ALIEN - Written by Dan O’Bannon
Production Design Project
This is a story about Ripley, a crew member of a commercial fuel-hauling ship, who comes into direct contact with an alien species. After each of her fellow crew members is killed, Ripley destroys both the ship she works on and the alien. In so doing, she becomes the hero of the human race, purging both human error and an alien species, which depends on human life to reproduce.
Parasitism is a key theme of this story. Just as the alien attaches itself to humans and uses them to continue its life cycle, Ash, the covert cyborg in the crew, attaches himself to the ship and uses it and its crew to further his own goals.
Ash overrides Ripley’s order, and allows Kane to enter the ship with the Alien.
The Airlock is a portal between life and death. Literally an airlock exists as a safe boarder crossing, where people can move from the relative safety on this inside of the ship, to the incredibly dangerous vacuum of space. In our story, the Airlock serves as this portal in more ways than one. The first time we use it, a small portion of the crew, led by Dallas, move through the airlock to the hellish landscape of the alien planet.
The second time the portal is used, it is part of a ceremony where Kane’s body is released into space, as a kind of burial.
Storyboard of Kane’s funeral:
Following the funeral, the crew attempts to trap the Alien and blow it into space using the airlock. Now the crew hopes to bring the Alien through the portal.
The Alien investigates the airlock. The crew hopes to spring the trap, and blow the Alien out into space.
The Alien - Digitally Sculpted
I wanted the alien to evoke a feeling of dangerous beauty, much like the structure of an intricate fungus or a poised praying mantis.
The Nostromo
The Nostromo is an industrial spaceship that hauls fuel around the galaxy. In keeping with the theme of parasitism, I wanted the ship to have an organic quality. Ash is a parasite attaching himself to the ship, much like the Alien attaches itself to the Nostromo’s crew.
Research:
Nostromo Sketches:
