Wednesday 14 October 2009

Writers helped create Ripley, believe it or not...

Disappointed that Xan Brooks' generally excellent Alien anniversary article in Tuesday's Guardian failed to hype any of the writers in favour of the usual star-f*cking.

Ridley Scott? Natch.
Sigourney Weaver? But of course.
Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett? Ahem...  Didn't catch that.
Walter Hill and David Giler?   Nervous coughing.
Alan Ladd Jr? Er... who?

The sidebar does quote O'Bannon and Shusett on the shooting of the chestburster scene, but that's extracted from Empire magazine. In the context of the feature article, where's the love for the guys who actually sat down and wrote it? 

Admittedly, it mainly focuses on Ripley as feminist cultural icon, but the writers belong here too.
Despite the widespread assertion (not in the article but evident in Smith and Ximena-Gallardo's Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley) that Alien was written for an all-male cast, the 1976 draft of the script by O'Bannon and Shusett states:

"The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women."

There is no Ripley per se in the '76 draft, but MARTIN ROBY is clearly her progenitor. Described as "cautious but intelligent - a survivor", he does just that; he escapes, in much the same manner.

By the 1978 draft credited to Hill and Giler, based on O'Bannon's, Ripley has appeared as a woman, allegedly at the suggestion of Alan Ladd Jr., then President at 20th Century Fox.

So while Scott and Weaver no doubt had input by the 1978 draft, and thoroughly deserve their props, let's not forget that O'Bannon and Shusett wrote the thing from scratch, then Hill and Giler refined it. Everyone's always banging on about how film's a collaborative medium. Wouldn't it be nice if media coverage reflected that too?

Long time no blog

Just realised there was more than a year between the last blog and the one before. This writing lark is hard work. Even the Homebase episode was more than a year ago. I've been real bad at this. Now work is slowing down and I'll have to ration my load for the next 10 weeks maybe I'll have a bit more time.
Or maybe I should look for another job...
Nah.