Speaker 1: Hello Shirley fans, and welcome to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. We are here today to discuss two
iconic movies, Alien and Aliens.
Speaker 2: Hey wait, wait, wait wait wait, excuse me, sir.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be another bug hunt.
Speaker 4: We're an express elevator to Hell going down.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. All right, so we're gonna start off
with Alien, a movie about an unwanted pregnancy.
Speaker 3: Yes, traumatic unwanted pregnancy.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, Welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. We are here today to discuss two
iconic movies, Alien and Aliens. There are other movies in
this franchise, but they do not meet our standards for
this podcast, and so we will not be discussing them.
Only the first two movies. Do you remember seeing either
one of these movies? Jason, Okay, yes, I absolutely do.
Here's the deal with Alien. Alien came out in seventy nine.
Speaker 3: I was six.
Speaker 2: This was one of those movies that scared the pants
off of me, but I knew I had to see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was at a friend's house and his parents
had rented it, and we managed to drum up the
courage to watch the chestburster scene, right and scare me
to death like Nightmare City, right right, Super scary but thrilling. Yeah,
super exciting, right, what about you?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I don't remember seeing Alien at all. I
mean I was born in seventy five. This came out
in early or mid seventy nine, so I was only
three years old. I didn't see it, but it was
kind of like Jaws. It was just kind of part
of my conscious. My dad, I know, loved the movie,
and seven years later when Aliens came out, I can
remember him taking me to the theater to watch the movie,
which was a big deal because I was not allowed
to watch rated our movies. Right, But he would go
and watch the movie beforehand, make sure there weren't any boobies.
The F word was okay for this particular scenario because
of the movie.
Speaker 3: It was it's combat scenario.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I mean it's like like like my wife
and I say, you have inappropriate and funny, and if
the funny outweighs the inappropriate us, then it's okay. And
in this movie, the awesomeness far outweigh the inappropriateness of
the language. And so he brought me in to see it,
and he was convinced, convinced that the alien was going
to come to Earth through the cat through jonesy Oh, okay,
that's interesting. So watching it for this podcast, I texted
you yesterday and I was like, oh my gosh. The
scene where she has to run away, where she's about
to escape, the countdown is happening and she has to
run away because the alien is standing where she's trying
to go in the escape ship. You see the alien's
face as she's running back to try to turn off
the self destruct button, and the alien's face is right
over the cat's head, and I was just like, this
had to be like a fan theory, right, I mean,
you've got seven years of time where all kinds of
theories develop about what's going to happen with aliens, and
so I'm thinking he had to be he had to
be one of those guys who was like, I know,
I saw the cat's head underneath the alien when she
ran off to try to stop the countdown, but I
had never seen it before this time.
Speaker 2: Really Okay, cool, Well let me tell you about the
time I saw aliens. Okay, So I did not see
it in the theater. I don't know how it got
past me. I think the summer of eighty six, I
was just all top gun and that was it, right.
So I saw it on HBO the next summer, summer
of eighty seven, and I remember the night I had
a friend came over for a family dinner and it
was one of those things where I probably should have
been politely sitting at the table, engaged in conversation, but
I could not tear myself away from the TV.
Speaker 1: I am frequently that guy.
Speaker 3: I knew I was being rude, but I could not
help it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it blew.
Speaker 2: My doors off. This is one of my all time favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, before we get going, I just want to point
something out. We have been talking to each other now
for a couple of years, face to face, and one
of the reasons that I can do that is because
you don't have nose hair. Have you been talking to
people and like you can't even concentrate on what they're
saying because of their nose hair.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, they like tuck to you.
Speaker 1: It dangles, yes, it wiggles. It's a total distraction.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so let me let me say, if you are
one of those guys, We have a product that is
supporting the podcast that you need to check out is
called the weed Whacker, and it is from Manscape.
Speaker 2: It is an amazing product. It trims your nose hair.
It's not embarrassing. You just stick it up there. It
takes care of it.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna look at people and bother them, right,
And I'm one of those guys who's self conscious about
my nose hair. So somebody that you're gonna see me
and I'm gonna be like yanking them out and wincing
in pain, don't do that. There is a special thing
that they make and they've also just released in addition
to the weed Whacker, they have just released something called
the Lawnmower if you have other areas of your body
that you're looking to trim up. And I'd like to
point out that a giraffe is easier to see in
the planes than it is in the forest, So that's wonderful. Yes, yes,
it is.
Speaker 3: So it's very good around sensitive areas, if you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They have also an entire shavekit called the Ultra
Smooth Package package. You get the idea.
Speaker 2: So who doesn't want their package ultra.
Speaker 1: Smooth, right right, So don't forget to go to manscapes
dot com and use the promo code fan sided twenty
to get twenty percent off your order and free shipping.
Speaker 3: Whack it.
Speaker 1: Perfect. I mean, and I gotta say Bill Paxton was
a key part of why this movie stuck in my mind,
stuck in my memory. Such a great job and his
first real movies, first breakout performance. I mean, he had
been a part of a couple of other things, but
I'm excited to talk about him when we get into casting.
Speaker 3: Are we talking about where he's science today too?
Speaker 1: Maybe?
Speaker 3: All right, great, let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So our story begins in rural Missouri where Dan
O'Bannon grew up. Dan O'Bannon is the author of Alien,
and he grew up in a town that was so
rural and so small. He didn't even have a telephone
until he was ten years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no library, no TV.
Speaker 1: Right. His dad ran this kind of curio, weird event
weird like you know, had one of those rooms that
when you stand on one end you look big and
stand in the other you look small, little tilted room.
It was just kind of weird and at some point,
he and his dad created a false UFO sighting got
the News to come down to this curio. So I
think that that part of you know, imprint moment number one, Right,
we talked about imprint moments with Prince. This imprint moment
for Dan O'Bannon number one fake UFO sighting. The News
shows up to, you know, to investigate imprint with his
mom is there's no library in the town, so she
just orders books and she wants him to read literature,
but he loves science fiction. And it's like us with
our kids in the iPhones. You're not sneaking at science fiction,
are Yeah? Get back here, you like, I would love
it if my kids just read science fiction. It'd be fantastic. Right.
So he's got literary background, he's got science fiction, and
he's got a little bit crazy with his UFO deck.
Speaker 2: This picture of a styrofoam plate landed three miles outside
of town last week.
Speaker 1: So he ends up going to college. He does stand
up comedy, does make up for the theater productions there
at his college, and a little later on he's reading
a Playboy magazine and the article is a great need
they are and he's actually reading the articles, and one
of the articles is about the best film schools, like
it's Playboy's pick of the best film schools. He sees
that USC is one of those schools, and he's like,
I'm going to go to USC.
Speaker 3: Sure, why not?
Speaker 1: And so he goes out to USC and he meets
this guy named John Carpenter.
Speaker 3: John Carpenter Awesome.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of him?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know he did the thing and he did stay
from New York yep.
Speaker 1: Right. He and John Carpenter get together and they make
this student film called dark Star Dark Star. You know
dark Star, right, it's like the Death Star. So Dark
Star is the story of this deteriorating starship Dark Star,
twenty years into its mission of destroying planets. So because
they might threaten the future colonization of other planets sounds
kind of similar to another plotline that we're going to
talk about today. Right. So they're working on this film
and O'Bannon does enough work on the film. I mean
he's in it number one. He does all the special effects,
which I got to say that the spaceship stuff great.
The alien that they're fighting painted beach ball, Yeah, but
it's more of it's more of a sci fi comedy
than a sci fi horror movie. But anyway, he and
John Carpenter have this big falling out dan Oban and says,
screw you, I'm gonna go make my own movie. Why
is this a big deal since it's just a student film. Well,
it turns out that actually goes to big release. And
that's really important because one of the guys who happens
to see this movie is a guy named Alejandro Pordorowski. Okay,
so if you don't recognize that name, I'm going to
remind you. He came up when we were doing our
Canners episode. Wow, Mike was talking about this documentary called
horder Rowski's Dune. Howdarowski was this really weird, like he
made some really really strange movies, But he was the
guy who was first enlisted to direct the movie Doune,
and it became his passion, his obsession. It was this
all encompassing thing and he went through this huge, huge
development process only to have it ultimately turned down. But
in that development process, he's finding people, right, and Mike
talked about he's looking for spiritual warriors. So Howdiowski's looking
for for a guy to do his special effects, And
who's the first guy that you should go to. This
is back in the seventies. Well, it's got to be
the guy who did the special effects for two thousand
and one A Space obviously, okay, And that guy's name
is Douglas Trumble And he goes and meets with him,
and Doug Trumbull is like, Okay, you know, your ideas
are great, but we're just gonna do it this way
because this is the way that I do things. And
Portorowsky is like, this is not my spiritual warrior. I
gotta find somebody else. Leaves talking to him. Is walking
down the street with his friend. They see a movie theater.
They're like, let's go watch a movie. The movie they
watch Dark Star, okay, and so he sees the special
effects in Dark Star. He's like, we need to find
out who did this. We need to make this guy
our guy. We need to find him and the special
effects Dan O'Bannon had done special effects and he had
won a Saturn Award, and so they were able to
locate him and they're like, hey, we're making this movie.
We want you to be in charge of our special effects.
Sell all your stuff, fly to France and come make
this movie with us, And so Dan Obannon sells all
of his stuff, flies to France and they start making
this movie together.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: In that process he meets a couple of really important guys.
Number one hr Geiger.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Hr Geiger is a very interesting, demented even artist who
comes up with these incredible paintings that they base the
alien on.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're freaky, yes.
Speaker 1: And so he and Dan O'Bannon immediately hit it off
because they both have a love for this author named
HP Lovecraft. And as a matter of fact, hr Geiger
has done illustrations for a book that Lovecraft did called Necronomicon. Yeah,
but ultimately Dune doesn't happen. The studio gets this monumental
book of the whole movie that Haraski has put together,
and they basically say no, we're not doing it, and
his dream is dashed and Dan O'Bannon is now broke.
He goes back home, except he has no home. He's
living on people's couches. And one of the people's couches
that he's living on is this guy named Ronald Shuett.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ronald Shusett is the guy that he ends up
working on the screenplay for the original Alien with Yes.
Speaker 1: So he's sleeping on his couch. Shusett is keeping him
alive with hot dogs.
Speaker 2: His wife is working right, and these two guys are
laying around talking about making a movie.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, Shusett had done a movie before it was
called W had started Twiggy. He had produced that movie.
So he's not nobody, but it's W by Twiggy. What no, no,
but yeah right bug. So Dan O'Bannon is working on
this script called Memory right, and the idea is it's
a space adventure horror movie that somehow the aliens are
causing the astronauts to forget. That's part of the plot
line right there, they're erasing their memory. But all he's
got is the first twenty nine pages, and the first
twenty nine pages are basically the beginning of the movie Alien.
And so the problem is that Dan O'Bannon is having
it is he can't think of how to get the
alien on board. So he had started he had started
struggling about twenty four years old. He had started struggling
with Crohn's disease, which is an intestinal disease. So he
had this idea that he wanted the alien to be
unpleasant and come out of a stomach. You know, this
kind of miserable experience ultimately ends up killing Dan O'Bannon.
He died from this disease. But anyway, he's he's got
this idea, but he doesn't know how to put it together.
And then one night he's sleeping on the couch, Ronald
Shuest wakes him up and he's like, I've got the
answer and he's like, what, Yes, I've got the answer
to how the alien gets on board. He's like, oh, oh,
you got the answer.
Speaker 4: Okay, what and he goes he He's like, yes, he
launches onto his face, he sticks it two down his throat,
he plants his seed while also feeding him air, and
that's how it gets in his stomach.
Speaker 1: And then you can have it come out and then
we just gotta figure out the rest of your movie.
Speaker 3: This is genius.
Speaker 1: This is the biggest, most important part of this whole movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, so here's my thoughts on this.
Speaker 2: We talked, I know we're gonna dive deep on this,
but when they started talking about this idea, they latched
onto it and they're like, this is great, this is
super uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: This is like male rape, right, and.
Speaker 1: So that's really like this whole movie I didn't realize
it before, is all very much a sexual attack. Right.
It's all very much about rape. It's about rape, it's
about rape and pregnancy because of it. It is the
underlying subtext of the entire movie.
Speaker 2: So they were talking about how they're going to do it,
and so he got involved in studying wasps. There are
wasps who lay eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they lay the eggs inside of like a caterpillar
or something like that.
Speaker 3: I watched some of these.
Speaker 1: Oh, my word is horrific, like because the wasp hits
the caterpillar and then the caterpillar just keeps on going. Yeah.
It's like, oh I just got stung by a wasp. Yeah,
no big deal, keep on going. I'm all right, Yeah,
until like all of a sudden, it starts twitching and
then things start using out its sides, and it deflates
as the larvae come out after having devoured its intestines.
Speaker 3: That's about the.
Speaker 2: Most unpleasant way to die that I can think of, Right,
I know we're.
Speaker 3: Gonna get to it.
Speaker 2: But the lady who interviewed Ridley Scott after the movie
came out the first critic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we listened to her interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was so offended by this.
Speaker 1: She was so condescending. I mean, I'm sitting there watching
this thing. I'm like, how dare you? How dare you
talk to Sir Ridley Scott in this way? But he
wasn't Sir Ridley Scott, right, he was just a guy
who had directed his second movie, right, And she didn't
know what was going to happen with it was before
the movie was released. She was just upset because it
got a little gory.
Speaker 3: It got way gory for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and really, s guy's like, listen, there's only one
scene that's kind of pretty gory, but that's that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There are scenes where you hear things and where
things are suggested, but the only scene where you've got
blood is the one chest bursting scene, one scene in
the whole movie. But man, it made the whole movie.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: After figuring out the face hugger rape, ron shut it
suggests that O'Bannon use another film idea that he had
talked to him about before. About you ready for this?
Grimlins on a B seventeen bomber during World War Two?
Speaker 2: All Right?
Speaker 3: Interesting?
Speaker 2: Flashback to our Grimmins episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know, change it so it's a spaceship
and that make that the second half of the story.
So he does that, He's got it put together and
he's like, okay, time to call hr Geiger. Yeah. And
so Geiger is also you know I mentioned a fan
of love Craft. He's done this, done this artwork related
to Necronomicon, and he's also inspired by ancient Egypt. The
original place where the eggs were found was supposed to
be a pyramid. Okay this do you see this? No? Okay,
So it's supposed to be a pyramid, and on top
of the pyramid is the Egyptian goddess of the night sky.
Do you know what her name is? No? Newt what? Yes?
Get out right? So they go forward with this script.
They've got the original title. They change it from memory
because they took that part out. Change it to Starbeast.
They brought it to Roger Corman, who said it would
be better on a big budget. Shop it around and
try to find a big budget for it. And if
you can't find that, then I'll make it right. This
is interesting because it is very similar to a Roger
Corman movie. From like nineteen sixty six called Queen of Blood.
Speaker 2: Queen of Blood looks like a bad Star Trek episode
where there's a alien, a woman alien, who lays her
eggs to kill humanity. Yes, and like the climactic scene
at the end is this guy is like, oh, check
it out. I've got a trade full of jello shots
that are her eggs.
Speaker 1: Right. So Dan is very famous for this quote. He said,
I didn't steal from anybody. I stole from everything.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: So here here's some works of fiction that are kind
of the inspiration points. Okay, You've got Seeds of Jupiter,
which is a comic where these seeds land on an
aircraft carrier and this guy who's known for putting peach
pits in his mouth, they call him peach Pit. They
convince him to put one of these seeds from Jubeirase
in his mouth, and then of course he gets sick.
They cut him open. A giant alien pops out and
then falls into the sea, and they're like, oh, well,
we'll never see that again, right of course you won't. Okay.
Then there's Death Rattle. This is a space rape taken
over by alien. Lovecraft himself had this thing called Mountains
of Madness where there are fossils of aliens that come
to life in Antarctica. There's a crew that goes down
to Antarctica and they're looking and they find these ancient
aliens they end up bringing back to life. They're indestructible.
And I noticed when I watched Alien when they're communicating,
when they're trying to communicate with the Moon, they refer
to it as Antarctica. I was like, whoa, okay, whoa whoa?
That comes straight from Lovecraft's Mountain of Madness. And then
of course there's the movies. There was it, The Terror
from Beyond Space, which really Scott actually says is one
of the movies that inspired him to become a director.
One man left after the crew is killed by aliens.
They don't believe him, but then they end up the
alien starts killing everybody else inside the vents and stuff
that you got the Thing from Another World, which we
know as the Thing, the original one, Yes, hatching alien
eggs examined in the lab. You've got Planet of the
Vampires where they find the giant alien corpse. We talked
about Queen of Blood.
Speaker 2: I mean, you got some older ones too, like Them
and The Black Scorpion and The Deadly Mantis, this idea
of being attacked by bugs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all of those movies were kind of B
movies right there. Sure they are horror sci fi movies,
but they were never like mainstream. And this is it's interesting.
This movie comes out in nineteen seventy nine, which is
kind of the tail end of what was called the
New Hollywood. Right So, in the late sixties, there was
this big court case US versus Paramount where they basically said,
all of these movie studios have a monopoly. We're not
gonna let you own these movie theaters anymore and control
all of the distribution production. And what resulted was New Hollywood,
where the directors of the movies had a whole lot
more say so about what happened in the movie, which
is why you get these phenomenal directors from like nineteen
sixty eight up to nineteen eighty five. That's when all
of these incredible directors come to life.
Speaker 2: We're talking like Lucas, Scorsese, Spielberg, Kubrick, Coppola.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's enough. Yeah, that's a pretty good batch right there. Okay,
so after Roger Corman says shop it around. They get
it to this guy named Mark Hagar, who gets the
script to Walter Hill. Walter Hill has just formed this
production company with a couple of other guys called Brandywine. Okay,
and he reads the script and hates it until he
gets to page thirty okay, and then he's like, oh
my gosh, we got to make this movie. So Walter
Hill is going to direct, his production company is going
to is going to produce the movie. And Dan is like, okay,
but we've got to get Geiger over here to do
the design of the movie because he's my guy, right,
And so Dan sends him a letter, send Geiger a
letter and says, we want you to come over. We
want you to do the design on this and just
let us know what it's going to cost, and we
will send you a thousand dollars check as a retainer
to come on over. And the guys at Brandywine said,
we don't want to pay this guy one thousand dollars.
So Dan's like, then I'll write him and check myself.
The guy who's living on couches says, I will write
the thousand dollars myself. That's how important it is to me.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the alien for just a second. Okay,
that alien is so creepy. It's it's got the metallic teeth,
it's got the double jaw, it's got that nasty slime
coming out of its mouth. It's black and slick and
looks like a roach. But it's seven feet tall and
he's got tails. But they do a great job of
hiding it during the course of the movie, which we'll
talk about here in a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the first thing that Geiger draws form is
not the big alien, but the face hugger. Okay, just
imagine the face hugger is kind of like a crab slash,
a crab with fingers yeah, and a tail. Yes, a
deadly tale. Right. And when the guys from brandy Wine
and Fox see the paintings that Geiger has done, they
fire him and send him back home. Then the guys
from Fox get a call from Walter Hill who says,
you know what, I've decided, I'm not going to direct
this movie. I'll see you guys later. You can figure
out who you want to direct it, but it's not
going to be me. And they're like, oh crap, what
are you doing. He's like, oh, I'm going to go
direct this movie called Southern Comfort. Right, not a bad movie,
but it's not alien.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've seen Southern covert.
Speaker 1: So they are looking for a director, they're looking for actors.
They talked to Tom Scarett, and Tom Scarett turns it down.
He says, I get this script and they're like, and
I'm looking at him, like, how much is the budget?
It's two million dollars. Oh, sounds like an Edwood movie.
Good luck at that I'm not in. So fortunately, at
this time, Ridley Scott has just finished up his first movie.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, The Duellists is Ridley Scott's first movie. We
talked about in our Highlander episode. It's got Harvey Kitel
and David Carrodine and these guys are fighting each other
across time.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, the inspiration book about Highlander, except that it's
over thousands of years instead of over fifteen years. So anyway,
Ridley Scott had started off as a trainee set designer
for BBC. He was supposed to design the Dalaks for
Doctor Who, which was a big, huge deal, but because
of scheduling conflict, he ended up getting replaced by Raymond
Cusick and ultimately decides to form his own production company
called Ridley Scott Associates RSA. So what RSA does instead
of making movies is they make commercials, and they end
up making some really successful commercials. They make a Hovis
bread commercial that's still regarded as one of the best
commercials of all time, and they help revitalize Chanelle Number
five with their commercials. So they're doing okay, they're doing
all right. You know, they've got a steady income, but
they're looking for scripts, they're looking for something new, and
then he sees this movie that you might have heard
of called Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Star Wars changed the whole landscape from this seventies science
fiction was kind of not really known as a moneymaker.
People were not interested in doing it, and if it was,
it was dystopian I.
Speaker 3: Think Logan's run right.
Speaker 2: It wasn't fun fantasy, shoot him up moneymakers.
Speaker 1: So the du List came out the same year as
Star Wars. Scott had intended to do Tristan and Islay.
I don't know how he pronounced that name, some romantic
old like Romeo and Juliet kind of deal until he
saw Star Wars and he realized the potential for big
special effects films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I understand it. When Really Scott saw Star Wars,
he said, who the f is?
Speaker 3: George Lucas. Here's what I read.
Speaker 2: I read that Really Scott was actually the fifth choice
to direct Alien, So you talked about Walter Hill.
Speaker 3: They also wanted a guy named Robert Aldrich.
Speaker 2: He did The Longest Yard, YEP and The Dirty Dozen,
and when he turned it down, they went to Peter Yeats,
he did The Deep and the movie Kroll, the nineteen
eighty Fantasy.
Speaker 3: Yeahl Then they.
Speaker 2: Talked to a guy Jack Clayton, he did the original
Mulan Rouge and Moby Dick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then they landed on this young guy named Ridley Scott.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Ridley Scott has a guy who produces his movies.
They work together all the time, and his name's Ivor Powell.
And Iver says, I'm normally the sci fi guy back then, right,
like I would read it. He wasn't interested in that stuff,
and until he saw Star Wars. And then we get
this script that comes in called Starbeast and he's like, here,
let me read that. I'm like, you're gonna read it first, see, Yeah,
let me let me read it first. So he goes
off into like their commercial filming room, and in about
fifteen minutes later, Iver Powell, here's Ridley Scott go.
Speaker 4: Fuck me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to read for you. What what
caused that? Suddenly, unexpectedly, Broussard grimaces and groans Standard, what's wrong, Brussard?
His voice is straining. I don't know, I'm I'm getting
these cramps. The other stare at him in alarm. Another
groan is from his lips. He clutches the edge of
the table with his hands, his knuckles whitening. Standard breathe deeply.
Broussards screaming, Oh God, it urts so bad. Robbie, what
del what? Brussard's face is screwed up in a mask
of agony, and he is trembling violently from head to foot.
Broussard incoherent street Oh. A red smear of blood blossoms
on the chest of Broussard's tunic. Their eyes are all
riveted to Brussard's chest as the fabric of his tunic
is ripped open, and a horrible, nasty little head the
size of a man's fist pushes out. Everybody screams and
leaps back from the table. A cat spits and bolts.
The disgusting little head lunges comes spurting out of Brussard's chest,
trailing a thick worm like tail, splattering fluids and blood,
lands in the middle of the dishes and food on
the table and scurries away while the men are stamping
for safe ground. Finally, when they regain control of themselves,
it has escaped. Broussard lies slumped in his chair, a
huge hole in his chest, spouting blood. The dishes are
scattered and the food is covered with blood and slime.
Speaker 3: Day f me.
Speaker 1: So that's the chest burster scene. That's the money shot,
if you.
Speaker 3: Will, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is so really Scott is in love and he
storyboards the entire movie. Okay, he's got like it's not
a photographic memory, it's it called something else al it's
called an idectic memory, where basically he can see a
picture and remember all of the details of a picture.
So he's also a really incredible artist. So he storyboards
this entire movie and sends it back to Fox and
they say two million, how about ten? Yeah. They send
it to Tom Scarett and he says ten million, and
Ridley Scott I'm in. So Ridley and Dan immediately hit
it off. But Ridley bill doesn't know what the alien
is going to look like, and it's ultimately Dan O'Bannon
who brings him the picture that hr Geiger has done
from the Necronomicon, and as soon as Ridley Scott sees it,
he says, that's it, that's what we're doing. I've never
been so sure of anything in my life. And then
the guys at Fox, when they hear that he's trying
to bring Geiger back, is like, hey, maybe we can
kind of throw some ideas around and talk about it,
and Ridley Scott says, no, this is what's going to happen.
This is going to be hard enough to film as
it is, and we don't have time for your bs.
This is what we're going to do. And the guys
a Fox say yes.
Speaker 2: Sir, And that was a huge decision because the like
we talked about, the alien is so fantastic in this movie.
Speaker 1: So Ridley Scott is on, Geiger is back, Dan O'Bannon
is there and they're all working together and they start filming.
You ready to talk about aliens.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Aliens, okay, which is gonna be a
little tricky because being a direct sequel, we're leaning on
the success of the first movie. So there's some things
that we need to talk about from now.
Speaker 1: We'll call it a flash forward flash forward okay, flash forward.
Alien is a monumental success.
Speaker 2: Alien does so good that they try to put a
sequel into place right.
Speaker 1: Off the back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, However, our main man, Alan Ladd Junior at Fox Studios.
This is the same guy who went with George Lucas
on Star Wars. Right, so he had Star Wars as
a massive hit, he had Alien as a massive hit.
He leaves and the guy who came in and replaced
him that wasn't really interested in doing a sequel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it is Norman Levy and he was like, no,
it's going to cost too much and sequels don't really
make any money. Did you see em Virus Strikes Back?
Did you see Return of the Jedi? What are you
talking about?
Speaker 3: Bro, guy's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have to wait long enough for him
to clear out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they end up hitting David Geiler, who's one
of the members of the brandy Wine Productions. They see
him in the parking lot and they're like, hey, do
you want to make Alien two? And he's like, yes,
we've been trying to do that for a while now.
And he's like, okay, what's your storyline? And he's like oh,
and so he makes this is what he does. He
combined the ideas of Alien and Southern Comfort, and that's
the thing he pitches. Yeah, so it is it is
Aliens with soldiers, right, that's still the Southern Comfort is
a soldier movie, and then we have Alien and so
really he was right, that is what it becomes. But
it was just off the cuff. I'll throw two movies
together that.
Speaker 3: I know, and soldiers and Aliens.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so twentieth century Fox says that sounds good.
Let's make it happen.
Speaker 3: Let's backtrack just a little bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, there's this truck driver from Canada who comes
into play here pretty well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his name is James Cameron. Yeah, he had not
done particularly well in school. He ended up dropping out
of college becoming a truck driver. And then also he
happened to see a movie. I guess there may be
a few folks that saw this movie called Star Wars.
Star Wars and he said, I want to go make movies. Yes,
And so he goes and starts working for our friend
Roger Corman.
Speaker 2: He gets a job as a production assistant for Roger Corman.
James Cameron starts to take over. As you know, he's
a super talented guy and one of the things that
he does is figure out ways to save money on
this Roger Corman project that he's working on called Galaxy of.
Speaker 1: Terror right, which was a ripoff of Alien of Alien. Yes,
and you, my friend, you Bit the bullet again.
Speaker 3: I watched this movie. It's available on two b TV for.
Speaker 2: Free, for free, for free, and I could barely It's
in killiherent and really weird. Joni Cunningham Aaron Moran from
Happy Days is kind of the main one.
Speaker 3: Jony, Joni and Chachi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: But on that set, Jim Cameron is in charge of
building sets. He meets a young guy who says, hey,
I'm here, I'm supposed to be working for He's like,
what's your name, Bill Paxton? Bill, grab a paintbrush. He's like,
I haven't even been hired yet.
Speaker 3: Go pay that wall.
Speaker 2: So that's when James Cameron meets Bill Paxton, right.
Speaker 1: And so he had done some other work, some other
work with Roger Corman, including a sequel to a movie
that we talked about when we were talking about Grimlins.
You remember that Joe Dante had directed a Jaws knockoff
called Piranha. Yes, James Cameron was actually involved with the
sequel to Debt.
Speaker 3: Okay, so here's what happened with that.
Speaker 2: He got that job because there's a scene in Galaxy
of Terror where a guy gets, for some unknown reason,
this piece of crystal crawls up his arm and he's
got to cut his own arm off, right, So the
dude lops off his arm and on the ground and
then it becomes consumed with these worms. Okay. They would
put these mealworms on the arm and they wanted them
to wiggle.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't wiggle.
Speaker 2: So James Cameron's like, well, I think if you just
plug in this wire to this end and you run
electricity through that prop and they're like, oh well, let's
give it a try. And sure enough, the mill worms
are like they come alive. They start wiggling, and there's
guys on the set that day.
Speaker 1: Do meal worms fall within the peda like Pretec.
Speaker 2: We're gonna zap some meal worms.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, but there are some guys there that were Italian
filmmakers who are looking for somebody to come work on
Pirana too, and they're like, that dude right there, the
guy who figured out how to do that, that's the
guy we want. All right, everybody, I just want to
formally invite you to come over and listen to our
side project, the podcast Bull of Kryptonite with mister John
Reid from the thirty seventy movie podcast, and of course
you and me meanwhile at the Hull.
Speaker 1: Of Justice, we are the super Friends.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: We cover the TV show Superman and Lois. We go
over every episode. We have a great time, and John
knows so much about Superman.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: If you love Superman, or even if you don't and
you just want to learn more, come check it out.
And if you haven't watched Superman and Lois yet, you
need to right now crawl out of your fortress of
solitude and turn the TV.
Speaker 3: On podcast full of Crips back.
Speaker 2: So James Cameron goes to Jamaica to make this movie
called Parana.
Speaker 3: Tu have you ever seen?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: It's terrible?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's terrible. My gosh, I've seen it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker 2: The Italian filmmaker wanted credibility, so they had to have
an American director.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Well, he was known for bringing on American directors so
that they get financing, then firing them, and then directing
it themselves. And so they fired Jim James Cameron during
the middle of the production. Oh man, But because James
Cameron had no money, they even said, well, we know
we fired you, but.
Speaker 3: Can you make the poster for the movie.
Speaker 2: And he's an incredible artist, right, he is an incredible artist,
So he makes the poster, He draws the poster for
So he.
Speaker 1: Had worked on a few movies other than Pirana Tuo.
He he'd worked on on Exogenesis, He'd worked on Rock
and Roll High School. He actually worked as a special
effects guy for John Carpenter's Escape from New York.
Speaker 3: Did he okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So while he's going through this horrible experience on
Pirana two, he's having nightmares. He's having nightmares about a
hit man who is coming to try to kill him,
and he can escape from the hit man, and the
hit man is from the future.
Speaker 2: This robot hit Man, which he later writes into a
screenplay called The Terminator, which we're going to talk about
here in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Yep, So Terminator, Terminator two coming up in a couple
of weeks. They are all married together, these four films.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be hard to unpack all this that.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put them all together. So he develops this
script idea. He gives it to this girl that he
knew from working with Roger Corman. Her name is Gail
Ann Hurd, and she's like, I think I can get
this made into a movie. So we won't go into
the history of Terminator too much because we've got that
one coming up. But safe to say, they get it
green lit. They get Arnold Schwarzenegger as their star player
in this movie. But then Dino de la Reentes sticks
his nose in and says, I have preemptive rights, and
Conan the Barbarian is successful, and we are going to
make ConA and the Destroyer, and so you can't have
him yet, right, and so they're stuck. They've got to
wait for like nine months, and so he doesn't have
enough time to make a movie. But he's had these
guys from brandy Wine Productions hit him up about writing
a script, and that's how he ends up writing the
script for the movie Aliens.
Speaker 2: Remember Dino de Larentis flashback to our Flash Gordon episode. Yeah,
Flash Flash, that's right. But imagine being a first time
director and you land Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, and then some
big name bozo from Flash Gordon decides that Nope, I'm
gonna flex my muscles and he's gonna make my movie.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to wait. Yeah, So that opens up
a pocket.
Speaker 2: Of time where he can't really make a movie, but
he can take on a writing project. And that's when
Fox comes to James Cameron and said, you know what,
we really like what we read in your script about
the Terminator. Why don't you give a stab at at Aliens?
They also say why don't you give a stab at
Rambo Part two, which he does as well. So he
writes Aliens, but he.
Speaker 3: Doesn't finish it.
Speaker 2: He writes the first ninety pages. The president of twenty
Century Fox, his.
Speaker 3: Name is Lawrence Gordon.
Speaker 2: He reads the first ninety pages and he's like, this
is amazing.
Speaker 1: We will wait for a movie.
Speaker 3: Studio to do that. That's really unheard us, right, And
this is his quote. I thought this is great.
Speaker 2: He said, in this business there are those decisions that
you agonize and you lose sleepover. But this was so obvious.
This was a no brainer. Everything about him spelled right.
Speaker 3: Guy nice.
Speaker 1: So here's what has confused me until just today, actually
is when I discovered the answer to this is why
didn't they have Ridley Scott come back and direct? Why
didn't they Well the answer is, we don't know. They
just didn't ask him. I mean, that's it. That's flat
out it. I mean it's you know, like the movie
came out in eighty six, so they're they're going through
this process in eighty five. That's six years later. He's
moved on. He's not a big fan. This is his quote, right,
this is Ridley Scott. Here he says, interestingly enough, I
was never asked to do the sequel. Maybe because I
was such a tough guy when I was doing it,
they didn't want me back. But I was also in
the habit of not wanting to do a sequel either,
so I would have never done it. Well, that's what
he said in twenty nineteen. Before that, he had put
it a little more simply, I was really pissed off,
frankly that they didn't ask me. I understand that they
just didn't ask, and who knows what their motives were.
And I can see if Fridley was the guy who's like,
screw you, we're not going to go talk about ideas
for production. We're bringing an hr Geiger and that's the
end of the story and we're going to go start
filming now. He is that tough guy. He's guy who
got Gladiator green lit with thirty pages and scripts. Maybe
they didn't want to work with that guy anymore. Maybe
they wanted to work with the new guy who they
thought they could push around a little bit. But they're
probably wrong about James Cameron in that respect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, James Cameron is no pushover himself. Here's the thing
with James Cameron. Most people don't understand. He's so talented
that he knows your job. He can do your job
better than you. I mean, he's an incredible artist. He's
an incredible filmmaker. He writes screenplays, and he worked as
like the behind the scenes guy in every job position.
Speaker 1: He's painted Waltz.
Speaker 3: He painted a.
Speaker 2: Big mac styrofoam McDonald's burger holder on the wall to
save money. So this guy has done everything and you Jackweed,
who are screwing around over there. I could do your
job better than you. Move over right, here's the deal.
So the Alien people decide to wait twenty sent Trick
Fox says, we love what you're doing, Terminator, we love
the script for Aliens. We're gonna wait, and James Cameron says, well,
that's great. When I get done with Terminator, can I
direct Aliens? And they're like, well, why don't we just
see how Terminator goes first?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Well, Terminator's this fantastic movie. It's a huge success. It
was made on the cheap. Yeah, And so they came
back and they're like, hey, remember you guys said we
could do this right.
Speaker 1: But when they say that, everybody else, all James Cameron's
friends are like, don't do this right, and he's like
what He's like, I was a fanboy, like I loved
the movie Alien and love Ridley Scott's take on it,
and I was excited to do it. But people were like,
if you do this, everything that's good about the movie
people are going to attribute to Ridley Scott and everything
that's bad about the movie they're going to attribute to you,
and he's like, I don't care. It's going to be
really cool, so I really want to do it. I
mean this like me, if I was making a movie,
I'm like, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were offered the opportunity to direct
the sequel to one of the movies that you hold
deer in your heart, nobody's going to talk you out
of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Alien turns out to be one of
the greatest horror movies of all time, right, and James
Cameron is known as one of the best action directors
of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what he that's what he does is
he's like, I don't think I can out horror Ridley
Scott's Alien. I can't do it. It's too it's too
well paced. And I mean this, I'll talk about this
more when we get into production on Alien. But it
is slow, slow, punch in your face, slow, slow scream
in your face, and it's it's the perfect horror combo.
It lulls you into this kind of relaxed state and
then it scares the crap out of you. And James
Cameron said, I'm not going to try to outdo that.
I don't want to make a sequel to it. I
want to make part two of the story. Right. And
the only instruction he was given by those guys when
they said go write the script was Alien plus Soldiers.
And he's like, action, I got I can do action. Yeah,
I can. I know how to do action. So we're
not going to make a horror movie. We're going to
make it action movie. And that's exactly what Aliens is.
Speaker 3: Wow, we ready tak cast.
Speaker 1: Let'stock cast.
Speaker 3: Okay, will let's.
Speaker 2: Foot back to Alien the original Alien and talk cast.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we've already talked about Tom Scarrett, right. He
played the part of Dallas, one of the first guys
that got cast. He had spent four years with the
US Air Force after finishing at UCLA.
Speaker 2: His call sign was viper I believe.
Speaker 1: Very good. I know you get that reference. Thank you.
He had done. It's interesting these guys have all done
like these old you know, nicked night style shows. He
was on My Favorite Martian at some point. Whoa. Yeah,
he was in mash he was in Harold and Maud.
He played Strawberry in the movie Up and Smoke and
so he gets the part of Dallas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know who he got it over. No, they
offered it to Harrison Ford.
Speaker 1: Get the heck out Harrison Ford. In nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: This is right after Star Wars had come out right
and he had done just a few things. He basically
was known as Han Solo.
Speaker 3: Yep, you know who else? They asked Tommy Lee Jones.
Speaker 1: Ooh yeah, I could see that too.
Speaker 3: When they went to Tommy Lee.
Speaker 2: Jones, they said, hey, we want you to read the script.
We think he'd be good for this guy named Dallas.
He reads the script, He's like, I'll tell you what
I do. Like one of the parts. I won't to
be the alien. They're like, man, nope, and he's like,
well then I'm out.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, okay, We've got a Sir John Hurt playing
the part of Cain, the guy whose chest burst open.
He had done He had done a lot of Shakespeare stuff.
He had done a Man for All Seasons. He had
played Caligula and i Claudius. He was the voice in
the animated Lord of the Rings of Aragon Strider.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: He played He also voiced Hazel and watershiped down the
Old Scary Rabbit cartoon. Yes, and of course he reprised
this role later on Spaceballs. Oh no, not again.
Speaker 2: Hello my honey, Hello, my baby. Hey, he got this
job over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the original guy that they hired I believe his
name is John Finch. Okay, so they had hired a
guy to play his part. That guy got sick, started
having cramps. Just no, but he had gotten sick and so.
Speaker 1: He had to be.
Speaker 2: So they called him on a Friday and said we
need you on set Monday morning. Okay, note that because
that takes place in Aliens as well. Okay, So John
Hurt comes aboard and is hired over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Okay. Then they have Sir Ian Holme playing part of
Ash probably interesting who was in the other Lord of
the Rings as spread up. He had also he was
a Shakespeare guy. He had also been in the British Army.
He was a lance corporal there. But Alien was his
first major film role. But I mean, we've seen him
in a ton of stuff, right. Yeah. He goes on
to do Brazil, and he was Polonius in Hamlet, and
then of course he is Bilbo Baggins in the Lord
of the Rings trilogy and a little bit in The Hobbit.
Speaker 2: He also reprises his role as Ash in the video
game Alien Isolation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I noticed that almost all of these actors come
back in for the video game. Next in line, we
have a yff at Koto. This is a commercial ship,
not a domestion ship. Right, it's not in my contract
to do this kind of duty. Who's Llames Parker? But really, yeah,
he took his dad's name. He just died last March.
Just kind of tragic. But do you know what movie
he was the bad guy in? Liv Die?
Speaker 3: He was the bad guy and Live and Let Die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a pretty awesome part. And he's done.
He's done quite a bit of other stuff. Was in
Hawaii five. Oh, and he was considered for the part
of John Luke Icard when they did Star trek New
Really Next Generation, Yeah, I lost out to Sir Patrick Stewart. Interesting,
all right, and then we've got one of my favorite guys.
Like there's a quote I think it was I think
it was by Roger Eberth that says, if Harry Dean
Stanton has a part in a movie, it's probably a
good movie. And it's pretty solid. Harry Dean Stanton played
the part of Brett back to the Old Friezeros. He
also served in the Navy in real life, and he
was in World War Two. Actually was a cook during
the Battle of Okinawa. He was in Cool Hand Luke.
He was in Godfather Part two, and as far as
those nickod Knight shows goes, he was in Have Gun,
We'll Travel. He was Jack Nicholson's best man in nineteen
sixty two. Wow, how about that?
Speaker 2: For that?
Speaker 1: It is cool deep cuts.
Speaker 2: So here's what he said when he met Ridley Scott
for the first time. Okay, so they asked him to
come read for this part. Movie is called Alien or
star Beast. I'm not sure what it was called at
the time. Right, this is what he said when he
walks in. Not hey, how are you not good to
meet you? He says, I don't like science fiction or
monster movies.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: He's like, well, that's okay because you're kind of playing
a trucker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the space Trucker movie. And then who
is cast and the part of Ellen Ripley but Veronica
Cartwright that's right, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh it's money right towards you.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, it was a total shock. So Veronica Cartwright
was not originally cast as Lambert. She was cast as Ripley.
And it was literally right before they started making this
movie that suddenly she got her parts changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she didn't even know until she showed up for
like the first day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ridley Scott switched the roles. But she ended up
getting the Best Supporting Actress Award Saturn Award on this movie,
so that it's not a bad switch. She had been
on Leave It to Beaver when she was a little girl. Wow,
she was in the Birds, which is pretty impressive Alfred Hitchcock, right,
And she had started to become famous again in her
adult years, as in an Invasion of the Body Snitchers,
which she did right before this movie. Interesting, So the
person that ultimately gets cast as Ripley is this young
actress named Sigourney Weaver.
Speaker 2: Listen to me, if we break quarantine, we get old
USh y'all be the damn hatch. We have to get
him inside. I belave you.
Speaker 1: The answer is negative. Yes, her name is Susan.
Speaker 3: Her real name is Susan.
Speaker 1: Yes, my son, my sixteen year old is When we
were talking about that movie, he was like, her name
is Sigourney. Really, like, some parents saw a little cute
little baby and they went, oh, let's name it Sigourney.
Speaker 3: He's got a point.
Speaker 1: No, that's not what happened. They named her Susan. But
she decided, you know what, I don't like the name Susan.
I like the name Sigourney. It up from Great Gatsby.
Speaker 3: I think the Great Gatsby. That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's the interesting thing about that. Yeah, not only
does she beat out Veronica Cartwright for that part, she
beat out Meryl Street.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: And Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver went to college together.
They both went to Yale. They were both in the
old drama department. Yeah, and they both like Sigourney Weaver
was the She was always kind of the other girl, right.
Meryl Streep was like the prom queen and you know,
the main person, and so she was always kind of,
you know, second. But she beat Meryl Streep out for
this part.
Speaker 1: Nice. So Sigourney Weaver hit five foot ten and a
half inches when she was eleven years old. She could
have played the alien. Yeah. Her dad is Pat Weaver,
who was president of NBC from nineteen fifty three. To
nineteen fifty five and created the Today Show. Her uncle
Doodles Weaver.
Speaker 3: Doodles Weaver was.
Speaker 1: A comedian and a contributor to Mad magazine.
Speaker 3: Wow Yeah versus Yeah.
Speaker 1: She had had a small part in Annie Hall before
she got cast in the movie Alien, but I'm so
glad that she ended up getting switched out with Veronica carbon.
Speaker 2: All Right, we got one other person we got to
talk about. Okay, not Jonesy, not the cat Jonesy. We're
talking about the guy who played the alien.
Speaker 3: Dallas.
Speaker 2: Yes, Bellagie, but day Yo, it's easy for you to say, well,
here's the deal. Yeah, I don't know very much about him.
I know he's from another country. He's from Nigeria, and
he's seven foot one in the costume.
Speaker 1: In the costume, he was seven foot one. His real
height was six', ten which is STILL i, mean once
you get past like six, six who cares? Anymore?
Speaker 2: Right not sure why he wasn't playing professional, basketball but,
yeah so he beat Out Peter. Mayhew oh, wow who
you know better As.
Speaker 3: Chewbacca?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, yeah he was discovered in a, Bar like
they found him just somebody was in a bar and they're,
like holy, cow look at that. Guy he is six
foot ten inches tall and probably weighs one hundred and fifty.
Pounds he was so. THIN i think that's probably Why
mayhew didn't get the, part is he was a little
beef of your. Guy but they needed somebody who it
looked absurd how long and slender the appendages, were and
this was their. Guy he didn't do anything else after.
This he was a graphic. Designer he was like studying graphic,
design ended up becoming a graphic. Designer tragically died at
thirty six years old from sickle cell An.
Speaker 3: India oh that's.
Speaker 1: Terrible, yeah, okay so we're ready to talk about casting
for the Movie.
Speaker 2: Aliens let's talk casting On, aliens all.
Speaker 1: Right the first thing That i've got to say IS
i WATCHED i Watched aliens again this, morning AND i
looked at the opening, credits and it is a travesty
That Jeanette goldstein is not in the opening credits with
all of the other. Actors WHAT i, know, like she
is one of the most compelling characters in the. Movie
she's in the movie longer than almost everybody else except
for our main like four. Folks she her name doesn't
even show up at the beginning it's. Tragedy. WOW i
loved she. Was she was eye magnet for. Me like
every time she was on, SCREEN i was. Engaged and,
yes she's, pretty but she just she had a toughness
and a coolness about. Her and she played the part.
Speaker 2: Fantastic So Jeanette, goldssee you might as well talk about.
Her she plays the part Of. Besquez, yes, Yo, besquez
kick ass. Right have you ever been mistaken for a? Man?
Speaker 1: No have you?
Speaker 3: Right she plays super. Tough you only need to know
one thing where they.
Speaker 1: Are.
Speaker 2: Yeah but WHEN i Watched Jeanette goldstein in her, interviews
she's very, soft very, SWEET i mean soft, spoken.
Speaker 1: Nice even Clean american. Accent, yes she doesn't have a
hint Of hispanic accent in.
Speaker 2: Her they tanned her, up they gave her brown contact,
lenses they cut her hair, short, yep and gave.
Speaker 3: Her a bandana and told her to Act. Hispanic you,
know she nailed it and to act freaking.
Speaker 1: Tough, yeah and SHE'S i mean the guns that those
guys were carrying around they weighed like fifty. POUNDS i
mean they picked her in part because she was pretty
buff at the. Time that she actually she was. Buff
there's this rumor going around that she auditioned for the
part because she thought the Movie aliens was about illegal,
aliens and that's how that line got in, there, right,
right somebody said an.
Speaker 2: Alien she thought they said illegal aliens signed.
Speaker 1: Up BUT i think that's a. Mess.
Speaker 2: Yeah she is the person who's, like, no that's not.
Speaker 3: True that was in the.
Speaker 1: Script.
Speaker 2: Yeah she did, say, however that she came to the
audition not fully, prepared and so she had lipstick and
makeup and she looked pretty and dressed up, heels and
everybody else had on fatigues and everything. Else, Right she's, like, whoops.
Speaker 3: So, Aliens.
Speaker 2: Yes Jim cameron's, like this is the story Of, Ripley,
Right we've got to Have Sigourney weaver come, back going
out there to destroy, them, right not to, study not
to bring, back but to wipe them.
Speaker 1: Out that's the. Plan you have my word on, it.
Speaker 2: All, Right i'm, in, yes, Okay And Sigourney weaver, says you,
KNOW i don't really like to do. Sequels but when
she read, it she's, like this is. Fantastic, Yeah i'm.
Speaker 3: Game i'm.
Speaker 1: In, yeah it's. Interesting like she went to him and
talked to him about his, script and she didn't have
a problem with the stories, storyline but she was, LIKE
i feel Like Ellen ripley would not say or do
some of these. Things And James cameron went with, it
like he was, like you know the character better THAN i, do,
probably so, Yeah i'm willing to make those. Changes so
he changed his script to fit with what she perceived
as the character Of Ellen.
Speaker 2: Ripley he said that she was like unbending on certain
words that she would say in certain. Sentences but on
the other, hand she's, like you really nailed The ripley.
Character so he's, like.
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yes so she wanted a million bucks to Do aliens
And fox Said, nope not doing. It, Okay So James cameron's,
like come.
Speaker 3: On, guys this is the story Of.
Speaker 2: Ripley we have to Have Sigourney. Weaver so he devises this.
Plan so they come to him and they're, like, no
you got to figure out a way around. This so
he calls his new buddy's, Agent Arnold. Schwarzenegger he calls
his agent and he's, like, LISTEN i don't Think fox
is going to go for This Scorny weaver. Thing she's
asking for you a million, bucks and So i'm just
gonna have to totally write her out of the. Story,
well her agent was at that, firm and they were,
like he's, like wait a, minute wait a, minute let
me let me make some. Calls he's, like, no, no, no, no
it's already been it's already been. Decided i'm just going
to ride her out and do something else because they won't,
ben they won't pay. Up And Arnold swarzenegger's, boss, listen,
man let me let me make some. Calls so by
this time on Our Schwitz nager and his agent had
a lot of. Clocks, yeah and so they were, like,
listen they Call. Fox fox Calls sigourney, says we've rethought
that you're worth. It she Calls jim and says thank.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: Wow so he he pressed.
Speaker 1: Them and got, it got, her wrestled a little, bit
a little bit of a. HUSTLE i like. IT i like.
Speaker 3: It they Hired Bill, paxton.
Speaker 1: Maybe have been keeping up on current.
Speaker 3: Events, well he just got arrasses kick.
Speaker 2: Pal he had Done Weird. Science he was a friend
Of James cameron and they wanted him to do the
part Of.
Speaker 1: Hudson he thought he tanked the audition. Too he thought
he was, LIKE i was too over the. TOP i
just KNEW i had messed it.
Speaker 3: Up he.
Speaker 2: Said they gave him a mailing tube and said this
is your pulse.
Speaker 3: Rifle go, yeah, yeah a few, Men oh you want?
Speaker 1: Some you.
Speaker 2: Know he did that whole thing and then he. Left
he's like that that.
Speaker 1: Sucked, yeah and then he got a.
Speaker 3: Call then he got a.
Speaker 2: Call they also Hired Paul, riser who is a, Comedian,
yeah to play the. Villain maybe we could build a,
fire sing a couple of.
Speaker 1: Songs. Huh. Yeah he's if you want a villain that
you're surprised as the, villain he's great because he's got
he's got a sweet. Demeanor he's got a sweet face
that you, know he's he's never picks up a, gun, Right,
yeah he's just this, easy go lucky kind of everything's
going to be, Okay we're going to be all. Right
he's that, guy except he's a, snake.
Speaker 2: Right he, said when he watched this on the, screen
his mother was with. Him, yeah and at the end
of it she.
Speaker 3: Smacked him in the.
Speaker 1: Head, ah that's.
Speaker 2: Hysterical they also Hired James, reemar who you may know
from the movie forty Eight, Hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah Which Walter hill was the director of forty Eight,
hours one of Those brandywine.
Speaker 2: Guys, Right, yes, yes he plays the part Of.
Speaker 1: Hicks no he, doesn't well he.
Speaker 3: Does for one.
Speaker 2: Second he's actually on screen very very. Briefly, okay you
can actually see. Him they ended up having to fire.
Him rumor was that there was creative, differences but basically
he had an alcoholic drug. Problem oh so they let him. Go,
Okay but there is one scene in the movie where they're, like,
hey That's James rumer right.
Speaker 3: There but his it's his.
Speaker 1: Back. Okay so the guy that actually Played. Hicks this
is the story that we've referred to earlier where it's,
like hey you got your?
Speaker 3: Passport, Yeah Michael bean allowed to keep this handy for close.
Speaker 1: Encounters.
Speaker 2: Yeah he had starred In The terminator As reese, yep
and he had a working relationship With Jim. Cameron they
needed somebody right this. Second they called him. Up Gillen
heard called him and said do you have your?
Speaker 3: Passport and he's like.
Speaker 2: Yeah she's like, great be In London monday.
Speaker 3: Morning you got a park right?
Speaker 1: Now all these other actors had been training military style
together for weeks and they had trained with this other,
guy and Then bean shows up and he's, LIKE i
didn't have to do.
Speaker 3: ANYTHING i Guess i'll just. Act.
Speaker 2: Yeah here's the here's the interesting one THAT i Think
Al matthews.
Speaker 3: All, right, sweethearts you heard the, man and you know
the drill assholes and elbowsts and come, here come.
Speaker 1: Here, yeah, yeah, yeah he plays Al.
Speaker 3: Apohem, yes he was in The.
Speaker 1: Marines he was in The, marines and he was a
sergeant in The. Marines he was one of the first
black men, promoted maybe the first to some position of.
CORPORAL i can't remember what it. Was but here's the
interesting thing that was going. On they were Filming Full
Metal jacket at the same time that they were filming this,
movie and they were like close, together, Right and In
Full Metal, jacket you've got Our Lee emery's first, performance
and he also was a military, guy playing a military.
Sergeant and in both movies they say asses and, elbows
asholes and.
Speaker 3: Elbows, yes.
Speaker 1: Sorry and so those, guys like the guys From Full
Metal jacket and the guys From aliens would get together
and party after shooting in the evening they would hang out.
Together it's. Fantastic this is.
Speaker 2: Hilarious SO i had a friend who was telling me
That Al matthews is now a gospel, singer right, yeah
AND i was rolling through some of his greatest. Hits,
right every day in The marines is like a, parade,
right look into my.
Speaker 3: Eye but his best hit is.
Speaker 1: Assholes i'm just, kidding all. Right So William hope is
the guy who Played Lieutenant gorman The. Pandejo. Right, yes
he had actually gotten cast in full metal jacket but
turned it down to go be an. Alias. Okay and
then we also Have Lance, hendrickson who played the part Of.
BISHOP i may be, synthetic But i'm not. Stupid Lance
hendrickson had been In pirana.
Speaker 3: Two he played the.
Speaker 2: Sergeant or the sheriff In pirana. Two oh, Yeah James.
Speaker 3: Cameron in order to make him look like a.
Speaker 2: Sheriff, yes they found a save The whales button that
became a sheriff's.
Speaker 1: Badge oh my, god total the b. Movie so he
had actually said he had made a little promise to.
Himself he, says if this movie doesn't make me, Famous
i'm going to quit. Acting, yeah like at This i'm.
Done i've had ENOUGH b movie. Roles i'm done with
acting unless this is a big. Success and well it's
his biggest.
Speaker 2: Success he was In Stone cold With Brian.
Speaker 1: Bosworth oh, Happy. Okay and then we have for the
part Of little newt Little Egyptian goddess of The. Sun
her name Is.
Speaker 2: Rebecca nobody calls Me, rebecca he, said my.
Speaker 3: Brother her name Is.
Speaker 1: Carrie.
Speaker 4: Hun we better keep dack because it will be dark.
Speaker 1: Soon and they mostly come at night. Mostly.
Speaker 2: Yeah and she had no acting. Experience they need to
find somebody who could Do. American her dad was stationed over.
There he was in The Air. Force.
Speaker 3: Yep her mother Was. English.
Speaker 2: Yep every kid who came in and read had done like.
Speaker 3: Commercials.
Speaker 2: Yeah and So Gaila hurd said that they would deliver
a line and then smile and.
Speaker 1: Smile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, No kelly, cereal it's.
Speaker 1: Great it's frosted plates. Man. Yeah, so but she hadn't
had any acting, experience but ends up going over there to,
audition and she doesn't know that she's supposed to smile
at the, end and so she. Doesn't, yep and that
gets her the. Part. Yep her Little british accent comes
through every once in a while during the.
Speaker 3: Movie she has a distinct.
Speaker 2: Accent, yep you can hear. It and my wife AND
i say this to each other all the. Time it's
one of her most quotable. Lines it's, uh they only
come out.
Speaker 3: At night mostly mostly.
Speaker 2: Mostly so anytime we say, mostly it turns into.
Speaker 1: That. Yeah so That Carrie hen was that, actress but
she didn't do anything. Else she went on to become
like An english.
Speaker 2: Teacher she's a fourth grade. Teacher she teaches kids who
are newts. Age there you, go, Yep Rebecca.
Speaker 1: Jordan, okay there's one guy who we haven't, mentioned BUT
i just GOTTA i gotta throw it out. There, Okay,
Okay so in the beginning when she's When ripley is
in the boardroom trying to tell everybody what's, happened and
they're accusing her of wasting you, know forty two pajillion
dollars or. Whatever, right the boardroom, guy like the main
executive guy Is Paul. Maxwell, okay do you Remember Last.
Crusade he's on the ship and he Gets Harrison ford
gets punched in the face and they're fighting over this. Cross, Yeah,
yeah the guy in the white hat who's like The,
king bad, guy same.
Speaker 3: Guy it belongs in a. Museum so do you Don?
Jones that?
Speaker 1: Guy that? Guy, wow that is.
Speaker 2: Awesome, yeah that's a good one right.
Speaker 1: There thank. You, Okay so next week we will get
back into production and talking about the storylines and the
deep meaning behind these two movies and their complete, awesomeness
and then we'll talk post, production and then we will
move on To terminator Versus terminator to come.
Speaker 2: Back next week we'll finish up and give our final.
Speaker 3: Judgment what's?
Speaker 4: It Man Game?
Speaker 2: Over Man Game?
Speaker 4: Over