Director Ridley Scott joined Times film critic Justin Chang for a conversation about 'Alien,' the Week 4 winner of the Ultimate Summer Movie Showdown, He recalled casting Sigourney Weaver and the influence of 'Star Wars.'
series. Scott directed the 1979 film from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon. Among the other movies released in the same week over the years that “Alien” defeated were “Star Wars,” “The Shining” and “Mission: Impossible.” In the semifinal round of voting, “Alien” went head-to-head with Scott’s 1991 film, “Thelma and Louise.”In his conversation with Chang, Scott shared his thoughts on the post-pandemic future of moviegoing and the movie business.
With a phenomenal cast that includes Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto, the movie is set aboard a space tug called the Nostromo that is invaded by a monstrous creature of unknown origin. The crew desperately tries to fight back as the alien picks them off one by one. Taking its time for the alien creature to first appear, the movie is a remarkable combination of elements, a class-conscious slow-burn sci-fi horror action thriller.
“I think the idea actually came from Alan Ladd Jr.,” Scott said. “I think it was Alan Ladd [then president of 20th Century Fox] who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause, that at that moment I never thought about it. I thought, why not, it’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went.“And I found Sigourney by word of mouth. Somebody had been told that Siourney was on an off-Broadway stage doing something, that I should meet.
“I kept it very much from the actors and I kept the actual little creature, whatever that would be, from the actors. I never wanted them to see it,” Scott said. “Remember there was no digital effects in those days at all. I’m going to somehow bring that creature out of his chest.
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