a) David Giler the producer, continued to rewrite the script numerous times over the Spring, rewriting until there was little resemblance to the original and he did not want Dan O'Bannon's involvement. Ron Shusett revealed in interviews extra information about various drafts of Alien that David Giler and Walter Hill wrote that went to extremes and during this time it was as if the alien ship, it's alien pilot's remains and the egg silo were disappearing or being totally transformed beyond recognition in pursuit of Hill and Giler's need for their sense of realism
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| depiction of Attila the Hun |
b) In one description of the different drafts, the crew of the Nostromo would have the ability to call people from the past to fight the alien. In one instance they would call Hercules to fight the Alien and another instance they would call Genghis Kahn to fight the alien. In another description of the different drafts, the crew would be brought to fight past monstrous villains from history such as Attila The Hun and Jack The Ripper. As pointed out by the Ask Mr Kern radio program, the plot sounded more like the "Savage Curtain" episode of Star Trek.
Ridley had been approached with these different ideas from Giler and Hill. Shusett remembers Ridley as finding himself saying "I can't be here having to satisfy the different master, they want their draft shot and I'm choosing not to shoot that".
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| depiction of Genghis Khan |
d) When tried to take the derelict ship away and replace it with a bunker and reduce everything to their sense of realism, and the studio bosses were okay with that
Ridley responded "No no, they can't use space things with realism like that, okay."
He was keen to stay with Shusett and O'Bannon's draft instead with the exception of the robot head which came from Giler and Hill.
Friction built up between the director and his producers Giler and Hill, and as a result, Giler and Hill felt antagonised and so eventually left the studios during preproduction because of the friction developing and Hill went off to direct another movie
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| Ron Cobb's"Black Ship and Cylinder" |
- Dennis Fischer: Are they doing , without too many changes, your original script?
Dan O'Bannon: Well, David Giler, who is one of the producers, sat down and just kept rewriting it all Spring, and just kept rewriting it, and rewriting it, and rewriting it 'til there was very little resemblance to the original screenplay, and then I wasn't allowed to participate in that because he didn't want me to. He was producer. (Rocket Blast's comic Collector, no.148) - See Ron Cobb's concept design for the derelict
- Ron Shusett: Regarding Giler and Hill, they did eight various drafts. And they went off in many different directions and so there were as different, I can’t even describe how many, so it was almost a different story many times. But it kept getting closer and closer back to the original cos the director kept thinking he liked the original better. For example, instead of the space jockey, they one time thought it would be, it looked like a futuristic bunker just made out of concrete and plastic and futuristic plastic and it looked like some advanced race had a war there. That was one idea they had. And so that you wouldn’t have that, replace that scene. Another idea they had let’s go really far out there, let’s have the ability to call people from the past to fight the alien. They would call Hercules or and it was ridiculous and everybody was laughing, ok this doesn’t work. They were trying, roping, you always have to see how far you can push the envelope. It got ridiculous when you got Genghis Kahn to fight the alien. So you can see how far apart it got. And then it got closer and like that bunker, but less spectacular. So they tried every level through eight drafts making it more outlandish to make it more realistic, but Ridley kept coming back to the structure we had which was working superbly in every way and they wrote a lot of dialogue that later remained, but structurally only one thing they did remained. And that was a masterpiece of an idea I thought. The second best idea in the whole movie.( report from what was additionally said in the interview for "Alien Evolution", 2001)
- Ron Shusett: They wanted that to be an army bunker for some reason, I guess they just, "okay this will give it realism", and that's boring, you can't, you know, once you're committed to that, you can't go back to a steel, you know, twentieth century army bunker. It's, it's, it's, it's er... that goes backwards in imagination where as that Giger design which he hand painted, airbrushed that whole wall himself personally, like he did his artwork, and that's why it looks so eerie, and and er the creature inside it too, the crew called Space Jockey. So that was one thing where they wanted realism, and then they said, "okay", Ridley said, "no no, they can't use space things with realism like that, okay." Then they said, "we, more out there" and then they said something like, which sounds good on paper, but as you said, "we don't know the road not taken", their idea was somehow every past villain in history they would have to fight, somehow, Attila the Hun, ah, you know, ah, I can't even think of some of the classic, ah ah, classic monsters, not monsters, these were more human, famous historical villains, ah, that they would have to challenge at different times, not monsters, but people for, that were Hitler type people, people that were mass murderers, er, or or, some cases maybe a creature, but a creature that you, Jack the Ripper, well that was one of them. They wanted...
Interviewer: What, are you talking about Alien?
Ron Shusett: Yuh, so they, so that just threw it into a turmoil
Interviewer: That's the craziest idea ever
Ron Shusett: yes, pardon me
Interviewer: That sounds like the craziest idea ever
Ron Shusett: I know, it sounds crazy (http://www.askmrkern.com/page3.php October 27, 2012) - Ron Shusett: And to Fox's credit, they looked at his commercials, they said this guy's a visual genius, we'll got with it. He shot that down. And there were other things he wanted to do which Ridley thought about hard and finally said "no no" these are just attempts, honest attempts, sheer attempts on your part to make it better and it's getting worse. So I'm gonna just go back to the Shusett - O'Bannon draft with the exception of the robot's head, and that, of course that antagonised them and then eventually they didn't choose even though they were... I was executive producer, and they were producers with Gordon Carroll, their third partner, but they eventually had to leave the location in preproduction because there was too much friction with the director and Ridley said, "I don't have... I can't be here having to satisfy the different master, there, they want their draft shot and I'm choosing not to shoot that", so they just decided to go back, and they both went back, and Hill went on to make another very good movie right after that himself. (http://www.askmrkern.com/page3.php October 27, 2012)
- Ron Shusett: They said ''This is not your main set.''
''You're just gonna have to walk by and see a skeletal imprint in the mud of this 15-foot creature, and then you'll walk into this strange-looking building.''
''lt'll be a bunker or something that's constructed at angles.'' (Alien Quadrilogy Documentary)
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