Quote from: nanison on Oct 24, 2021, 07:28:57 PM
Reading all this makes me wonder if you guys are actually ok with the movie how it turned out. Would you have preferred longer shots of the alien on screen? We get quick glimpses and that was part of the mystery of the horror. Give longer shots and all you see is a man in a suit. For example the shot outside the shuttle when it gets burned. That is one shot too much imo.
I would definitely want to see it as outtakes though, very sure about that!
The 1979 theatrical release is the ideal cut of the film ... but, loving the film as much as I do, I've got to see all the rest of the missing pieces, before I die.
Quote from: xeno_alpha_07 on Oct 24, 2021, 03:56:59 PM
QuoteThe one deleted fragment I'd most like to see from Parker's death scene would be the shot of the Alien releasing him immediately after head-biting him. Would be a cool shot to see: a freshly killed Parker, slumping lifeless to the deck, with his brains falling into his lap, as the blood pours from the hole in his head - nasty. I wonder if there would be any 'nerve action' acting - like Kane's shaking hands after giving birth to the Chestburster?
Wasn't Kane's hand-shaking ad-libbed? I'm pretty sure it was and definitely a good idea. I need to revisit a lot of stuff to rejig my memory a bit. The description you gave of Parker slumping to the floor and his brains falling out is indeed nasty and gruesome, especially for that time. Years ago I tried to contact stuntman Clive Curtis regarding his stunt work on both Alien & Aliens but never got a reply, that I can remember. A lot of his stuntwork filmed for the Parker scene was heavily cut and cut to merely a few seconds.
The shaking hands are a grisly touch to an already horrific sequence. Love that sort of detail in the performance. I'm thinking of the guy's kicking foot, after blowing his brains out in
The Final Conflict (1981) and Mac's death from the original
Predator.
The stuntman, Clive Curtis, sounds like he's contributed some interesting cut material to the ALIEN films. Looking at
ALIEN: The Illustrated Story, there's an alternate attack on Parker - he cops a facepalm instead of being tail-slapped. I'd like to know if this was filmed, or merely invented for the graphic novel?
I don't know if you own a copy of the
Art Edition of the
Illustrated Story, but as a bonus, there's a very interesting interview with Walt Simonson. He talks about viewing an early edit of ALIEN, that he saw in late 1978. He describes how the early edit for Brett's death scene was much longer and "horrible" and how he "boiled down" what he originally saw to what is presented in the comic adaptation.