The Sundance Film Festival is well under way in Utah, United States and as previously reported last year ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ documentary has made its premiere this week. Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, this 93 minute documentary explores the origin of Ridley Scott’s Alien film from early conception to production. While not your run-of-the-mill featurette, it sounds like filmmaker Philippe took a more philosophical approach to Alien with references to Greek mythology and the creation of the Pyramids.
‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ features swiss surrealist H.R. Giger and writer Dan O’Bannon’s work heavily with an interview with O’Bannon’s wife about his life and influences. We learn about O’Bannon’s original 29 page script from 1971, titled Memory. There are new interviews with the Alien cast including Tom Skerritt and Veronic Cartwright, though Sigourney Weaver is very much absent. Ripley is barely mentioned during the documentary, reportedly.
Director Ridley Scott didn’t take part either while H.R. Giger, Dan ’Bannon, John Hurt obviously only appear in archive footage. The documentary dives deeper into the iconic Chestburster sequence with new behind-the-scenes footage about how it was created in great detail. There is a very brief section at the end which looks to the future of the Alien series and what perhaps went wrong with Prometheus and Alien Covenant.

Cover picture from Dan O’Bannon’s early 1971 script Memory.
Positive
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- Variety
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- The Film Stage (B)
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- SlashFilm (7.5/10)
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Mixed
- IndieWire (C+)
- FilmThreat (6/10)
The documentary most likely won’t go beyond what we already know in the DVD/Blu-Ray features but there might be some new nuggets of information in there for us diehard fans. There’s no word on whether or not ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ will get a wider release at some point.
That doc is amazing. Giger was a genius.
I am having the same frustration going back to the Giger documentary which I still haven't seen. This is such an opportunity for Netflix. Jodorowsky's Dune was huge!
The interview doesn't give too much away, but if you want to go in entirely fresh then by all means hold off on listening.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/website/interviews/alexandre-phillipe/
He wasn't playing the character in this movie. Doesn't count.
The Goblin.
"Get thith in your eyeth, it'll blind you."
Neither. Just small crawlspaces and Sylvester Stallone.
He was out like a light when the acid hit him. Clancy Brown let him live at the expense of making sure he never walked again.
Imma say Clancy Brown.
I said I wouldn't pay $83 for Mark Rolston's signature. That makes me a bad fan. That wasn't his opinion.
That's just, like, his opinion, man.
He, he, he...
Anyway, found the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alien:_Covenant&oldid=747861791
Look under cast...
I should've served some cocoa during the interview. That always helps.
Also, you're not a bad fan. I'm a bad fan, and Xenomrph has proof.
This thread is my f**king undoing.
Ok, here you go:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=55530.msg2149642#msg2149642
Wikipedia keeps a history of it's pages, if you go back to that date you might be able to take an actual screencap.
Why did no-one tell me? Woulda screencapped that.
We had Hudafuk on the cast list for a little while as well, back when Covenant was still known as Prometheus II. He was going to play Janek's white twin brother, Jenak.
On Wikipedia some wag (wasn't me honest!) had Corporal Hicks (to be played by Aaron Percival) on Covenant's cast while it was still in early development.
I found him.
He was married to some dude named Branson and saved everyone.
I read somewhere that Memory takes a few jabs at Prometheus and Covenant. RidgeTop can you confirm? Riddles would probably not be amused.
You lot are reading too much into this. Alien: Covenant II has also "officially been vanished from IMDB". As well as a shyte-tonne of other projects that were either shelved, stalled or in development hell. If Fox/Disney still want's to make a Blomkamp Alien film or a sequel to Covenant then they'll make it irrespective of whether there is a page for it on IMDb or not. It wasn't Fox who created those pages in the first place anyway.
https://i.imgur.com/uGxXXqu.jpg
REALITY:
https://i.imgur.com/MFig2yB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/NLwPKME.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/2eEVlpQ.jpg
"So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye"