Alien 3 was a notoriously difficult production and went through many writers and directors before ultimately David Fincher took the reins on the film and has since disavowed the film, refusing to talk about it. It seems that Terry Gilliam was also offered the director’s chair for the film!
In a new interview with Roger Ebert.com (via Movieweb) to talk about his own upcoming film with a hugely difficult production, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the notorious director was asked about his thoughts on the Alien series and revealed he’d actually been approached to direct a film in the series!
“I got offered an ‘Alien’ sequel because I was hot at that time, as a result of ‘Time Bandits” and ‘Fisher King,’ and I just don’t want to do films like that. They are factory jobs, working for a studio. My last factory job was on the Chevrolet assembly plant in Los Angeles, during my junior year of college, night shift on the line. Never again.”
While he doesn’t specify it was Alien 3, given the timing of the offer (The Fisher King was released in 1991) it would seem he was offered the director’s chair for Alien 3.
Speaking about his thoughts on Sir Ridley Scott’s original Alien, Gilliam didn’t pull any punches, though at least he did have some nice things to say about Ridley’s general approach to filming the Alien suit:
“‘Alien’ is just a ghost train where something jumps out and you don’t know who’s going to die next,” laughed Gilliam. “When I watched the first ‘Alien,’ all I kept saying was, ‘Just kill them all and be done with it,’ because you just know that they’re all going to die along the way. In the end, Sigourney Weaver, who we’ve established is a really tough military officer, is running around in her underwear trying to find a cat. Give me a f—king break.
There are some great moments in it, but the shot that should’ve never been in the film is the one at the end showing the alien getting blown out of the airlock. You see the alien, and it’s just a guy in a rubber suit. Up until then, you only saw bits of the alien, and it seemed to be huge and vast and terrifying. That was so clever. It was like the shark in ‘Jaws.’ I told Ridley, ‘You don’t want that shot of the alien at the end. Cut it!’”
What are you thoughts on this? Would Gilliam have made a good fit for the Alien series? Thanks to ralfy for the news.
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PS : obviously he totally has the right too if he did, that just suprises me coming from a guy like him.
Everything else is just confected outrage.
He's trashing the concept of a survival movie, in which most of the characters will die and everyone knows it yes. What's the problem ?
So he should magically know what's going to happen in a movie before sitting down to watch it.
In other words, your claim that "he's trashing the whole movie genre that Alien is a part of..." is melodramatic nonsense.
Oh I totally agree with you. I was just reflecting on his criticisms on ALIEN.
"When I watched the first 'Alien,' all I kept saying was, 'Just kill them all and be done with it,' because you just know that they're all going to die along the way"
It's a basic premise for every survival movie, which Alien is part of. I guess he could say the same for Predator then, "why don't you kill them all already, since we know they gonna die !".
Why bother watching it, if you don't like this concept ?
12 Monkeys wasn't a film i personally enjoyed.
I was more surprised to hear he was even offered a shot at doing an Alien film, than anything he actually said about the franchise.
Alien wasn't a film he enjoyed.
12 Monkeys wasn't a film i enjoyed.
I doubt my opinion on his work is going to have any greater impact on it, than his opinion on what i class as a film classic, will have on mine.
:-)
However I've not seen every Gilliam film, so it's very possible there's one that breaks the format. I've never rushed to see a theatrical release though, having caught a lot of his stuff when it's arrived on TV I'm still left cold.
Slightly OT, but I stumbled across this piece about JPJ mentioning Terry G while having a crack at Guillermo del Toro.
He's criticised Schindler's List (quoting Kubrick) and Harry Potter (after getting knocked back as Rowling's first choice and calling Columbus's films dull and pedestrian). Working on big studio franchises is not his thing as is hinted at in his comments on Alien. He was even dismissive of the 12 Monkeys tv series.
Ripley stripping down is very symbolical. She thinks she is out of harms way and safe and thus lowers her guard, finally allowing herself to be vulnerable and relax only to realize that she is stuck in the belly of the beast. Her crawling into the spacesuit while essentially praying (manically whisper-singing "Lucky Star" repeatedly) is interesting as she is now an official survivor of the beast, effectively hardened, this time quicker to put on her armor and arm herself yet realizing that only luck (i.e. the right timing) and a fools hope (determination and instinct) is what is going to save her in the end. On the other hand having a young sweaty female strip down to her undies in a horror movie might seem very cliche, hackish and cheap to a lot of people...
But when it comes to simplifying ALIEN as nothing but a glorified ghost train movie I think it is kind of a dismissive and unfair assessment, especially since Scott's intention all along was to make a B-movie with A-list acting, pacing, photo, sound, ingenuity, special effects, themes/symbolism, score etc. Despite ALIEN's flaws I think that Terry Gilliam went too far in his criticism of the movie and I strongly doubt that he would've been able to make a better sic-fi monster movie than ALIEN. I'm not saying that because I don't like him or his movies (on the contrary - I really like them!), I'm saying that because his eye, style and liberal use of humor doesn't sit well with the cold somberness of ALIEN and A3 (as well as ALIENS to a certain degree). I think that he would've been even less a fitting pick than Jeunet (another director that is a little bit too fond of humor to direct an Alien movie).
He didn't only trash the ending though, he's trashing the whole movie genre that Alien is a part of...
Still, the movie had easily won me over by the time that shot came along near the end, so it was no big deal by that point.
As far as the 'Ash head' shots go, there's actually a straightforward way to re-edit them slightly to smooth things a bit - so it's a pity Ridley didn't do it for his 'Director's Cut' when he went about some other trims - but again no big deal to me.
However, it's certainly food for thought how a Gilliam-directed 'Alien 3' would have turned out...but only if he could have had some input in where the storyline was going, as opposed to what Fincher had to go with.
I do love Ridley mimicking the Ash grin
You are quite right. A little elementary research on my part would have spared me a good deal of humiliation: I had never heard of him and assumed he was not only wrong, but one of the endless third-rate opiners of the internet. I cannot see how such a man has any right to intervene in ''Alien'', but as for assuming he was a nonentity, in the words of an old friend of mine ''never assume: it makes an ass of both you and me''. I quite deserve to wear the donkey's ears.
This is a minority opinion, clearly, but I confess I found the Ash scene brilliantly done. I detest CGI and think the old effects are better by far: the hideous pseudo-organic mass of tubes and globes entirely unexpected and different to the coloured electrical wires of most robots, the chilling screams of his malfunction, the thin, milky fluid (which reminded me of semen) spouting from his mouth (as unexpected and as frightening as the chest-burster in its way) and soaking the fragments, the head tearing as an artificial head would, with a rough flap of rubbery skin torn from the neck and chest, not a cheap neck-decapitation. The increasingly tinny, mechanical voice blended with Sir Ian Holm's is brilliant and thoroughly sinister, as is the burning away in separate gouts of flame the outward appearance of his humanity down to a mannequin-like foundation.
He has a sensibility which is not far removed from that of Jeunet of whom I was a fan before A:R came out. I had great expectations of A:R and was let down. In much the same way, as much as it may seem interesting to have a TG directed Aliens film, I suspect it would fail to deliver on expectations.
Yes, the guy in the rubber suit at the end of Alien looked hokey. He's right.
More irritating is how easily fixable they would actually be.
Despite the fact I like Aliens less, I don't think it's imperfections are as glaring but there's more of them and become more obvious on each subsequent viewing. Some cliché/bad lines and strange editing.
Also all easily fixable by some extra cutting and pasting.
A3 would require some trimming of the fat in the AC and special effect fixing but is probably the most likely to ever actually happen.
A good few years back I went a marathon showing of the series in London with Dachande. New and old audience from the feel of it. When that scene came up...so many laughs in the screen...I was just so used to that that it surprised me at how funny the audience was finding it.
Riddles on the dark.
Selah!
Should we jettison the body? Or keep it Cryo for return to the company labs?
Oh well.
We've got a guest down! Somebody go get SM and his sausage mitts!
Heard of both. Never seen em.
You should have heard of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or 12 Monkeys.
Seriously. I've honestly never heard of him. I'll have to check it out The Fisher King.
Someone update the article so it says 'Monty Python TRASHES ALL TEH ALIEN FILMZ EVA!!'
Yeah, would agree with this. His comments have partial merit. While I wouldn't go along with everything he mentioned, that shot of the creature outside the airlock has always been one of the most obviously fake (the other being the obvious change between Ash's prop and 'real' heads) and the film would probably have been better with a different shot in its place.
You never heard of Terry Gilliam? Seriously?
@Necronom IV
Calling Terry Gilliam and idiot because he said what he said about Alien and not even knowing who he was is perfect example of ignorance.
Yep. This 'never heard of him' crowd trying to slate him...
I don't think he'd have been a good fit for Alien, though.
I reserve the right to be wrong though. But it does sound familiar.
Wasn't the evac point in AVPR "Gilliam circle"?
I've said that before. And I agree.
As for this Gilliam guy. Never heard of him until now. So he doesn't like Alien? Well, that's his loss.
This. Add Luc Besson to that list.
Frankly, I still think that Tony Scott would have given us a fantastic Alien movie.