Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon’s
A L I E N (1979)
Its Origins, Implementation, And Implications
A lecture series proposal by Steve Nyland
MAY 2023
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THIS DOCUMENT STILL BEING EDITED, PLEASE DO NOT COPY OR POST
Making it public so it's easier to send to those I wish input from but the document is not final.
The "class" idea has not been proposed to any institution at this time.
You can email at space.trucks.1138 @gmail.com if you have any questions.
Please do feel welcome to leave comments using the message system.
Will remove these notations when it can be shared publicly. Thank you!!
(Note - This first part intended as a "pitch" for the class, written during two sessions on two different days and may need re-compositing. Some of it may also be repeated in the class breakdown section.)
Introduction
This is a proposal for a semester long participatory lecture class regarding the conception and filming of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film ALIEN, outlining the cultural influences which suggested the ideas; the background and preparation of the filming material; the production of making the film; and its continuing influences on popular culture & filmmaking in general.
The course should include digital projected screenings of both the original Theatrical Print and the somewhat different 1999 Director’s Print of ALIEN in a manner that would not take away from class periods. The course sessions are designed to run about 50 - 90 minutes each, once a week for however many weeks would be required. My vision would be to have the class meet somewhat later in the day on a Thurdsay or Friday so participants would be finishing their class routine with something enjoyable they would not want to miss.
The classes would require routine use of multimedia playback to demonstrate certain sequences from both the film and other media sources which relate to the course. Playback projected a large screen the class is assembled in front of like an auditorium. Video content shown via Quicktime or other video application which would allow the instructor to sequence clips from assorted movie sources manually from remote control as the lecture progresses.
My vision is that the course would be geared towards 2nd or 3rd year students as an art history, film history or aesthetics elective. Students would not be required to be familiar with ALIEN or its franchise to take the course and have an enjoyable learning experience. There would be focus on the model effects work, miniatures work and technical methods used to stage and photograph the film. Equal time would be spent discussing the writing and human performances onscreen, the unique chemistry between the actors and how they translated the written word into the film's visual spectacle.
While the trademark alien science fiction terror which defines the film would be examined, equal if not more time would be spent on how the human world of the future is depicted. Not just onscreen using special effects but through the performances of the very unique and critically acclaimed cast of just seven people. Their world of the future provides the backdrop on which the thrills and terror play, and if we were not convinced of their real world the Alien and all it’s trappings would have just been another R rated movie monster.
We will be frank about our discussions of ALIEN’s implications of Freudian psychosexuality including both the dark netherworld of the creature’s biology as well as the traits and tendencies of the human crew. The film’s narrative allows for a diverse discussion about LBGT+ concepts including a seemingly genderless monster and a crew whose gender roles seem quite different from our own. The film’s hero is female and its monster bears its child within a male. Other surprises await.
And we will have fun with our dialog about the absurdity of the fictional situation which is presented, including the many layers of avoidable failure by ship’s command which resulted in a grinning seven foot tall monster with a steel jaw having a run of their tramp steamer in space. We’ll also go over a few of the film’s red herring tropes including the nagging question of how the monster knew it was time to escape the Nostromo before it exploded?
The class will conclude with a discussion about how ALIEN has impacted the popular culture which made it possible. How more or less every action adventure thriller made since — in space or not — has been influenced by how ALIEN was put together. And a fun look at the trashy ripoffs, spinoffs, and ongoing series of franchise films that have kept us closing our closet door at lights out, lest anything come crawling out.
The course concludes with a 1500 to 3000 word essay describing what the participant may have come away with - A better understanding of a film they admired, or had never heard of? Ideas about how science fiction filmmaking often push against current boundaries of social codes? Ideas about the mechanics of filmmaking or screen writing which they may utilize for their own projects? Or perhaps an insight into the film they hadn’t considered before which may have changed their understanding or impression on the finished film.
I stress again that participants would NOT be expected to be familiar with the film to enjoy and learn from the series. In fact I feel will be just as enjoyable for first timers looking for an interesting elective as for bonafide fans of ALIEN and its subsequent media franchise, which has been in existence as long as STAR WARS. Indeed there wouldn’t have been an ALIEN if STAR WARS itself hadn’t succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations just two summers before.
By the time ALIEN slithered onto screens we were ready for a darker vision of the future, and it’s been a heck of a ride ever since. I’d like to talk about it.
Steve Nyland
Syracuse NY
May 10 2023
email: space.trucks.1138 @gmail.com
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ALIEN Course Class Sessions Outline
Here broken down into an *eleven class series with an option for an extra two two-hour “movie night” or screening sessions to watch the film as a class. Movies are always best seen with an audience, and preferably in a darkened theater type setting. I would imagine the class could handle at least *fifty students per semester or per class grouping, possibly more, for a 50 to 90 minute presentation with active discussion period closing each class. Participants would look forward to being present!
The class could be easily restructured into an *8 or *12 session courses if more or less sessions would best fit curriculum schedule. I can see a pop quiz every other week to see what ideas are sinking in, and the final assignment would be a *1500 to 3000 word essay on their thoughts about ALIEN both pro or con assigned and evaluated in a manner which would reflect upon the content of the course discussions.
* All values subject to modification as per calendar needs, class size capacity, class level or writing proficiency etc. My guess is that it would take a minimum of eight sessions plus the two screenings to supply a meaningful course that would not feel rushed.
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Class Number and Name:
01) Introduction to Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979) - An R rated science fiction film which succeeded to the extent of spawning a media empire which stretches to this day, encompassing a series of 15 films or spinoffs, endless television specials, fan fiction, books, videos, websites and merchandise like toys and games which thrives to this day. The course explores *why* ALIEN succeeded rather than fading into obscurity as another medium to low budget monster movie thriller. Somehow it struck a chord, resonated with audiences, and went on to be one of the longest running pop culture franchises.
We also draw the line that the course is concerned only with what takes place in ALIEN, and are not going to be sidetracked by retconned ideas introduced by later sequels. We aren’t interested in what took place in the remakes or the prequels, just the 1979 film as a singular work of art. We will discuss the film franchise it spawned in a later session, but the point is made that we are here to talk about ALIEN and there’s more to go over than one might be aware. The class is also presented from my perspective, who was 12 years old when the film premiered, and represented a step forward into adulthood. The film and I have grown older together and it's still there, as powerful & entertaining as ever.
02) Dark Star, The Star Beast, and Dan O’Bannon - Discusses the early career of writer Dan O’Bannon and his often misunderstood DARK STAR collaboration with John Carpenter from 1974. And how it’s ridiculous beach ball monster and zonked-out surf punk space astronauts evolved into “Star Beast”, O’Bannon’s initial name for what became ALIEN. Also discusses O’Bannon’s character and the agony he went through in some ways literally which manifested itself in the finished film. O’Bannon had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to oversea the production from start to finish and his attention to detail led to frequent confrontations with the film’s producers. Who learned to compromise with O’Bannon, often leading to changes in his script which had impacts upon how the finished story evolved.
03) Precursors To The Star Beast - Dan O’Bannon went on the record that he didn’t just “steal” the idea for ALIEN from anyone, he stole it from everyone. And this segment explores the speculative fiction stories, comics, movies, and even television shows which likely contributed to the ideas harvested by both Dan O’Bannon and director Ridley Scott in conjuring up the scenario which takes place onscreen in ALIEN. The sources come from across the world and back through time right up to cartoons of the early 1970s which appear to have suggested ideas, many of which have been acknowledged by the filmmakers.
04) Small Used Universe Some Days, Isn’t It - An unspoken of fact about ALIEN is that it would never have been made if George Lucas’ STAR WARS had not succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations two summers before. This session takes a look at how 20th Century Fox ended up financing the production, and how their STAR WARS property directly influenced the film’s “Used Universe” look of grungy machines and a cobbled together retrofitted human culture. If we did not believe in ALIEN’s machines we wouldn’t believe the science fiction horror that awaits.
05) Special Forces Behind The Paniflex - Discusses the uniquely talented and now legendary production crew that 20th Century Fox and Brandywine Productions managed to put together in the United Kingdom to undertake bringing ALIEN to the big screen. Director Ridley Scott found the model makers, effects designers, set designers and alien technicians he needed and the unique methods utilized to stage the film became a model for others to follow. ALIEN’s production design defined the later era of practical effects photography and it loaned a look of solidity to ALIEN’s speculative facade that is still convincing forty five years later.
06) Meet The Producers - One of the more infamous tales of ALIEN’s production were the seeming endless clashes between the director and his writer, his producers and their money, and the studio executives who were ready to shut the whole production down and write it off as a loss if the two sides couldn’t function together. The film ultimately went about a month and two million dollars over budget, easily made up when the film proved a box office success. But then began the claims and counter claims for production credits for which blood still boils in certain quarters. Why all the fuss? And did any of the interference actually result in a better movie?
07) To Not So Boldly Go - Let’s meet the cast and ship’s crew of the space tugboat Nostromo, to whom the story happens. Fox’s casting director Mary Sellway pulled together one of the most effective small ensemble casts from the era of taught 70s lower budget thrillers. The cast was diverse, older than we were used to in throw-away thriller films, and their star performer was a woman. The session provides a basic background for each of the actors and a precis on the characters they play. There were only seven, five males and two women, easy to keep track of them. One went on to be perhaps the biggest action star of the 80s and 90s after Rambo or Arnold Schwartzeneggar, and she was a girl.
08) Meet The Star Beast - Your basic 101 on Swiss born surrealist artist H.R. Giger and his bio-mechanical alien life form creations which infest the darkest realms of ALIEN’s dank, mouldering corners. Walks participants through not just Giger’s “biomechanics” based art creations but maps out the practical evolution of the “Star Beast” idea into the three forms of the Alien creature seen in the film. We also talk about the specifics of its toothy menace and the delight audiences have taken in being terrorized by the damn thing. Which I think works great within the context of the film but don’t want grinning at me from the other side of the room.
09) Up Close & Personal: Sexuality and ALIEN - The white elephant in the room whenever discussion about the film comes up … What’d it do to them? And what’s up with all the latent sexualized imagery in the film, including how the human crew is depicted? Opens up the opportunity for a discussion on LGBT+ topics, starting with: Did the Alien have a gender? Is it important? Why did it choose male crew members to impregnate? And what was up with this mixed crew all “sleeping together” during hibernation? Is that a metaphor for a future human civilization where the gender roles and personal relations of human to human have evolved into something different?
10) How Did The Alien Know To Go To The Shuttle? Or “Pardon Me, Mr. Ash, Your Head Just Came Off Again” - The if’s, why’s and great maybe’s of the movie, which will likely turn out to be the most enjoyable discussion of the course. Starting with my favorite question about the Alien: How did it know to go to the shuttle at the end, so that it could escape with Ripley when she blew up the ship? Also, what if Ash the Robot had been a human being. Ash was introduced by producer Walter Hill during a late production rewrite and I agree that he is one of the best things in the film. But what if he had been a human being? What could have motivated him to betray the rest of the crew? And other points of speculation to be thrown back & forth for the 2nd part of the session.
11) Aliens Aliens Everywhere - Takes a look at the nearly endless series of sequels and spinoff films from the franchise and how ALIEN has pretty much influenced every action / adventure / science fiction / horror or thriller film since it was made. If the film has a scene with a dark room you can find a bit of ALIEN if you know what to look for. Then there’s the endless parade of low budget knockoff ALIEN clones, many of which managed to be just as entertaining as the original, especially if they went straight for the gutter.
Ends the course with the participants thinking about “What else do I know looked like ALIEN?” and talk through their recollection of the sessions with other fans & enthusiasts wherever they go. One thing is for sure: Most people have an opinion about the film. They’ll be able to talk it up.
SN 051023
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Steve Nyland (b. January 1967) is an artist living & working in Syracuse NY. Steve obtained his BFA in Media Studies (Experimental Studios) at Syracuse University’s School of Visual & Performing Arts in August of 1992 and his MFA in Studio Arts at State University of New York at Albany in June of 1997. He did post graduate work at SUNY Empire State College in Manhattan NY and has exhibited his artwork across Central New York since 2002, working also as a curator in both Syracuse and Utica NY areas. From January 2015 through May 2020 Steve served as Artist in Residence and Curator for The Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse NY.
Steve currently maintains a painting studio and media arts lab in the Syracuse University area, publishing weekly blogs and video content (youtube.com/sqTake2/) on the arts (syracuseartfreak.blogspot.com/) vintage pop culture ephemera (spacetrucks.blogspot.com/) and the Culture of Collecting.
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Multimedia Examples
Demonstrations of certain ideas and recurring themes which are applicable to the seminar. Some of these could serve as introductions to a given class. Am currently re-gathering my library of digital ALIEN media sources to prepare clip assemblies to use as multimedia aids for each of the 11 course sessions.
One of the video presentations I would show during the class is this 11 minute reconstruction of the Planetoid Sequence from ALIEN I made in June 2017. Utilizes clips sampled from a dozen media sources with animated still images with a specially mixed audio soundscape. The upload has been monetized by 20th Century Fox as an acquired property and is now entering its sixth year of public screening on YouTube with 188,000 views. Some 3,000 discussion comments on the viewing page, which I am even more proud of than the views: Encouraging a dialog on the film between enthusiasts, some of it quite lively.
Video is workplace safe with no profanity, gore or graphic alien horror. Just guys trudging around in their spacesuits in search of trouble. Rumor has it the original duration of the planetoid scenes ran half an hour with a raging sandstorm that the cast members actually got lost in. Six minutes ended up in the finished film, my video has about four more and took two months to scour the clip sources & work the edits.
Culture of Collection upload from October 2021 - Galoob's Micro Machines diecast ALIEN derelict spacecraft, with video art interlude using footage conjured up at my home studio workshop. Runs 3 minutes.
I use the handle Space.Trucks for the project feeds related to my interest in collecting vintage science fiction ephemera. It is also a nod to ALIEN whose crew are often referred to as Space Truckers. Meaning no glory, no Flash Gordon parades, no hero's welcomes. Just another job.
Followup Culture of Collection video from November 2021 with Micro Machine's diecast Nostromo and more extensive home studio montage work. 4 minutes.
Very brief upload from May of last year fathoming what variety of miniature spaceman figure HR Giger used when creating scale models of his ALIEN derelict sets. Gotta find em.
Culture of Collection upload with Mr. Ash from Science Division as realized by Funko & Reaction as a 3.75" action figure. Also seen is their Kane figure whose unboxing was pre Space.Trucks era.
I have only a cursory knowledge of Alien and don't like horror much, but this makes me want to take the course!
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