The Beast with Metal Teeth

leading from

alien: afterworlds of thought

Richard Keel, an actor whose body height was 7 foot 2 inches appeared as the character named Jaws in the movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" in 1977, and the character's teeth were made from steel and he could bite through cable.

In the Alien production, they also opted to give the Alien inner and outer sets of teeth that were supposed to be steel, although in the end were chrome plated.

Nostromo

Leading from  
Alien
 

Nostromo's refinery with spires that didn't appear in the film

The Vessel

Ron Cobb's design philosophy

Exterior 

Creating The Nostromo

Ridley's Nostromo and Refinery

Building the Refinery

Moebius inspiration for refinery platform

Possible Robert McCall inspiration for refinery platform

Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo exterior

Yellow Nostromo

The kits that Martin named

Steve Jolliffe of Tangerine Dream joins the wiggeters

Interior

The Claw Room - Temple Environment

Nostromo's New Engine Room Miniature

Simon Deering's Auto Destruct Panel

Obvious kit sprue

KF 20 Coffee makers

H R Giger's Passages i-ix influencing design of Nostromo Corridors

Obvious kit sprue

Leading from

The Nostromo

1. Bill Pearson: A lot of insert shots were shot at the end where everyone says," Hey! Isn't that a load of kit bits and sprues?" This is the scene where Ripley ejects the Alien from the Narcissus, and there is a closeup of buttons being pushed on a control panel.
   
   One of the model makers who will remain nameless to save his blushed was standing by on the stage that evening when it was being shot. He was asked to dress around the buttons to apply some interesting detail on the panel
   
   Unfortunately the guy was not a wiggeter, but he didn't want to say no. He picked up some very obvious kit sprue, sprayed it silver and stuck it on. When I walked in the next day, I said, "what the hell is that?" I was told it was a case of you wouldn't see it on the screen, I still cringe about it now. (Sci-Fi  Fantasy Models #48, p28)

Moebius inspiration for refinery platform

leading

The Nostromo

a. ) A major inspiration for Ridley Scott were drawings by Moebius as featured in the comic book Metal Hurlant (and it's American counterpart Heavy Metal) that Ivor Powell introduced him to while while filming The Duellists in Dordoigne.

1. The writer of this blog recalls from memory of the Memories of Alien interview at the Empire Big Screen, 2011.

b. ) When Ridley made the sudden jump to having Nostromo's refinery platform as a large squarish shape we might ask where Ridley took the inspiration and we can see it clearly enough in this comicbook story a likely answer.

In Moebius' story "It's a small universe" a couple of star travellers travel in a smallish space craft that appears to be a squarish platform with a support pylone extending beneath to connect with the lower horizontal tube which has the cockpit bubble situated at the front of it

The first image from the comicbook story shown here reveals the vessel approaching a planet somewhere out in space and the others of it landing on the planet. This craft comes to rest with the upper rectangle floating in the water with the rest submerged.

sideview of space ship

early Ridleygram of the refinery

c. Ridley's early storyboard known as a "Ridleygram" of the refinery before the planet appears to show a wide straight platform with similar sized attachments beneath the structure held by slanted support pylon

The original Starship Enterprise

d. i. Moebius' spacecraft is most likely a general parody of the original Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, but as a small space ship and with a rectangular top instead.

ii. Star Trek art Director Matt Jefferies designed the original Enterprise, which in series creator Gene Roddenberry's first series outline drafts was named Yorktown. Jeffries' experience with aviation led to his Enterprise designs being imbued with what he called "aircraft logic". (source: wikipedia)

Possible Robert McCall inspiration for refinery platform

The Nostromo

McCall's work for Kubrick's 2001

a) Robert McCall December 23, 1919 – February 26, 2010) the artist a science fiction artist was well known for his paintings of space crafts and also his floating cities. In 1971 Robert McCall created a painting floating city featuring a floating platform with towers and spheres, (featured on the right) it's a structure bearing some similarities to the Nostromo's refinery platform, and one can ask the question if this was a possible inspiration for Ridley's refinery platform. Ridley's then first assistant director for his company Ivor Powell who became associate producer for the Alien movie is known to have been a publicist for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and was very much a science fiction fan so we can postulate that he would have been in a position to be someone able to introduce Ridley Scott to Robert McCall's work.

"Floating city" by Robert McCall 1971

b) The name became evident to me from reading an interview from the publicity for Prometheus in 2012, Arthur Max, chief designer for Ridley Scott talked to L'Ecran Fantastique magazine about how Ridley Scott inspired the artist Robert McCall, who produced designs for the films design work for The Black Hole, Star Trek:The Motion Picture and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But of course this doesn't say that Ridley had any actual interest in the work of Robert McCall during Alien.

1. a.) Arthur Max: "Et Ridley s'est inspiré aussi du travail d'un autre artiste tres talenteux, Bob McCall."(L'Ecran Fantastique Hors Serie no16, p24)                                                                                                                                               Googletranslater translated this as "And Ridley has also inspired the work of another artist very talented, Bob McCall" but years later would translate it as "And Ridley was also inspired by the work of another very talented artist Bob McCall"

Ridley's Nostromo storyboard

Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo

leading from

The Nostromo

The Nostromo

a) Ron Cobb borrowed from Chris Foss
Chris Foss, before Ridley Scott dropped him from the production, had been creating many concept drawings for the design of the Nostromo, and so it went that when they needed to design the final thing.

Although Chris Foss was not directly involved with the design of the final Nostromo, Brian Johnson went away with Chris Foss's amd Ron Cobb's designs to build the final spaceship and while Ron Cobb's exterior design loosely inspired by Foss' work was used for the Nostromo,  one can find that features from Chris Foss' other designs found their way into the ship.

Ron Cobb's Nostromo

b) Upper Thrusters and main body shape

Tug with enigmatic upper engines

The main M- shape of the Nostromo is similar is near enough borrowed from the vessel below left with "Fountain Line" written along the side of it's "Proton Drive" engine, while the upper engines upon the Nostromo are noticeably very reminiscent of Chris Foss' snake like space ship segmented like a train on the right. However Chris Foss put the M shape of the final Nostromo down to the shape of an aircraft part used rather than something from his own artwork

The "Fountain Line" tug

Nostromo's upper engine intake openings

c) The Engine Intakes

A point about the design for the Nostromo is that maybe it can be said to resemble a gothic tomb. Chris Foss had drawn numerous designs for ships with cavernous intake openings for engines, but one with the most haunting features is his design for a pyramid interior with it's vast rectangular tunnel with sloping ends that taper to the rectangular mouths of these entrances, perhaps here we are seeing the origins of the characteristic engine intakes openings

detail from pyramid temple interior

Chris Foss pyramid temple interior

d. Nostromo's initial colour of yellow

The Nostromo model initially went through a yellow paint scheme that Jon Sorenson acknowledged was inspired by Chris Foss designs. 

e. Also read the section Yellow Nostromo

untitled painting by Chris Foss
used on the cover of  E.E. 'Doc' Smith's
novel "Planet of Treacher"

1. Den Of Geek: So the Nostromo's kind of 'M'-shape was just taken from an aircraft part...?

   Chris Foss: That's it. Because I've worked on so many other films where the shots are so important and so on, but on this particular one...
Ridley Scott noticed that the Who were down there making a film, and he was fascinated by all the bits and pieces that were going on with that. The Who, of course, had discovered lasers, and that's why you've got all these smoke-effects and swirl-effects, and [Scott] just couldn't be arsed about the spaceship and all that crap. So the poor sod who had to build it said 'Right, fuck that', got himself a whole load of paper, and bodged something together from the bits and pieces of a wrecked helicopter.
   (Source:  www.denofgeek.com/)
2. Ron Cobb: The truth of the matter is, as Chris said, we both influenced each other, I think I borrowed from him more than he borrowed from me. .(Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)
3. Wmmvrrvrrmm: Also I keep thinking about how the Nostromo model when it went through it's yellow paint scheme reminds me of Chris Foss' paintings, he has been known to paint yellow spacecrafts. I wonder if the paint scheme was inspired by his work (Alien Experience.com, June 21, 2009)
   
   Jon Sorenson: Absolutely correct! It was inspired by Chris Foss' designs.(Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009)
   

Ron Cobb's design philosophy

leading from

Nostromo

Dan O'Bannon with Ron Cobb

a) As a concept designer, Ron Cobb imagined himself to be a frustrated engineer,  he had lots of opinions about how certain problems could be solved using present technology or even speculating about near future technology, So when he worked on a film, he liked to take this challenge and design a spacecraft as though it were absolutely real, right down to the fuel tolerances, the centers of gravity, the ways the engine should function, radiation shielding and so on, and after that he would reshape the whole idea into something that would be appropriate for the film.

b) With the Nostromo, he went as far as to wanted a contrast smooth underside for a heat shield on the underside of the vehicle and the details on the upper part but the modeling team had to go a different direction and cover the whole things with details

c) He felt that such a thing as a space craft in the movie should take the back stage of the film, he wasn't happy about a movie that should rely entirely on their visual effects in the way that scifi movies are notorious for. A lot of effort should be expended toward rendering the environment of the spaceship or space travel, whatever the fantastic setting of the story should be, as convincing as possible but always in the background. If it were a film dealing with a story set on an ocean liner, one might expect bits of footage to explain what the ship was liked docked or at sea but it should remain in the background of the story and that would be the same with science fiction.

Quote sources

1. Ron Cobb:"I resent films that are so shallow they rely entirely on their visual effects, and of course science fiction films are notorious for this. I've always felt that there's another way to do it; a lot of effort should be expended toward rendering the environment of the spaceship, or space travel, whatever the fantastic setting of your story should be - as convincing as possible, but always in the background. That way the story and the characters emerge, and they become more real. If you were to set a story on an ocean liner, there would be bits of footage to explain what the ship was like docked or at sea, but it would remain in the background of the story. It should be the same with science fiction" (Book of Alien by Scanlon and Gross)
2. Ron Cobb: I'm sort of a  frustrated engineer because I have lots of opinions about how certain problems could be solved using present technology or even speculating about near-future technology. So in working on a film I like to take this challenge and design a spaceship as though it was absolutely real, right down to the fuel tolerances, the centers of gravity, the way the engines function, radiation shielding, whatever.  And after I do that, I like to deal with how I can take this idea and hammer, bend and twist it into something that will be appropriate to the film. (Book of Alien by Scanlon and Gross)
3. Bill Pearson: When I met Ron, he was very adamant that they were very realistic. He wanted a heat shield on the underside of the Nostromo lander. He wanted a contrast between the smooth underside of the heat shield and the detailed upper surface. However this was not to be. Our instructions was to encrust the whole craft. When it came down, we weren't seeing a craft come through an atmosphere; there was no re-entry. Ron was concerned that it should be there if that type of action was present. Ron is very much into the believability of things. He created wonderful background histories about his designs.(Sci-Fi & Fantasy FX  #48, p27)
4. Ron Cobb: I had a design for that, but it was a deep space design and they couldn't understand it. It was crazy. The lander is semi-streamlined because it has to land on planets with atmospheres, but even there I couldn't make the distinction between a deep-space ship, and a reentry shell. I had to give up being terribly accurate so the section of the ship that detaches and lands is semi streamlined, but it has got the deep space look that everybody seems to like. It looks a bit like Galactica - it's textured a bit like it. (Fantastic Films, July 1979 p30)
5. Ron Cobb: The only thing I could do to save it was that I drew the bottom of the shop as a re-entry shield and the top is sort of deep space so that it could come in belly-first. The top would be in a vacuum so it wouldn't have to be too streamlined. I haven't actually seen the model of it. (Fantastic Films, July 1979 p30)
6. Ron Cobb: So it's pretty much right off my drawings. But the platform behind: I had an idea I thought would have been a lot of fun, big cargo modules with no gravity orientation to them. It was a line of a thrust orientation and they couldn't understand that. They wanted gravity a orientated look because the lander part does - it's got a bottom and a top.
   Fantastic Film: I can see the problems you must have had in relating those concepts to people who had neither exposure to science nor SF. (Fantastic Films, July 1979 p30)

Yellow Nostromo

leading from

The Nostromo

a.) The rise and fall of the yellow Nostromo

For about three months the Nostromo had been painted yellow and green. Simon Deering remembered when one day Brian Johnson was looking at the model of the space ship and then the tattered old mostly ignored Ron Cobb sketch on the wall in the studio and then back at the model of the ship.
Suddenly sparking up Brian said "Hey .. It should be yellow! Go get some paint!".
So they had to get a couple of crates of small touchup spraypaint cans of signal yellow from Halfords. Originally the yellow was most likely inspired by Chris Foss who had been involved in the preproduction for Alien and some of his well known paintings of spacecrafts featured paint schemes with bright yellows. They covered it in the yellow paint and some parts of it were painted in different shades of the same yellow. Finally the whole thing was matted down with Letraset 103 matte fixative.

Ron Cobb's first yellow Nostromo

b) The meaning of Yellow
For Jon Sorenson the yellow represented the idea that the ship was a decommissioned military vessel that was now used for mining, however Simon Deering was barely able to remember the yellow paint job being used for perhaps more than a day because of the excessive amount of Afghani hashish that he had been smoking at the time and he thought of a yellow colour scheme being related more to the idea of a JCB.

final Nostromo sketch on yellow paper
by Ron Cobb

c) Brian Johnson's famous last word
Dennis Ayling filmed the shot of the space craft travelling towards the planet, with twin suns in the distance. Brian Johnson was sitting with his arms back in the rushes room at Bray Studios and straight up he said "I think we've cracked it lads", but they were his famous last words. He soon left the Alien project to work on the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, and Ridley ordered the change of the Nostromo's colour from yellow to grey.

untitled painting by Chris Foss
used on the cover of  E.E. 'Doc' Smith's
novel "Planet of Treacher"

d) The change to grey

Martin Bower remembered orders from Shepperton to change the colour scheme to a dirty grey. They sprayed it ith one sweep of normal primer grey and thought "that's no good", someone had some zinc plate primer, they did a test, it was darker and would polish up and look like metal . So Martin Bower went down to a shop in Maidenhead and buying a massive amount of zinc plate primer and the Nostromo became a dark grey, then it was polished, then shaded and they continued to work on it. When Ridley arrived, he liked the grey but not the numbers done in brilliant orange and so months of hard work of shooting the spaceship in flight had to be redone

Source Quotes

1. Jon Sorenson: Yeah Ridley appeared. We'd finished all these models extensively, there were thirty three shots to achieve on the schedule and at that time Nostromo was, was a military yellow and everybody loved that looked. (Alien Makers I documentary by Dennis Lowe, 52:17
2. Dennis Lowe: "Which version of the Nostromo do you like"
   
   
   Jon Sorenson: "Oh right, of all the versions of Nostromo that were actually produced, the, there was one done that was military yellow and green, and  everyone, everyone loved that one and that, that was my favourite and I remembered , the first sequence,  we had, er,  a shot which was done by Dennis Ayling, who photographed it, and the yellow Nostromo came in over head and the planet artwork was rotating underneath,  your planet artwork on the dome projection and then the twin suns came up and I remember Brian Johnson , and we were sitting in the rushes, the little Bray studio rushes, Brian was sitting you know with his arms back like this and he's straight up and he said "I think we've cracked it lads", famous last words, you know of course, Ridley changed everything, but everybody loved that model and the look of it, and the idea was to make everything look very dark for the film, everybody understood what he wanted, but I still think in some ways he made a mistake by not keeping that military, because it gave you a sense not that it was a military craft but, but maybe it had been decommissioned and used, and kind of you know, second hand or something, it was a second hand space ship, and er, it didn't go into fights anymore but it was used for that, mining and er, but anyway away it went with everything else as soon as Ridley arrived."  ( Alien Makers I documentary by Dennis Lowe, 57:08)

   

   shot from Nostromo Ayrling's test footage

   with twin suns

   
   
   
   
   
3. Simon Deering: Jon, Dennis, whats all this about the yellow Nostromo being Military ? I always thought yellow was for industrial like jCB's ? (Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009)
4. Wmmvrrvrrmm: Also I keep thinking about how the Nostromo model when it went through it's yellow paint scheme reminds me of Chris Foss' paintings, he has been known to paint yellow spacecrafts. I wonder if the paint scheme was inspired by his work (Alien Experience.com, June 21, 2009)
   
   

   

   A JCB Wheeled Loading Shovel

   Jon Sorenson: Absolutely correct! It was inspired by Chris Foss' designs. (Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009)
5. Simon Deering: "The Nostromo was originally yellow, and the team filmed shots of the models for six weeks before Johnson left to work on The Empire Strikes Back. Scott then ordered it changed to gray" (quote from Wikipedia)  That's odd tho ..... I only remember the ship being yellow a few days .. Was it ever shot while yellow ? So tempting to make more comments , just deleted a few lines :p hehe(AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
   
   
   wmmvrrvrrmm: I still I've got to write my blog entry about the creation of the Nostromo soon for my Alien blog. There are a couple of other blogs for Alien that are probably a lot more enjoyable, but maybe mine attempts be the most extreme in what it aims to do. DenofGeek.com have said good things about my blog a few months back so maybe I'm going in the right direction with it although my work has been exhausting because of my need to get things from every single recorded perspective . I'm sure  that I'll mention every person who can be remembered to have taken part in the creation of the Nostromo though.  I often wonder if the whole of the making of Alien has a magic spell over it that forces a number of people involved to have conflicting memories about what went on as if some events in the production took place in parallel universes.  (AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
   
   

   

   Nostromo being sprayed yellow Neil Swan (top right)
   Brian Johnson arm (far left), Martin Bower (bottom left)
   Photo by Dennis Lowe

   
   
6. Simon Deering: Of course it Was ! All that Afghani hashish made sure of that .. oops .. :P .. or was that also just one afternoon... ? (AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
7. Wmmvrrvrrmm: 
   Hmm, I reading an article by the one and only Martin Bower which he wrote for Scifi and Fantasy Models some years back where he mentions that Brian Johnson had filmed a considerable amount of footage of it in it's yellow state before he left.  And he mentions that footage had been filmed over "the past few months" before the colour change rendered it unusable
   
   
   I'm wondering who gave the orders to give it gigantic serial numbers on the side painted in brilliant orange when the orders came over to paint it grey. (AlienExperience.com September 29th, 2010)
   
   

   

   Nostromo being sprayed yellow by Jon Sorenson (top),

   Neil Swan (far right) Martin Bower (bottom left)

   Brian Johnson (far right) Photo by Dennis Lowe

   

   Nostromo being sprayed yellow, Neil Swan (top left) Brian Johnson (bottom left), 

   Martin Bower (bottom right) Photo by Dennis Lowe

   Dennis Lowe: We spent ages filming the Yellow Nostromo (approx. 3 months) as that was the colour that was specified, there are some of my shots here in the gallery that shows Brian, Martin Bower and others spraying the model yellow. (AlienExperience.com September 29th, 2010)
   
   

   

   Nostromo being sprayed yellow, Neil Swan (centre)  Brian Johnson (bottom right), 

   Photo by Dennis Lowe

   
   

   Wmmvrrvrrmm: Okay, thanks , then Simon must have been the one sitting comfortably in Hashish universe at the time. When I come to write my account, I'll have to add a note into it regarding Simon's perception about the time it was yellow for and give a possible explanation.  (AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
   
   
   Simon Deering: Aah yeah .. The mists are clearing ... I was reaally busy on another plane obviously, anyway I bet Riddles could have just lit it with a grey light eh Den ? Another day I do remember was the one when Brian was looking at the ship, then the tattered old mostly ignored Cobb sketch on the wall, then back at the ship ... Then suddenly sparking up with "Hey .. It should be yellow! Go get some paint!" Was a couple of crates of those small yellow car touchup spraypaint cans. Marine blue might have been nice ... ? Or Sherwood green ? Spose it was my sense of humour that imagined Ridley coming in 10 minutes after the yellow dust settled and saying "Why is it yellow ?? Spray it grey again!!" It was never gray anyway I remember that  (AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
   
   

   

   The yellow Nostromo

   

   Martin Bower spraying the Nostromo yellow

   Jon Sorenson: The Yellow NOSTROMO. Of course we shot on it for months. The first shot I saw in rushes/dailies was of that version sailing overhead as you see similarly in the footage Dennis salvaged for his film ALIEN MAKERS 2, shot in 1978 by Denys Ayling. The one I talked about so much in my short interview in ALIEN MAKERS 1. The shot was beautiful. Truly stunning. As was all the other of the 33 shots largely completed before Ridley Scott came over to Bray full-time. Brian Johnson was correct in taking that colour from the Ron Cobb drawings. He tried in vain to get more direction from Ridley but could'nt. Even sometimes not even speaking to Brian in the Shepperton canteen. I recall hearing about that. The reason became clear later, when Ridley Scott arrived with his famous hammer and all changed. The yellow version was the version. Hundreds of feet of fibre optic lighting was installed in her to provide lit windows. Lit up, she looked stunning and every inch fitted into the film. Below is a shot of Andrew Kelly, (son of Skeets Kelly, the reknowned aerial cameraman), fitting these fibre optics. This shot is in the gallery here, amongst the stills we donated to this Site, along with many others  of the yellow version. No hallucination, hashish or otherwise. When the NOSTROMO was quickly sprayed over grey, all that work was casually obliterated. 
   
   
   The grey version I always felt was even then a tired cliche and not nearly as classy as the yellow and green one we had. Ridley was entitled to flex his directorial prerogatives. We liked him and the film. We would have climbed any obstacle for him and did. But the felling of the yellow NOSTROMO deprived you of not only something you had'nt seen in a movie up to that time, but the best work that wonderful crew could, and did, do.(AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
   
   

   

   Andrew Kelly fitting the fibre optics

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Simon Deering:  Yeah youve cleared more mists Jon :) Praps there was some trauma there, losing all those airbrushed, plasticard - masked shades of yellow grey panelling on top of the real relief card panels.... deary me .. I am absolutely going to sneak in lots of "tribute" detail on the O'Neill colony ship :).. there will be yellow bits.. there will certainly be a weylan yutani logo ..  The one thing I learned from Martin I have already added.. running a piece of perspex through the circular saw with the blade just above the bed to make a few channels ..  From Bill I learned to listen to a 'creative' client and say "I knooow" .. and then carry on with whatever I was doing regardless..
   cheers m' dears  *reaches for the Laphroaig, You are a fisherman as well I suspect Jon .. ?  :P x (AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
   
   

   

   Martin Bower standing by the yellow Nostromo

8. Martin Bower: Just before Brian (Johnson) left, we had to change the colour of the Nostromo tug. Up till this time, it has been bright yellow with heavy weathering, and considerable footage had already been shot by Brian with it this colour. However we had orders from Shepperton to change it to a dirty grey and to give it serial numbers on the side. When Ridley arrived, he liked the grey but he did not like the numbers; done in brilliant orange! So off they came for a start. This colour change of course rendered everything Brian had shot over the past dew months unusable . (Scifi and fantasy models, Alien The Models, The Definitive Inside Story: Part One, p30) 
9. Martin Bower: Essentially he shot the whole thing again because he came to Nostromo and then we started spraying it and one sweep of the normal primer grey, we thought "that's no good" , and I remember going down to a shop in Maidenhead and buying a massive amount of zinc plate primer, we first of all did a test, somebody, I don't know who it was, got, had some zinc plate primer, what it was, you could spray it on, I don't know if you remember, it was darker and it would polish up and look like metal, really look like metal, so Nostromo wasn't grey primer as so many people today are, you know, people are all asking me questions about that, what colour it was, it was actually this dark grey colour, polished up and then obviously we shaded it and worked on it, so its kind of all in model working in Alien, it just, evolution, it was like an evolution, you know, of different ideas, which ended up as some very incredible effects. (Alien Makers I documentary)
10. Bill Pearson: Brian said "right., paint it" And it seemed to be according to one of the Ron Cobbs drawings had gone down well, it was going to be yellow. So, it was a can of something like signal yellow from Halfords then sprayed it up then picked some bits out in some slightly different shades of that yellow and matted the whole thing down with Letraset 103 matte fixative and that was it, that did the rounds then, that was the discussion model, And it changed, I'm even now not sure, i think it went to white, then grey then, then an off white, and each time it changed colour, it was a case of starting back and shooting from day one again, so for the film, it's the longest I've ever been on a movie. I was one of the first on and I was one of the last off and I was there for an entirety of about one year and two days. At the end , I was asked to stay on. Peter Beale who was the head of Fox in Europe who I had met a few times on the production asked me if I would remain at Bray at the end and refurbish the models, because they were all going over to ah, a screening in the States and the wanted the... the... the Nostromo refinery, the ah... the ah... the Narcissus, and I think it was, yuh and the large Nostromo. They all had to be refurbished to go. So I'd... I had a couple of weeks, the refinery was in a hell of a state and I never really liked a lot of the dressing on it, mostly my own, erm,  my own biggest critic, so when i got the opportunity to redress and money at that point was no object, I just bought loads in and put all this sort of dressing in that I wanted in the first place, when we had like three and six pence to do everything.  So it, the, the model refinery that went over to the states was not accurate to the one in the movie whatsoever. It was a lot better looking I thought. It was a learning curve for me and at the end, going to the crew's screening in Leicester Square, I was very disappointed, but the reason for that disappointment was I didn't know how film really worked. Erm, I expected every detail that I put into the movie to be up there on screen and that's where the disappointment sprung from. I loved the rest of the film, but I was disappointed by my input on the screen. As the years have passed, I have learned that I was damned lucky that you know, so much of my work did make it up there, erm, but I've always been very proud of my involvement in the film, but I think the film was a success, not  so much of my involvement, may.. maybe in spite of, but at the end , I believed I did as good a job as I could the time.
    

The Secret Doctrine & Simon Deering's Auto Destruct Panel

From:

The Nostromo

and

Into the Minds of the Production Crew

Simon Deering: I reckon it was the Shakti Excess  button that caused the trouble..
straight after the Pranic Lift.

a)  Mr Ridley's request
Ridley Scott said to Simon Deering "make some nice buttons, complicated and interesting because they wont be on screen for more than a second or two "

Simon of course knew his philosphy was generally 'you may not see it, but if it wasnt there it wouldnt look as good'

b.) Simon D. and the Secret Doctrine
When Simon Deering painted in the buttons of the autodestruct panel been influenced by reading the Secret Doctrine by Madame Blatavsky during his in the production of the movie Alien. This resulted strange references that are visible in the actual film were Shakti Excess, Aum, Akasa, Pranic Lift 777, Rohrim, Hum, Padme, Yoni, Lingha, Druze Pile, Trip, Agaric Fly, Leb Drift. and it wasn't until 2009 that members of the public were able to find out what all these strange references were all about

Photo composite of key panel from shots in movie with most of Ripley's hand removed

 

b.) Ahead of its time
Considering this was done in the 1970s it's almost something that put his creative imagination ahead of the something such as Damien Hurst's Pharmacy's wall paper that attaches biblical references to pictures of medicine pills and capsules.

Quote sources

1. Simon Deering: I was reading I remember, Blavatsky, I was working my way through the Secret Doctrine .(Alien Makers 1 documentary)
2. Simon Deering: Dear Mr Ridley just said , make some nice buttons, complicated and interesting because they wont be on screen for more than a second or two, and of course we knew his philosphy was generally , you may not see it, but if it wasnt there it wouldnt look as good :) (Alien Experience.com forum, 28th June, 2009)
3. Simon Deering:Yeah , as i mentioned in the docu, I was reading Blavatsky at the time :) .. went straight off to India after the show.. (Alien Experience.com forum, 28th June, 2009)
4. Wmmvrrvrrmm: I almost imagine that the keyboard display, if it were up in a gallery ought to have put you ahead of Damien Hirst.
   Simon Deering: Had to look him up .. woo Theres a compliment I think :) Thanking youu! (Alien Experience.com forum, July 01, 2009,)