever filmed - Ghostbusters! Eldritch deities, arcane tomes, Rick Moranis... the whole Lovecraftian package!

feedergoldfish

Alien was the most frightening film I’d ever seen. At that point, I’d seen many horrific films due to A.) Insomnia, which resulted in watching a lot of b movie horror and sci fi and B.) My lovable (not so great at parenting) Dad, who habitually took us (very young) girls to such fine films as 2,000 Maniacs. Alien is the only film where I seriously considered leaving the theater, because I was so tense and freaked out. What a flick.

Phil Estabrook

Topic for a future episode: In Lovecraft's fiction, who is the most powerful wizard we see? My first and favorite story was The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which makes me want to put old Joseph out there but in reality he managed to kill only around 8 men when they attacked his compound then got gobbled up by a space monster. Even within that story you could probably point to Hutch as being more potent given his century of additional dabblings. You have Old Wizard Whateley, though I don't know that he was really that powerful though we aren't given too many examples of his ability. There is the Witch of the Witch House, but her abilities seem somewhat restricted to time and space manipulation. There is Waite as well, but he manages little more than body swapping so we don't have a lot of information about him/her. My money is on two figures. First, Randolph Carter by the time he is the Swami. He has thousands of years of experience and is obviously powerful beyond normal concept. Second, the thing called up from the salts that went on to kill Orne and Hutch. Where Curwen struggled with the new world, this guy, a thousand years removed from his time, managed to get to Europe and smash two aged wizards each likely more powerful than Curwen.

Eric Johnson

In the original script (which you can see in the Heavy Metal Graphic Novel, illustrated by Walt Simonson). It's made clear that the Alien isn't eating people, it eats the insulation on wiring. This is why system failures pile up over the course of the film. Lights flicker and doors start to fail. Now I can't stand "plot hole" police, but this solves a major question about how the alien got so damned big if Harry Dean Stanton is his first meal. Alot of the gorier deaths were reshoots and tweaks over time.

Robert R. Conroy

I am old. As a teenager, I saw Alien in a theater in Times Square the day after it opened. I can confirm that a least a half dozen people ran screaming from the screening during the "chest -buster" scene. Allegedly, one of these patrons fainted in the lobby.