Alien (Virtual Workprint) (FANEDIT) (FIXED) [RePoPo]

THIS RELEASE FIXES A PREVIOUS ONE, WHERE AUDIO WAS OUT OF SYNC





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Alien (Virtual Workprint) (Ridley Scott, 1979)

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General Information

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Type.................: movie

File Validation......: SFV

Container File.......: AVI

Video Format.........: XVID

Video Bitrate........: 1266

Audio Format.........: MP3

Audio Languages......: English 2.0

Subtitles Enclosed...: None

Resolution...........: 704x304

Color................: 24 bit

FPS..................: 29.970

Source...............: Various

Duration.............: 02:19:28

Original Format......: NTSC

Genre................: Science Fiction

Movie Information....: http://fanedits.org




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Release Notes

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All credits on this version must go to Meedermow, who originally released this

"beast".



A fan-edit of the film ALIEN which interpolates all exisiting deleted scenes and

a variety of unseen footage and unused score cues to create a version that runs

considerably longer than both the 1979 theatrical release and the 2003

director's cut.



Duration (according to IMDB, NTSC Versions)

- Theatrical Version: 117'

- Director's Cut: 116'

- Virtual Workprint: 139'







PLOT:



While returning from a deep-space mission, the crew of the commercial spaceship

Nostromo is awakened by a supposed SOS call from a system they are passing

through. Descending to the planet's surface, they discover a strange derelict

spaceship - the apparent source of the transmission - and one of the crew

descends into the hold. What he finds are thousands of strange alien eggs. While

examining one of the eggs, it hatches and the parasite inside attacks him. After

returning to the Nostromo the crew takes off again to head for Earth. The alien

parasite subsequently dies and all seems well again. But what no one knows is

that another alien is quietly forming within its host - and when it emerges, the

crew finds itself in serious trouble... Written by Derek O'Cain.

TRIVIA:

* Originally to be directed by Walter Hill, but he pulled out and gave the

job to Ridley Scott.

* Veronica Cartwright was originally to play Ripley, but producers opted for

Sigourney Weaver.

* An early draft of the script had a male Ripley.

* All of the names of the main characters were changed by Walter Hill and

David Giler during the revision of the original script by 'Dan O'Bannon' and

Ronald Shusett. The script by O'Bannon and Shusett also had a clause indicating

that all of the characters are "unisex", meaning they could be cast with male or

female actors. However, Shusett and O'Bannon never thought of casting Ripley as

a female character.

* Conceptual artist H.R. Giger's designs were changed several times because

of their blatant sexuality.

* Much of the dialogue was developed through improvisation.

* The front (face) part of the alien costume's head is made from a cast of a

real human skull.

* Ridley Scott is reportedly quoted as saying that originally he wanted a

much darker ending. He planned on having the alien bite off Ripley's head in the

escape shuttle, sit in her chair, and then start speaking with her voice in a

message to Earth. Apparently, 20th Century Fox wasn't too pleased with such a

dark ending.

* During production an attempt was made to make the alien character

transparent or at least translucent.

* Three aliens were made: a model and two suits. One of the suits was for

the seven foot tall Masai tribesman Bolaji Badejo, and the other was for a

trained stunt man.

* The models had to be repainted every evening of the shoot because the

slime used on-set removed the acrylic paint from their surfaces.

* The rumor that the cast, except for John Hurt, did not know what would

happen during the "chestburster" scene is partly true. The scene had been

explained for them, but they did not know specifics. For example, Veronica

Cartwright did not expect to be sprayed with blood.

* "Nostromo" is the title of a Joseph Conrad book. The shuttle that Ripley

escapes on is called the "Narcissus", a reference to another Joseph Conrad book.

See also Aliens (1986).

* The vector graphics that appear on Ripley's screen showing the undocking

sequence for the Nostromo were also used for the aircar launch sequence in Blade

Runner (1982).

* Extra scenes filmed but not included, due to pacing problems:

o Ripley finds Dallas and Brett cocooned. Dallas is covered in maggots

and begs Ripley to kill him. She does so with a flame thrower.

o Ripley and Lambert discuss whether Ash has sex or not.

o Alternative death scene for Brett: Ripley and Parker come across an

alive Brett being lifted from the ground.



* Many of the non-English versions of the film's title translate as

something similar to "Alien: The 8th Passenger".

* The alien's habit of laying eggs in the stomach (which then burst out) was

inspired by spider wasps, which are said to lay their eggs "in the abdomen of

spiders." This image gave 'Dan O'Bannon' nightmares, which he used to create the

story. But spider wasps (pompilidae) lay eggs on their prey, not inside them,

after which the wasp maggots simply snack on the sting-paralyzed spiders.

O'Bannon may instead have been thinking of either ichneumon wasps or braconid

wasps. The ichneumon drills a single egg into a wood-boring beetle larva,

whereas braconids inject eggs inside certain caterpillars. Both result in fatal

hatch-outs more alike to O'Bannon's alien.

* 130 alien eggs were made for the egg chamber inside the downed spacecraft.

* Conceptual artist H.R. Giger would successfully sue 20th Century Fox 18

years later over his lack of screen credit on Alien: Resurrection (1997).

* Ridley Scott's 2003 director's cut largely came about when over 100 boxes

of footage of his 1979 original were discovered in a London vault.

* Many of the interior features of the Nostromo came from airplane

graveyards.

* For the awakening from hypersleep segment, Veronica Cartwright and

Sigourney Weaver had to wear white surgical tape over their nipples so as not to

offend certain countries.

* Jon Finch was originally cast as Kane but on the first day of shooting, he

looked extremely ill. Medics were called and Jon Finch was immediately taken to

hospital where it was discovered that he had an extreme case of diabetes. Ridley

Scott knew that John Hurt was in town, so he approached him that night about

playing Kane. John Hurt was on set the following day.

* To simulate the thrust of engines on the Nostromo, Ridley Scott had crew

members shake and wobble the seats the actors were sitting in.

* H.R. Giger's initial designs for the face-hugger were held by US Customs

who were alarmed at what they saw. Writer 'Dan O'Bannon' had to go to LAX to

explain to them that they were designs for a horror movie.

* The chestbursting scene was filmed in one take with four cameras.

* To get Jones the cat react fearfully to the descending Alien, a German

Shepherd was placed in front of him with a screen between the two, so the cat

wouldn't see it at first, and came over. The screen was then suddenly removed to

make Jones stop, and start hissing.

* Dallas' pursuit of the alien down the ventilator shafts, and the intercut

scenes of the rest of the crew urging him on, was shot in one day.

* It was conceptual artist Ron Cobb who came up with the idea that the Alien

should bleed acid. This came about when 'Dan O'Bannon' couldn't find a reason

why the Nostromo crew just wouldn't shoot the Alien with a gun.

* Ridley Scott did all the hand-held camera-work himself.

* According to Ridley Scott, the mechanism that was used to make the alien

egg open was so strong, that it could tear off a hand.

* Jerry Goldsmith was most aggrieved by the changes that Ridley Scott and

his editor Terry Rawlings wrought upon his score. Scott felt that Goldsmith's

first attempt at the score was far too lush and needed to be a bit more

minimalist. Even then, Goldsmith was horrified to discover that his amended

score had been dropped in places by Rawlings who inserted segments from

Goldsmith's score to Freud (1962) instead. (Rawlings had initially used these as

a guide track only, and ended up preferring them to Goldsmith's revised work.)

Goldsmith harbored a grudge against the two right up to his death in 2004.

* The character of Ash did not appear in 'Dan O'Bannon' 's original script.

* Ash's blood is colored water. Milk was not used as it would have gotten

very smelly very quickly under the hot studio lights. Milk was used though for

the close-up of his innards, along with pasta and glass marbles.

* 'Dan O'Bannon' first encountered H.R. Giger's unique style when the two

were briefly working on Alejandro Jodorowsky's ill-fated attempt at making

"Dune".

* The screen test that bagged Sigourney Weaver the role of Ripley was her

closing off speech aboard the Nostromo's shuttle at the end of the film.

* The genesis of the film arose out of 'Dan O'Bannon' 's dissatisfaction

with his first feature, Dark Star (1974) which John Carpenter directed in 1974.

Because of that film's severe low budget, the alien was quite patently a beach

ball. For his second attempt, O'Bannon wanted to craft an altogether more

convincing specimen. The goofiness of Dark Star (1974) also led him in the

direction of an intense horror movie.

* The writing partnership between 'Dan O'Bannon' and Ronald Shusett came

about when Shusett approached O'Bannon about helping him adapt a Philip K. Dick

story that he had acquired the rights to. That was "We Can Remember It for You

Wholesale" which later became Total Recall (1990). O'Bannon then said that he

had an idea that he was stuck on about an alien aboard a spaceship and that he

needed some assistance. Shusett agreed to help out and they tackled the alien

movie first as they felt it would have been the cheaper of the two to make.

* The original title was "Star Beast".

* Walter Hill and David Giler's contribution to the script was to make Ash a

robot.

* There is no dialog for the first 6 minutes.

* The word "fuck" is used five times in the film, four of them by Ripley.

* 20th Century Fox doubled the budget from $4.2 million to $8.4 million on

the strength of seeing Ridley Scott's storyboards.

* Ridley Scott was keen to take on the project as the one that he had been

previously working on at Paramount, Tristan + Isolde (2006), was stuck in

development hell.

* Three Nostromos were built for the production: a 12" version for long

shots, a 48" version for the landing sequence and a seven ton rig for showing

the ship at rest on the planet's surface.

* The producers of the 1950s potboiler It! The Terror from Beyond Space

(1958) considered suing for plagiarism but didn't.

* The original name for the spaceship was Snark. This was later changed to

Leviathan before they finally settled for Nostromo.

* The Nostromo's computer is called Mother. In the third sequel, Alien:

Resurrection (1997), the spaceship's computer is called Father.

* Mother's two 30 second countdowns take 36 and 37 seconds respectively.

* According to John Hurt in the DVD Documentary, he was considered at the

beginning of casting to play Kane but had already committed to another film that

was set to take place in South Africa, so John Finch got the role instead.

However, two separate incidents occurred which got Hurt the role. First was the

fact that he was banned from South Africa because the country mistook him for

actor John Herd who strongly opposed the Apartied (Hurt points out that he was

opposed to it too, but was lucky enough not to get blacklisted) so he was unable

to do the other film. Second, actor John Finch became seriously ill from

diabetes and had to pull out. Ridley Scott immediately contacted Hurt, pitched

him the script over a weekend and John Hurt arrived on the set Monday morning

with little to no sleep to begin filming.

* The blue laser lights that were used in the alien ship's egg chamber were

borrowed from The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show

in the soundstage next door.

* The stylized artwork that Ridley Scott used to create the storyboards that

got Fox to double the budget were inspired by the artwork of famed comic book

artist Mobius.

* The screech of the alien as it bursts from the stomach of John Hurt was

actually voiced by animal impersonator Percy Edwards. He was personally

requested by director Ridley Scott to do the sound effect and it was recorded in

one take.

* Veronica Cartwright only found out that she wasn't playing the part of

Ripley when she was first called in to do some costume tests for the character

of Lambert.

* The Nostromo is supposed to be 800 feet long, while the craft she is

towing is a mile and a half long.

* The spacesuits worn by Tom Skerritt, John Hurt and Veronica Cartwright

were huge, bulky items lined with nylon and with no outlets for breath or

condensation. As the actors were working under hot studio lights in conditions

in excess of 100 degrees, they spent most of their time passing out. A nurse had

to be on hand at all times to keep supplying them with oxygen. It was only after

Ridley Scott's and cinematographer Derek Vanlint's children were used in the

suits for long-shots and they passed out too, that some modifications were made

to the costumes.

* At the start of production, Ridley Scott had to contend with 9 producers

being onset at all times, querying the length of time he was taking over each

shot.

* The first day that she shot a scene involving Jones the cat, Sigourney

Weaver's skin started reacting badly. Horrified, the young actress immediately

thought that she might be allergic to cats, and that it would be easier for the

production to recast her instead of trying to find 4 more identical cats. As it

transpired, Weaver was reacting to glycerin sprayed on her skin to make her look

hot and sweaty.

* After the first week of shooting, 'Dan O'Bannon' asked if he could attend

the viewing of the dailies, and was somewhat staggered when Gordon Carroll

refused him. To get past that ban, 'Dan O'Bannon' viewed the dailies by standing

beside the projectionist whilst he screened them for everyone else.

* For the chestburster sequence, John Hurt stuck his head, shoulders and

arms through a hole in the mess table, linking up with a mechanical torso that

was packed with compressed air