1. This is Jim Cameron.
I wrote and directed this film back in '83,
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2. and directed it in '85 through '86.
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3. It was released in the summer of '86.
July 17th, if I'm not mistaken.
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4. It started as a treatment.
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5. I was having a meeting with David Giler
and Walter Hill, talking about another project,
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6. and that pitch was not going very well.
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7. I could tell by their sagging expressions
that they didn't like any of my ideas.
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8. But they had read my Terminator script
and wanted to work with me on something.
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9. I was getting up
and making my way toward the door
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10. and David Giler,
one of the producers of the first film,
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11. said "We do have this other thing",
and I said "What's that?"
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12. He said "Alien 2. "
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13. And all the pinball machine lights and bells
went off inside my head
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14. but I maintained a straight face
and said "That could be interesting."
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15. And I suggested that I write
a quick treatment, a quick outline,
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16. just to give them an idea
of what I might do with it.
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17. So I raced home and stayed up for three days
straight, drank about eight pots of coffee
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18. and wrote a 40- or 50-page treatment.
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19. Really what I did was I adapted a story I had
already written, which was called Mother,
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20. which was an "alien on a space station"
kind of story.
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21. It had the power loader machine in it.
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22. I had written this treatment
a few months earlier.
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23. So I adapted it, dropped Sigourney's
character and a bunch of marines into it,
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24. and in that one quick stroke
created all the character names -
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25. Gorman and Hicks and Vasquez
and all those folks -
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26. and dropped it on them
a couple of days later.
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27. I think they felt like they'd hit the jackpot.
That was the film they wanted to make.
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28. So they authorized me to go ahead and start
writing the script. The problem was, that day
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29. I landed the job to write the script
for the second Rambo film.
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30. So I called them up
and asked David Giler what I should do.
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31. And he said "Don't be stupid.
Take both jobs." So I took both jobs.
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32. I also had to do a rewrite of my Terminator
script to start production in February,
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33. so I had a three-month period
where I had to write three scripts.
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34. So I decided that each script was gonna be
two hours long, so it'd be 120 pages.
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35. So I figured out the total page count,
whatever that is - I guess 360 pages.
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36. I divided the total number of waking hours
I had during that three-month period by 360
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37. and figured out how many pages
per hour I had to write,
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38. and then I just wrote
that many pages per hour.
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39. I'm Gale Anne Hurd. I produced Aliens.
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40. I'm Stan Winston. I created the creature
effects and the alien effects for Aliens.
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41. I remember Jim trying to figure out
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42. how he could make the beginning
of this movie impressive.
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43. He said he wanted to use a robotic laser.
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44. It was an afterthought
and it wasn't in the budget
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45. and I remember having the gall to say to him
"If you wanna use it, you have to pay for it."
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46. - And he did.
- Is that right?
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47. This robotic arm and the laser
came out of his pocket.
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48. I wanted a seamless blend
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49. from the end of the first film
into the beginning of the second film.
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50. I certainly wanted to honor all the things
that were good about the first film.
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51. So I went to school
on Ridley's style of photography,
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52. which was quite different from mine,
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53. cos he used a lot of long lenses, much
more so than I was used to working with.
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54. But the smoke, the backlight, the textures,
the way he forces the frame
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55. by putting a lot of equipment, machinery and
foreground pieces, I really studied all that.
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56. I wanted there to be a stylistic continuity.
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57. I also wanted to have
my own style grafted onto that
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58. so that I felt enough of a sense of
authorship to make it worth doing.
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59. This is Robert Skotak. I was
the visual effects supervisor on the film.
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60. My name is Dennis Skotak. I was supervising
director of photography on this project.
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61. This is Pat McClung.
I was the model-shop supervisor on the film.
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62. They're wearing
modified costumes from Outland,
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63. or the basic suit is from Outland and it's been
redesigned and they put some stencils on it.
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64. This is microglitter
and fuller's earth blown on there.
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65. I remember in this scene the batteries
in the flashlights kept going out.
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66. You would think
this would be an easy scene to do,
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67. but, as with everything in this movie,
it was harder than it looked.
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68. There are no easy scenes with Jim.
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69. There's that nice dissolve,
the contour of the earth matching her face.
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70. When we shot this, a matte painting
combined with miniature and perspective,
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71. there are some perspective gags
going on there.
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72. We used a clip of Sigourney's face
in the viewfinder
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73. to line up the curvature of the earth,
so we had a nice match.
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74. I wrote the piece obviously
with Sigourney in mind for the character.
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75. I was told she was on board and I should
just toddle off and write the film
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76. when in fact no deal
had been made with her whatsoever.
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77. So here was a script that was written
that everybody wanted to make,
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78. in which she was in every scene,
and they hadn't made a deal with her yet.
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79. That's why she got her first big payday
of her acting career.
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80. She got a million bucks,
which was a big deal.
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81. She might have been the first actress to get
a million dollars for a movie in movie history.
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82. It was all because it was mishandled
by the producers.
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83. She was the main character
and they hadn't made the deal.
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84. She was worth every penny of it and more.
When people saw the film, they realized that.
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85. I knew what a phenomenal actress
she was.
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86. I'd never met her. I had her picture up
while I was writing the script.
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87. I went off the character that
had been created in the first film,
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88. took her much further.
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89. Of course, this is Paul Reiser.
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90. I certainly had no idea what a great
comic actor he would prove to be,
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91. and certainly that's how people think
of him, not as a dramatic actor.
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92. I just read him in a lineup of actors
in the normal casting methodology,
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93. and I thought he was really interesting,
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94. that he could play this really sincere
but slightly smarmy guy
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95. who could then turn evil.
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96. This is a dream sequence,
but you don't know that yet.
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97. I remember from
the premiere screening of the film
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98. that the incomplete chestburster scene here
really got people cranked up and on edge,
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99. set the tone for the whole movie,
that you were here to be messed with,
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100. which is a good way to start off, I think.
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101. The way you get a cat to hiss like that
is you put another cat close to it.
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102. I had no idea. I didn't know
what you did to make a cat do that.
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103. But that's standard procedure. Bring a cat
it doesn't know close to it and it'll do that.
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104. This scene was shot really quickly.
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105. It was pretty much all handheld,
48 or 60 frames a second. I think 48.
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106. Then Sigourney had to loop all her lines
at slow speed, which is always odd.
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107. Our first effect in the movie.
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108. It's great, because it's what you expected
to happen and then it's not what you expect.
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109. She was actually under the bed
for that sequence.
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110. We built an artificial body from her neck
down. Someone is under the bed with her.
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111. I can't remember who the lucky guy was
that created the illusion of the chestburster.
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112. - Pushing its way through her.
- It sets up the character.
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113. This is her nightmare.
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114. You know that she never wants
to have to face it in real life again
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115. because she's haunted by it
in her dreams and her nightmares.
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116. This effect is
as if you're outdoors.
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117. When the camera dollies over,
you see it's just a video projection.
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118. The idea was that in outer space
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119. there would be places you could go to get
a feeling you were in a natural environment.
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120. So that plate behind her was shot
out in the garden at Pinewood Studios.
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121. It was a VistaVision plate.
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122. Originally, there was supposed to be a
birdhouse in the background in that garden,
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123. and she would have Jones on her lap
and a bird would fly in
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124. and Jones would jump up
and hit the screen
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125. and that's how the audience would find out
that she wasn't actually on the earth.
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126. This scene was cut
from the release version of the film,
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127. which became the source
of some controversy with Sigourney.
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128. She later said in print that she had based
her entire character on this scene,
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129. and she was devastated
when it was removed.
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130. At the time she first screened the film,
she told me she didn't like the scene,
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131. and then we wound up reading interviews
where she had a big problem with that.
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132. We didn't have a chance to talk about it
because of the postproduction schedule.
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133. We were working in England,
kind of in isolation.
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134. Even though I liked the symmetry of the fact
that she had had a daughter and lost her -
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135. that's Sigourney's mother,
so there's an interesting inversion here.
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136. She's looking at the face of her mother
but playing it as her daughter.
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137. As an actor, it allowed her
to work the connection.
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138. All my movies are love stories.
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139. This one is about parental love,
protectiveness and a sense of duty,
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140. and the ultimate sacrifice that a person
would make, given that sense of duty.
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141. That was a nice touch.
That was Sigourney's idea.
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142. This was one of
the seminal scenes in the movie
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143. and was one of the ones
that had to be deleted and omitted
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144. from the theatrical version
because of length.
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145. We didn't have multiplexes,
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146. and there were only so many showings
a day that you could have of a film,
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147. and we had to get it
no more than two hours ten minutes
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148. in order to get the maximum number
of screenings per day.
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149. Peter Lamont came up with a
simple and austere look for our future sets.
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150. I watched this film recently
and I was amazed at how little we see
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151. of the conventional future world,
as opposed to the spacecraft interiors.
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152. She's actually on Gateway Station here.
She hasn't returned all the way to earth.
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153. She never sets foot on earth in the whole
series of films, which is interesting.
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154. This is as close as she gets
until the end of the fourth movie,
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155. where she's re-entering the atmosphere.
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156. But this is earth
for all intents and purposes.
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157. This is everyday life
circa a couple of hundred years from now.
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158. And Peter came up
with a very spartan look.
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159. It's not overworked at all,
which I think was quite clever.
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160. We wanted to do it minimalist.
We didn't have her walking around corridors.
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161. We didn't create a world
because we weren't interested.
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162. We were interested
in the through-line of her story
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163. and her character's
dilemma and problems,
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164. the fact that she's not believed, that she
understands there's this great threat.
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165. The same applied to the costumes.
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166. We didn't wanna suggest a wildly
separated future from our present one.
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167. This might be one of the first science fiction
movies where men still wear coats and ties.
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168. The thinking was
people will still wear coats and ties.
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169. They may not look exactly the same.
We turned up the collar on the jackets.
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170. It's no big deal but it's a subtle change.
We wanted to have a place to go.
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171. We wanted the space environment once
they get to the colony planet to be exotic
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172. and so we didn't wanna overwork earth.
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173. We also wanted to understand
who these people were, and a suit is a suit.
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174. These characters are suits
and we wanted to reinforce that.
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175. If everybody's in Star Wars type costumes,
it's harder to relate to them as characters.
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176. I was thinking more of a writer
than a designer
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177. when I was making my picks
of what things should look like
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178. from amongst the suggestions
made by the costume designer.
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179. Denny, did they shoot
at 25 frames per second
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180. for all the video playback stuff?
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181. Do you remember?
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182. They did.
The 24-frame issue was messy.
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183. It can be done,
but it's such a big procedure.
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184. Shooting 25 frames per second
on the camera
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185. puts the video in sync
with the film camera very easily.
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186. There's a slight speed differential
but it's almost impossible to perceive.
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187. In Britain they have
a different television system,
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188. a 25-frame-per-second system.
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189. 625 resolution instead of 525.
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190. Later in the film
there's some video footage that was used,
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191. appearing on video monitors.
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192. But the PAL system is better than NTSC,
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193. which is our system here
in the United States.
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194. It almost looked like a slightly too fuzzy
version of film, sort of in between.
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195. It's not as good as it should be for film,
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196. but it wasn't obvious it was video.
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197. Jim realized and made
the video images noisier
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198. or break up more often
so it was more obvious.
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199. The tag of this scene
is gonna be a throw to this big sequence
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200. that takes place on the colony
which is before the aliens attack.
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201. That's cut out of the release version,
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202. so coming up is the biggest single change
from the release version of the film.
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203. It's an entire reel. I'll never forget Gale Hurd,
who was my wife and producer at the time,
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204. trying to shorten the film by 20 minutes.
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205. I just could not see how it was possible
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206. to do a cut here, a cut there, a few seconds,
a bit of a scene, the tag of a scene maybe.
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207. She said "I've been thinking
about this for days." I said "Go ahead."
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208. She said "Reel three." Which starts here.
"You can take out reel three."
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209. I immediately rejected that
as completely absurd.
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210. Then I thought about it.
Reel three ends with Newt's scream
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211. when her father
has the facehugger on his face.
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212. It works flawlessly. It's a brilliant cut
and I have to credit Gale with that.
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213. I had poured a lot of energy into the design
of these scenes and the alien derelict ship.
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214. The problem for me
was that I couldn't imagine this film
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215. without the cognitive tether
to the first film of the alien derelict,
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216. but it turns out that it works perfectly.
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217. A little dialogue bridge and it works fine.
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218. I like this tractor a lot,
this tractor with this articulated leg design.
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219. This is one of my favorite effects.
You see the big tractor driving by
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220. and in the background you see these people
struggling to put a tarp over that tractor.
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221. That was done in perspective.
There were full-size people back there,
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222. and a miniature in the foreground
with distance between.
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223. It put everything in camera all at one time
without any opticals or anything beyond that.
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224. The trick was that the actors had to act
at double their normal speed of acting,
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225. because the camera
was running at 48 frames per second.
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226. We had a Ritter fan on them
to really kick those tarps around
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227. in excess of what it would be in real time,
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228. but because we were overcranking,
that motion would then look normal.
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229. The multi-wheeled vehicle
at the beginning is a fifth-scale miniature,
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230. radio-controlled, that Jim designed.
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231. On the airplane coming over from
Los Angeles to London he just doodled it.
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232. Ron Cobb, I believe, fleshed it out.
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233. I always liked these guys.
I always liked this
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234. "I'm just trying to do my job.
I'm a working stiff in a situation."
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235. "The guys back home never know
what we're going through."
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236. We wanted the idea
that there were kids around,
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237. that the colonists had come
with their families.
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238. This is a connection to the first film.
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239. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation
was the big, bad, evil company
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240. that was responsible for everything
that went wrong in the first movie.
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241. So we just carried that tradition on.
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242. Ultimately, I think
that what this scene shows
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243. is that at that time I was not
- maybe never -
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244. as good as Ridley Scott
at what he does best.
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245. The suspense and the creation
of the atmosphere of this planet
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246. is done so much better by him in his film,
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247. and so, in a way, the removal of this scene
makes the picture stronger
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248. because it puts it more on its own turf.
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249. We tried to recreate the alien ship but I don't
think we were quite as successful as he was.
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250. In his film it was a major set piece.
In ours it was just a stop along the way.
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251. This derelict ship
had been in Bob Burns' driveway.
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252. He'd been given it by Fox
and it was starting to fall apart.
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253. We had to put it back together
and fix it up.
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254. Fortunately, though, it existed,
so it saved us a lot of model work
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255. because it was there and mostly intact,
rather than building from scratch.
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256. My name's Carrie Henn and I was Newt.
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257. My name's Chris Henn
and I was Tim Jordan.
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258. It's cool to see
what James Cameron had in mind,
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259. cos at the time
we didn't really know what was going on.
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260. Little did we know at this time
that our life would change
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261. when they came back from inside.
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262. That was the first time
we saw the facehugger,
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263. when we opened the door and we saw it
on Jay's - who played our dad - neck.
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264. I was really sad for my brother
that this got cut out,
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265. and for everyone watching it,
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266. because it shows everyone why I can't
stand the aliens, pretty obvious anyway,
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267. but you find out that my dad was the one
who brought it back to the colony.
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268. It shows how Sigourney and Newt
get the connection, too, as mother-daughter,
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269. and they have the same enemy.
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270. This was interesting,
cos it wasn't something we saw filmed.
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271. When it happened,
they just got out of the car and that was it.
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272. It ties it to the first one. It's the
same place they went in the first movie.
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273. We have another one
of our first creature effects
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274. that is like the introduction
of the facehugger.
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275. All of these things were so daunting
to me psychologically,
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276. because these had now
become iconic characters,
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277. the facehugger and the chestburster
and the warrior aliens.
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278. Of course, the queen was brand-new,
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279. but we also wanted each of these
to have their own life in this movie
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280. and at the same time
be legitimate to the original.
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281. So, to the very discerning eye, if you look at
the facehugger from the original, from Alien,
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282. and you look at the facehugger in Aliens,
there are subtle differences in the detail,
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283. more attention to detail
as far as the creature itself.
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284. - That was genuine scare.
- That freaked us both out.
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285. This is where James Cameron
asked me to scream for the first time ever
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286. and I screamed
and everyone stopped and stared.
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287. Could shatter glass
with her scream.
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288. I always liked that sound cut. We spent
a lot of time on the sound on this picture.
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289. The picture was mixed by Graham Hartstone
at Pinewood Studios in England.
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290. I remember mixing it for a long time,
I think seven weeks.
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291. There's some really nice sound work
and I learned a lot.
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292. My only prior experience with a mix was on
Terminator and that was done really rapidly.
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293. I'm thinking it was done
in four or five days.
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294. Not a sophisticated mix
and I knew nothing about it,
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295. so I learned an awful lot
from Graham and the Pinewood mixers.
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296. This is Bill Hope. He's a Canadian actor,
working in England at the time.
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297. So, again, here you see her whole world
is created by a pretty simple little set
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298. of a corridor and her little
efficiency apartment on the space station.
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299. It's not specifically stated,
but she's never made it back to earth.
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300. She's stayed on Gateway Station and got
a job as a dock worker, machine operator.
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301. Foreshadowing.
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302. "Running loaders and forklifts."
What does that mean?
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303. - I guess we'll see if we watch.
- This is exciting.
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304. I think the intention was that...
I am a child of the '60s,
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305. and the prevailing myth at that time
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306. was that the Vietnam War was all about
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307. protecting American business interests in
Asia. We wanted the evil corporation here.
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308. The idea is that the corporation
has the contract
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309. to establish colonies much in the sense
that the Dutch East India Company
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310. might have controlled
that whole area of the world
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311. and that colonial marines
don't work directly for them
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312. but are called in as a security force
whenever the interests of the parent country,
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313. wherever Weyland-Yutani is,
although it's probably a multinational.
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314. Your model for that is colonial America,
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315. or the Caribbean,
where the military were sent
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316. as security for the corporations
who were bringing back the wealth
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317. to the parent European countries.
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318. So it's probably
a very entangled relationship.
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319. The marines don't report to the company.
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320. You can see there is
a separate chain of command.
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321. They don't take orders from Burke, but Burke
makes very strong recommendations to them.
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322. So they definitely have a lot of clout.
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323. At the time I made the movie, I knew
diddly-dick about how big corporations work,
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324. so to me they were just
this big, shadowy entity.
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325. I know an awful lot more about it now.
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326. And I actually nailed it,
I think, pretty close.
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327. I think that if you look at places
of major corporate culpability,
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328. like, say, the Bhopal disaster in India,
where 3,000 people were killed
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329. because a major international corporation
cut corners on safety...
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330. There's many instances throughout history
where, just by negligence,
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331. corporations have been responsible
for many, many deaths,
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332. but always in distant, remote places.
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333. So if it's gonna happen,
it's gonna happen on a colony.
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334. Obviously, this is the heart and soul of
the movie, which is Ripley's internal demon.
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335. I think Sigourney's just great
in these scenes.
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336. Interestingly, Sigourney herself
had an issue with my take on her character.
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337. She didn't think that Ripley
hated the alien.
Copy !req
338. We had a long creative dialogue
and I said "No, she hates him."
Copy !req
339. She hates the alien
that killed her crew members
Copy !req
340. and put her through the most traumatic event
of her life, and wants to see them destroyed.
Copy !req
341. But I think the way I finally sold it to her
was - because Sigourney's very liberal -
Copy !req
342. that Ripley would want to prevent the trauma
she went through happening to anybody else,
Copy !req
343. and she knows
there are colonists on that planet.
Copy !req
344. So I displaced it outside of her,
Copy !req
345. when in reality I saw it
as a very straightforward revenge story.
Copy !req
346. But I think that was beneficial, because
that creative tug of war between us
Copy !req
347. actually caused me to think outside
of my limited box as a writer at that time,
Copy !req
348. and see that her motivation
was on a higher plane as well,
Copy !req
349. she was acting out of a sense of duty.
Copy !req
350. That spoke to some of the themes
I already had in the story
Copy !req
351. with respect to her relationship
with Newt.
Copy !req
352. Once she finds out that the colony is lost
Copy !req
353. and that battle is lost,
she really only has one thing to fight for,
Copy !req
354. and that's the little girl, the one survivor.
Copy !req
355. Her mission has been to help these people
avoid what happened to her and her crew.
Copy !req
356. The Sulaco. This was a Syd Mead
design that was fiberglass body.
Copy !req
357. Some of the detailing
was based on that Syd Mead sketch
Copy !req
358. and then Pat and Dennis and myself
did a lot of the fine detailing
Copy !req
359. for the front, the side, the top,
all the microscopic detailing.
Copy !req
360. This was not a particularly large model.
It was about five or six feet long.
Copy !req
361. The detailing we would do after hours
Copy !req
362. because we had to be on the stage to shoot
all this stuff, get everything organized,
Copy !req
363. and once everybody went home,
we'd go up to our little effects office
Copy !req
364. and start another shift of microdetailing.
Copy !req
365. It was so cold,
we were wearing our winter coats.
Copy !req
366. It was hard to move around
and use these tiny little Exacto knives,
Copy !req
367. and these pieces of plastic that were maybe
half the size of a comma on a textbook,
Copy !req
368. sticking them on meticulously,
one after the other.
Copy !req
369. So this was our biggest set,
I guess.
Copy !req
370. Or the biggest volume, I guess.
Copy !req
371. The hanging chains,
these little widgets and things,
Copy !req
372. this was all inspired by the tone and feel
of the opening scenes of Ridley's film.
Copy !req
373. We were trying to create that same sense
of the ship having its own life
Copy !req
374. and being an eerie, interesting place.
Copy !req
375. We had a big budget cut, or we had to save
money, and the budget for this set got cut.
Copy !req
376. Peter Lamont came up with a great idea.
Copy !req
377. There's a mirror at the end of the set
and another mirror behind the camera.
Copy !req
378. I think we only had three
of those hypersleep capsules.
Copy !req
379. I think we might have had four. We mirrored
them out to make them into 12.
Copy !req
380. If you're clever you can see where
the mirror is but I can't see it right now.
Copy !req
381. You can see there's two Vasquezes.
Copy !req
382. Another wonderful thing
about Jim and a Jim Cameron film
Copy !req
383. is this wonderful loyalty that he has
Copy !req
384. with people who have worked with him,
actors that have worked with him.
Copy !req
385. Carpenters. Bill Paxton was
a carpenter on Battle Beyond the Stars
Copy !req
386. and then one of the punks who loses his
clothes to Schwarzenegger in Terminator.
Copy !req
387. - Lance was going to be the Terminator.
- And then became the detective.
Copy !req
388. And Michael Biehn, of course.
Kyle Reese.
Copy !req
389. My name is Michael Biehn.
I played Hicks,
Copy !req
390. or if you've seen the DVD extended version,
that's Dwayne Hicks.
Copy !req
391. I'm Lance Henriksen. I played Bishop.
Copy !req
392. I'm Jenette Goldstein.
I played Private Vasquez.
Copy !req
393. And I'm Bill Paxton
and I played Private Hudson.
Copy !req
394. I just wanna say,
it's great to see you guys.
Copy !req
395. It's fun to get together every 20 years
and look at movies we were in.
Copy !req
396. - I'm sure they'll put that on the...
Copy !req
397. Seriously,
great camaraderie making this film.
Copy !req
398. - Look at Ricco.
- He's putting you all to shame.
Copy !req
399. I gave up early on trying
to have a physique against you guys.
Copy !req
400. That would have cut into my drinking time.
Copy !req
401. - I was doing those.
- Were you standing on a box?
Copy !req
402. - No. I'll say this once and for all.
- Look at that.
Copy !req
403. Spunkmeyer.
Copy !req
404. "In the pipe. Five by five."
I always liked the way she said that.
Copy !req
405. Actually,
those are the hard ones.
Copy !req
406. What did Mark have on there?
Copy !req
407. - I don't remember him wearing all those...
- Scars and bones.
Copy !req
408. I think Jim had put
the chin-up bar up there
Copy !req
409. to make the line "Anyone ever mistaken you
for a man?" work, cos in the T-shirt
Copy !req
410. no one would have mistaken me for a man.
He said "How can we make this line work?"
Copy !req
411. So he said "Can you do
behind-the-neck chins?" I said "Yeah."
Copy !req
412. Is this the scene
where you guys do the thing with the knife?
Copy !req
413. I remember saying at the time
"Jim, what about...?"Shut up, Michael."
Copy !req
414. Why did he put your hand on top of his?
Copy !req
415. What happened was that Jim had
wanted me to do it like a demonstration.
Copy !req
416. And we got right to the moment and I said
"Jim, this is really gonna be boring."
Copy !req
417. I said "What if I put my hand
on Billy's hand?"
Copy !req
418. And since I won't hurt anybody,
I would never hurt him,
Copy !req
419. it would make it more interesting.
Copy !req
420. I never understood what Bill was so
scared of, because his hand was underneath.
Copy !req
421. After the movie was done, we all
went out and partied and drank a lot of beer,
Copy !req
422. and I remember a voice
in the middle of the night saying
Copy !req
423. "You gotta come back because when
they sped up the film it looked phony."
Copy !req
424. Remember? We had to come back.
Copy !req
425. And that's when I caught
your pinky by accident.
Copy !req
426. Just barely touched it and he almost died.
Copy !req
427. I had to have
reconstructive cuticle surgery.
Copy !req
428. But, anyway,
it was more interesting on his hand.
Copy !req
429. This effect was one of the first
uses of this camera with a variable speed.
Copy !req
430. - Magic Cam?
- Yeah.
Copy !req
431. Which is used a lot now,
but it was a first here.
Copy !req
432. What's great about it is that
you could start out at 24 frames per second
Copy !req
433. and then the camera, without having to cut
and set up a separate camera,
Copy !req
434. would automatically adjust for a faster
or slower frame rate and then go back.
Copy !req
435. Change the aperture
while it was changing its speed.
Copy !req
436. Do you remember
Lance brought over his knives?
Copy !req
437. No.
Copy !req
438. I met Lance Henriksen at the airport
when he was coming over from the US.
Copy !req
439. They have much stricter
weapons laws in England.
Copy !req
440. He'd packed the knives that he'd been
practicing that effect with in his suitcase.
Copy !req
441. He said "I'm always the one
that they check to do the luggage search."
Copy !req
442. Going through customs
he said "Stick with me."
Copy !req
443. It was the first time
he hadn't had his luggage searched.
Copy !req
444. I thought "That's great. An actor
coming over here with concealed weapons."
Copy !req
445. Bishop, if you watch
the film again knowing the outcome,
Copy !req
446. he plays it completely innocent.
Copy !req
447. He plays it as this very helpful,
compassionate guy,
Copy !req
448. but he looks so sinister,
Copy !req
449. and you know enough about these synthetics
from the first film that you never believe him.
Copy !req
450. And the interesting thing is
he is playing it on the square
Copy !req
451. the entire way through the film.
Copy !req
452. So this starts off with a miniature
and pans off onto the full-size.
Copy !req
453. There's a foreground set piece
on the left that's a miniature.
Copy !req
454. It's another Skotak shot.
A forced-perspective shot.
Copy !req
455. I knew nothing about
the US Marine Corps at the time.
Copy !req
456. Although, while I was making this film,
my brother joined the marines
Copy !req
457. and was in for six years.
Copy !req
458. I now know a lot more about the marines and
they are more disciplined than these people.
Copy !req
459. I would like to apologize to any marines
listening that we did not get that part right.
Copy !req
460. These guys are definitely
Vietnam-era regular army,
Copy !req
461. toward the end of their tour kind of motif.
Copy !req
462. The film is obviously informed
by imagery from Vietnam,
Copy !req
463. the idea that they put painted flowers
on their helmets and things like that,
Copy !req
464. and there was a real discipline problem.
Copy !req
465. That was also amongst
a lot of draftees at that time.
Copy !req
466. So we're mixing our metaphors
a little bit here.
Copy !req
467. - Do you chew gum in every scene?
- I tried to.
Copy !req
468. If you watch my performance,
I'm always doing something.
Copy !req
469. It's all I could do in those days.
Copy !req
470. Everybody's archetypical in this thing.
Copy !req
471. I don't remember all the stuff
hanging off of Mark. Chicken bones.
Copy !req
472. - I look like a boy.
- That's what we liked about you.
Copy !req
473. Was this the day, Michael,
you were passed out by the lockers
Copy !req
474. and Sigourney walked by
and said "There's my leading man"?
Copy !req
475. Am I mistaken with another day?
Copy !req
476. Somewhere around in here.
Copy !req
477. - I had to audition.
- They made you audition for Fox.
Copy !req
478. No, it wasn't for Fox.
Copy !req
479. They had a limit on how many Americans
they could bring over.
Copy !req
480. So they auditioned
a lot of Englishmen for that role.
Copy !req
481. The casting director,
Mary Selway, and I had to meet
Copy !req
482. every member of the North American
registry from British Actors' Equity
Copy !req
483. who was interested in being in this film
before we could bring anyone from the US.
Copy !req
484. I think we must have met
and auditioned 3,000 people.
Copy !req
485. I encouraged the actors to
customize their own costumes and armor,
Copy !req
486. to give the impression they had been
out a lot, that they were seasoned,
Copy !req
487. that they had been away
from command authority on their own a lot
Copy !req
488. and were good enough at their jobs that
they were allowed these kind of latitudes.
Copy !req
489. This is a continuation
of the motif from the first film,
Copy !req
490. where they're wearing Hawaiian shirts
and all kinds of strange stuff,
Copy !req
491. all of which was a new idea
in science fiction.
Copy !req
492. People always wore uniforms on spaceships.
That's how it worked from Star Trek on.
Copy !req
493. Every science fiction film ever made,
there was the general-issue uniform.
Copy !req
494. Alien broke that mold
and it just seemed so right to people.
Copy !req
495. They recognized the archetype instantly.
"Oh, these guys are truck drivers."
Copy !req
496. "They dress however they want.
There's nobody to tell them not to."
Copy !req
497. And so the idea here
was extrapolated to a military unit
Copy !req
498. that's worked at the extreme fringes
of human civilization.
Copy !req
499. The power loader was not designed
by anybody in drawings per se.
Copy !req
500. I had done some preliminary drawings,
Copy !req
501. but it evolved basically from trying
to figure out how to make it work.
Copy !req
502. We built full-size mock-ups
of the arms and legs in foam core.
Copy !req
503. There's a guy inside that thing,
a big, strong English stunt man moving it.
Copy !req
504. It's supported by cables.
It's completely an on-set gag.
Copy !req
505. The English visual effects guys thought
we were crazy the way we wanted to do it.
Copy !req
506. I said "It's the gag where the dad
lets the daughter walk on his feet,
Copy !req
507. his three-year-old."
Copy !req
508. So standing behind Sigourney right now
Copy !req
509. is this big 270-pound
body-building English stunt man.
Copy !req
510. He's raising the arms himself
and he has in his hands
Copy !req
511. a control that allows him
to raise the forearm of the power loader.
Copy !req
512. And then when they walk,
they have to walk together.
Copy !req
513. The weight of the machine
is held by a crane which is off-camera,
Copy !req
514. or some kind of overhead track rig -
we had two versions of it.
Copy !req
515. If we didn't need the machine to turn,
we mounted it on a pylon, a boom-arm thing,
Copy !req
516. and if we needed it to pivot
we hung it on wires.
Copy !req
517. My kids remember all the dialogue
and one thing they did was "Bay 12, please."
Copy !req
518. And Newt's line:
"They're dead, all right? Can I go now?"
Copy !req
519. How about
"Get away from her, you bitch"?
Copy !req
520. The most classic line in the movie.
Copy !req
521. And obviously this was
another interesting idea that Jim had,
Copy !req
522. which was to use a Steadicam harness
that's normally used for holding a camera
Copy !req
523. to make a futuristic weapon out of.
Copy !req
524. Everyone said it couldn't be done, which is
at least at the beginning of Jim's career
Copy !req
525. typical of the response to Jim's ideas,
and then, of course, it worked beautifully.
Copy !req
526. These were aircraft vehicles.
Copy !req
527. They were the tow vehicles
that were used to bring jumbo jets, 747s,
Copy !req
528. to tow them in to the Jetways
at Heathrow Airport.
Copy !req
529. And then the skin was fabricated
by metalworkers locally in Slough, England,
Copy !req
530. which is near Pinewood Studios.
Copy !req
531. The basic framework
was an airport tug,
Copy !req
532. a vehicle that had four-wheel steering.
Copy !req
533. It weighed I don't know how many tons,
Copy !req
534. so they had to strip the body off
and strip a number of tons.
Copy !req
535. I think it was 72 tons.
It wound up being 28 tons when it was done.
Copy !req
536. The whole thing
was full of mechanisms.
Copy !req
537. When they open the door, there's nothing
inside. Now we cut to an interior set piece.
Copy !req
538. This interior is a cheat
because it's larger on the inside.
Copy !req
539. This amount of set wouldn't
have fit inside there,
Copy !req
540. but it's a movie cheat that works well.
Copy !req
541. Do you remember
when the ceiling of this collapsed?
Copy !req
542. I'm not sure if it was this scene
or one of the scenes later on,
Copy !req
543. but there was so much set dressing
hanging from the roof of the APC set
Copy !req
544. that at one point it collapsed.
Copy !req
545. - Look at Bill.
- This was my big speech.
Copy !req
546. - My big speech.
Copy !req
547. God, I stayed up late
trying to learn this thing.
Copy !req
548. - You used to work hard, Bill.
- I worked so hard.
Copy !req
549. I killed myself to make it work.
Copy !req
550. I guess it has to do with Jim
and my relationship with Jim.
Copy !req
551. - Your work ethic.
- That too.
Copy !req
552. But with Jim, it's peaked. You want it right
for him because he's a perfectionist
Copy !req
553. and you see how hard he's working.
Copy !req
554. These are all miniatures
built by Bob and Denny Skotak.
Copy !req
555. Fairly large miniatures.
Copy !req
556. When we shot this scene, Bill said "We're
on an express elevator to hell going down"
Copy !req
557. and the grips shook the set and the set
collapsed on us and split open my scalp.
Copy !req
558. So I'll always remember that line.
Copy !req
559. It caught fire and the roof came in
all on the same day.
Copy !req
560. And it hit Jim in the head.
I saw blood spurting out of his head.
Copy !req
561. It was where Sigourney was supposed to be
sitting, so it was good it hit Jim and not her.
Copy !req
562. - We'd have gotten a day off.
- Think they did that on purpose?
Copy !req
563. - No.
- I'm just asking.
Copy !req
564. At that point,
maybe they would've.
Copy !req
565. "In the pipe. Five by five."
My favorite line.
Copy !req
566. These shots, it's just me shaking
the back of the magazine of the camera.
Copy !req
567. The poor camera operator
had a bruise around his eye,
Copy !req
568. cos sometimes I'd whack the magazine too,
just to give it a sharp jolt.
Copy !req
569. This is all my shake of the camera.
Copy !req
570. The operator can't do it himself.
Copy !req
571. It just gets into this bouncy rhythm
if the operator tries to do it.
Copy !req
572. It has to be imposed from the outside and
then they fight it, which is the natural reflex.
Copy !req
573. Such a wonderful sound design
in this movie.
Copy !req
574. Much of which was generated
in our living room in England.
Copy !req
575. At the time, people really
weren't using synthesizers in England
Copy !req
576. to create sound effects for films, and we had
a Fairlight synthesizer in our living room.
Copy !req
577. A lot of the sound effects were generated
by Bob Garret, Randy Frakes and Jim
Copy !req
578. in our living room near Pinewood,
including the sound of the alien queen.
Copy !req
579. It really was a home movie.
Copy !req
580. The dropship evolved
in its design as it went along.
Copy !req
581. I came in on a Sunday during preproduction
Copy !req
582. and bashed a kit together out of a bunch
of model parts and pieces of foam core,
Copy !req
583. and spray-painted it gray
and gave it to Ron Cobb to draw up.
Copy !req
584. We had brought Ron Cobb to England
to help with some of the designs.
Copy !req
585. So Ron packaged it, as he called it.
He made it look better. This is a good scene.
Copy !req
586. One theme of the film
Copy !req
587. is that these soldiers
Copy !req
588. succumb to a technologically inferior enemy
that they don't know how to fight,
Copy !req
589. which is really a Vietnam metaphor,
Copy !req
590. where US forces got their butts kicked
by barefoot guys running through the jungle
Copy !req
591. because they didn't understand how to fight
that war, they didn't understand their enemy.
Copy !req
592. So Hudson's bragging scene here
plays into that.
Copy !req
593. They're cocky. They think they can handle
anything because they've got the fire power.
Copy !req
594. Bill was so wonderful in this,
such a memorable character.
Copy !req
595. And when you think
about all of this exposition
Copy !req
596. that's being delivered
in a really entertaining way.
Copy !req
597. All of this military jargon.
Because the characters are so distinctive.
Copy !req
598. They don't just go right past you.
Copy !req
599. We were trying to go for
a transformer effect here,
Copy !req
600. where it deploys these weapons pods.
Copy !req
601. More handheld rear projection
to put you there.
Copy !req
602. What I had noticed from a lot of
science fiction films, even the first Alien,
Copy !req
603. was that you've got all this handheld,
claustrophobic stuff
Copy !req
604. and then you cut to the window shots
and they're just these static cutout mattes,
Copy !req
605. and it violates the flow.
Copy !req
606. So we wanted to have
continuity across those cuts,
Copy !req
607. so we decided to do all the views out
the windows as rear-projection handheld.
Copy !req
608. This is just
Copy !req
609. a regular Handycam, a regular 8 Handycam,
Copy !req
610. whatever the standard was at that time.
Copy !req
611. This landing
of the dropship was complicated
Copy !req
612. in terms of trying to hit a mark
while shooting at high speed.
Copy !req
613. The dropship was shot overcranked,
so the model had to be really moving fast
Copy !req
614. and those landing legs were fairly frail.
Copy !req
615. We would do take after take
and the landing legs would get crushed.
Copy !req
616. This film is not a wide-screen film.
Copy !req
617. If I did it again, I'd shoot it wide-screen
to be consistent with the first picture.
Copy !req
618. But I didn't like anamorphic
for the visual effects problems it created.
Copy !req
619. I'd had a bad experience
on Escape From New York
Copy !req
620. trying to do anamorphic visual effects,
so we decided to shoot 1.85.
Copy !req
621. I almost shot the film in Super 35,
Copy !req
622. but I got talked out of it by somebody
that didn't understand that format,
Copy !req
623. and then I wound up shooting
all my subsequent films in Super 35.
Copy !req
624. I still don't care for anamorphic.
Copy !req
625. You have problems with lenses shooting
miniatures, with depth of field,
Copy !req
626. there are problems in composite.
Copy !req
627. On Escape From New York
we didn't have much money
Copy !req
628. and we were inexperienced
in anamorphic,
Copy !req
629. so I didn't really have an alternative
that I considered viable at the time.
Copy !req
630. But now when I see the two pictures
back-to-back screened -
Copy !req
631. it doesn't make
too much difference on video -
Copy !req
632. I actually like the look of Alien better
because I just like the aspect ratio.
Copy !req
633. And I've come to know and love
the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Copy !req
634. The interesting thing
is that the first film was anamorphic
Copy !req
635. so it used more of the negative area.
Copy !req
636. This is a 1.85 picture.
Copy !req
637. In this exact year Kodak was in transition.
They were changing their emulsions.
Copy !req
638. This was a higher-speed negative
than had been used previously.
Copy !req
639. They hadn't worked out
their T-grain emulsion.
Copy !req
640. So it turned out grainier than I wanted.
Copy !req
641. But this was actually the standard,
just what that stock was that year.
Copy !req
642. Because we weren't using the full negative,
like with an anamorphic film,
Copy !req
643. we weren't getting
quite as much image quality.
Copy !req
644. If I had shot Super 35, it would have
looked terrible because of the graininess.
Copy !req
645. By the time I got ready to do The Abyss
a couple of years later,
Copy !req
646. they had improved the emulsions enough
that Super 35 looked pretty great.
Copy !req
647. I was surprised recently
at how grainy it was.
Copy !req
648. Nobody noticed the grain at the time
cos most films frankly looked like that.
Copy !req
649. Bill, isn't there dialogue
that you have on this
Copy !req
650. that people have used in video games?
Copy !req
651. Yeah, I think so.
"Game over, man" and things like that.
Copy !req
652. - You get anything for that?
- I don't think so.
Copy !req
653. I'm not even getting anything to sit here
and do this commentary.
Copy !req
654. They expect us to do it for no money.
Copy !req
655. You got a beer out of it,
though.
Copy !req
656. No, it's just fun.
Copy !req
657. I got a beer out of it, so that's cool.
Copy !req
658. This was an amazing set, this concourse A.
And it was long.
Copy !req
659. And later on when all hell's breaking loose,
Jim had that little video camera.
Copy !req
660. He had everybody on the crew
having coffee
Copy !req
661. while we would run at him
and do different things.
Copy !req
662. It was so amazing to see this gigantic set,
one of the biggest sets I'd ever seen,
Copy !req
663. and there's Jim by himself
with this little camera.
Copy !req
664. When did the bust-out almost
happen? He was gonna move the movie.
Copy !req
665. When did that happen?
Copy !req
666. I remember
there were some problems.
Copy !req
667. There were some union problems. The crew
weren't used to working the same way.
Copy !req
668. - With Jim.
- They weren't used to working.
Copy !req
669. That's unfair. They were craftsmen,
Copy !req
670. but they had an indentured way
of doing everything.
Copy !req
671. Jim needs something, he just grabs it. If he
needs a light moved, he'll grab it himself.
Copy !req
672. We punched a hole through somewhere
cos he needed to run a line.
Copy !req
673. He didn't wanna wait around.
He just said "Give me a hammer."
Copy !req
674. But this was an ambitious schedule.
Jim was running from stage to stage.
Copy !req
675. I think we had about three
big sound stages with giant sets.
Copy !req
676. And then there were two
sound stages with miniatures.
Copy !req
677. And then there was a stage
with all those tunnels.
Copy !req
678. I remember them putting you
in that damn tunnel.
Copy !req
679. That pipe.
Copy !req
680. We had gone to the power station
to shoot the atmosphere-processor scenes
Copy !req
681. and come back to the set
after it had been wrecked.
Copy !req
682. So we're into Adrian Biddle's
photography here. He was the second DP.
Copy !req
683. I encouraged Adrian, to save time,
to use as much built-in lighting as possible.
Copy !req
684. This is lit by the fluorescents in the set,
Copy !req
685. with just a little additional lighting.
Copy !req
686. Adrian liked to work on a raw and edgy look
and work with the practical lights a lot more.
Copy !req
687. This is another thing
that is important.
Copy !req
688. With a lot of science fiction movies
that are all interior,
Copy !req
689. you often lose track geographically of where
you are and it becomes incredibly confusing
Copy !req
690. and it's hard to build
the tension and the suspense.
Copy !req
691. Jim was aware of this from the script stage
and made sure that we established
Copy !req
692. through the helmet cams,
through the motion trackers, where they are,
Copy !req
693. and then ultimately, later on,
where the aliens are.
Copy !req
694. Even in this version,
you're left to fill in what happened.
Copy !req
695. We don't see the battle.
Copy !req
696. We'll see plenty of battles later
and this is promising you that.
Copy !req
697. We have a shot coming up here
where there were acid holes -
Copy !req
698. acid... holes...
Copy !req
699. eaten into the floor
by these so far unseen aliens.
Copy !req
700. And, of course, these sets
were not double-deck sets.
Copy !req
701. Jim wanted a scene where a character
looks down through one of these holes.
Copy !req
702. I think Bill spits down into it
to give some perspective.
Copy !req
703. So this down-view
we shot on our miniature stage.
Copy !req
704. We layered the set
and photographed that.
Copy !req
705. This is where you spit
and they did it in miniature.
Copy !req
706. - They even did a miniature spit.
- Is that what that is?
Copy !req
707. To get that spitting effect,
it was actually not spit.
Copy !req
708. It didn't work very well,
so it was a combination of milk...
Copy !req
709. Milk and water in an eyedropper
right underneath the lens.
Copy !req
710. The complaint
from the studio was that
Copy !req
711. the film went on too long
without anything really happening.
Copy !req
712. I was winding
Copy !req
713. the suspense tighter
Copy !req
714. before you actually saw anything.
Copy !req
715. The studio said we were just jerking around.
Too many movies that I see now,
Copy !req
716. it's all upfront. You start seeing stuff right
away and there's no sense of a build.
Copy !req
717. So this is the miniature APC
that was built by Bob and Denny Skotak.
Copy !req
718. Pretty good size.
I remember it being five or six feet long.
Copy !req
719. Most people don't twig that as a miniature.
That's the real APC pulling in.
Copy !req
720. They matched the lighting pretty nicely.
Copy !req
721. I think Jim did
some of his live-action stuff undercranked.
Copy !req
722. He ran the camera slightly slower
on the APC
Copy !req
723. so that it felt slightly more
as if it were a miniature
Copy !req
724. but you knew it was real because
you could see people interacting with it.
Copy !req
725. So if any of the miniature stuff
didn't quite work for whatever reason,
Copy !req
726. it took the curse off that cos it felt
that the two were blended together.
Copy !req
727. I think he wound up undercranking
Copy !req
728. because the APC, the full-size one,
didn't move as fast as he wanted it.
Copy !req
729. I think it could only go
eight or ten miles an hour.
Copy !req
730. One difficult thing about making this
movie was Terminatorwasn't out in England
Copy !req
731. and the perception of Jim Cameron, who
looked about 20 when he directed this movie,
Copy !req
732. and myself as the directing-producing team
was met with a great deal of resistance
Copy !req
733. because back then the system in England
was that you had to put in years and years
Copy !req
734. to rise up to the level
of being a producer or a director.
Copy !req
735. And we were simply not treated
with a great deal of respect
Copy !req
736. and it was very hard every day of the shoot.
Copy !req
737. We were being second-guessed
and every decision we made was questioned
Copy !req
738. and the tremendous thing, of course,
having Stan on the film was that...
Copy !req
739. - I was old.
- No.
Copy !req
740. .. was that you were
a cheerleader for both of us.
Copy !req
741. By demonstrating the respect
and enthusiasm that you did,
Copy !req
742. I think other people gradually relented.
Copy !req
743. I knew it was the best thing for me
and for everybody on that set.
Copy !req
744. There are people that you know, no matter
how they do it, what they're doing is special.
Copy !req
745. This particular directing-producing team
Copy !req
746. had been a win for me in my career
and stayed that way.
Copy !req
747. I never thought our facehuggers
looked as good as the one in Alien.
Copy !req
748. We had to make lots of 'em
and they had to run around and do things,
Copy !req
749. but, texturally,
the one in the first film looked great.
Copy !req
750. It really held up. The bits of oysters
and stuff inside it looked great.
Copy !req
751. But I did wanna see the disgusting thing
Copy !req
752. that had been down the inside
of Kane's throat in the first film.
Copy !req
753. You never see it in the movie, in Alien,
so I figured we'd gross everybody out.
Copy !req
754. All of Giger's designs
have a real sexual undercurrent to them.
Copy !req
755. And that's what horrified people
about the alien as much as anything,
Copy !req
756. is it worked on a kind of
Freudian subconscious level.
Copy !req
757. And Ridley and Giger knew that
and they went for that.
Copy !req
758. This film was never intended to be
as much of a horror film as the first one.
Copy !req
759. It was working on
a different thematic level
Copy !req
760. but I still wanted to be true to some of
those ideas, some of those design concepts.
Copy !req
761. It would be natural to assume
I'd wanna work with Giger,
Copy !req
762. but it just didn't occur to me at the time.
Copy !req
763. Maybe it was because we really only needed
to design one new creature
Copy !req
764. and I had already designed her by the time
I wrote the script. The alien queen.
Copy !req
765. I guess maybe
it was my own ego as an artist.
Copy !req
766. I just felt like he'd made his stamp
Copy !req
767. and I knew from what I'd read
that he had to do everything his way
Copy !req
768. and I had a very specific idea
for the alien queen
Copy !req
769. to extrapolate beyond
what had been done before.
Copy !req
770. I got the impression from what I read
Copy !req
771. that I wasn't gonna get
the dynamic character that I wanted.
Copy !req
772. In a funny way,
part of what attracted me to doing this film
Copy !req
773. was the opportunity to do
cool design stuff.
Copy !req
774. So maybe I was just a little bit
too in love with the idea
Copy !req
775. of designing the creatures and the weapons
and doing all that stuff.
Copy !req
776. These shoulder-mounted lights
were not practical.
Copy !req
777. They'd go through batteries quickly and
they're delicate, but they served the purpose.
Copy !req
778. I assume at this point in the future
they'd work more efficiently.
Copy !req
779. When we were crewing up,
Copy !req
780. the department heads would meet with me
before they met with Jim.
Copy !req
781. It was a two-tier process.
Copy !req
782. A number of them came in and said
"Who's really producing this movie?"
Copy !req
783. And I'd say "I am." And they'd say
"No, you're the director's wife."
Copy !req
784. "You get the credit
but who's producing the movie?"
Copy !req
785. It was really difficult for me
to maintain a sense of calm.
Copy !req
786. I never worked
with a better producer.
Copy !req
787. And a great directing-producing team.
Copy !req
788. Cos you're one of the few people
that actually stands up and talks to Jim.
Copy !req
789. There's an intimidation factor there.
Copy !req
790. I feel fortunate that I had
that relationship with him and you
Copy !req
791. for the films we've done together
Copy !req
792. but I've never worked
with a more diligent and intelligent
Copy !req
793. and, unfortunately,
tough producer as you.
Copy !req
794. - Thank you.
- Beat me down financially, I tell you.
Copy !req
795. "This is what we need."
"This is what you got, dude."
Copy !req
796. Carrie Henn, who plays Newt,
was an astonishing find.
Copy !req
797. Mary Selway, our casting director,
and her associate, Sarah Jackson,
Copy !req
798. searched throughout England
and, in fact, I think the entire British Isles,
Copy !req
799. trying to find a young girl
who could portray this character.
Copy !req
800. And we had every young girl
who wanted to be an actress,
Copy !req
801. or whose parents wanted them to act,
to come in and audition.
Copy !req
802. Almost all of them
had done commercials,
Copy !req
803. and every time
they delivered a line they would smile.
Copy !req
804. Of course, this is a little girl
suffering from traumatic stress.
Copy !req
805. She's watched her family wiped out,
Copy !req
806. every other person on
the mining colony wiped out,
Copy !req
807. and I think we probably had
500 little girls on tape.
Copy !req
808. And Carrie was found
at a US Air Force base in England.
Copy !req
809. Her father was a US serviceman
serving there.
Copy !req
810. And she came in and auditioned,
never having acted even in a school play,
Copy !req
811. and was dead on
from the very first reading.
Copy !req
812. She's such a good little actress.
Has she done anything since this?
Copy !req
813. She has a normal life.
She did not pursue acting as her career.
Copy !req
814. One of the things
that we were very concerned about
Copy !req
815. was whether or not this film
would traumatize her.
Copy !req
816. It's very intense and unlike now, where
we could composite creatures in seamlessly,
Copy !req
817. or create one digitally,
she really was terrorized
Copy !req
818. by the alien warriors in the film,
and she understood it was make-believe.
Copy !req
819. Her parents were tremendously supportive
and she really had her feet on the ground.
Copy !req
820. This really is acting.
Copy !req
821. Carrie had never been
on a movie before,
Copy !req
822. but she started to enjoy it
and liked working with everybody.
Copy !req
823. It was a big adventure.
Copy !req
824. She started to become an actor.
She understood her character.
Copy !req
825. There was one day when she was sick
and they didn't want her to work.
Copy !req
826. She was devastated that
we were gonna do the scene with a double.
Copy !req
827. She pitched such a fit
that she came back.
Copy !req
828. I wound up doing one little shot with her
so she'd feel better, so she could go home.
Copy !req
829. I worked with her a lot. I'd give her
eye lines. I'd make a mark on the wall.
Copy !req
830. In this scene,
she was supposed to stare off into space.
Copy !req
831. I had to unwire her from the normal response
to somebody sitting there talking to you.
Copy !req
832. So I gave her a mark on the wall to look at,
told her to blank her mind,
Copy !req
833. and that seemed to work pretty well.
Copy !req
834. This is one of
my favorite parts of the movie.
Copy !req
835. I guess cos Sigourney and I
had bonded so much
Copy !req
836. and this is where in the movie
our bonding does start.
Copy !req
837. She was determined
to get that dirt off of me.
Copy !req
838. They didn't really want her
to wipe my face clean,
Copy !req
839. and she was really determined
to get it off of me.
Copy !req
840. She didn't think it was very fair
that I was that dirty and nobody else was.
Copy !req
841. So it was nice that I didn't have to worry
about so much dirt later on.
Copy !req
842. She was really nice.
She was always helping me.
Copy !req
843. Sigourney and Carrie
got to be pals and they'd hang out.
Copy !req
844. I think Sigourney felt very protective of her.
Copy !req
845. Sigourney didn't have
any children at that time.
Copy !req
846. There was a real bond
that was very maternal, I think, there.
Copy !req
847. And I think Carrie thought
Sigourney was pretty cool.
Copy !req
848. Carrie's pretty good in this scene.
She really got it.
Copy !req
849. Sigourney was so nice.
Copy !req
850. I thought I must be screwing up
cos she was so nice to me all the time,
Copy !req
851. but I realized she was just
really genuinely a nice person.
Copy !req
852. She really is. Gentle.
Copy !req
853. She was the leader
of the cast, absolutely.
Copy !req
854. She took a lot of punishment in this thing.
Copy !req
855. Her back was hurting her, too.
They had to make a dummy of Newt.
Copy !req
856. - For her to carry.
- Cos her back was killing her.
Copy !req
857. A lot of crawling around
and crouching.
Copy !req
858. It's interesting to note that
she was nominated for an Academy Award
Copy !req
859. in a genre that the Academy never recognizes
- science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Copy !req
860. It does now but it didn't then.
Copy !req
861. It does now
but it certainly didn't then.
Copy !req
862. I love the idea of this little girl
who feels more secure by herself,
Copy !req
863. away from the adults, with these aliens
around, than when she's with them,
Copy !req
864. and the foreboding potential of that.
Copy !req
865. She looks at the marines and says "You guys
are all gonna die and I'll be on my own again,
Copy !req
866. but I'm more at risk when I'm with you
than doing my thing that I know works."
Copy !req
867. I really thought that was a cool idea.
Copy !req
868. This is where I was gonna use
the two pupils in each eye.
Copy !req
869. And I did it and when the guy
interrupted me,
Copy !req
870. I turned and looked at him and Jim said
"It's so scary, I can't use it."
Copy !req
871. Lance loves to create a character
through some kind of physical totem.
Copy !req
872. In characters he's done for me,
it could be a pocket knife...
Copy !req
873. I'm talking about a rabbit's-foot
kind of thing.
Copy !req
874. He looks for some way
into the character.
Copy !req
875. So he, on his own, made up these
sclera lenses that had double pupils.
Copy !req
876. They were really creepy. It was a really
cool idea, but I felt it was too overt.
Copy !req
877. I felt it was too on the nose.
We wanted to go for an ominous thing,
Copy !req
878. but I think Lance underestimated
his own onscreen power,
Copy !req
879. and I knew that he could do
a great ominous moment.
Copy !req
880. Here's a panning shot
of the armored personnel carrier.
Copy !req
881. This was done with the twelfth-scale
armored personnel carrier.
Copy !req
882. We had the camera flat on the ground and
at the beginning of the shot, behind the APC,
Copy !req
883. is the fiftieth-scale colony complex.
Copy !req
884. Because we're flat on the ground,
Copy !req
885. the audience doesn't see the scale
differential that's going on there.
Copy !req
886. Literally, the bumper of a twelfth-scale
was next to a fiftieth-scale.
Copy !req
887. The shots of the APC
driving into the atmosphere processor
Copy !req
888. were also done as miniatures.
Copy !req
889. There was no full-size entryway
that was built for the film.
Copy !req
890. That's why we built one as a miniature.
Copy !req
891. The sequence inside
the atmosphere processor
Copy !req
892. is a location that was
a decommissioned power station at Acton,
Copy !req
893. inside London or just outside of London.
Copy !req
894. Rather than building a set from scratch,
Copy !req
895. they used what was there
and then added the alienesque bits to it.
Copy !req
896. - Look at that.
- This was my first day.
Copy !req
897. - At Acton?
- First day ever on a film.
Copy !req
898. - You won't see me there.
- Ever on any film.
Copy !req
899. I'd no idea what "back to one" meant
or anything.
Copy !req
900. What does it mean?
30 years later I'm still trying to figure it out.
Copy !req
901. That's a real gun.
That's a German Sten gun.
Copy !req
902. It was cool
until we started firing the weapons
Copy !req
903. and then this fine snow
started raining down on everybody.
Copy !req
904. - I think they checked it out.
- It was just asbestos.
Copy !req
905. We had to practice
shooting flame-throwers.
Copy !req
906. We did the close-quarter battle stuff.
Copy !req
907. Approaching a building or going down
a hallway, you leapfrog along. We did that.
Copy !req
908. Al Matthews who plays Sergeant Apone
had some kind of military background.
Copy !req
909. I think he had served in the Vietnam War,
and after the war he had come to England,
Copy !req
910. where he'd become
a radio disc jockey, I think.
Copy !req
911. He was either really good at bullshitting us,
but he seemed to know what he was doing.
Copy !req
912. His orders were so authoritarian
that we followed him.
Copy !req
913. Another technique that's not used
any more to create the size of that set.
Copy !req
914. A hanging miniature
that was the previous shot,
Copy !req
915. where you saw the expanse
of the inside of this alien virtual universe,
Copy !req
916. which is what you're seeing here,
setwise,
Copy !req
917. the cocoon aspect
of what these aliens do.
Copy !req
918. A hanging miniature,
which is a technique,
Copy !req
919. is a small set piece
that hangs in front of the camera
Copy !req
920. and then the full-size set is behind it
and the actors are behind it.
Copy !req
921. The illusion is that the set is huge
and expanding up and over everyone,
Copy !req
922. when, in fact, the foreground
of the set piece is a miniature,
Copy !req
923. the background of the set piece
and all the actors is normal size.
Copy !req
924. It's basically a forced-perspective shot.
Copy !req
925. This is my first
on-camera line coming up.
Copy !req
926. This was the first day.
Copy !req
927. We started at Acton.
We started here.
Copy !req
928. I thought you guys
had already been shooting.
Copy !req
929. - They had to reshoot.
- We went back and picked up here.
Copy !req
930. I see.
Copy !req
931. And Dick Bush,
the cinematographer,
Copy !req
932. was replaced by Adrian Biddle
Copy !req
933. somewhere in this area at the same time.
Copy !req
934. A few changes were made in the lineup
about two weeks in.
Copy !req
935. I heard that some of the studio execs
Copy !req
936. were screening footage
back in the States,
Copy !req
937. and they were a little perturbed and asking
"Where's the effects shot?"
Copy !req
938. Gale Hurd said
"You just saw an effects shot."
Copy !req
939. She was referring
to that perspective shot.
Copy !req
940. They were completely fooled by it.
They thought nothing had been shot.
Copy !req
941. They thought they were spending
huge amounts of money on these sets.
Copy !req
942. They said "You spent so much
and there's no miniature."
Copy !req
943. She said "No, that is the miniature."
Copy !req
944. It was a smart move on Cameron's part,
Copy !req
945. to do it that way very quickly in the film,
Copy !req
946. so the studio wasn't worried
quite as much
Copy !req
947. about what was going on
5,000 miles away in London.
Copy !req
948. It does make it
a bit tricky to shoot, though.
Copy !req
949. If anything goes wrong, you're stuck with it
or you have to fix it later but with a reshoot.
Copy !req
950. You can't really fix it later.
Copy !req
951. So that worked out quite well,
Copy !req
952. but with actors and everything
there's a lot on the line.
Copy !req
953. Something we've lost sight of over
the years is that with this era of filmmaking,
Copy !req
954. not only for live-action
but for miniatures,
Copy !req
955. there wasn't much ability
to go back and fix something.
Copy !req
956. Now, digitally, you can change
an actor's face, you can get rid of wires,
Copy !req
957. do all kinds of tricks, split-screen,
take elements and change shots.
Copy !req
958. But at that time you had to plan these things
and make it work within a narrow tolerance,
Copy !req
959. otherwise that was it,
that's what wound up in the film.
Copy !req
960. It reminds me of a stage play.
You're doing it live, in a sense.
Copy !req
961. What was on film was it. There was no going
back. You could only do it so many times.
Copy !req
962. There was a limited budget to work with
and it had to work on film, no matter what.
Copy !req
963. My crew actually helped
dress this whole set
Copy !req
964. because it had to be cocooned bodies,
Copy !req
965. and so we created all these bodies
and all the dressing over it,
Copy !req
966. to help out the art department.
Copy !req
967. I remember being terrified
that the set wouldn't be ready in time.
Copy !req
968. Because it was very complicated.
Copy !req
969. Everybody had to pitch in
and make the movie work.
Copy !req
970. It was a lot to do in a short period of time.
Copy !req
971. No one else would have
really been able to do it, even this stuff.
Copy !req
972. I even doubled for Vasquez.
Copy !req
973. Did you?
Do you remember the shot?
Copy !req
974. Of course I remember the shot.
I'll show you later on.
Copy !req
975. Our homage to what
everyone needs to see
Copy !req
976. in this movie is about to come up.
Copy !req
977. This was a very tough scene to create,
which was the chestburster scene.
Copy !req
978. Again, a duplication of head and entire body
Copy !req
979. and then we built an entire puppet of her
for the chestburster and the burn sequence.
Copy !req
980. James Horner
came up with this music sting here
Copy !req
981. and I always thought
it was totally over the top.
Copy !req
982. When I saw the whole film put together
with the score,
Copy !req
983. I thought "No, that's what we need."
Copy !req
984. I thought "How can you sting somebody
opening their eyes?" But it works.
Copy !req
985. Oh! Mm-hm.
Copy !req
986. She shouldn't have had
the bangers and mash.
Copy !req
987. Kill it. Fry it. Come on.
What are you doing, Hicks?
Copy !req
988. Bad-ass nasty shot.
Copy !req
989. That's a nasty shot of that thing.
Copy !req
990. That's a good shot
of it there getting fried.
Copy !req
991. Gosh.
Copy !req
992. Here they come.
Copy !req
993. I think our chestburster looks
a little cooler than the one in the first film.
Copy !req
994. Stan Winston's guys
really did a good job on it.
Copy !req
995. John Rosengrant and Shane Mahan.
Copy !req
996. Look who's back.
Copy !req
997. Another one of our problems
to solve for this movie
Copy !req
998. was creating the whole army of warrior aliens
and being legitimate to the original movie
Copy !req
999. but having to improve on it for movement
and for the look of being able to study them.
Copy !req
1000. In the original Alien
they were rubber suits
Copy !req
1001. and very difficult
for the actor to move around in.
Copy !req
1002. And yet he was
very tall and very skinny.
Copy !req
1003. And Jim wanted to do a lot of very
interesting moves with the warrior aliens,
Copy !req
1004. so we came up with a technique
to create the suit
Copy !req
1005. that really involved
a lot of spandex and pieces on it.
Copy !req
1006. And then we designed the set pieces
for the aliens to fit into the walls,
Copy !req
1007. like the one that is behind him there,
so that the camouflage would work.
Copy !req
1008. An enormous amount of wirework
for all of these stunt alien performers,
Copy !req
1009. which required that the alien costumes
be extremely user-friendly.
Copy !req
1010. This was inspired
by the scene in the first film
Copy !req
1011. where Dallas is in the air vents and they see
the signal moving and get a little freaked,
Copy !req
1012. and Veronica Cartwright says
"Get outta there"
Copy !req
1013. and he makes the wrong move
and gets killed.
Copy !req
1014. That's one of the most
suspenseful scenes in the first film.
Copy !req
1015. I took that idea that they're getting
these readings that are getting them spooked
Copy !req
1016. and then they make some bad moves.
Copy !req
1017. Form follows function.
This is a perfect example of it.
Copy !req
1018. You start with what it is you wanna achieve,
and once you have that, you can design it,
Copy !req
1019. so the actions and the performance
Copy !req
1020. is consistent with
what you want in the finished film.
Copy !req
1021. Believe it or not,
very few people work that way.
Copy !req
1022. They just wanna come up
with something that's cool,
Copy !req
1023. and then you spend hours and hours
trying to get it to work for the ultimate film.
Copy !req
1024. I happen to agree with Gale.
My background is as an actor.
Copy !req
1025. I really come from a place
Copy !req
1026. where the creatures and the characters
are wonderful to look at,
Copy !req
1027. but it's always about their performance.
Copy !req
1028. We have to figure out
how they're gonna be able to act,
Copy !req
1029. and create a good performance,
or it's a waste.
Copy !req
1030. And so that's really always at the top
Copy !req
1031. of the priority list
when we're creating any creature -
Copy !req
1032. what is it gonna do
and how is it gonna do it?
Copy !req
1033. What he does is create a character,
and that's why I think his work is so unique.
Copy !req
1034. When you look at a film, you can always
tell who's done the creatures,
Copy !req
1035. if they actually have a character.
Copy !req
1036. Because he creates a character
that can act and perform.
Copy !req
1037. The whole film
builds to this moment,
Copy !req
1038. where the power transfers
from the authoritarian structure
Copy !req
1039. to the individual who takes action.
Copy !req
1040. Ripley's not supposed to do anything.
She's just there as an observer.
Copy !req
1041. We're coming up to a sequence
where Sigourney takes control of the APC
Copy !req
1042. and this sequence is comprised
of live-action shots,
Copy !req
1043. but as it comes down this hallway and is
banging into pipes and walls and sparking,
Copy !req
1044. that's all done in miniature.
Copy !req
1045. In some cases, the cameraman -
cos the set was mounted at an angle -
Copy !req
1046. was on a cart, a wheeled cart,
Copy !req
1047. and was rolling backwards as the
radio-controlled APC was coming at camera.
Copy !req
1048. There was a point when he was just put
into free fall, rolling backwards downhill,
Copy !req
1049. photographing what was in front of him
as he went backwards.
Copy !req
1050. - Here we go.
- This is the shot.
Copy !req
1051. This is also miniatures.
Copy !req
1052. There was a shot with the full-size
when the brakes didn't work,
Copy !req
1053. and took out the camera,
and luckily it was a remote-operated camera.
Copy !req
1054. It was the shot where
we were actually crushing an alien warrior,
Copy !req
1055. when it broke through.
Copy !req
1056. This is the shot, actually,
when it took the camera out.
Copy !req
1057. Then there's another shot
where it takes down an alien.
Copy !req
1058. These shots of the aliens hanging
from the ceiling are just shot upside down.
Copy !req
1059. It's just guys standing there
in an alien suit.
Copy !req
1060. And we set up some alien puppets
made out of foam
Copy !req
1061. and filled them with gak and guts
and yellow goo,
Copy !req
1062. and blew the hell out of them, as I recall.
Copy !req
1063. Made a big mess.
Copy !req
1064. Miniscule things we had to do,
Copy !req
1065. like creating burn appliance make-up
for when the acid would hit.
Copy !req
1066. Here's a case right here.
Copy !req
1067. Alien comes up, splats,
Copy !req
1068. and the blood is right here.
Copy !req
1069. - Quick cut.
- Quick cut. But prosthetics used.
Copy !req
1070. John Richardson
was the physical effects supervisor.
Copy !req
1071. I was at his shop on the lot, and they were
testing one of these flame-throwers
Copy !req
1072. and it was a real flame-thrower
that they had built.
Copy !req
1073. This thing would go about 20 or 30 feet.
Copy !req
1074. So every time you see flames coming out,
it's the real thing. It was a little scary.
Copy !req
1075. When we did the fire in the APC,
there was something used to age the set,
Copy !req
1076. some kind of wax-based substance
that the art department had dabbed on
Copy !req
1077. to make the set look more like
a used military vehicle.
Copy !req
1078. And the heat caused it to vaporize
Copy !req
1079. and the actors got this strong sense
that they couldn't breathe.
Copy !req
1080. It caused their throats to close up.
Copy !req
1081. Bill tells the story Jenette is going "Ugh!"
Copy !req
1082. And Bill remembers thinking
"She's coming up with some great stuff."
Copy !req
1083. And she really couldn't breathe.
Copy !req
1084. I don't remember what we did.
Probably just kept shooting.
Copy !req
1085. I think we just kept the fire
out of the inside, kept going.
Copy !req
1086. Because the full-size APC
was incapable of spinning its wheels,
Copy !req
1087. all those shots of Ripley
Copy !req
1088. when she hits the gas and you see the
wheels spin and smoke are all the miniature,
Copy !req
1089. because the full-size vehicle again
weighed some 20 or 30 tons.
Copy !req
1090. We had put A-B smoke...
A solution on the wheel and B on the ground.
Copy !req
1091. And as the tire turned, it would mix
that A and B together and give the smoke.
Copy !req
1092. We had somebody holding back
the front of the APC for a moment,
Copy !req
1093. so that the tire'd spin,
then we'd let it go.
Copy !req
1094. That A-B smoke is really toxic.
We don't like to breathe that stuff.
Copy !req
1095. We had different kinds of smoke.
Copy !req
1096. We had some really nasty smoke
that I think is illegal to use now,
Copy !req
1097. titanium tetroxide stuff that created
that really nice coherent smoke,
Copy !req
1098. but that was only used
for some of the alien acid stuff.
Copy !req
1099. And then you just used a regular mole fogger.
We used A-B smoke for a couple of things.
Copy !req
1100. Some of the acid hits were done
with A-B smoke, which is pretty caustic.
Copy !req
1101. In Jim's movies - I think of it
the same way with The Terminator -
Copy !req
1102. there's not one shot in it that you go
"That's bad" or "That doesn't work."
Copy !req
1103. It just seems like every single shot...
Copy !req
1104. He knows how to put all the shots
Copy !req
1105. that really make the whole sequence
snap, crackle and pop, that's for sure.
Copy !req
1106. There's not many directors
who are fluent in the language of film.
Copy !req
1107. Jim comes to it intuitively.
Copy !req
1108. - What are you crying about here?
- Something.
Copy !req
1109. Somebody was always
telling you to relax.
Copy !req
1110. It was a character where I felt the
audience is gonna be so ready for him to die.
Copy !req
1111. You got
a good death scene, though.
Copy !req
1112. This was weird at first cos I wasn't
quite used to all the cussing around me.
Copy !req
1113. Hudson tended to say a lot.
Copy !req
1114. Every time when we'd cut,
he'd look at me - "I'm so sorry."
Copy !req
1115. I didn't care,
but I kind of felt bad for him.
Copy !req
1116. And at this time, you never really realize
what a bad guy Paul Reiser was.
Copy !req
1117. Paul was so good in this.
You so wanted him to get killed.
Copy !req
1118. I love that in a villain.
Hudson, the character that Bill Paxton plays,
Copy !req
1119. is the voice of the audience in this.
Copy !req
1120. He's saying the things
the audience would say
Copy !req
1121. and asking the questions
the audience would ask.
Copy !req
1122. You could tell
when we started screening the film...
Copy !req
1123. We didn't screen it in the way they do now.
We never did a test screening.
Copy !req
1124. But at the premiere, let's say, which is
the first time I saw the film with an audience,
Copy !req
1125. which is unthinkable these days,
Copy !req
1126. we could tell the audience
really liked Hudson, really connected.
Copy !req
1127. I like this scene cos, again,
it's the transfer of power.
Copy !req
1128. Sigourney has made Burke
as a guy she can't trust.
Copy !req
1129. Ripley has figured out Burke's agenda,
Copy !req
1130. and she's created
enough of a bond with Hicks
Copy !req
1131. that she knows she can get him
to do what needs to be done,
Copy !req
1132. take command
even though he's a corporal.
Copy !req
1133. Having been in the army
myself in the '70s,
Copy !req
1134. Jim really nailed army life for the military,
and he was never in the military.
Copy !req
1135. - Jim wasn't.
- That's how guys acted.
Copy !req
1136. Rear projection is an older technique
that's been used in a lot of films.
Copy !req
1137. It's basically having a projector
Copy !req
1138. a distance away from a translucent screen
that's behind the actor.
Copy !req
1139. The image of the scene they're supposed
to be standing in front of is projected -
Copy !req
1140. previously shot footage - and that method
tends to look like what you're doing,
Copy !req
1141. unless, as Jim shoots it,
the camera's moving a lot
Copy !req
1142. and there's a lot of things
to obscure the straight photography of it.
Copy !req
1143. Front projection uses a material that is made
by 3M and some other companies
Copy !req
1144. that is related to the material
used for traffic signs.
Copy !req
1145. When your headlights hit the signs,
they kind of glow back.
Copy !req
1146. It's very similar to that, except
it's an even more extreme version of it.
Copy !req
1147. An image is projected...
Copy !req
1148. From the camera
rather than behind the set.
Copy !req
1149. It's projected
from near the camera,
Copy !req
1150. hits the screen and it comes
right back at the camera.
Copy !req
1151. The shadow that you would expect to see
Copy !req
1152. is hidden by the object or person
in the foreground. It's self-hiding, in theory.
Copy !req
1153. Front projection produces
a more photographable image.
Copy !req
1154. It retains the illumination level
better than rear projection.
Copy !req
1155. We did a number
of these dropship crashes,
Copy !req
1156. four or five of these things
to finally get the plate right.
Copy !req
1157. Jim was specific about
how the dropship would hit.
Copy !req
1158. This whole ballet of it
rolling and so forth.
Copy !req
1159. We had to design that in
so that the pods hit a certain way,
Copy !req
1160. the landing leg shears off by hitting a rock
which sends it skewing slightly sideways
Copy !req
1161. which dovetails into
this tumbling action.
Copy !req
1162. This has become
a famous shot in the film.
Copy !req
1163. Every film is a snapshot
of the technical capabilities of its time.
Copy !req
1164. Even though at the time you feel like
you're moving things forward a little bit,
Copy !req
1165. you look back on it now, 18 years later,
and it just seems quaint.
Copy !req
1166. This is one of the scenes
I don't particularly like.
Copy !req
1167. There's a line in here
and it seems to be the only line of mine
Copy !req
1168. that everybody I ever run into remembers.
Copy !req
1169. Anyone who ever wants to irritate me,
any of my friends, they just say this.
Copy !req
1170. They say it with everything. The line was
"They mostly come out at night. Mostly."
Copy !req
1171. My friends'll be like "We mostly
go to the movies at night. Mostly."
Copy !req
1172. They come up with whatever
they can possibly come up with.
Copy !req
1173. It's probably the one scene I don't
really particularly like in the whole thing.
Copy !req
1174. This shot with Ripley and Newt
Copy !req
1175. looking back at the burning,
damaged atmosphere processor
Copy !req
1176. was done with doubles
months after live action had wrapped.
Copy !req
1177. I never realized
I had such a small part in this.
Copy !req
1178. You come in big
at the end, though.
Copy !req
1179. A typical group scene.
Copy !req
1180. My challenge was almost every scene
was a group scene.
Copy !req
1181. Most scenes had seven,
eight characters at one time,
Copy !req
1182. so there were a lot of camera axes.
Copy !req
1183. In Terminator every scene
had two or three people in it.
Copy !req
1184. It was no problem.
Copy !req
1185. But almost every scene in this
had multiple characters,
Copy !req
1186. a Gatling gun of dialogue
going around the room,
Copy !req
1187. and I found that challenging at first
till I got it all straight in my head.
Copy !req
1188. I wasn't that experienced.
Copy !req
1189. This was my second film.
Copy !req
1190. - I wanted to be cool like Michael.
- I was cool in that shot.
Copy !req
1191. I wanted to be the cool guy,
not the guy bellyaching.
Copy !req
1192. - This movie made you a star.
- I wanted to be Michael Biehn in this movie.
Copy !req
1193. - So did l.
- I wanted to be Sigourney.
Copy !req
1194. - "Why don't you put her in charge?"
Copy !req
1195. There it is.
That's a classic, man.
Copy !req
1196. Actor dynamics are tricky,
Copy !req
1197. cos actors are all gonna peak
at different moments,
Copy !req
1198. and it's impossible
not to go through a power hierarchy.
Copy !req
1199. The group always knows
who's getting the close-up.
Copy !req
1200. There's this sense that I should do a close-up
on everybody so nobody feels left out.
Copy !req
1201. There's a whole political side to doing
a group scene. They all see what's going on.
Copy !req
1202. Eventually I dispensed with that
and went for Sigourney's close-up.
Copy !req
1203. Fortunately, Sigourney always
liked to go last, which was good.
Copy !req
1204. She liked to build and have the time
before the camera got in tight on her
Copy !req
1205. to really pick
how she was gonna do her moments.
Copy !req
1206. Here goes. "I'll do it. I'll go."
Copy !req
1207. "Send the doll."
That's what Bill's whole thing was.
Copy !req
1208. - Send the doll?
- "Send the doll out there, man."
Copy !req
1209. I was so hurt.
Copy !req
1210. Yeah, man. Hudson should go.
I mean Bishop should go.
Copy !req
1211. There's a pipe.
Send him down the pipe.
Copy !req
1212. My favorite thing
was Bill wanted to use me as a training toy.
Copy !req
1213. "Let's chase Bishop around
and shoot at him."
Copy !req
1214. The processing station.
Copy !req
1215. You were so into your character,
we'd ask you for a coffee,
Copy !req
1216. you'd run for it, go clean up our trailers.
Copy !req
1217. I was absolutely selfless.
That was embarrassing, man.
Copy !req
1218. I never liked that shot
because she keeps pointing at the same spot.
Copy !req
1219. I think that was a second-unit shot
Copy !req
1220. that was done while I was in another room
shooting something else.
Copy !req
1221. I was never happy with it.
Copy !req
1222. The whole idea was she's supposed to be
showing the whole area.
Copy !req
1223. The floor diagram
didn't resemble the set either.
Copy !req
1224. You gotta remember,
this is a low-budget film.
Copy !req
1225. Got to cut it a little slack.
Copy !req
1226. I like these really
advanced laptops they have.
Copy !req
1227. We thought we were
being so advanced here.
Copy !req
1228. This is an added scene
with these sentry guns.
Copy !req
1229. This is a scene that got the ax
as a result of the studio's idea
Copy !req
1230. that we were wasting too much time
not really getting on with the story.
Copy !req
1231. I actually think this stuff really ups the ante
and increases the fear a lot.
Copy !req
1232. Because The Terminator hadn't come
out yet, there was the perception that Jim
Copy !req
1233. was somehow not up to
the creative responsibility
Copy !req
1234. of directing a sequel
to Ridley Scott's masterpiece.
Copy !req
1235. There was a lot of resentment,
Copy !req
1236. and really no understanding, or very little,
of what he was trying to accomplish.
Copy !req
1237. We had people who were, I think,
completely on our side -
Copy !req
1238. John Richardson in practical special effects,
Brian Johnson in visual effects.
Copy !req
1239. There were people
who understood Jim's vision,
Copy !req
1240. but there were quite a few people
who simply looked at him
Copy !req
1241. as the know-nothing, upstart Yank, which
drove Jim crazy, considering he's a Canadian.
Copy !req
1242. It was his right hand, his AD.
Copy !req
1243. The leader of the rebellion,
the first assistant director,
Copy !req
1244. not only behind Jim's back but to his face
would call him "Guv'nor" and roll his eyes,
Copy !req
1245. as if Jim hadn't earned the title yet.
Copy !req
1246. We were shooting very long hours
and people were pretty frazzled,
Copy !req
1247. and by our standards in America at the time
a 12-hour day is not a long day, it's average,
Copy !req
1248. but 12 hours at the time in England
was a very long day,
Copy !req
1249. and there were times
when we'd go into a 14-hour day.
Copy !req
1250. At a certain point
our assistant director, basically, said:
Copy !req
1251. "We're not doing this any more."
Copy !req
1252. So we fired him. And he felt that
he really should be directing the movie.
Copy !req
1253. He was a frustrated director.
He had directed second unit before.
Copy !req
1254. I think he even had directed a small film.
Copy !req
1255. But he really felt that he was better qualified
than Jim was to direct the film.
Copy !req
1256. He went to all the departments
and some cast members
Copy !req
1257. and everyone walked off the set.
Copy !req
1258. It was the most difficult moment
Copy !req
1259. of my entire career, even to this day,
Copy !req
1260. trying to rally everyone back.
Copy !req
1261. In fact, we were able to turn it around
so that the outcome of that mutiny
Copy !req
1262. was that we were united,
after we resolved the issues,
Copy !req
1263. for the first time on the film and going
onto the rest of the production schedule.
Copy !req
1264. We actually were a unified group.
Copy !req
1265. So it was an example of something good
coming out of a really difficult situation.
Copy !req
1266. I remember talking to people
Copy !req
1267. and going "This is a wonderful movie."
Copy !req
1268. And hoping that
no one would lose the energy.
Copy !req
1269. Fortunately, because of how you handled it,
it all came together.
Copy !req
1270. Because it was scary. It was very scary.
Copy !req
1271. We were at that point -
what are we gonna do, hire a new crew?
Copy !req
1272. Not that the thought didn't cross
my mind, but England was very busy.
Copy !req
1273. We didn't have the option. There weren't
other key crew members even available.
Copy !req
1274. When you have no options,
you make it work, and we did.
Copy !req
1275. This is probably
my favorite movie of my career,
Copy !req
1276. and the only movie where I've experienced
anything like what we went through.
Copy !req
1277. I will also say, on the positive side,
of the English crew...
Copy !req
1278. I brought a handful of guys
from the States.
Copy !req
1279. We started all our designs
and our builds in the States
Copy !req
1280. and then built a workshop in Pinewood
Copy !req
1281. and hired all but a half a dozen of the key
coordinators from my studio from England.
Copy !req
1282. And everybody worked very hard
and did a great job.
Copy !req
1283. They were wonderful artists and committed
and everybody wanted to do a good job.
Copy !req
1284. They just had slightly different
work habits than we did.
Copy !req
1285. I was shocked when suddenly,
at a particular time mid-morning,
Copy !req
1286. everybody would be gone. I'd go "Where
is everybody?" They'd go "They're at tea."
Copy !req
1287. I said "Hello?" Just gone.
Copy !req
1288. The other thing
is that Pinewood Studios
Copy !req
1289. at the time had an entire crew on staff
Copy !req
1290. that were assigned to a movie.
Copy !req
1291. Right now it's four-wall, which means
you hire the crew you want, it's freelance.
Copy !req
1292. But you ended up with the crew that was
assigned to the stages you were working on
Copy !req
1293. and there was no
selection process involved.
Copy !req
1294. It made it really difficult because
some people really were punching a clock.
Copy !req
1295. They didn't want overtime,
Copy !req
1296. didn't wanna do anything
other than work an eight-hour day.
Copy !req
1297. Shooting this film in England
wasn't just a culture clash.
Copy !req
1298. For me, it was also a transition from
a non-union guerilla-filmmaking mentality,
Copy !req
1299. which started at Roger Corman's New World
Pictures and continued on The Terminator,
Copy !req
1300. which had a non-union crew,
to a union picture.
Copy !req
1301. And also the particular way that they work
in England was very, very different,
Copy !req
1302. and so there was an adaptation to that.
Copy !req
1303. And, frankly, I thought there were
a lot of people on the crew that were,
Copy !req
1304. to use a charitable term, comfortable,
and that was completely foreign to me.
Copy !req
1305. I'd been used to working with young,
eager, hard-core, dedicated film folks.
Copy !req
1306. They all had something to prove.
Copy !req
1307. But a lot of the people especially at the
Pinewood Studios at that time were lifers.
Copy !req
1308. They had permanent employment. It didn't
matter what movie they were working on.
Copy !req
1309. And they got pushed on us. If you did
Pinewood, you had to use their people.
Copy !req
1310. It was a whole different mentality.
So I pushed against that as hard as I could.
Copy !req
1311. If I hadn't, we wouldn't
have got the film done
Copy !req
1312. on budget and on schedule,
which we did.
Copy !req
1313. I know probably a lot of people there
at Pinewood at the time didn't care for us,
Copy !req
1314. with our guerilla-filmmaking
ways and styles - we were not polite.
Copy !req
1315. By the end there were a number of them
that came to respect the fact
Copy !req
1316. at least that we knew what we were doing,
which I guess is OK.
Copy !req
1317. The other aspect that was a shock
Copy !req
1318. to those of us who came from
really indie filmmaking -
Copy !req
1319. I started with Roger Corman,
you can't get any more indie -
Copy !req
1320. is that everyone in their family
had done the same job.
Copy !req
1321. This is not, obviously, across the board.
Copy !req
1322. There wasn't the enthusiasm -
"Let's get together and do a movie" -
Copy !req
1323. we were used to.
Copy !req
1324. I think their craftsmanship
was as fine if not even more spectacular
Copy !req
1325. than anything I've seen before or since.
Copy !req
1326. And they did take complete pride in that,
Copy !req
1327. but it really is a different approach
to working.
Copy !req
1328. Once you're aware
of the difference in work habit,
Copy !req
1329. you can adjust to it.
Copy !req
1330. You know you've gotta get
the product done.
Copy !req
1331. Everybody wants the same thing.
They just approach it in a different way.
Copy !req
1332. That's all part of our learning curve.
Copy !req
1333. Now it's different also
because there are not people on staff
Copy !req
1334. that are assigned to your movie.
Copy !req
1335. And also the liquid alcohol-based lunch
is not the same any more.
Copy !req
1336. When you take time out,
you do a bit of everything.
Copy !req
1337. You trim shots,
you take out a second here and there.
Copy !req
1338. At this time we weren't cutting on the Avid
yet or any nonlinear digital editing system,
Copy !req
1339. so there was less of a tendency
to nickel-and-dime tiny cuts of 10 frames.
Copy !req
1340. Cutting on a Moviola, every cut
had to be a splice that was opened up,
Copy !req
1341. so you tended to make lifts
which were full scenes or partial scenes.
Copy !req
1342. When I cut Titanic,
I made all the lifts I could
Copy !req
1343. and I was still miles out, so I went through
cutting 10 frames here and there
Copy !req
1344. and got out another five minutes.
Copy !req
1345. This is rear projection.
Copy !req
1346. For the visual effects on this film, we needed
all these process plates, projection plates,
Copy !req
1347. so the model unit
had to be scrambled well ahead of time,
Copy !req
1348. actually producing finished shots
in a way that we could project on the set.
Copy !req
1349. We knew we wanted a specific look
out of all of these windows.
Copy !req
1350. We wanted to be able to have moisture
on the window and dust and wind
Copy !req
1351. and all these sorts of things
that would degrade the image,
Copy !req
1352. so we wanted to have
these projections done in advance.
Copy !req
1353. I like the feeling of these guys
just working the problem,
Copy !req
1354. just trying to figure it out.
Copy !req
1355. There's always a moment when
there's the thing you know you need to do
Copy !req
1356. and Bishop just steps up and volunteers.
Copy !req
1357. If you're claustrophobic, this is something
you don't wanna try at home,
Copy !req
1358. get yourself welded into a pipe
that's no wider than your shoulders.
Copy !req
1359. When I was a kid,
we had a contest in my neighborhood.
Copy !req
1360. They were always building
new subdivisions.
Copy !req
1361. We used to see who could crawl the furthest
though the water pipes that had been laid.
Copy !req
1362. I won because I have no claustrophobia,
Copy !req
1363. but I got stuck once
about 100m into a water pipe.
Copy !req
1364. Had to back out.
Copy !req
1365. That's a little moment from my childhood.
Copy !req
1366. Lance does a curious thing
at the end of that close-up.
Copy !req
1367. I said "What was that?" He said
"Bishop just realized he made a joke."
Copy !req
1368. You can actually see that, if you know that's
what's in his head and you watch that shot.
Copy !req
1369. Bishop realizes after the fact
that he made a joke.
Copy !req
1370. Because he's not human,
he doesn't know if it worked or not.
Copy !req
1371. This was too freaky, I gotta tell you.
I wouldn't have been able to do this, Lance.
Copy !req
1372. - How did you get in there in the first place?
- Look how you get in.
Copy !req
1373. You just crawl in.
Copy !req
1374. You lower yourself in
and then twist around.
Copy !req
1375. It's the shot of you
putting the lid on.
Copy !req
1376. "Don't hurt your finger." That's the thing
you say here, right? That defines him.
Copy !req
1377. You found stuff like that.
You found it from your character.
Copy !req
1378. He was always trying to be of service,
like the gas company.
Copy !req
1379. - Look at this shot.
- This is it.
Copy !req
1380. They dragged a camera
on wheels in front of me.
Copy !req
1381. - Is that how they did it?
- Yeah.
Copy !req
1382. With a rope?
Copy !req
1383. I remember watching you
shoot that.
Copy !req
1384. I think you were on another stage. They had
that pipe. I remember watching you do that.
Copy !req
1385. I never let them
light me that way any more.
Copy !req
1386. It's pretty rough.
Copy !req
1387. I think editorially
it's a fun moment. I like the build.
Copy !req
1388. I didn't do any editing directly
on this film.
Copy !req
1389. Because it's film-based editing, with rapid
cutting, I thought it had really good energy.
Copy !req
1390. You see that cutting now with the Avid cos
you don't have to make each splice manually.
Copy !req
1391. This is the Alamo told with six people.
Copy !req
1392. So the sentry guns are the equivalent
of the first couple of attacks.
Copy !req
1393. I think it's great foreboding.
It's just coming at them like a wave.
Copy !req
1394. If these guns don't stop them,
they're screwed.
Copy !req
1395. I think it works pretty well,
but the studio talked me into taking it out.
Copy !req
1396. So I'm happy to see it restored
in this extended version.
Copy !req
1397. Ray Lovejoy was our editor
and it was a tremendous responsibility.
Copy !req
1398. And this is before you had
all of the Avid and Lightworks
Copy !req
1399. and any kind of digital editing.
Copy !req
1400. There was so much film and we had
a pretty short postproduction schedule
Copy !req
1401. and he did just a tremendous job.
Copy !req
1402. I hired Ray for one simple reason -
cos he had worked with Stanley Kubrick.
Copy !req
1403. It took him a while to really get
what I was trying to do with this movie.
Copy !req
1404. A lot of his early cuts
I didn't really care for.
Copy !req
1405. It's not that there was ever
any tension between us.
Copy !req
1406. I just didn't feel I was
getting what I wanted.
Copy !req
1407. Ray was getting really frustrated. I remember
toward the end he cut the alien queen battle,
Copy !req
1408. the power loader queen battle
at the end of the film.
Copy !req
1409. He was really nervous, cos he hadn't
given me the action cutting that I wanted
Copy !req
1410. and I'd had to mess with it a lot
Copy !req
1411. and there was another editor
who was cutting some stuff,
Copy !req
1412. and I was liking his action cutting
better than Ray's.
Copy !req
1413. Ray is just a dear guy and a really
good editor, but he was struggling with it.
Copy !req
1414. So, finally, he just grabbed all the film,
Copy !req
1415. locked himself in his room,
said "Don't bother me."
Copy !req
1416. Not mean or anything,
but "I just gotta do this."
Copy !req
1417. And he went in and he cut the entire
last eight minutes of the picture.
Copy !req
1418. He showed it to me very nervously.
He cut in a day or two.
Copy !req
1419. He showed it to me very nervously
and I watched the whole thing and I said
Copy !req
1420. "It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.
Don't change anything." And that was that.
Copy !req
1421. He felt like it was such a huge victory
because he had actually got it.
Copy !req
1422. He had mastered the style for the film.
Copy !req
1423. Sigourney, she's very liberal politically
Copy !req
1424. and despised the idea
of any kind of guns or anything,
Copy !req
1425. and tried to talk me
out of them having weapons.
Copy !req
1426. I said "They're marines.
They'd have weapons."
Copy !req
1427. She said "Do I have to carry a weapon?"
I said "Yes."
Copy !req
1428. She said "Why?" I said "Because it's not
Sigourney Weaver in the film. It's Ripley."
Copy !req
1429. "And Ripley wants to survive."
Copy !req
1430. So I took her out shooting a Thompson
machine gun, out behind the studio,
Copy !req
1431. and she fired off
a 50-round magazine from the hip.
Copy !req
1432. And then she looked up at me with
this sly grin and said "That's really fun."
Copy !req
1433. Another liberal bites the dust.
Copy !req
1434. There were a few things she asked if
she could do when we had our first meeting.
Copy !req
1435. She wanted to die in the film,
she wanted to not use guns
Copy !req
1436. and she wanted to make love
to the alien.
Copy !req
1437. And between the third and fourth film
she got to do all of those things.
Copy !req
1438. But fortunately for this film, I said no
to all of them, even though I was petrified.
Copy !req
1439. I thought she'd bolt from the project,
but she didn't.
Copy !req
1440. She had a lot of good ideas.
But she did have certain specific things
Copy !req
1441. she thought should be done
in the Alien mythos.
Copy !req
1442. When she got to a position of power
on the later films, she made that happen.
Copy !req
1443. This scene coming up
with Ripley and Newt,
Copy !req
1444. which is the attack of the facehuggers,
Copy !req
1445. was a really tough scene
to orchestrate, prepare for,
Copy !req
1446. as far as we think
we're now back 16 or 17 years.
Copy !req
1447. So we don't have
any kind of digital animation
Copy !req
1448. and there's not gonna be
any stop-motion animation,
Copy !req
1449. and these facehuggers
have gotta come to life,
Copy !req
1450. so we created I think
a half dozen different facehuggers
Copy !req
1451. that would do different things
to create the performance coming up,
Copy !req
1452. including our hero,
which had completely articulated hands,
Copy !req
1453. multiple cables that had to be controlled
by six puppeteers for one facehugger.
Copy !req
1454. We had one that would run across the floor.
We called him our pull toy.
Copy !req
1455. We had stunt facehuggers
that we could throw to hit the wall.
Copy !req
1456. We had actually two different heroes.
Copy !req
1457. There's the one that crawls
up over the counter coming at Newt.
Copy !req
1458. And then a completely articulated one
with tongue and fingers
Copy !req
1459. that Ripley would fight off
Copy !req
1460. with all of the cables down her arms
through the whole sequence.
Copy !req
1461. And there's so much that happens in that.
Copy !req
1462. You think of the facehugger
that's coming after them,
Copy !req
1463. and multiple to create that one scene.
Copy !req
1464. This is, to me,
the creepiest part of the movie.
Copy !req
1465. This thing running around,
that sound effect he did of the facehugger.
Copy !req
1466. The first scenes of this movie
when he did the chestbuster.
Copy !req
1467. The sequel, Alien -
he took care of it in five minutes.
Copy !req
1468. - That first scene. That it was a dream.
- That was great.
Copy !req
1469. I thought it was so smart.
It was just great.
Copy !req
1470. - His storytelling.
- The sound effects.
Copy !req
1471. That scrabbling noise.
Copy !req
1472. The way this whole thing was laid
out in the first Alien and the second one,
Copy !req
1473. the whole genesis of the way
it would start out in the pod
Copy !req
1474. and then it turned into the facehugger
and then it turned into the alien.
Copy !req
1475. A lot of the shots
of it scuttling along the floor
Copy !req
1476. were done on our miniature stage.
Copy !req
1477. That shot where it just scuttled by was done
right next to the twelfth-scale cargo lock.
Copy !req
1478. At the base of the twelfth-scale cargo lock
there was a little set there.
Copy !req
1479. So Jim would have five or six or seven
little setups poked in between our miniatures.
Copy !req
1480. We'd fog up the stage and get ready to
shoot, but he needed to shoot with no fog,
Copy !req
1481. so we'd clear the stage, he'd shoot his thing
and then we would continue on.
Copy !req
1482. So it was like one giant filmmaking unit but
we were doing two or three miniature shots
Copy !req
1483. simultaneously and he was doing
four or five live-action inserts.
Copy !req
1484. A concentrated dose
of Aliens filming.
Copy !req
1485. It's very hard to see Paul Reiser
as such an evil guy,
Copy !req
1486. after so many years of his TV series.
Copy !req
1487. He used to hate to ride to work
with me. I used ride to work with him.
Copy !req
1488. - And he didn't like it?
- He hated it. I was like a real primitive.
Copy !req
1489. - He's a sophisticated comic.
- What were you doing?
Copy !req
1490. I was always
grunting and groaning.
Copy !req
1491. - Smoking, burping.
- He hated everything about me.
Copy !req
1492. What a boring ride that was.
Copy !req
1493. You've been
carrying this baggage a while.
Copy !req
1494. - This is a good forum.
- Let it rip, baby.
Copy !req
1495. It was because of
the character he was playing.
Copy !req
1496. He's such a prissy, corporate guy in this.
Copy !req
1497. It's tough in these kind of movies.
Copy !req
1498. Especially when you're young,
if you're playing a good guy,
Copy !req
1499. you're always hanging
with the good guys.
Copy !req
1500. You don't trust yourself as an actor
to be friendly with the bad guys.
Copy !req
1501. "One of the bad guys
might wreck my big scene."
Copy !req
1502. We were too serious as actors
to be able to hang with Paul.
Copy !req
1503. He was reading the paper
the whole time.
Copy !req
1504. It was like I was interrupting
if I talked to him.
Copy !req
1505. You didn't wanna ride
to work with me?
Copy !req
1506. - I was in a different area.
- You were right round the corner.
Copy !req
1507. - You didn't want me with you.
- Bullshit.
Copy !req
1508. We're yanking
these facehuggers around.
Copy !req
1509. I called them rubber-chicken facehuggers
cos they were these floppy ones.
Copy !req
1510. The crawling one had
a mechanism inside it.
Copy !req
1511. That was shot backwards. We pulled
the tail off and shot it backwards.
Copy !req
1512. There was a pretty good mechanism built
into the ones that are really articulated,
Copy !req
1513. but a lot of the time we were just
yanking them around on fishing line
Copy !req
1514. and doing it in cuts.
Copy !req
1515. People probably wonder why I had him shoot
the window before he jumped through it.
Copy !req
1516. The idea was it's tempered glass.
Copy !req
1517. You have to get the crystal structure of the
glass to shatter before you can go through it.
Copy !req
1518. So this is a bunch of grown people
fighting a rubber chicken, basically.
Copy !req
1519. But, of course, it's the actors
that make the effects real in our minds.
Copy !req
1520. Great sequence. I love the red light
that he uses in this too. The warning light.
Copy !req
1521. That happens in the other sequence too when
the aliens are coming through the roof. Look.
Copy !req
1522. This is another scene that
James Cameron sets up as the family scene.
Copy !req
1523. There's just the three of us there
as a family, ready for Alien 3.
Copy !req
1524. David Fincher did a really good job
photographically and so on.
Copy !req
1525. I think it's really a well-made film,
visually.
Copy !req
1526. It's just kind of a slap in the face
of the fans
Copy !req
1527. who invested in Newt and Hicks
and all of those character relationships.
Copy !req
1528. I understand the instinct, of course,
which is you have to make it your own.
Copy !req
1529. I just don't think you should
make it your own
Copy !req
1530. at the expense of what
people like, personally.
Copy !req
1531. But everybody's gonna make
their own decisions.
Copy !req
1532. But I had to change some things
and make it my own on my film.
Copy !req
1533. And I know that Ridley probably watched it
and wasn't pleased with a lot of things.
Copy !req
1534. He probably wasn't pleased
with the fact that he hadn't made it.
Copy !req
1535. But I think it's tough.
Copy !req
1536. It's tough to see somebody continue on
something that you've started.
Copy !req
1537. But then you learn to just get over it
because that's the nature of this business.
Copy !req
1538. I think the trick to this type of film
is you just take it utterly seriously.
Copy !req
1539. You don't step outside yourself and try to
have fun with it and wink at the audience.
Copy !req
1540. You take it absolutely seriously
Copy !req
1541. and you don't give the audience
a chance to question it.
Copy !req
1542. And if the actors can sell it,
then it works.
Copy !req
1543. This is a distinction. I never got the sense in
the first film that the alien had an intelligence
Copy !req
1544. that allowed it to manipulate
their technology,
Copy !req
1545. but I didn't see that
necessarily as a barrier here
Copy !req
1546. because certainly these creatures
have been around longer.
Copy !req
1547. The alien in the first film
had only been alive for 24 hours.
Copy !req
1548. It was still an infant,
even though it had grown full size.
Copy !req
1549. These aliens have had weeks or months
to figure things out.
Copy !req
1550. There's no reason why they couldn't
figure out the electrical system.
Copy !req
1551. Not that they're technological,
but the rudimentary stuff.
Copy !req
1552. The implication is that
they're pretty clever.
Copy !req
1553. It's clear by the end of the film that the alien
queen knows how to operate an elevator.
Copy !req
1554. It's amazing how such a low-tech
little device that Jim sets up early on
Copy !req
1555. really builds the tension.
Copy !req
1556. You don't have to see them.
You just see that locator
Copy !req
1557. and you realize they're getting closer
with a little sound effect.
Copy !req
1558. This is one of
the first films we worked on
Copy !req
1559. that we worked with a video
to look at our effects.
Copy !req
1560. Prior to that you would shoot a shot
and go by your perception at the moment
Copy !req
1561. as to whether it worked or not
and looking at dailies the next day.
Copy !req
1562. You didn't see an instant replay.
Copy !req
1563. But on this film we used a video tap and
offside video camera on some of the shots
Copy !req
1564. to analyze what worked and what didn't.
Copy !req
1565. It was fairly expensive
to have a video tap camera.
Copy !req
1566. In most effects stuff,
the cameras used were...
Copy !req
1567. These old Mitchell cameras were great
but they didn't have video tap.
Copy !req
1568. It was an expense
a lot of times you couldn't afford.
Copy !req
1569. - More welding.
- Just don't look at it.
Copy !req
1570. - Look away or you'll be blinded.
- Weld it but don't look at it.
Copy !req
1571. Put your hand there.
Don't look at it.
Copy !req
1572. - Is this where you bite it?
- Yeah. Well, pretty soon.
Copy !req
1573. I'm gonna keep talking,
even if I'm dead.
Copy !req
1574. I don't know if you remember, Bill.
I had to ask Jim to go after you.
Copy !req
1575. He was just gonna have you being
pulled down. I'm like "Let me go after him."
Copy !req
1576. - It was a nice thing.
- I remember.
Copy !req
1577. I think about how much shooting
we did in this sequence
Copy !req
1578. with those pulse rifles and the full loads.
Copy !req
1579. I was standing to the right of you,
so I got to eat a few of those.
Copy !req
1580. I was catching the shells.
Copy !req
1581. This was a hard-core sequence.
Copy !req
1582. - It was the first time...
- You had the earplugs in.
Copy !req
1583. But it was one of the few times
we really got to shoot those guns off,
Copy !req
1584. which was great
cos we were carrying them all the time.
Copy !req
1585. - This is it right here.
- This is a great shot.
Copy !req
1586. That one right there.
Looking up and seeing these dudes.
Copy !req
1587. This is great. POV.
Copy !req
1588. (all) Ooh!
Copy !req
1589. There's a whole nest of them things
coming out of there.
Copy !req
1590. They're coming out of the woodwork.
Let 'em have it, Vasquez.
Copy !req
1591. Come on, Hicks. Get your gun off.
Copy !req
1592. The alien head
in the first film was very smooth.
Copy !req
1593. The top was smooth. Underneath
it had a skull shape and a ribbed design.
Copy !req
1594. Originally it was designed to see that through
a transparent surface in the Giger design.
Copy !req
1595. I thought what was under the surface
was more interesting than the final look,
Copy !req
1596. so we just modified it slightly.
Copy !req
1597. We used a lot of strobe lights
to simulate the back blast of their weapons.
Copy !req
1598. Every time they're firing weapons,
we're aiming strobes at the actors,
Copy !req
1599. which created a nice sense of a lot of energy
flying around as they fire these weapons.
Copy !req
1600. - Did you say "motherfucker"?
- I think I did.
Copy !req
1601. I think I've used up my quota there.
That could have been my quota.
Copy !req
1602. "You want some?" That's a good
one. "You want some? Come on, I got it."
Copy !req
1603. - And then I get pulled below.
- Oh, man.
Copy !req
1604. That was good.
Copy !req
1605. And that thing comes up...
Copy !req
1606. There it goes.
Copy !req
1607. - From here on out...
- The movie dies right there.
Copy !req
1608. The movie's just not quite the same.
Copy !req
1609. - He had the script for Near Dark.
- This movie just doesn't stop.
Copy !req
1610. You had the script for Near Dark
and were thinking about that.
Copy !req
1611. The movie just goes into overdrive
from here on out, right to the bitter end.
Copy !req
1612. It just doesn't stop.
Copy !req
1613. There's an editing technique
that Jim likes to use which is blank frames
Copy !req
1614. in between the discharge from the weapons,
sort of whites out the frame.
Copy !req
1615. It really helps the staccato cutting.
Copy !req
1616. I was having them splice together
individual frames of white flash leader.
Copy !req
1617. The negative cutter said -
Copy !req
1618. we did a lot of flash frames
and one-frame cuts in that sequence -
Copy !req
1619. we had more edits
in this reel 12 of Aliens
Copy !req
1620. than in any complete film
the negative cutter had done before.
Copy !req
1621. So the whole high-tech war
has degenerated to the point
Copy !req
1622. where they have to follow the little kid
or they're gonna die.
Copy !req
1623. Movie air ducts are always
big enough to get through.
Copy !req
1624. It bears no resemblance to the real world.
Copy !req
1625. The theory is that the audience
has never been inside an air duct.
Copy !req
1626. Air ducts are not big enough
to walk through.
Copy !req
1627. But it's a conceit.
It's also a conceit taken from the first film.
Copy !req
1628. Supposedly,
the way I survived in the colony
Copy !req
1629. was going around everywhere
in the air ducts.
Copy !req
1630. We supposedly played a game
Copy !req
1631. and part of the reason I was called Newt
is because I was so quick in the air ducts
Copy !req
1632. and no one really liked me on the colony
because I beat them at the game.
Copy !req
1633. Fortunately it ended up
saving us from the aliens at this time.
Copy !req
1634. For this air-duct set,
we had vertical air ducts
Copy !req
1635. so that we could actually drop
the aliens down with the monofilament,
Copy !req
1636. so that you would feel -
and you'll see it in here -
Copy !req
1637. feel them crawling
on the ceilings and the walls,
Copy !req
1638. that bug aspect of them.
Copy !req
1639. - My cameo's coming up.
- Who were you?
Copy !req
1640. Vasquez had never fired a handgun.
Jenette Goldstein hadn't.
Copy !req
1641. She was living in England.
Not a lot of handguns.
Copy !req
1642. For the wide shot she was great,
but for the close-up of her killing the alien,
Copy !req
1643. her recoil wasn't accurate.
Copy !req
1644. Unlike today, when I'm on a set,
Copy !req
1645. I dressed up in suits on this film
and the crew couldn't believe it...
Copy !req
1646. - That's me. That's me.
- All right, girl!
Copy !req
1647. All of the close-ups
of the handgun firing at the alien was me.
Copy !req
1648. People couldn't believe it,
since I always dressed up in suits.
Copy !req
1649. I needed something to give myself
the appearance of authority.
Copy !req
1650. When I came in in the fatigues
and fired a gun...
Copy !req
1651. - They saw the real Gale.
- They were pretty surprised.
Copy !req
1652. Jim told me that I was in my office and the
crew were saying "What are we gonna do?"
Copy !req
1653. "Who here has ever fired
a handgun before?"
Copy !req
1654. And he said "My wife has."
Copy !req
1655. He said "I'm gonna go get her
and she's gonna do the shot." And I did.
Copy !req
1656. Jenette has very fair skin,
Copy !req
1657. freckles and had hair down
to her waist and blue eyes.
Copy !req
1658. So somehow we managed to see
that if we cut all her hair off
Copy !req
1659. and gave her dark make-up
and brown contact lenses,
Copy !req
1660. she was actor enough
to actually pull off this Hispanic character.
Copy !req
1661. That was a tough actual
physical effect. There was nothing optical.
Copy !req
1662. That fireball came flying
through that corridor.
Copy !req
1663. We didn't have digital anything
back then. We didn't have digital fire.
Copy !req
1664. This is cool. It was a chute.
Copy !req
1665. It was about three stories high
and it had a big old curve at the end.
Copy !req
1666. I kept sometimes messing up
so that I could redo it.
Copy !req
1667. Important survival tips in this film.
Never grab the jacket. Grab the hand.
Copy !req
1668. Unless you have a Newt-finder device
in your pocket, then you're OK.
Copy !req
1669. Gene Siskel had a big problem
with this scene
Copy !req
1670. because of the jeopardy
of a little child with an alien monster.
Copy !req
1671. That never occurred to me,
but I wasn't a parent when I made this film.
Copy !req
1672. It probably would bother me more now
Copy !req
1673. because I could empathize
too much with the child.
Copy !req
1674. The thing that never bothered me
about the idea of putting a child in jeopardy
Copy !req
1675. is that somehow you just know inherently
that Ripley's not gonna let her die,
Copy !req
1676. no matter what it takes.
Copy !req
1677. I know they spent a lot of time
on the first film finding a big guy,
Copy !req
1678. building a suit that the tall guy could wear,
but in watching that movie and studying it,
Copy !req
1679. I realized that the alien almost never appears
in the same frame with a person for scale,
Copy !req
1680. and so we just decided to use normal
six-foot-tall people, cos we needed a lot.
Copy !req
1681. We knew we couldn't find
ten seven-and-half-foot-tall guys.
Copy !req
1682. Probably the only exception
is when the alien rises up behind her,
Copy !req
1683. but I figured that wasn't a problem
cos she was small anyway.
Copy !req
1684. We create the scale in our minds anyway.
Copy !req
1685. Michael was so good at this.
Copy !req
1686. This shot is in my show reel still.
Copy !req
1687. If you examine it now, you can see
the monofilament on the tail, pulling it up.
Copy !req
1688. I hate to low-tech it, but it's what it was.
Copy !req
1689. Goodbye.
Copy !req
1690. You just see
the little doll head as it sinks.
Copy !req
1691. That's where Jim over and over
again has those images like that.
Copy !req
1692. There it is right there.
Copy !req
1693. The eyes kind of close.
Copy !req
1694. This is where
they use that A-B smoke on me.
Copy !req
1695. That stuff's nasty.
Copy !req
1696. - They used that on Near Dark.
- They've outlawed it.
Copy !req
1697. Hard-core stuff.
Copy !req
1698. You breathe that in
and you get lung damage.
Copy !req
1699. It's tough
when you're doing these shots.
Copy !req
1700. It becomes all about
if the smoke reacted right.
Copy !req
1701. I've always thought the worst job
on any set is the guy who makes the smoke.
Copy !req
1702. Less smoke, more smoke.
Waft it up, waft it down.
Copy !req
1703. Fire that guy. Get a new smoke guy.
Copy !req
1704. Elevator doors
never close fast enough for me.
Copy !req
1705. It's just a pet peeve
with the way the world is wired.
Copy !req
1706. The shot of the vest getting hit by
acid was an insert that was shot on M stage
Copy !req
1707. as we were shooting the dropship
flying out of the atmosphere processor.
Copy !req
1708. As it's blowing up,
Jim was shooting with his back to us.
Copy !req
1709. He was stepping on our track
that the camera ran on,
Copy !req
1710. while it was being photographed.
Copy !req
1711. He would step off the track
and we'd run the camera down the track.
Copy !req
1712. And there was A-B smoke
Copy !req
1713. drifting over into our area
which made it hard to breathe.
Copy !req
1714. Miniature on wires here.
Copy !req
1715. Again, recalling that these
miniatures are moving very fast in reality.
Copy !req
1716. We're seeing them here slowed down.
Copy !req
1717. We run the camera at high speed
for miniature work to give a lot more scale.
Copy !req
1718. It gives it the size that's needed
to make it feel believable.
Copy !req
1719. If you were to see it as it actually happens,
it would look like the small scale that it is,
Copy !req
1720. so this is why it's done.
Copy !req
1721. We'd gone back in after we built
the atmosphere-processor miniature
Copy !req
1722. and before we did this shot we had a whole
crew - well, four or five guys, including us -
Copy !req
1723. running in and adding extra detail because
we were pushing into the interior of it.
Copy !req
1724. So we had a day and a half
of heavy-duty microdetailing going on there.
Copy !req
1725. This movie laid the foundation
for me for a lot of stuff.
Copy !req
1726. Again, it was working for Jim
that was really fantastic.
Copy !req
1727. I remember running into Jim
when he'd been hired to write this.
Copy !req
1728. I was at the airport. He was
handing off a parcel to some courier.
Copy !req
1729. I don't know why. I guess because
they were setting up shop in England.
Copy !req
1730. He said "I'm writing the sequel to Alien. "
Copy !req
1731. I said "Write me a good part in there."
I kidded him.
Copy !req
1732. Six months later I tried out for it in England
and I didn't think I'd gotten it.
Copy !req
1733. Your friends are usually
the last people to hire you.
Copy !req
1734. Cos you have no mystique with them.
Copy !req
1735. And then I got a call. I almost took Police
Academy 3 or something, and then I got this.
Copy !req
1736. More money than I'd ever seen in my life.
Copy !req
1737. They hired
Bob Wildcat Goldthwait instead.
Copy !req
1738. I don't know who got the better deal,
but I think I did.
Copy !req
1739. Everybody was looking at the film
as well-made in the sound and visual effects,
Copy !req
1740. but we were pleasantly surprised
when Sigourney got nominated.
Copy !req
1741. Not that we didn't think
her performance was worthy,
Copy !req
1742. but there was no precedent
for a horror film
Copy !req
1743. being honored by the Academy for acting.
Copy !req
1744. The fact they took it seriously
I think still is a real milestone.
Copy !req
1745. Interesting thing coming up.
Copy !req
1746. Another shot that Jim stuck me with
Copy !req
1747. but it's really kind of fun
is when we meet the queen alien.
Copy !req
1748. This is gonna come much later.
Copy !req
1749. She ends up back in the elevator shaft.
Copy !req
1750. In fact, the elevator shaft is not nearly
big enough to hold the queen alien,
Copy !req
1751. so only her front half is in the shaft.
Copy !req
1752. The rest of her is sticking
out the back of the elevator on the set,
Copy !req
1753. but you never really
think about it in the movie
Copy !req
1754. when that elevator opens
and the queen comes out,
Copy !req
1755. that she would never be able to fit in it.
Copy !req
1756. And since 90 per cent of the queen
alien stuff in this movie is all full size,
Copy !req
1757. we had to deal with the sets based on the
reality of her size and the reality of the sets.
Copy !req
1758. I never forget Jim coming to me
when he first had written the screenplay.
Copy !req
1759. He said "I've got this idea
for the queen alien."
Copy !req
1760. "We'll get a couple of guys in a suit.
Copy !req
1761. It'll have four arms.
We'll carry it on a crane arm."
Copy !req
1762. "We'll have puppeteers working the legs."
I'm going "He's completely out of his mind."
Copy !req
1763. Then a split second later
"No, it's Jim, so it probably'll work."
Copy !req
1764. - Remember when we did it with the...
- The garbage-bag test.
Copy !req
1765. Exactly. Do it first and make sure
it works before you do the design.
Copy !req
1766. So we rented
a little crane behind my studio
Copy !req
1767. and built a little body form for
two stunt men, ski poles for arms,
Copy !req
1768. foam-core legs, rod puppets,
foam-core head,
Copy !req
1769. and looked at it
and "You know what? It works."
Copy !req
1770. Same with the power loader.
Copy !req
1771. We did all that in foam core first
to make sure the concept worked.
Copy !req
1772. Unfortunately, it was too heavy
and had to be supported by the crane.
Copy !req
1773. By the wires.
But you'd never know that in the movie.
Copy !req
1774. No.
Copy !req
1775. The queen,
when she drops out of the dropship,
Copy !req
1776. she's virtually a huge marionette,
Copy !req
1777. and there are wires in the shot
and we never see 'em.
Copy !req
1778. Wires on each of her legs, her entire body,
when she comes down out of it.
Copy !req
1779. It's a 14-foot
hydraulically operated marionette.
Copy !req
1780. I learned to have a great deal of respect
for second unit directors doing this movie
Copy !req
1781. cos I had to shoot second unit,
small shots and big shots.
Copy !req
1782. And to have to make sure
that every light and everything
Copy !req
1783. was exactly the way Jim wanted it
Copy !req
1784. so that it fit in seamlessly
makes you realize that that job,
Copy !req
1785. which fortunately I haven't done
since working with Jim, is a rough job,
Copy !req
1786. because it's not being creative, it's making
sure you're doing what the director wants.
Copy !req
1787. It originally started that Sigourney
was supposed to have run into Paul Reiser
Copy !req
1788. and he did a cocoon scene as well,
Copy !req
1789. and she gave him a grenade.
Copy !req
1790. And later on in the movie,
there's a part where it's a big old boom,
Copy !req
1791. and it was supposed to have been
him setting off the grenade.
Copy !req
1792. But obviously no one really knows any of
that because it was cut out of the movie.
Copy !req
1793. I run into Sigourney once in a blue
moon at an airport lounge or something.
Copy !req
1794. She's always great. She remembers
Louise's name, my wife's name.
Copy !req
1795. - A very thoughtful woman.
- Gracious.
Copy !req
1796. She made this series what it is.
Without her, it just wouldn't be the same.
Copy !req
1797. Also Ridley Scott and Jim, they both really
showed up loaded for bear on these films.
Copy !req
1798. I've never followed the other movies.
I couldn't tell you much about...
Copy !req
1799. I thought Ridley was
doing the third and Jim the fourth.
Copy !req
1800. That was David Fincher.
I've seen a lot of his movies and liked 'em.
Copy !req
1801. Yeah, he's great.
Copy !req
1802. I personally installed Carrie in this
cos I wanted to make sure
Copy !req
1803. it was done in a way that wouldn't hurt her
or create any discomfort.
Copy !req
1804. So I'm smearing this gak all over her
and she looks up at me and says very quietly
Copy !req
1805. "It should be illegal
for you to do this to little kids."
Copy !req
1806. She was just winding me up.
She wasn't serious.
Copy !req
1807. The cocoon was probably one of the
most horrendous scenes that I had to film.
Copy !req
1808. There was a little hole and they made it
just big enough for me to crawl through.
Copy !req
1809. It was all made out of fiberglass and l
couldn't actually even put my feet down.
Copy !req
1810. I would sit in there for what seemed like
hours on end but I doubt it was.
Copy !req
1811. I couldn't rest my feet on it in case it broke.
I couldn't do anything in case it broke.
Copy !req
1812. We just had to keep replaying it
over and over again, and it took days.
Copy !req
1813. When Sigourney
actually tears apart the cocoon,
Copy !req
1814. because it was made out of fiberglass,
she tore her hands all up.
Copy !req
1815. They were all bleeding and everything.
Copy !req
1816. This was just not a fun scene to film.
Copy !req
1817. It took forever.
Copy !req
1818. We also had to replicate
Carrie for this
Copy !req
1819. because of all the shots
that Sigourney was gonna have to carry her.
Copy !req
1820. And she was too heavy.
And it was also Sigourney's back.
Copy !req
1821. Exactly. So we built
a little replication of Carrie's body.
Copy !req
1822. It was actually a really beautiful dummy
Copy !req
1823. that she carries through much of the scene
after she saves her.
Copy !req
1824. It's not enough to build
a 14-foot queen alien.
Copy !req
1825. It's gotta have a head
that comes out of its helmet-like head.
Copy !req
1826. This was a great shot.
This was a combination of miniature
Copy !req
1827. and then we built the last part of the egg sac
and attached it to the full-sized queen.
Copy !req
1828. This is all full size. This is full-size 14-foot
queen when we see her for the first time.
Copy !req
1829. That's a big puppet.
And the extruding head.
Copy !req
1830. We had to come up with
a new way of doing the teeth,
Copy !req
1831. making them translucent rather than metal,
as with the alien warriors.
Copy !req
1832. When Jim first came to me,
he had a painting of the queen alien.
Copy !req
1833. Just like with The Terminator,
he had already had her designed.
Copy !req
1834. I had some ideas and started doing
some drawings myself, one of the rear legs.
Copy !req
1835. It ultimately ended up
being virtually Jim's original design.
Copy !req
1836. I'll never forget the two of us
sitting on drawing boards at his house
Copy !req
1837. where he would draw one part of her
and I'd draw the other part,
Copy !req
1838. and it would be all coming together.
Copy !req
1839. He's one of the most talented artists
I ever had working for me.
Copy !req
1840. I think he remembers it
a little differently.
Copy !req
1841. You don't think he'd look at it like
that, as an employee of Stan Winston's?
Copy !req
1842. I also love this sequence when
Ripley is communicating with the queen.
Copy !req
1843. "See, I can wipe out your children."
Copy !req
1844. I shot that shot.
Copy !req
1845. She wants the queen
to call off her warriors,
Copy !req
1846. and when the queen doesn't,
she goes to town.
Copy !req
1847. Kill the eggs.
Copy !req
1848. Wasn't there a puppeteer
whose hand was dropping the egg?
Copy !req
1849. That was Nigel.
He would push it out.
Copy !req
1850. It was on a plex rod underneath the egg.
Copy !req
1851. Somebody was under the set to place it,
otherwise it would roll over and fall down.
Copy !req
1852. My job was to take that egg
and shove it back in.
Copy !req
1853. I know Sigourney still has
liberal guilt over this whole scene.
Copy !req
1854. But this is the classic
cathartic purging with fire.
Copy !req
1855. You purge the nightmare
by burning it out.
Copy !req
1856. And the idea that this is the only way
she's ever gonna have psychological closure.
Copy !req
1857. Not, by the way, a new idea in films.
Copy !req
1858. And probably one that doesn't have a whole
lot of basis in real human psychology.
Copy !req
1859. It feels right to the audience,
but if you're that traumatized,
Copy !req
1860. it wouldn't help you that much.
Copy !req
1861. But she sure unleashes
holy hell on these guys.
Copy !req
1862. We had a sharpshooter fire
a real bullet into the miniature egg sac.
Copy !req
1863. This is a miniature.
That's a front projection shot.
Copy !req
1864. A lot of smoke in the air tends to take
the edge off of it. It was a bit heavy.
Copy !req
1865. Obscuring the plate.
Copy !req
1866. There's a shot here
where the platform the queen is on,
Copy !req
1867. there's a big explosion
when she tosses the weapons belt here,
Copy !req
1868. and the queen, when it falls,
Copy !req
1869. is actually quarter-scale miniature
in which we use a double-mirror setup.
Copy !req
1870. We had a beam splitter in the foreground
reflecting large-scale fire
Copy !req
1871. that was off to the right of the camera
and behind the puppet was another mirror
Copy !req
1872. that was angled off to the left
where we had another very large-scale fire.
Copy !req
1873. We had a full-size alien queen
and then we had this miniature one.
Copy !req
1874. The miniature one flails a little bit.
Copy !req
1875. The alien queen design could be created
so beautifully today with CG animation.
Copy !req
1876. That didn't exist then,
Copy !req
1877. so we had to figure out how to do it
with more conventional means,
Copy !req
1878. so it's a bunraku puppet
more than anything.
Copy !req
1879. This electrical-charge effect
was footage we acquired
Copy !req
1880. from Gene Warren from Fantasy II.
Copy !req
1881. He had several hundred feet
he had shot for the first Terminatorfilm.
Copy !req
1882. We needed that type
of generic lightning effects
Copy !req
1883. and we had that film shipped over to us.
Copy !req
1884. It was actually
tesla coil footage.
Copy !req
1885. Give credit where credit's due.
Copy !req
1886. Once again, just the subtle things,
like the countdown,
Copy !req
1887. reminding the characters
and the audience that there's a ticking clock.
Copy !req
1888. The huge queen alien
comes round the corner here.
Copy !req
1889. It's one of our tougher shots,
for her to come out around the corner
Copy !req
1890. and see her right here, and looking at her.
Copy !req
1891. Neat performance.
Copy !req
1892. I'll never forget my first conversation
with Steven Spielberg about Jurassic Park
Copy !req
1893. when he said to me
"You built a 14-foot alien, full-size."
Copy !req
1894. "Why can't you do a dinosaur?"
Copy !req
1895. Everything leads to something else.
Copy !req
1896. The water weenie in Abyss
to the T-1000 in T2.
Copy !req
1897. Everything's R and D
for something you do later on.
Copy !req
1898. This is the shot.
The queen just thinking, looking.
Copy !req
1899. A little cock of the head,
knows what she's gonna do.
Copy !req
1900. "I got a plan. I'm not stupid."
Copy !req
1901. That woman can act.
Copy !req
1902. The female computer voice
that's counting down is an intentional tie-in
Copy !req
1903. to the first film, to create the same sense
of panic as the clock runs down.
Copy !req
1904. And then this is what you expect to happen,
that Bishop completely betrays them.
Copy !req
1905. But I think what you don't expect
is that he didn't,
Copy !req
1906. that he turns out to be a good guy.
Copy !req
1907. People always expect the worst of others,
never the best.
Copy !req
1908. And so when a character
actually lives up to their promises,
Copy !req
1909. and Bishop said he was gonna stay
and he did,
Copy !req
1910. you don't expect it,
you don't see it coming.
Copy !req
1911. This is a front-screen projection shot.
Copy !req
1912. There's a dropship comes up
behind Ripley on this landing platform.
Copy !req
1913. The element that we shot for that
was shot at high speed.
Copy !req
1914. Because the camera's running
at such high speed,
Copy !req
1915. the actual movement was so fast, it's almost
not possible to move an object that quickly.
Copy !req
1916. Look at this.
Big old queen inside that little elevator.
Copy !req
1917. We'll just keep it dark inside.
Copy !req
1918. It's a black curtain at the back of it
that she's coming through.
Copy !req
1919. You think it's all lost
and there it is.
Copy !req
1920. It's hard to imagine how fast
that actually moved in real time.
Copy !req
1921. Any time the miniature
is supposed to be traveling fast,
Copy !req
1922. it had to be traveling
three, four, five times as fast.
Copy !req
1923. This down-view was extended
with mirrors on the stage floor.
Copy !req
1924. It was not apparent in the shot with
the fireball coming up, the earlier cut,
Copy !req
1925. as you see this set
continuing very far down,
Copy !req
1926. but those are mirrors on the studio floor.
Copy !req
1927. In addition to the pyro,
we used flashbulbs,
Copy !req
1928. buried in the set, to give extra flashes.
Copy !req
1929. This is another instance
where the score is so terrific as well.
Copy !req
1930. When we were in the scoring stage,
this was the last cue that Jamie had finished.
Copy !req
1931. And then there was no...
It was like "OK. And then what?"
Copy !req
1932. "I didn't get around
to the last cue of the film."
Copy !req
1933. And in a miraculous burst of creativity,
he generated the final cue overnight.
Copy !req
1934. I didn't know how to work with
an orchestral composer when I made this.
Copy !req
1935. I don't think James knew
how to work with directors that well.
Copy !req
1936. I think he was a brilliant composer,
but he had a lot to learn and so did I.
Copy !req
1937. By the way, that nuclear explosion
is a big light bulb.
Copy !req
1938. Literally, a light bulb covered with cotton.
Copy !req
1939. We didn't have any budget for a big effect
there, so we just made something up.
Copy !req
1940. But it didn't create problems
between us personalitywise
Copy !req
1941. but I went to the scoring session
expecting to hear the movie,
Copy !req
1942. and an orchestra started to play
stuff that didn't work.
Copy !req
1943. The music was beautiful,
but it didn't work on a scene-by-scene basis.
Copy !req
1944. I didn't know what to do.
There was no second round.
Copy !req
1945. It was like "Here's your score."
And James went off to another film.
Copy !req
1946. We wound up doing an awful lot
of music editing and moving stuff around.
Copy !req
1947. He was never happy with the outcome even
though he got an Academy Award nomination
Copy !req
1948. cos it didn't reflect what he had created,
and I didn't like the process.
Copy !req
1949. So when we got together on Titanic, I said:
Copy !req
1950. "What can we do
so that doesn't happen again?"
Copy !req
1951. "Cos I like your music
and I want you to do this film."
Copy !req
1952. So we worked out a methodology
by which we'd communicate better.
Copy !req
1953. And that was a great experience,
by contrast.
Copy !req
1954. This is a great effect, of the
queen tail coming out through his body.
Copy !req
1955. It's basically a soft tail
that we pulled with a monofilament.
Copy !req
1956. And it works great.
You would never know it.
Copy !req
1957. Alec Gillis was throwing...
After Bishop was torn in half here,
Copy !req
1958. you see his torso go one way,
the top part go the other way.
Copy !req
1959. Alec would throw it and it would land
in these goofy, ridiculous positions.
Copy !req
1960. Setting up for this one shot
right here was two days of work,
Copy !req
1961. to get that shot there.
Copy !req
1962. This shot of it landing
was shot over and over again.
Copy !req
1963. I remember seeing the dailies.
Copy !req
1964. The arms would land
behind its head.
Copy !req
1965. It was one of those funny moments.
Copy !req
1966. This sequence used a combination
of the full-size and the quarter-scale queen.
Copy !req
1967. Where there was a lot of movement
across the floor, we'd use the miniature.
Copy !req
1968. If it were in place or close-up,
we'd use the full-size.
Copy !req
1969. And this is the biggest marionette
in the history of motion pictures.
Copy !req
1970. She is every technology we had.
Copy !req
1971. She's rod puppet, she's hydraulic,
which was new to us, she's a breakthrough,
Copy !req
1972. radio-controlled, wired and rod,
all in that one beast.
Copy !req
1973. And seamlessly intercut.
Copy !req
1974. With this miniature puppet
of Doug's.
Copy !req
1975. With a miniature puppet of Ripley.
Copy !req
1976. This sequence in the fight between Ripley
and the power loader and the alien queen,
Copy !req
1977. we used the movie cam which was able to
change the frame rate within one shot,
Copy !req
1978. and were able to start
at 24 frames per second
Copy !req
1979. and then go down
to 18 or 20 frames per second,
Copy !req
1980. so that when the internal jaws came out,
they whipped out.
Copy !req
1981. When you analyze this scene,
it's all just quick cuts.
Copy !req
1982. The alien's hand is in one shot
and you see a bit of the head and the hand,
Copy !req
1983. but it's just all done with puppeting.
Copy !req
1984. I think it's actually good.
Copy !req
1985. The intention today would be to do it with
computer graphics and see it more full-figure,
Copy !req
1986. and I think seeing it in bits and pieces
is actually more powerful.
Copy !req
1987. This was a hard shot. This is the pylon rig.
You can see it behind her.
Copy !req
1988. It's like a long crane arm.
Copy !req
1989. I remember seeing the film,
midnight screening on Hollywood Boulevard,
Copy !req
1990. and that line brought the house down.
Copy !req
1991. People stood up and cheered.
Copy !req
1992. Probably the most gratifying moment
of my producing career
Copy !req
1993. was their reaction to that shot.
Copy !req
1994. When we screened this film,
we knew we had a hit.
Copy !req
1995. The audience went crazy.
Copy !req
1996. And it was an industry audience,
so they can go either way.
Copy !req
1997. They'll either be very negative or they'll be
celebratory of a film they think is working.
Copy !req
1998. Once again, you have a mixture of full-size
power loader and queen and miniature.
Copy !req
1999. This is all pretty much full-size here,
Copy !req
2000. which shows you how well-articulated
what Stan Winston's guys did.
Copy !req
2001. These shots of the power loader
taking big swings were quarter-scale shots.
Copy !req
2002. That's the kind of action that would
have been very hard to stage successfully
Copy !req
2003. with any kind of dynamics in full scale.
Copy !req
2004. Thinking about it,
this looks like a heavyweight machine,
Copy !req
2005. and it was actually just flimsy plastic.
Copy !req
2006. You'd probably lift a lot of that
if it were in pieces.
Copy !req
2007. That whole arm, that claw
mechanism, only weighed a pound or so.
Copy !req
2008. It had some sort
of a counterweight,
Copy !req
2009. cos so much weight
is pushed out forward.
Copy !req
2010. You forget again that there was a bodybuilder
inside of there helping to manipulate it.
Copy !req
2011. Basically, Sigourney was standing
on the fronts of his feet, as I recall.
Copy !req
2012. And a quarter-scale version of the airlock
was also made, as well as the full-size,
Copy !req
2013. so, depending on the shots,
the requirements,
Copy !req
2014. you'd use one or the other.
Copy !req
2015. Interesting that
we chose not to score this.
Copy !req
2016. I just felt it had a greater sense of reality
Copy !req
2017. and it might seem a little over the top
if it was being driven by music,
Copy !req
2018. whereas it plays very real,
somehow, without music.
Copy !req
2019. I think the score cuts in
when the queen grabs her.
Copy !req
2020. That lever's always right there that allows
you to depressure your entire spacecraft.
Copy !req
2021. It's a bit like the button in the Krell lab
that blows up the planet
Copy !req
2022. that you put in the children's
learning room.
Copy !req
2023. And this is so terrific.
Copy !req
2024. We had a little trolley
underneath the set that he would ride on.
Copy !req
2025. The shot as the queen falls away
was done in miniature.
Copy !req
2026. We had taken pieces of the set up to the top
of the stage and dropped them away.
Copy !req
2027. We had people physically holding a large
sheet of black cloth, sort of fireman-style,
Copy !req
2028. standing on the stage floor, and we dropped
these pieces from the top of the stage.
Copy !req
2029. There's an interesting thing here.
Copy !req
2030. When Newt slides, Bishop, you see
his body, you see how the gag is done.
Copy !req
2031. Lance is down through the set.
It shows you how people watch a movie.
Copy !req
2032. They watch the hands,
whether he's gonna miss her,
Copy !req
2033. and they don't see a bad visual effect that's
happening on the other side of the screen.
Copy !req
2034. But I was watching it with an audience for
about the fifth time before I saw that myself,
Copy !req
2035. cos I always looked
where I was supposed to look.
Copy !req
2036. The queen was stop-motion,
right, coming out of the Sulaco?
Copy !req
2037. The exterior shot of the queen was,
I think, puppeted bluescreen.
Copy !req
2038. It's got a bit of a stop-motion quality,
but it's just...
Copy !req
2039. The original thought
was to use stop motion in this film,
Copy !req
2040. but the problems of time as well as
the kind of action that stop motion creates
Copy !req
2041. is different than puppeted.
Copy !req
2042. There was also questions
about these slime elements.
Copy !req
2043. The thing was always dripping and there was
a lot of real-time elements that were mixed in
Copy !req
2044. that would have made it hard
to do a stop motion.
Copy !req
2045. But, again, time was a factor and we had
to do a shot a day or every couple of days
Copy !req
2046. and cover things with multiple cameras.
Copy !req
2047. It would have been very impractical
to do it that way.
Copy !req
2048. She recovers
from her traumatic event pretty quickly.
Copy !req
2049. But she's been through a lot so
she's got used to this stuff by now, I guess.
Copy !req
2050. I didn't think
it was appropriate to show Sigourney
Copy !req
2051. in quite the same sexy underwear
she was in at the end of Alien,
Copy !req
2052. I'm sure much to the fans'
disappointment.
Copy !req
2053. It's a movie I'll always be proud
to have been a part of.
Copy !req
2054. It's great to get together and revisit it
after so many years. It holds up.
Copy !req
2055. - It was a great experience.
- This was my first film.
Copy !req
2056. - Was that your first film too?
- Yeah. He gave me my first job.
Copy !req
2057. It was amazing to step into that.
Copy !req
2058. You do movies
and always have high hopes,
Copy !req
2059. and it's only a few that turn out
Copy !req
2060. as great as this one.
That's why it's so special.
Copy !req
2061. I think at the time we knew
we had a great script, a great director,
Copy !req
2062. who really knew how
to put this thing on film,
Copy !req
2063. and there was a great camaraderie
amongst all of us.
Copy !req
2064. It was great to have
this common purpose
Copy !req
2065. and know we were making
a great science fiction classic.
Copy !req
2066. There was no question in any of our minds
that we were involved with a great film.
Copy !req
2067. We showed up on the set in London
and to see the stagecraft that they had done.
Copy !req
2068. That's why when people talk to me
about working for Jim Cameron,
Copy !req
2069. that's why it's so great to work with him,
cos you know you're in great hands.
Copy !req
2070. There's a possibility that it's gonna be
a great, great movie, a really good possibility.
Copy !req
2071. We've all had hits and misses since,
but it is a filmmaker's medium.
Copy !req
2072. When you go into a movie like this,
you just give that extra, added whatever it is,
Copy !req
2073. cos you know that there's a shot.
Copy !req
2074. It surprised me how it went
Copy !req
2075. across lines of people
who love science fiction
Copy !req
2076. but beyond that - you don't have to be
a science fiction genre buff to enjoy it at all,
Copy !req
2077. or it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.
Copy !req
2078. And what a challenge,
to be the director of the sequel to Alien,
Copy !req
2079. which, like you were saying earlier,
really revolutionized science fiction films.
Copy !req
2080. This was the first monster to come down
the pike that was so intricate and interesting
Copy !req
2081. in the whole way it evolved,
and the Giger design of the original monster.
Copy !req
2082. To be bold enough to go
"Yeah, I'll write and direct the sequel."
Copy !req
2083. Tough duty.
Copy !req
2084. I don't think anybody else
could've pulled it off.
Copy !req
2085. I had so much fun
on the Aliens experience.
Copy !req
2086. - A once-in-a-lifetime experience.
- Definitely.
Copy !req
2087. Who can say that their name comes up
second in the credits?
Copy !req
2088. Not very many people.
Copy !req
2089. Wow.
Copy !req
2090. Did we actually make that movie?
Copy !req
2091. - For 18 million dollars.
- It wore me out watching it.
Copy !req
2092. It was what? A 60-odd day shoot?
It was like a 65-day shoot.
Copy !req
2093. Very proud. We did good.
Copy !req
2094. - Let's do it again.
- Hats off to you, Jim.
Copy !req
2095. The man kicks butt, doesn't he?
Copy !req
2096. He's the maestro.
Copy !req
2097. I think in terms
of actual technique,
Copy !req
2098. it's crude compared to films made now.
Copy !req
2099. But I think in terms of storytelling,
it's as good as I'll probably ever be,
Copy !req
2100. which is really what filmmaking is all about.
Copy !req
2101. It's about the people,
it's about the relationships.
Copy !req
2102. Of course, then they made the third film
and killed everybody.
Copy !req