Alien Movie Trivia: Alien (1979)

A mining ship happens upon a distant planet as it attempts to investigate a suspected SOS signal, yet the crew is in for a rude awakening when they encounter odd life forms. Who can forget the excitement that Alien (1979) brought as we remember the tagline , ” In space no one can hear you scream”¦.” In this article , come explore the trivia concerning this great alien-related flick.

Trivia

This movie would go on to take home an Oscar for Best Effects, Visual Effects.

Ridley Scott was not the first chosen for the director honors of this film. Walter Hill (who produced the ‘Warriors’ the same year) was originally signed to fill this position, but pulled out instead.

Instead of Sigourney Weaver playing the role of Ripley, do you think you could imagine Veronica Cartwright (who would later play the cherry-filled character in ‘Witches of Eastwick’) filling her shoes, as she was originally set to take on this role? Producers sided with Weaver.

In an early draft of the script , Ripley was a male character.

Did you know that the majority of the dialogue in the film was a product of improvisation?

The front part of the alien head was constructed from the cast of an authentic human skull.

The film showcased the creation of three different aliens , one model and two suits. A trained stunt man donned one of the suits and the other was taken on by a Masai tribesman by the name of Balaji Badejo, who stood seven feet tall.

The models required repainted every evening during a shoot because the slime used on the set had a knack for removing the acrylic paint that decorated their surfaces.

The idea that the alien would lay eggs in the stomach of a host, which would later burst out came from inspiration of real spider habits, who lay their eggs in the stomach or on top of other spiders and prey.

In the scene for the downed spacecraft, 130 alien eggs were constructed for the egg chamber.

It took only one take to film the ‘chest bursting’ scene , with the help of four different cameras.

When it came to all of the hand-held camera work , Ridley Scott took on this job himself.

Aren’t we glad the movie wasn’t introduced to the public with its original title? “Star Beast”

The movie was able to receive a doubled budget from 20th Century Fox after Ridley Scott’s storyboards were revealed. The original budget of $4.2 million transformed into $8.4 million.

The producers of the 1958 flick, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, considered suing for plagiarism but decided against it.

The spaceship shown in the movie was originally called Snark. However, it underwent a handful of name changes, including Leviathan and then to the embraced final name , Nostromo.

On the first day of shooting a scene with Jones the cat, Sigourney Weaver found that her skin started to show a reaction. In the beginning, she feared she was allergic to cats and actually mentioned that it would be better to recast her role. In the end, it was concluded that her adverse reaction was actually to glycerin that was sprayed onto her skin to create the appearance that she looked hot and sweaty.