The Alien Legacy

Horror, Documentary, Science Fiction

Sigourney Weaver
Tom Skerritt
John Hurt	Himself
Harry Dean Stanton
Ian Holm	Himself
Yaphet Kotto	Himself
Veronica Cartwright	Herself
Carrie Henn
Michael Biehn
Paul Reiser
Nick Allder	Himself - Visual Effects Supervisor
Bolaji Badejo	Himself
Mia Bonzanigo	Herself - Assistant to H.R. Giger
Bob Burns	Himself - Archivist of Fantastic Cinema
Ron Cobb	Himself - Conceptual Artist
Leslie Dilley	Himself - Art Director
H.R. Giger	Himself - Alien Design
Brian Johnson	Himself - Visual Effects Supervisor
John Mollo	Himself - Costume Design
Dan O'Bannon	Himself - Screenwriter
Ivor Powell	Himself - Associate Producer

Director	Ridley Scott; James Cameron
Producer	David Giler; David C. Fein

An interesting feature of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection, worth watching together if only for the chance to see how different directors handle essentially the same idea. The results are decidedly mixed. Ridley Scott's Alien is the most traditional of the bunch, essentially a haunted-house picture set on a space freighter, where a monster is picking off crew members one by one. James Cameron's Aliens is the all-out adrenaline bath, a pulse-pounding action thriller from start to finish. It plays a little like a Western in outer space, where the settlers are waiting for a cavalry that never comes--and the Indians are acid-veined aliens. And David Fincher's Alien 3 is the rock-video version, in which substance and storytelling are sacrificed to editing and imagery, as the aliens attempt to take over a space penal colony. --Marshall Fine