How ALIEN’s Nostromo Became a Space Big Rig | Making ALIEN
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Alien won the Academy Award for best visual effects for its intense and gruesome alien effects as well as its amazing use of miniatures. One of the coolest spaceship designs ever put on film is the Nostromo, where most of the story takes place. But coming up with the look of the ship’s exterior was a bit of a nightmare. No one had made a movie like Alien before and finding the right design that would be both realistic and stylized would be very tricky to pull off. Perfecting the outer design of the Nostromo would take the blood, sweat, and tears of Scott, the chief concepts artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss, and a few other characters who might surprise you.
There were a gazillion designs for the Nostromo, but how and why did they go with the one that appears in the movie and how did they make it look so realistic?
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Making the ship a rig opened a lot of doors for the story: it’s not a vessel designed to make first contact, nor is the crew trained to do so. It’s the first time they have to actually deal with outer space as opposed to just sleeping through it. And they discover they are not up to the task.
I thought it was just an asteroid mining vessel, not a deep space vessel, more of something designed for like an off-shore oil drilling platform, not that imaginative just utilitarian, so it seems somewhat out of place?
I like that none of them deserve to die (except that b* lambert ;) ) if it had been military guys as originally planned you'd be kinda expecting them to get killed. Them being regular, decent people thrust into it against their wills and dying very unfairly really adds to the reality of the world
Yes! Matter of fact their weapons they used.
@@tomasinacovell4293The Nostromo is a towing vessel designed to move things like that refinery. It doesn't have to be pretty.
Exactly!
I recall a hilarious quote from sci-fi artist Chris Foss when asked what inspired the unique designs of his spaceships. He jokingly answered that he took pictures of them whenever he saw them flying by. 😅
They do look very similar to an artifact on one of the photos my mother took of the sky.
Chris lives just down the road here - he wasn't joking; when he says stuff like that with a smile on his face, he's *SERIOUS*.....
I love how the Nostromo feels real. It feels lived in, like a real work place with history. Every imperfection only strengthens that, like any damages had been repaired with a macgyver'd solution.
This idea was pioneered in the 1977 Star Wars. What Scott added was chiaroscuro darkness which could make everything look more impressive without having to spend too much money, as well as adding a gothic gloom that helps with a horror movie.
@@LouiseBrooksBobwhile star wars pioneered the used future idea I think alien refined it a bit - the technology in star wars looked visually interesting but wasn’t 100% convincing as being practical and functional, whereas the technology in alien feels more grounded, as if all the switches and buttons were placed with a bit more intention
Well these are biggiatures for ya. Nothing beats a real thing. I also wonder why this isn't used more. It also would save money and time if you have to redo a shot. You always can film a model from another angle. But if you do it in CG you have to rerender everything.
RIP to the probably hundreds of model planes, trains, battleships, and tanks, that gave their little plastic lives to create these cool models.
Bless
Maybe they did like the prop makers in 2001:A Space Odyssey, who went to a model factory in Germany, where they were allowed to pick tons of surplus model parts right from the factory floor.
"It all began in 1975 Paris, with Jodorowsky's DUNE."
That pre-production crew is the actual genesis of what eventually made as "Alien".
17:10 - I agree with Mr. Scott. As a young model-maker back then, the crooked lights made me scream, though nobody heard me...
Agree to a point, but the crooked lighting fits in with the "rode hard and put away wet" aesthetic of Nostromo. Like a well used industrial forklift or great lakes steamer, it's an old ship owned by a company that will grudgingly do the bare minimum maintenance necessary to keep it operating.
I LOVE this ship, can't offhand think of a single spaceship more impressive than this one, outside and in. It has.. presence. And yeah, you'd think, especially by today's standards that the de-coupling scene, landfall and landing would be boring.. it is not, even now after several decades it is mesmerizing and thrilling.
Yes ! The landing sequence is great ! Convincing model work + amazing score by Jerry Goldsmith really make the scene.
Thing is, well-done miniature shots tend to always look better than CGI, so that's why it holds up so well. There so few CGI spaceships that don't look like trash.
And to think it's just a bunch of truckers detaching their trailer and taking a little trip down to the surface due to - sigh - contractual obligations to the Company (Dallas is just going through the motions), Brett and Parkers' greed, Kane's curiosity.
Their mundane is our extraordinary.
As a truck driver I agree. My motto is Keep it boring. If it gets exciting, somebody messed up; and it's probably you. Also, Nostromo is a cab over.
@@mrkeoghParker and Brett didn't want anything to do with investigating anything. Ash and Dallas forced them into it.
Many of the works by Chris Foss shown here were later used as book covers for authors like Asimov.
Trash slapped over treasure.
I still have the copy of 21st Century Foss I bought in 1978. And I bought any SF paperback or music album that had his art on the cover.
@@orangelion03 Yes! I have that, I also have the Roger Dean one.
@@orangelion03I lost mine , regrettably
The other way 'round: It was Foss's artwork for Asimov and co. that led to his involvement with Dune and subsequently Alien and Superman.
I thought this was going to be about the 1996 cinematic masterpiece starting Dennis Hopper and Charles Dance, Space Truckers.
I just rewatched it a couple days ago, it has held up ok.
Also starring Stephen Dorff!Love the Dorff:)
I loved Space Truckers!
Oh man! Square pigs!
Space Truckers - 1996 - 95 minutes. 5 bags of popcorn and throw in a miniature trucker hat you can put on your desk
R.I.P. Dan O’Bannon, director of “Return of the Living Dead” and “The Resurrected”
Heaven Bless Him!:)Original seeds of Alien-Paris 1975,O'Bannon meets Jodorowsky who introduces him to Giger!It's all there in Memory:The Origin Of Alien which I recommend to you,brother:)
17:11 "It always bothered me that the lights underneath, that we couldn't get in a straight line, that drove me crazy but we eventually had to shoot."
The lights being very off of straight was one of the details that most made it feel realistic and lived in to me. The fact that it looks like it's obviously been banged up and repaired haphazardly a few times helps to offset the interior occasionally seeming too perfectly well maintained. I remember when I first saw this movie as a kid, that landing shot, with the screwed up lights, really was the point where I bought into the world. Before that, it was too retro-futuristic to me.
Exactly. These crooked lights are simply... epic. Like, "this shit means business".
Kinda wish they went with the original neon.
I have to admit, the wonky lights is the one thing I don't like. It looks like someone strung Christmas lights under a model. But I can generally overlook it.
@@wolfbyte3171 Hahahah. Cool. But that pales in comparison to the totally horrible "Ash's head in white milk". It is by FAAAAR the worst world-wrecking effect of the movie. I wish they would redo it since there isn't a lot of actor action in it and it is a HORRIBLE rubber head anyway.
@@Clay3613 I personally think that the neon would have, ironically, made the spaceship too futuristic looking. Going for the whole space trucker vibe, I think the lights fit that vibe better.
Another great video in this series. I have “The Book of Alien” which came out during the movie’s release, as well as Ron Cobb’s "Colorvision” that details his movie work, so I am familiar with the design process. I actually used Ron Cobb’s “Snark” design as the basis for one of my own projects. Cobb was a true visionary and he is sadly missed.
Yep, production designer on Conan The Barbarian and he even had a small part in it as the guy who sells them "Styngian, black lotus, the best!!!"
He did some design work on Star Wars also, some of the creatures in the cantina scene were his design.
Ron Cobb was a genius. I've always loved his stuff. I recently picked up The Art of Ron Cobb book and it's fantastic stuff.
I have The Book Of Alien too! I bought it before I was old enough to see the movie and the concept art blew my mind! I still have that book, 4 decades on, as well as "Gigers Alien" and "Alien Vault".
@martinharris5017 I bought before I had seen the movie. I was technically too young as well, I was 15 and agreed - the concepts blew my mind.
The Joseph Conrad novel Nostromo has nothing to do with any ship named Nostromo. Nostromo is the main character that the novel is about.
The models didn't go directly to storage. They were on display in a museum in downtown Los Angles, along with sets, props and costumes. In the summer of 1979. I know this because I saw them in person. I only with I could have taken pictures(they were not allowed). Unfortunately I do not remember the name of the museum, that was about 44 years ago. It was near the LA Olympic stadium. I'm sure the building is long gone.
According to wikipedia some of the models were displayed outside a cinema on release this is likely where saw them rather than a museum (which would have been weird for a new film).
I read somewhere it was stored in a guy's driveway with a tarp over it. That'd jibe with the possum skeletons on the inside
@@1903tx I can't remember his name, but it's a "B" word, and he was friends with Forrest Ackerman, who was another avid collector. The B guy had the Derelict in his backyard, along with the Nostromo if I remember correctly. The Nostromo was remodeled and repaired a few years ago, and I think it's somewhere in the UK.
Bob Burns? That should be easy to verify then, as he had many friends who would come and see his collection. The only reason I might question if he did own it for a time is, where are the photographs? Someone, some fan of the day ( we were getting more pushy about these things back then, don’t ya know? 😁) would have gone and taken a few dozen rolls of film worth of pics. It’s not like Burns could HIDE the dang thing if his ownership was in any way considered questionable, right?
Burns did a book about his collection some time back, would he have mentioned his ownership if he had passed it on? I would have were it me.
Sounds like it might have been the old Air and Space Museum on the USC campus - Exposition Park. I visited the museum in the Fall of 1979, but don't remember seeing anything related to Alien. Now the park hosts the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center.
Amazing job as always. In my mind, Chris Foss was THE sci-fi illustrator of the 1970s and brought a lot of that decade's highly creative futurism (and fantasyism, if that's a word) into great films like "Alien."
17:55 "Traveling matte" - After nearly 40 years I finally "got" the pun with the name of the uncle in Fraggle Rock. The best kind of pun are the ones that go over the heads of most people, and then, maybe, decades later they put it together with something else and finally realize there was a hidden meaning.
did you ever "get" Bat Guano?
Small clarification: Nostromo is the name of the title character in Joseph Conrad's novel--not the name of a ship in the story.
Got to love good practical model effects! Even knowing it was a model, you felt the Nostromo was massive!
And bad practical effects are always more fun to watch than bad digital ones =P
Nostomo isn't a ship in the novel, he's the Capataz de Cargadores in Sulaco, which is the name of the ship in Aliens.
Many ships have been named after Captains and Admirals. The H.M.S. Hood, Rodney, Anson, Nelson and Howe for example. Some, like the USS John C Stennis get to be named after a secretary of the navy...
@@stevetheduck1425 Actually nostromo is not the name of any specific person. It is just, in Italian, the official definition for a mariner in charge of the helm in a sailship. In English that rank translates as boatswain I think.
In the Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness the Nostromo is a mine in a fictitious South American country. Also the Narcissus is named after the titular ship in the book The Ni**er of the Narcissus by the same author.
@@johneyton5452 Heart of Darkness is set in Africa.
@@johneyton5452no, it's an individual person as explained by the OP of this thread. "Nostromo" means "our man."
I like Cobb's approach better than Foss's, especially for a horror movie. Realism in every possible aspect is important in making the threat tangible.
From what I've seen of Foss's work, it feels like it's being weird solely for the sake of being weird. I don't necessarily need hard realism, I just want to have a sense that the builders of a ship had *reasons* for building it that way, whether it's practical or cultural or whatever. I never get that sense from the art I've seen from him.
Both so gooood.
It depends on the intended effect.
If it was initially meant to be a military ship, but it was a deep space ship, it would be a situation kind of like the navies of the Age of Exploration. The idea that a ship is decorated or strangely shaped would reflect something about the sort of desires of warrior-culture-meets-castaway. A combination of this sort of "decorating your tools of war for morale-like purposes" and "preserving your ideas of humanity while you're away from home". I could totally see Foss' work to fit in a certain kind of story that way.
But, once we get to space truckers (which what seems to be after Foss already moved on), then yeah, a ship expressing that it's designed to cut costs and save fuel and be just the right amount of rooms for the crew, practical things only, would better fit.
Ron was quite ahead of his time, I feel. He designed from a technical / mechanical perspective, and I much preffered his designs than those by Foss. Ron's semoitic standard was also a thing of brilliance and inspires a lot of logo designers to this day.
@@jasonblalock4429 some of his ships have strange shapes, others look very industrial and believable. you should check out more of his work
One of the (many) fascinating things in your videos is how we get to see the seemingly endless, small yet crucial aspects it takes for a film to reach final release. One tiny alteration in concept, design, or intent at any stage and the entirety of the film changes from what we have always known and loved to something...alien.
Superb content, Tyler.
Loved that they made and used actual models, and not like today, where Spacecraft are CGI.
Thanks for shining a spotlight on concept artists like Ron Cobb and Chris Foss.
I hate how their work and creative genius constantly gets ignored. Movies like Alien and Star Wars wouldn't exist without people like them.
Ron Cobb's early editorial cartoons are worth seeking out as well.
Chris designs made for some child show.
6:13 that is the "Lobster design" Cobb did for the Derelict that O'Bannon liked more than what Giger created. He was actually pretty upset (though got over it fairly quickly) that the studio and Scott picked Giger's design.
Do you have proof? Are you prepared to go to court?!
It's funny -Syd Meads Sulaco re-appeared in Alien 3,ReadyPlayerOne&BladeRunner2049.Maybe because it's sleak,iconic gun design.But.I'm a Nostromo man forever,It re-appeared in design motifs in Alien Isolation,though?And besides that Parker always said the coffee was good:)
I always thought the refinery WAS the Nostromo and the Nostromo was just a shuttle. I found the refinery was way cooler, stranger and better looking for a space ship. Also, the interior of the ship seems so big in the movie that it would make more sense if the refinery was the Nostromo.
the refinery is called The Cygnus. The towing ship is The Nostromo, and the shuttle is The Narcissus.
Same thing here. For 46 years I believed that the huge thing with the weird towers was the Nostromo, and that the ship that landed on the planet was a shuttle. I think this approach would make more sense, because a towing vehicle for the refinery would have to be very big - much too big to fly in an atmosphere. Besides, hauling freaking iron ore from another planet - lol, that just doesn't make any sense. The cargo would have to be something far more valuable, like, say, oil :)
@@catmate8358 Have you ever seen the size of a tug in relation to the size of the loads it pulls?
Are you aware there is no gravity in space so the tug has no friction to pull against?
In the future, mineral ores may have more value than oil. The engine technology in the Nostromo is said to be fusion based, so perhaps they extract He3 from the ore for fusion power?
In the imaginary future of Alien, Earth's resources have been exhausted and humanity must look further afield for resources.
Even today, big corporations are eyeing up the moon and the asteroid belt for mineral wealth, so the premise of Alien makes perfect sense.
@@martinharris5017Have you ever seen Outland?
@@nomadmarauder-dw9re yes, saw it at the movies when first released and several times on DVD.
Always look forward to your next video. Nice work mate
Almost all the models ended up with a guy in Woodland Hills, CA, who kind of arbitrarily became the caretaker of props from all the films. The Notstromo and I think the Derelict ended up in his back yard under tarps. Imagine Fox just giving you all this stuff to borrow, and letting it rot next to your shed, in Los Angeles heat 😅
Woodlands, CA ?
This "collector" may be one of the hoarders on the Arts & Entertainment series "Hoarders" ?
One thing that comes across with Kubrick, Scott, Coppola (and Lucas) is how a singular vision can steer an unwieldy and abstract project through a sea of chaos and elevate it from something potentially cliched to the truly magical, but also how the chaos and constraints or failures become part of the beauty. It's so compelling to see how much happenstance and self doubt or uncertainty there is in these iconic movies.
Well said. If anyone on the production team must have a singular vision, it's the director, huh.
@@justinklenkI must ask you to prove this.
@@M60gunner1971
Well, I said that because it's the DIRECTOR who - once a cohesive story and script are extant - is the "orchestra's" CONDUCTOR, cohesively weaving together all the elements of story and production, all the skills and talents of the team, with his/her singular VISION which they see and feel and truly believe to be the best expression, OF that source, that they can muster to be expressed in the motion picture which will be its final cinematographic translation.
Really and truly, EXACTLY as a conductor conducts the symphonic orchestration. I used to wonder, when younger, why this "conductor" guy was necessary: I mean, HE wasn't doing jack shit, everyone ELSE was creating the talented, effortful musical creation - right?? But now I understand his/her singular role...
The director is a/the conductor - they are the singular leader of the GROUP'S expression of a singular progression - the story expressed in a moving picture.
Ruy what you're describing is otherwise known as how a film is made
@@shanequastunningbrave5376 No, I'm describing ambitious directors making iconic movies like 2001, FMJ, Alien, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, and Star Wars that changed pop culture & the cinematic landscape by pushing their production to the limit and beyond down to their passion and belief in their vision.
'How a film is made' includes the humdrum and generic movies produced by committee or ruined by studio interference, that are forgettable and derivative. Nobody makes videos about those, because nobody is moved or inspired by them.
So Ron Cobb worked on two of my favorite movies, Sleeping Beauty and Alien? Respect and R.I.P., Sir.
I know that with models you can't do all that fancy "camera work" like you can with CGI. You usually can't have wide shots with hundreds or thousands of ships, but you know what you do get? Something that looks good. The model work from the first two Alien films and the first three Star Wars films, before ol' George ruined them, look far superior to anything that's onscreen now.
Check out the model work for the Star Trek TNG battle of Wolf 359. That’s some pretty good model work, even if it is just a mostly static display.
Great job bringing the threads together. More ALIEN vids please.
The Nostromo is a work of unparalleled genius, never to be surpassed, as is the entire film.
Scott knew that the set design was a masterwork and he filmed it as such. The amount of time he gives showing off every little detail of the Nostromo is one of the main things I love about the film. Just thinking of the first interior scenes and how slow and methodical Scott's camera-work is, it immediately pulls you in. You simply can't make a film like that nowadays and what I mean by that is the modern audience doesn't have the patience for the pace of the original 'Alien' film. It's one of the few films that I feel is 100% flawless.
personally, i feel that genius gets thrown around way too much...The Nostromo after all, is just the drawing they settled on and its not a design that even makes much sense in space.
Freon isn't actually bad for you it's just that it displaces oxygen very easily since it's heavier than air.
I can't help but feel that having limited funds and making a movie under adverse conditions brings out the best creativity.
Nice! The Millennium Falcon in "Blade Runner", and R2D2's feet in "Alien". Parts is parts!
And the domes on the refinery's underside were Death Star halves!
The Nostromo still looks great. I was watching The Orville on TV recently, all the ships are impossibly bright, shiny and clean.
Please make a video about the ALIENS´s Sulaco spaceship!
I love everything O'Bannon and Cobb ever touched. Truly unrecognized geniuses (and very obvious sci-fi freaks).
No CGI and it looks phenomenal. Far better than any of today's garbage.
It's a great day when I wake up to a new Tyler video
Half of the shown artwork in the intro was from the unfinished dune movie concept art book
Foss re-used a lot of his concept art for Dune on Alien. The "Platypus" Nostromo design was originally used as a Guild Heighliner concept.
The Nostromo detaching from the payload and subsequent landing is still one of my favourite sequences in any movie ever. They truly made it seem and feel massive. And Ron Cobb is a legend…
It's funny that I'd put many labels on Chris Foss spacecraft... amazing, breathtaking, surreal, and mind-blowing (Mr Foss makes you understand that with zero gravity theres no such thing as 'right way up' ) but not 'practical ' or ' utilitarian '.
The R2-D2 part of the clamp on the refinery was actually just parts of the MPC Kit being used, they can be seen on several of the shots of the miniature under construction, it wasn't full sized R2-D2 feet like your commentary track makes it sound like.
You're thinking of Krull.
@@M60gunner1971 Krull didn't have any spaceships.
Hey Tyler! Have you ever thought of doing a making-of for Jacques Tati's "PlayTime"?
I love the idea of 2 giant possums hunting down the tiny crew xenomorph style
This is a real treat - my favourite film treated by youtube's best filmographer. On a minor point, I was positive the escape ship was called the Leviathan but the internet agrees it's the Narcissus. Wonder where I got that idea from.
One of the suggested names for the main ship was Leviathan and there is a picture in this video of Cobb's rendition of a lifeboat bearing that name (2.04), actually Leviathan B as there were meant to be at least two of them. It would swing out from the main body of the ship for launch. My source is ''The Book of Alien'' (1979) by Paul Scanlon and Michael Gross. I bought it when Alien was released and , years later, found I had lost/lent it. It may be out of print but I was able to buy a second-hand copy on ebay very cheaply. This slim paperback book is jammed full of production photos and concept art. Made after the release of the movie, it is free to depict what previous publications could not. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in Alien as it has many pictures etc I've not seen elsewhere.
@@CMDR_Verm That's it, thank you! I had that same exact book, also bought at the time. Just went and checked my bookshelf but can't find it now though :(
@@liamthompson9342 I'd try ebay if it's out of print, though it's a shame if it is. My copy had previously been owned by a public library and the seller had bought it for 10 pence! Needless to say he sold it to me for considerably more
I love this series; great job! 👽🌵
The refinery and its blend of industrial and Gothic influences always remind me of another of my favorite colossal spaceships, the USS _Cygnus_ from The Black Hole.
Which is interesting as the refinery towed by the Nostromo was called Cygnus, even had the name painted on the side. But then they found out that the Disney ship was to be called Cygnus and both movies were set for the same release time, so all references to the name were dropped to avoid confusion!
Wonderful video thanks for posting. My favourite move, it is amazing how it all came together and how different it could have been. It is also really interesting to see how the later sequels recycled so many of the original ideas that were discarded.
I highly recommend the documentary made about it. I think it came out in 2020.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is an awesome unexpected documentary.
While I'm a huge sci-fi fan I've always avoided horror but after watching this I feel I should revisit the original Alien movie
1979 at the drive-in, the Nostromo landing was the coolest shot I had ever seen. No amount of CGI today could out-do what those artists did with practicle effects.
_”…..his STAPLER…”_
_”Peter? Whaaaaat’s happening? I’m gonna need you to come in this Saturday as well. Mmmmkay? Greeeeat”_
A brilliant video as always. Thank you very much for making it.
Dem concept ship designs. Pure gold.
0:14 I still think H.R. Ginger looks a bit like serial killer 🤣
"The Robe."
Nobody wanted to work with Scott. They would always say "Ridley Scott?! He's too artsy fartsy."
If they felt that way about Scott, imagine how they felt about a Swiss artist who does biomechanical, sometimes pornographic, only in b&w artwork. I had to talk my ass off to get it done that way.
Thank you.
I enjoyed this.
well researched, great rundown of this aspect of Alien, thanks!
RIP Mr. O'Bannon. You were a true visionary. Thanks for posting! ❤️
I'm sorry can we talk about the two dead possums found in the model of the Nostromo?! How badly do you have to look after a work of art for two medium sized marsupials two die inside of it and not be noticed?? Also the Irony that the entire crew of the Nostromo sans Rpley died, and those possums did too....albeit not at the hands of a Xenomorph.
Longtime fan here and a couple of thoughts: The impressive scale of the Nostromo is memorable, as were the ship/refinery fly-bys and the landing sequence, but it was always hard to know what the actual shape or part of the ship or refinery exterior was you were looking at (apart from the cockpit). For instance: Where was Kane ejected from, where were Ash’s blister and the Narcissus located, where do we see Ripley moving around inside during Act 3? It’s not a huge issue, and it is really good for the most part as there is so much else to enjoy (particularly the sound design and the dialogue being spoken over the miniatures) but it’s not flawless, or utterly convincing. It’s just really good, and that is what makes it such an enjoyable film. One bit of business I liked was the undercarriage articulation taking the weight when the ship landed, and Dallas’s order to ‘kick on the floods’. The detail on the cockpit model was awesome too. “Prime port”.
Kane is ejected from the back of the lower rear nose section, between and under the Nostromo's main engines. Why much of the refinery is not visible is a puzzle, but it may be that there is space between the large domes on the refinery's underside.
Ash's (science) blister is on the left lower side of the Nostromo, originally low left of the bridge, but after the scale change by making the transparent parts of the model smaller, much lower down, close to the nose of the Nostromo; Ash smiles and waves at the astronauts on the surface of the planetoid looking forward from there.
The Narcissus is also in the low rear of the nose, between and under the main engines.
When trying to shut down the main reactors, Ripley is in a large space that contains the engines of the Nostromo, within a small control room probably between but not certainly forward of the main engines, between them and the nose of the Nostromo.
Ridley Scott also adapted the 'hull breached?' sequence right after the landing on the planetoid from the film 'Doctor Strangelove', the moment the B-52 crew are hit by shockwaves from an explosion and must deal with electrical fires.
@@stevetheduck1425 That's all cool info, but I saw that movie several times over the years and I've never been able to really figure out the full shape or size of either Nostromo or the refinery, because everything is so dark and many of the shots are up close where you can't get the big picture. The locations of various interior scenes relative to the exterior of the ship are not easy to figure out just from watching the film, either. It all makes more sense when you see the aftermarket merch blueprints and deck plans, etc., but if you walked into a theater and saw it one time in 1979 you'd be hard pressed to know all this, despite really liking the movie. It's like trying to figure out what a parked semi-truck looks like inside a dark tunnel with just a flashlight.
@@RCAvhstape Your explanation makes sense if approached from the viewpoint of wanting to make something seem claustrophobic and eerie. The flashlight drives home that they are trapped in a confined space with something dreadful, and are limited in their knowledge of where they should avoid.
@@RCAvhstape "It's like trying to figure out what a parked semi-truck looks like inside a dark tunnel with just a flashlight." I think that's what they were going for!
I’ve always wondered why the Narcissus seemed to be flying backwards, when Ripley was abandoning ship. You see lights turn on in the nose of the shuttle, but you see it going in reverse, through the windshield. The thrusters Ripley used to finally eject the alien were on the back, where the hatch was.
The Nostromo and refinery are actually ripping through space at a tremendous speed. When Ripley ejects, the shuttle simply gets released backwards by its ejection mechanism, effectively falling behind. Remember, in space there's no gravity or friction to prevent something stopping, which is why you see the Nostromo's engines flare briefly when it separates from the Cygnus refinery. Accurate science!
The only time the thrusters on the Narcissus operate is when Ripley uses them to blast the Alien out into the void.
It also appeared to fire retro thrusters in the nose to push away after decoupling.
@@nicksterj Yes you are correct about that.
@@nicksterj I guess they took some license with the hard science in order to get a good effects sequence. Its a good mental exercise to figure out what conditions would actually result in that effect though in reality.
Would you consider doing a video on Kubrick's Napoleon?
Spielberg just mentioned that he's developing it as a limited series!
This is classic Traveller RPG material. Late 70s/early 80s was the best era for science fiction ever.
Ron Cobb is the bomb
I served on the Nostromo for years. What a POS. Decent sleeping accommodation and food but it was drafty.
We need to discuss the bonus situation
Its never been on an equitable level...
"Well, you get what you're contracted for like everybody else."
@@Jarumo76 Yeah, but everybody else gets more than us...
so awesome !
"The experts were saying there is no atmosphere, but I said 'There is in this film', otherwise my model would look like... Not good!"
Love it
This video is amazing
thank you
Alien is my favorite movie of all time
I love the retro future look of all the cockpits, computers, clothes, ships and computer sounds. The CRT monitors and displays are so good. I am so happy that Alien Romulus kept this.
I love that period of fim. Blade Runner, Alien and Empire strikes back. My 3 favs! Forever!
So the final design of the _Nostromo_ was executed by working class technicians. The result: perfection.
Why can't we get a good diecast figure of the Nostromo already? Cinemachines put out some great ALIEN diecasts a few years back, I bought the Narcissus one, it's fantastic.
We need a Nostromo model, though, in the same size. There are some model kits of it, but they aren't that good, and very expensive.
Don’t know if you saw the recent Adam Savage video but he gave you a shoutout and said CinemaTyler was one of his favorite RUclips channels!
One can not discuss this topic without first acknowledging the preproduction of jodorowsky's dune
2:24 ok .. good.. finally you did. This team didn’t materialize out of nowhere
I always believed it was about an oil tanker and crew, but a spaceship. «Truckers» is just wrong to me
I've always liked Chris Foss' work. But yeah, it just wasn't right for Alien.
it's like a real industrial workplace. People habe ideas, no one can decide until some day someone looses patience and actually builds it. Then everybody rolles with it.
Just found your channel, brilliant.
You've gained a sub 👍
Awesome, thank you!
Ron Cobb is a legend
What a great video, love your reading of the O'Bannon/Hill/Giller dynamic, such a perfect microcosm of Hollywood. Also glad to see tou using Alien Makers as a reference, those videos are an outstanding archive on the great craftsmen involved in the making of this movie.
whats the point of having a mobile refinery anyway?
were they delivering it to some space colony?
I think the Alliance destroyers from the TV show Firefly remind me of the refinery in Alien.
Yes!
Cobb & Foss & Scott & O'Bannon...
... 14:56 looks like H.R. Geiger in the upper background
Thanks for sorting it all out
One of the things that always stuck, was form follows function. Adaptive reasoning in the expression of light and shadow drawn for the preliminary artwork for this movie are the best single pieces of cinematic storyboard art in the history of film. Made me such a super fan that I followed along everything about the movie even though I didn't know what I was looking at.💪😛
It's never clear in Alien if their ships travel faster than light but they must given the time scales of getting to these remote planets.Usually in sci-fi where FTL occurs they don't bother with hibernation pods but Alien combines the two.
depending on how much faster than light, it may still take a long time to travel between stars, even nearby ones. I think we are about 40 LY from home in Alien, which is "halfway there" from the point of departure.
great video! thank you
18:10
Travelling mattes could be made without the laborious hand tracing involved in rotoscoping;
A model, etc. would be shot onto high contrast black & white film which would then be processed into negatives - if needed -- to produce mattes that would fit perfectly.
They used this technique on Star Wars.
Photo-optical mattes rarely fit "perfectly", and were always subject to positive or negative matte lines, depending on the precision of the process and the printers. Even up to the last days of the technology in the late 80's and early 90's, matte lines were ubiquitous in visual effects.
@@aliensoup2420
ILM had their custom-built "Quad" optical printer, and that thing was nigh-on perfect at its job. Even after an earthquake.
I love the citations in the subtitles. Great detail and context. Thanks for all the hard work, I appreciate it!
Great episode, as always.
4:30 - almost looks like this video got photobombed by Al Yankovic.
Last time i was this early to a CinemaTyler video it was still ok just to nuke the Na'avi site from orbit!
It’s the only way to be sure 😂
Great video!
and than ridley scott came in and took all the credit for the entire franchise...
I love the Nostromo. The clunky chunky look makes it look more real than the interior of a brand new Tesla.
I love blue collar sci-fi settings regardless of plot
Fascinating, thanks Tyler.