Excellent! Listening now. Thanks!
And the podcast was good! I enjoyed it. Well done, guys.
I took some notes. Will post more later.
In the late 70s, there were fewer movies in the theaters and all this was new. There was no real point of reference for Alien. It was unique. Dark Star may have been a prototype, but I tried watching it in June. It was horrible. I've seen it before. I turned it off after a little while.
It's fantastic that we can still talk about Alien in positive terms 40 years on. You can't take that for granted. Lots of movies from last year have already been forgotten. We're talking about a movie from 40 years ago. Incredible!
I have that photonovel. It's great! I have the movie magazine that came out at the time, too. That has pictures of the creature. I have some of the Starlogs and whatever from that time, as well. But mostly, they live in a box in the closet. My Giger books get more love.
Ridgetop, I saw the MGM attraction at Orlando, too. The best part was, they had props from the movie on display. It's been a long time, and I don't remember exactly what they had. But it was fun.
Neither Jazz Hands nor the clumsiness in shooting broken Ash ever bothered me. I like that weird smile at the end, before he's burned. It's like he's satisfied that the Alien is going to win in the end.
My favorite bit with the creature is the close-up of the head. The Alien's face fills the screen and you see teeth, more teeth, liquid squirting, The mouth opens with impossible slowness, and the inner mouth strikes.
I agree with Xenomorphine: They tried many ideas for the Alien, but what we got was the best.
Thanks again for the podcast!