FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Dan O’Bannon’s original script for Alien (then known as Star Beast) was very different to what finally ended up onscreen. Story, characters, and the proposed look of the project were fundamentally different, and yet the DNA was still recognisably Alien. This fascinating alternate version of the classic has now finally been brought to life, courtesy of writer Cristiano Seixas and artist Guilherme Balbi.
O’Bannon deliberately wrote his characters as non-defined and often genderless – allowing for a wider range of casting choices, and this is reflected here. We’ve a female captain named Standard, and Roby – our Ripley substitute – (the only specifically male character in the original script) is reimagined as a black woman. The Nostromo becomes the Snark, a still impressive but more generic ship than the movie’s industrialised design. The only element closely resembling its onscreen counterpart is the cat!
Plot-wise, issue #1 covers familiar ground, with the crew awoken to investigate a mysterious signal, followed by the discovery of an alien ship and its mummified pilot on a planet’s surface: humanity’s first contact with alien life. Like the Nostromo, the alien ship and Space Jockey have reverted to their original, vastly different pre-Giger incarnations. And while the Swiss surrealist’s input was a huge part of making Alien the classic it is, the designs presented are beautifully imagined by Balbi.
While it was never going to match Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Alien: The Original Screenplay is a fascinating what-might-have-been version of a sci-fi classic. Recommended.
