2019 marks the 40th anniversary of Alien and to help celebrate 40 years of Alien, Titan Books is going to be publishing a new Making Of book! Announced via it’s writer J.W Rinzler on Twitter, it is being described as a massively comprehensive look at the making of the original masterpiece!
Comprehensive and definitive volume telling the complete story of how Alien was made, featuring new interviews with Ridley Scott and other production crew, and including many rarely-seen photos and illustrations from the Fox archives.
In 1979 a movie legend was born, as Twentieth Century-Fox and director Ridley Scott unleashed Alien and gave audiences around the world the scare of their lives.
To celebrate the movie’s fortieth anniversary, author J.W. Rinzler (The Making of Star Wars) tells the whole fascinating story of how Alien evolved from a simple idea in the mind of writer Dan O’Bannon into one of the most memorable sci-fi horror thrillers of all time.
With brand new interviews with Ridley Scott and other key members of the original production crew, and featuring many never-before-seen photographs and artworks from the archives, The Making of Alien is the definitive work on this masterpiece of popular cinema
Jonathan W. Rinzler is particularly well known for his behind-the-scenes books on the Star Wars films. Charles de Lauzirika, who as the producer of the Alien Quadrilogy, Alien Anthology and Prometheus boxsets is a man I credit as one of the most important figures when it comes to giving us a detailed look behind the scenes at the Alien films, praised the upcoming book saying that:
Having been honored with an early read of this one, I can say that not only is it yet another must-own @jwrinzler book, but if you think you know everything about ALIEN at this point, you’re going to have your mind blown. https://t.co/crJRFcC1qI
— Charles de Lauzirika (@Lauzirika) December 11, 2018
The Making of Alien is currently available for pre-order on Amazon (UK) for £44.99 and is expected to be released just before Alien Day 2019 on April 23rd. Thanks to Nightmare Asylum for the news.
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Yes! I thought of you when I read that. That was interesting connection.
The red planet concept after the first draft referenced Petra as the design of the Alien homeworld, you can see this also in Alien Covenant. Most probably a nod to the developing original script.
It's definitely gorgeous and there are some fantastic large size reprints of concept art. Not much new photographic material. I hadn't seen the Elliot Scott concepts from '76, although I see now that they have been online.
As far as the actual alien is concerned, I don't think there is anything new. Giger's alien is still the definitive text on the making of the monster.
Frankly can't afford it at the moment! And haven't once seen it in my local bookshops.
Part of me desperately wants to read it ... another part of me is thinking keep this in mint condition!!
Ah the collector's mindset. I should just read the damn thing ...
Recommended! Will get an actual written review up in the next week or so.
book was first being tossed 'round
Jan twenty eighteen.
Thats true.
Okay, the same peopel who made that awful prometheus movie.
And the next one.
Grabbed Rinzler from the disney owned Star Wars connection,
lindelof from jj abrams...
Now they're just under the same corporate umbrella.
Is that your opinion?
I beg to differ.
I never said that.
So you'll get what you need.
Nothing.
This had nothing to do with Disney. Rinzler was doing final checks on the book when Disney was finalising the purchase of Fox.
He did this work for hire, yes, but the Disney rage is grossly misplaced.
He seems like a smart and honest guy from the way he talks in interviews and the work that he's done.
And this book is WELL worth the 35 buck I got it for pre-order.
I think it might be 35 bucks worth of good heavy paper.
Its heavy.
Well made.
But he said himself that this was more of a contract for hire job.
It wasn't that same kind of thing he did through his close association with Lucasfilm for the Star Wars books.
In fact, as skeevy neu-disney is wont to do,
they're probably just exploiting his name value rfom the Star Wars books to stick his name on an Alien book,
the same way they just stuck Kasdan's name on the script for a jj abrams star wars ripoff.
The point being that this book is well assembled physically,
good stuff in it becasue he got access to everything,
but it wasn't the LABOR OF SUPER LOVE that an Alien superfan like Val will do.
You can see that he respects the movie,
theres no callousness or disrespect to it,
...like a jj abrams...
but you can see and feel how it was a contract job when your reading it.
Well done, but a contract job.
Mostly I hate reading scripts. Dunno why but the format grates with me. I'd be a shit Hollywood agent.
I could've told you that
Unpacked the box and it's sitting gloriously still in shrink wrap on my desk.
Will dive into this soon!
On page 248: Production unit stills for the attack on Lambert & Parker, reveal an interesting detail - Ripley’s face can be clearly seen in the jet of steam, as she finds the remains of Parker & Lambert.
I didn’t know Sigourney Weaver was involved in this shot.
On page 267: The total amount of filmed footage for ALIEN, was 163 hours and 22 minutes. I wonder how much of this still exists nearly 41-years later?
Concerning the book's illustrations; a sizeable portion of the production stills (as you correctly guessed) are familiar to anyone owning the DVD / BD sets. An abundance of artwork and storyboards / Ridleygrams, splashed across double pages (feels a little like filler), whilst rare and previously unseen production stills and continuity polaroids (new ones not included in the DVD / BD sets) are presented (very frustratingly) in micro size.
Just got an email from Booktopia. FINALLY. My order came in. DIdn't have to wait as long as thought. Free Express delivery on the way!!!
Definitely some pictures I've never seen of the production. Pretty sure I've never seen the set floor plans this clearly either, which are really interesting to see.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAvjsxVXUAEZq9w.jpg
https://twitter.com/Lauzirika/status/1156268093410353153
Nice one mate :-)
Finger's crossed :-)
The good news is, I just received my first copy, not five minutes ago and I’m very happy!
Glad to hear they are going to do their best to make it right.
I appreciated their offer and decided to be patient about this.