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Crazy Cat Ladies and Alternate Roads, Reviewing Pat Cadigan’s Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay by William Gibson – AvP Galaxy Podcast #138

We have just uploaded the 138th episode of the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast (right-click and save as to download)! And welcome to 2022! In our first episode of the new year Corporal Hicks and RidgeTop are joined by The Perfect Organism’s Christian Matzke to discuss the novelization of William Gibson’s first draft of Alien 3!

 Crazy Cat Ladies and Alternate Roads, Reviewing Pat Cadigan's Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay by William Gibson – AvP Galaxy Podcast #138

We talk Pat Cadigan’s sarcastic tone, Hicks’ PTSD, the craziness of this particular draft, the seperation of source material and adaptation, amongst plenty of tangents about the various unproduced Alien 3 scripts and the other adaptations of William Gibson’s drafts of Alien 3!

What did you think of our latest episode? Be sure to let us know down below! You can also listen to any of our previous episodes in the Podcast section under the News tab on the main menu. The Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast is also available via iTunes, PodBean, GooglePlay Stitcher, and Spotify! Please be sure to leave a rating and review on whichever platform you’re using!

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Comments: 24
  1. SpaceKase
    Quote from: VeteranSergeant on Feb 01, 2022, 11:57:51 PM
    I had a hard time with all the "capitalists" stuff every time the UPP characters were in internal monologue.

    By the end of the Soviet Union, they had long since transitioned to a state capitalist economy as opposed to anything representing communism.  No educated Soviet would still be lamenting "capitalists" in 1991, let alone educated UPP scientists doing so in 2191.  So even if you're using some alternate history where the USSR never collapsed, it was well on its way to complete control by oligarchs like modern Russia is.

    And I checked Gibson's original draft. It only uses the word "capitalist" once, and in reference to megacorporations like Weyland Yutani, not the unnamed Space America.

    It really took me out of the novel in those chapters because it literally sounds like something an elderly person who grew up at the height of the Cold War would write, not something written by someone with a strong grasp of politics.

    I feel like with the Crazy Cat Lady overly comical tone the author may have been going for more of a parody vibe, like leaning heavy into the Boris and Natasha "Moose and Squirrel" kinda thing.



    Quote from: Xenomorphine on Feb 01, 2022, 11:50:44 PM
    Quote from: Kradan on Jan 28, 2022, 09:56:57 PM
    Wrong. Hicks,  RidgeTop and Xenomorphine are the ones responsible

    I shall never out-run my reputation as a corrupting verbal influence... :'(

    Quote from: SpaceKase on Jan 30, 2022, 12:31:22 AM
    Or... alternate theory, maybe Bolton's just a goddamn psychic, tell me this unfortunate lad from 1996 doesn't look familiar...
    Premonition of an Engineer or an all too rare image of that elusive space marine Atax? You decide!

    It's true, it does... But another explanation is that this and the costume design for 'Prometheus' both probably took their cues from the original Giger concept art. :)

    Think this was meant to be inspired by what might have occurred to some of the crew of the derelict (rest being turned into eggs), with the Space Jockey being conceived as just a living CPU-type concept (as per the Pilot character, in 'Farscape') or ideas being kicked around for the famous hieroglyphics art.

    https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/831106276bc599e2846fd0f58eeac1abd70d7b9e.jpg

    I like the idea and I like the concept, though it would have to be something more messed up and less cuddly than Pilot and Moya were, like maybe even more nonconsensual and Cenobitey, or weird and arcane like the Basestar Hybrids beings from BSG.

    I dig that freaky Earthworm facehugger too, perfect for a mural on the wall of one's gooey biomechanoid mobile home.
  2. Immortan Jonesy
    Quote from: Xenomorphine on Feb 01, 2022, 11:50:44 PM
    Quote from: SpaceKase on Jan 30, 2022, 12:31:22 AM
    Or... alternate theory, maybe Bolton's just a goddamn psychic, tell me this unfortunate lad from 1996 doesn't look familiar...
    Premonition of an Engineer or an all too rare image of that elusive space marine Atax? You decide!

    It's true, it does... But another explanation is that this and the costume design for 'Prometheus' both probably took their cues from the original Giger concept art. :)

    Think this was meant to be inspired by what might have occurred to some of the crew of the derelict (rest being turned into eggs), with the Space Jockey being conceived as just a living CPU-type concept (as per the Pilot character, in 'Farscape') or ideas being kicked around for the famous hieroglyphics art.

    https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/831106276bc599e2846fd0f58eeac1abd70d7b9e.jpg

    Had not thought of that. Giger's concept art humanoids as the true civilization behind the Derelict and the Space Jockey as a robotic equivalent of an artificial intelligence computer? The Engineers and the pilot could have co-existed as related but different things. Too bad Ridley didn't see it that way.

  3. VeteranSergeant
    Quote from: skhellter on Jan 28, 2022, 05:24:06 PM
    there is cringe bizarre humor in this book but Cadigan also reasons it in story as being the result of
    "the mind going to damn weird places at times of deep stress" (as a few characters point out).

    So most of the weirder lines are towards the end because everyone's just losing their damn minds.

    Which makes for very weird tonal shifts.

    (the "shoots and scores" bit is just plain bad, tho)
    I had a hard time with all the "capitalists" stuff every time the UPP characters were in internal monologue.

    By the end of the Soviet Union, they had long since transitioned to a state capitalist economy as opposed to anything representing communism.  No educated Soviet would still be lamenting "capitalists" in 1991, let alone educated UPP scientists doing so in 2191.  So even if you're using some alternate history where the USSR never collapsed, it was well on its way to complete control by oligarchs like modern Russia is.

    And I checked Gibson's original draft. It only uses the word "capitalist" once, and in reference to megacorporations like Weyland Yutani, not the unnamed Space America.

    It really took me out of the novel in those chapters because it literally sounds like something an elderly person who grew up at the height of the Cold War would write, not something written by someone with a strong grasp of politics.
  4. Xenomorphine
    Quote from: Kradan on Jan 28, 2022, 09:56:57 PM
    Wrong. Hicks,  RidgeTop and Xenomorphine are the ones responsible

    I shall never out-run my reputation as a corrupting verbal influence... :'(

    Quote from: SpaceKase on Jan 30, 2022, 12:31:22 AM
    Or... alternate theory, maybe Bolton's just a goddamn psychic, tell me this unfortunate lad from 1996 doesn't look familiar...
    Premonition of an Engineer or an all too rare image of that elusive space marine Atax? You decide!

    It's true, it does... But another explanation is that this and the costume design for 'Prometheus' both probably took their cues from the original Giger concept art. :)

    Think this was meant to be inspired by what might have occurred to some of the crew of the derelict (rest being turned into eggs), with the Space Jockey being conceived as just a living CPU-type concept (as per the Pilot character, in 'Farscape') or ideas being kicked around for the famous hieroglyphics art.

    https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/831106276bc599e2846fd0f58eeac1abd70d7b9e.jpg
  5. SpaceKase
    Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 28, 2022, 03:18:47 PM
    Thanks for the kind words, Kase. It's definitely been used for Earth War. It was the cover for a trade.


    Ooof! How right you are! What an intriguing mystery... I knew Bolton did all four covers for the Earth War individuals and this wasn't one of those, but looking into it, I didn't realize he did this piece special for that first trade release in Dec 1991. It's bizarre because this piece fits right in with beautiful covers he did for DotS a year or two later, and this scene is a dead ringer for Genna and Ash in the bowels of Samara, but clearly, it isn't them. It makes me wonder if the Bolton piece inspired the art direction of Eduardo Barreto's issues of that series. Ash does inexplicably shave her head all of the sudden in the middle of the run, I just figured everyone, including Diana Schutz was still riding high on Ripley's recent look from Alien3.



    Or... alternate theory, maybe Bolton's just a goddamn psychic, tell me this unfortunate lad from 1996 doesn't look familiar...
    Premonition of an Engineer or an all too rare image of that elusive space marine Atax? You decide!

    https://www.johnbolton.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/A1_Aliens_Labyrinth_600.jpg
  6. Kradan
    Speaking of professors, Ukranian President that was forced out of the country in 2014, Viktor Yanukovich is known for once writing "proffesor" in his auto-biography during election campaign. He even became known as The Proffesor in mass media


    Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Jan 28, 2022, 09:54:53 PM
    Besides, everyone knows that the professor learned English thanks to Red Letter Media::)

    Wrong. Hicks,  RidgeTop and Xenomorphine are the ones responsible
  7. Kradan
    Swearing can be great when it's used sparingly and at appropriate time. I actually find English swear words to be much more inventive and diverse than Russian ones. Ukranian swearings are mostly adopted from Russian language so I'm not talking about them
  8. 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯
    Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 28, 2022, 03:18:47 PM
    Quote from: Anon on Jan 27, 2022, 01:42:01 PM
    Casual website visitor here. Always enjoy your podcasts and this one was great, the topics are really interesting and a great listen.
    However, I have to say the amount of swearing can be really jarring and distracting  :-

    Sorry about that, Anon. I often can't help myself there.

    You can always edit-in in bleeps and bloops over the expletives in post.

    Eg: "So I reckon those fooking [Bleep!] aliens would never fo- [bloop!] those effi-[bleeb!]. You'll sound a bit like R2D2 but at least you will come across as more respectable.
  9. skhellter
    there is cringe bizarre humor in this book but Cadigan also reasons it in story as being the result of
    "the mind going to damn weird places at times of deep stress" (as a few characters point out).

    So most of the weirder lines are towards the end because everyone's just losing their damn minds.

    Which makes for very weird tonal shifts.

    (the "shoots and scores" bit is just plain bad, tho)
  10. Corporal Hicks
    Thanks for the kind words, Kase. It's definitely been used for Earth War. It was the cover for a trade.

    https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/30740440844.jpg


    Quote from: Anon on Jan 27, 2022, 01:42:01 PM
    Casual website visitor here. Always enjoy your podcasts and this one was great, the topics are really interesting and a great listen.
    However, I have to say the amount of swearing can be really jarring and distracting  :-

    Sorry about that, Anon. I often can't help myself there.
  11. SpaceKase
    Hey guys, brilliant podcast, as ever. One little bit though, right towards the end when talking about the interior cover art by John Bolton from the Marvel Original Years compilation. If it's the art I'm thinking of, it's not from EarthWar, it's from the AvP Deadliest of the Species, that bald head is Caryn/Ash and the rando security lady from Samara Station down in the Catacombs.

    https://images.app.goo.gl/qB2zzh13tz7w4num6
  12. Anon
    Casual website visitor here. Always enjoy your podcasts and this one was great, the topics are really interesting and a great listen.
    However, I have to say the amount of swearing can be really jarring and distracting  :-
  13. Kradan
    I was literally re-listening episode you guys did on Thicker Than Blood and thinking  "I wish Hicks would post a new episode today. Probably about that novelisation of Gibson's draft. Nah, fat chance, he posts them on Fridays or Mondays"

    Also, dare I hope  for more Alien 3 unproduced drafts episodes this year ? It's movie's 30th anniversary after all
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