Five Things You Didn’t Know About the Movie ‘Alien’
Over forty years since Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ was released, it’s still considered one of the greatest science fiction films in history. It’s genuinely terrifying, it’s worryingly plausible, and it made a huge star out of Sigourney Weaver. We don’t know what the world of science fiction would look like without her character of Ripley, and we’d rather not know.
As the films are so famous, there's plenty of information about them that we already know. The 'face-hugger' method of infecting a human host, for example, is generally understood to be a metaphor for the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. You could even read all of the original “Alien” movie as a piece of social commentary if you wanted - although most people prefer to enjoy it as a sci-fi spectacle. There are still several things about the first movie that most people don’t know, though, and we’d like to bring them to you here in this article.
Here are five things we bet that you didn’t know about the first “Alien” movie!
It Wouldn’t Have Happened Without “Star Wars”
As difficult as it might be to imagine this now, science fiction films were considered to be a risky investment for movie studios in the 1970s. Hollywood had a perception that they only appealed to a niche group, and therefore couldn’t deliver significant profits at the box office. Fortunately for writers Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon, they got some help from an unlikely source. “Star Wars,” the least “Alien”-like sci-fi movie you could possibly imagine, turned into a box office monster and made sci-fi the order of the day. The two writers had been trying without success to get their project bought and filmed for over a year before “Star Wars” arrived, but as soon as it did, they find that companies suddenly started calling them rather than vice versa. 20th Century Fox eventually acquired it.
The Alien Design Nearly Got Its Designer Arrested
Instead of going to a Hollywood designer to create the franchise's iconic alien characters, the production team turned to Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger instead. Giger was delighted to be asked and took to the project enthusiastically. His enthusiasm almost got him in trouble in the Netherlands. Giger was such an exceptionally skilled artist that his paintings sometimes looked like photographs, which is exactly what a Dutch customs official feared they were as he passed through customs one day en route to a meeting with the movie's producers. The official was greatly disturbed by the pictures and feared that Giger might have been involved in some kind of illegal activity - although what that activity might have been is anybody's guess. He was eventually allowed to continue on his way.
The Shock Of The ‘Chest Burster’ Scene Was Real
One of the most memorable parts of the movie is the moment where a juvenile alien bursts through the chest of John Hurt's character and escapes, covering the rest of the Nostromo's crew in gore and entrails in the process. The crew appears to be shocked and horrified by this development, and that's because they were. The actors hadn’t been warned about the intensity of the scene, and specifically didn't know that Ridley Scott had loaded Hurt's chest with exploding blood capsules. The explosion was a genuine surprise, and many of the verbal reactions that came immediately after it were ad-libbed.
The Central Alien Was Found In A Pub
“Alien” was made in an era before CGI was common. If you wanted to have an enormously tall, otherwordly-looking alien on the screen, you couldn’t do it with special effects. You needed to create it as a costume - and so that meant you needed to find someone to go inside the costume. That proved to be difficult for the film’s crew. The costume called for someone at least six feet and nine inches tall, and extremely slim. Peter Mayhew, best known for his work inside the Chewbacca suit in “Star Wars,” was considered for the part but wasn’t right for the suit or the creature’s movements. Believing they were never going to find anyone suitable, the producers went to a London pub for a drink - and that’s where they saw 6 foot 10 Nigerian graphic design student Bolaji Badejo. The role was his only movie credit.
It’s Been Re-designed For Online Slots Websites
Having an officially-licensed video game isn't enough for blockbuster movies anymore - the majority of hit new films also come with online slots, which appear on online slots categories. It's rarer for an older film to be dredged up from the past and become an online slots attraction - but "Alien" isn't any old film. In early 2019 the movie's logo and famous characters appeared on the reels of a slot by a company called GameX, and it's been making big money for several online slots casinos ever since. For those of you who keep track of such information, it's a five-reeled slot with 9 'each-way' paylines and a double-or-nothing gamble feature for those who are feeling particularly ambitious. There have been numerous 'regular' video games based on "Alien" released over the years, but only two online slots; this one, and another based on the sequel "Aliens."
It would be easy for us to go on. There are deleted scenes that very few people know about (check YouTube to find them), and there’s the bizarre fact that the android character of Ash didn’t exist at all within the original story or the screenplay. For some reason, 20th Century Fox thought the film would be better if it had an android in it, and so they decreed that one had to be included! At one point, there was even an argument about whether the character of Ripley should be male or female. The success of “Alien” suggests that they made the right decision - and it’s a film that remains as popular today as it was on the day it was released. We can’t say that about all of the sequels, but then a franchise can’t have everything!
