Ridley Scott Reveals His Biggest Fear While Making ‘Alien’: ‘Not Enough Scares’
Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ (1979) became a game-changer in the sci-fi horror genre, blending terrifying elements with a strong, heroic female lead, Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Its eerie atmosphere, innovative creature design by H.R. Giger, and intense tension left a lasting impact on filmmaking and inspired countless movies and TV shows.
The film also created a powerful franchise, with sequels, comics, and video games, solidifying its place in pop culture history. Of course, at the time, there was no way of knowing that the movie would turn into such an iconic and massive franchise, and as it turns out Scott himself was worried that he wouldn’t get everything right.
Ridley Scott recently reflected on his career and the making of ‘Alien,’ mentioning his initial fear that the film wouldn’t have enough scares. To address this, he added the element of betrayal from the android Ash.
He also explained how, without digital effects, they had to rely on practical effects like painted backdrops and a person in a rubber suit, keeping the creature’s appearance minimal to make it more effective.
Don’t forget, we had no digital effects in those days. Nothing. And so backdrops have to be painted, and I have to find a very tall, thin man to squeeze into a rubber suit. And therefore, when you do that, you can shoot very little, show as little as possible, because it doesn’t really hold up. And so, by being subliminal and minimal, it works very well. I think the creature was unique, and you have to believe. It doesn’t matter how good my cast was — cast was fantastic — but without that beast, it wouldn’t have been the same.
The director was also worried that the xenomorph’s presence would become too repetitive since it didn’t fully appear often. To keep the tension high, he focused on the conflict between the crew, revealing that Ash was an android with a hidden agenda. Since the audiences were already primed to fear AI characters like Ash, following the legacy of HAL from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ the twist was to show Ash as a symbol of corporate greed.
I was worried that we might run out of scares and creepy things in the corridor, so the new thing would suddenly come in, Ash would object to something, and then would actually have a bad turn as an AI. And Yaphet Kotto had to take the fire extinguisher and knock him around the head, probably knocked his head off, so now we see wires and metal and organic… He is an AI.
The first time was Stanley Kubrick when he invented HAL. HAL emerged as a computer — which, no one knew what a computer was in those days. The computer knows from the corporation that the journey’s success is more important than the crew. So we borrowed that and made that into Ash where he was the ‘company man.’ Of course, if you’re going to make a company man, you don’t want a black box. You want somebody who’s going to consort, meet, chat, drink coffee and be with people. They will not know he’s a company man, because he’s kind of more human than human.
You can check out the whole interview in the video below:
The ‘Alien’ franchise most recently expanded with the release of ‘Alien: Romulus’ last year and we have the franchise’s first TV show to look forward to, ‘Alien: Earth’ set to release this year. I’d say that things turned out pretty well, all things considered.
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