Dan O´Bannon after participating as co-writer of the film “Black Star” with John Carpenter, ventured a little more in the world of special effects collaborating with the production “Star Wars” by George Lucas. However, his true passion was being a movie writer and he began a work process to achieve writing his first film masterpiece. After a very particular experience, as part of the Adaptation Team of the novel Duna together with Alejandro Jorodosky, a project in which he met the famous Artist H.R. Giger, among others, O’Bannon returned to the United States after the project collapsed due to lack of funds, no money and no where to live, desperately trying to sell a script.
Later he began working with Ronald Shusett on an original script that they titled “Alien.” Ronald fed him for months so he could survive, while they tried to shape this story. The script was considered for studio offer by a group of producers: Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill, founders of the production company BrandyWine Productions. He began a long process of trying to improve and modify the script, even to the point that they were on the verge of removing O’Bannon from the credits. However, fate would take care of maintaining the balance.
After the spectacular success of Start Wars, 20 Century Fox needed a sci-fi movie and the only thing they had to hand was the original script for “Alien.” A production budget was hastily approved and director Ridley Scott joined the Team, who was able to visually express the scope of the project by getting 20 Century Fox to double the budget it had originally considered. O’Bannon would ultimately be in charge of the script and supervision of the special effects, while the story was co-written with his great friend Ronald Shusett.
With a group of artists not very well known but with clear acting gifts (Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto.), The cast of Alien did not have big stars but very solid performances so that Ridley Scott would focus on achieving the ambitious aesthetic that Alien required. The story begins with the close-up of the star freighter “Nostromo” that, during a routine journey laden with minerals, must divert to answer a call for help. The captain makes up his mind to answer the call and they prepare to descend on a strange and isolated planet. A series of unexpected events and shocking situations turn this routine journey into one of the most important horror and science fiction adventures in history.
“Alien” introduces an aesthetic and level of detail that gives authenticity to the story and creates an atmosphere of almost magical realism that transports us to this near future, with industrial space equipment, technologies that we could potentially find in an interplanetary mining site and a large amount of functional details in the scenery that made this film a Classic and Ridley Scott a consecrated director (later he directed masterpieces such as Blade Runner or “Gladiator” among many others). If you want to reconnect with strong feelings and overwhelming suspense, live a good horror experience, Alien is a must-see movie. For many reasons it is considered one of the 40 most important films in the history of Cinema. It is simply necessary.
Dan O’Bannon and his loyal friend Ronald Shusett succeeded, they became references as scriptwriters, a story of creation and entrepreneurship that shows us that great works can emerge from despair, including the ultimate and definitive Space Terror film, ALIEN.
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