Talk:Alien (film)

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Alien (film) was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (February 4, 2007). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

Alien (film) received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

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WikiProject Alien

I have proposed the creation of a WikiProject to improve articles related to the Alien series, including this one. If you are interested in participating please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Alien and add your name to the list of interested editors. If enough people are interested in starting this project, then I will move forward with it. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit changes - 16th March

16th March - Paged edited - most significant change related to the plot twist that's revealed in the deleted scenes in the new release of the "Alien" DVD. In HR Giger's book, there are photographs of designs and props used for the sequence where Ripley discovers Dallas and Brett - Giger's props are discussed as part of a sequence where Dallas and Brett are turning into eggs. Thus it's incorrect to talk about "cocoons" or Dallas and Brett being implanted, since the props are clearly eggs & Giger's dialogue confirms them as such. This makes the scene subtly different to the "cocooning" sequences in the later movies, where a different, queen-based reproduction method is used.

In this context it's incorrect to talk about the alien "killing" some of the crew members, as they're not killed in situ, but disabled & abducted for the conversion into eggs. This doesn't sit well with the later films, but it's correct in the context of the original movie.

Other minor changes to the page : the plot summary is incorrect in the first paragraph, as there is no "young alien" involved in the implantation of Kane, and Kane is not "infected" - it's a separate, facehugger stage that's involved, and he's implanted, not infected. Other changes to the plot - the eggs aren't "protected" by a forcefield in the traditional SF sense, it's described as a "layer of mist". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.254.68.135 (talk) 23:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

other influence: Heavy Metal?

There is an episode in the animated feature film "Heavy Metal" that features the WWII story of a creature aboard a US bomber plane that lurks out of sight and systematically kills the crew one at a time. I was told by someone who worked on the "Heavy Metal" film (as I did, but not back then; more recently) that that story was also an inspiration for the Alien movie. That's rather sketchy so I will not add it but if anyone has any other information that supports this idea perhaps you will want to add it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.46.84.66 (talk) 22:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That seems unlikely, as Heavy Metal came out 2 years after Alien. --Silpion (talk) 06:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tools as an inspiration for the alien?

I clearly remember seeing sketches by H.R Giger, in a making of documentary that showed the facehugger working like a jack in the box or something. I seem to remember seeing other sketches of tools that (I think) were inspiration for the design of the alien. Did anybody else see this on the two disc special edition release or am I just insane? Well, if it was an inspiration then I propose that we put this in (not as its own section though). Yojimbo501 (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could somebody tell me how to put links in the references section?

I dont know how to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yojimbo501 (talk • contribs) 15:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FOOT should tell you all you need to know, and if you look for existing <ref> tags in the article, it'll help you understand how it works. Drop me a line on my talk page if you've got any questions. --McGeddon (talk) 15:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yojimbo501 (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Opening sentence

how does the first line make any sense? the creature is an "unfair" extra terrestrial? how is it unfair?

maybe someone meant to write something else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.73.194.93 (talk) 15:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't say that anymore. It was a nonsense edit & was reverted. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jonesy The Cat

Can anybody please provide some info on whose is the beautiful cat who played Jonesy in the movie? 89.138.86.27 (talk) 12:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why? I don't recall from the film's special features that they discuss the cat much, particularly I don't think they mention who its owner was. Why does it matter? --IllaZilla (talk) 18:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, for no particular reason. I just thought, maybe there are some interesting facts about this cat - like, maybe it belonged to some crew or cast member, etc. Morever, sadly, the cat wasn't even mentioned in the movie credits, and it's like an additional actor, isn't it! :) They had to write its name at least. Jonesy's the only one who alien didn't eat for dinner after he saw it, so Jonesy is very important indeed!217.132.88.212 (talk) 13:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if a source comes up with some discussion of the cat we can certainly add it. At some point if I get around to watching the DVD special features again maybe they make some mention of it. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a bunch! 217.132.247.141 (talk) 19:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a source on the cat, and I'll share it, but I don't think it should be included. It's in the publication which is also mentioned in the article: James H. Kavanaugh, "'Son of a Bitch': Feminism, Humanism and Science in Alien", in October, Vol. 13, 1980, pp. 90-100. He writes the following weird, hyper-academic gibberish:

A Greimasian semantic rectangle will foreground the structural importance of the cat in the complex of signifiers generated from the notion "human":

The founding term in the film is human (S), represented by the image of Ripley as the strong woman. The antihuman (–S) is, of course, the alien, and the not-human (Ƨ) is Ash, the robot. The cat, then, functions in the slot of the not-antihuman (-Ƨ), an indispensable role in this drama. (~_^) —Eickenberg (talk) 23:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image copyright problem with Image:Chris Foss Pyramid Book of Alien.JPG

The image Image:Chris Foss Pyramid Book of Alien.JPG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --23:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inspirations

"Star Wars. While the world of futuristic science fiction movies taking place in outer space up till that point had been shown as everything was new and fresh, Star Wars made it look like it was old and used, for instance the old Millennium Falcon, the scrap dealing Jawas, and the wild west settings on Tatooine. Influenced by this scenario, Nostromo reminds about an aging and rusty cargo ship with water dripping and trickling in the corridors, while the crew are typical workers dressed in coveralls instead of fine uniforms." This is NOT original research, as IllaZilla claims. It is Ridley Scott himself who says this in an interview in the short documentary called The Force Is with Them: The Legacy of 'Star Wars' . 84.48.35.203 (talk) 06:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you attribute the information to a reliable source, then it fits the definition of original research. All information in Wikipedia articles, especially info like this which makes substantive claims, must be attributed to a source. Since you didn't cite the source, or even mention that the information came from somewhere other than yourself, it looked like original research (see the diff: [1]). Please familiarize yourself with how to cite sources in WP articles, then please feel free to re-add the information with a proper citation to the source. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have now added a source to the info and the quote from Scott. Hopefully it makes it a bit better. 84.48.35.203 (talk) 02:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Much better. Thanks for that. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal

Merge all 3 (and remove all of the OR). Also, does a merge discussion already exist somewhere else? The merge tag's been there for a while... I don't see any discussion. DiggyG (talk) 04:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The tag was placed to spur a discussion, but nobody's made a comment until now. I'm currently working on some major stuff for this article that will take care of these merge issues and maybe even help it get to GA status. There are a couple more books I'm trying to get ahold of first to use as sources. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]